A 2 year deal scares me a lot; having both Bennett and Tkachuk up for extension with no other contracts expiring scares me. Either we stay below the cap for the 2018-2019 season just in case, we're forced to trade picks and prospects to dump cap, or we risk losing one (or both). I'm already nervous about Tkachuk's next deal for that reason.
A 3 year deal puts Bennett's next extension at the same time as Brouwer, Frolik, and Brodie expire, so we'll have at least Brouwer's $4.5M to reallocate towards Brodie and Bennett. Say it's a 3 year deal at $3M per. In the 2020 off-season we'll have $16.5M to re-sign those 4. Assuming Brodie's in the $6-7M territory, we'll either have a) Bennett being worth $6-7M as well; we lose Frolik but that's mitigated by Bennett's improvement, or b) Bennett's more in the $4M territory (or less), and we only lose Brouwer.
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