Problem is they are 2 players.. and the cap hit would be 15 million.. There is no reason for your expectations of the Sedins to increase production now.. just your hope .. I expect them to be top second line players soon.dbr wrote:$7.5m isn't a cap hit where I'd be rushing to get a deal done.
I think the Sedins will be strong players this year and I think their numbers will head back in the right direction (and I think someone would give them this contract in UFA pretty well no matter what) but I don't think they'll head so far in that direction that they could use the market to leverage that much more than $7.5m each out of the Canucks.
Don't get me wrong, if they walk it's a short term disaster for this team and there's no way we'd recoup even close to their value out of $15m of free agent money. In fact I'd rather not even try to spend that in a single offseason because there probably aren't two FAs a year worth Sedin money or even close.
But yeah, I think they want to be here and I think if they want to get paid close to what high end first liners will in this CBA (ie. $8m territory) then you might as well wait and make sure they are going to produce like that before making the commitment.
If you can get them signed at under $7m per then just go ahead and do it now because with the way the market is going and with the likelihood that their statistical output returns to expected levels (ie. higher on ice shooting percentage, more powerplay production) it's basically a guarantee that they'll increase their value above that mark over the course of the season.
So maybe a wait an see attitude should be taken before paying out about 1/4 of our cap ( yeah it may go up ) to them.