LeetchFan

OK, but if we have the $$$ -- we do -- we may as well pay it to SOMEONE. Unless we're getting 2 pricey FA's, I'd rather overpay a homegrown talent by $1 MM a year than risk getting a complete bust like in the post-1997 era.

Then keeping Hank for this year and next was stupidity.:banghead:

Isn't that the going rate for a 2nd-line player ? Are the Rangers paying anybody anytime soon $11 MM that McDavid/Matthews/Tavares get ? Outside of Lundquist (!), who's getting the Really Big Buck$$$ on the NYR in 2019, 2020, or 2021 ?

Would they open the vault for a guy like Hayes ? I don't think so. What I find confusing: the teams with plenty of cap space to give guys like Hayes/Zuke the extra years and bigger AAV are either (1) bad teams (2) small markets. They're not getting that unreal contract from a good team like TB or a rising team like Toronto. Those teams are either paying their own or signing a blue-chipper like Tavares. I'd love to hear from a hockey agent -- they talk much less than the agents in baseball, football, and basketball -- what their gameplan is for guys like Hayes. I guess we'll know in a few months. But if he ends up in Arizona for 5 or 6 years @ $7 MM a year, you really have to wonder.

See my post above. It's not that I "hate" them -- it's just that what we get back can't really improve us that much. If we were a horrible, 60 point team (full season) then yeah, the players and picks we get back bring us back to marginal playoff contention. But do they make us a perennial playoff team...a Cup contender ? No way, IMO.

My problem with this isn't that we aren't getting "fair" value -- it's that the NHL is not the NFL. If we were stockpiling 1st-Round picks or 2nd Round or even 3rd Round picks, those have 90%/80%/70% success rates of being impact players within a year or two or three. Not so in the NHL. Unless we get super-lucky and hit on a late-1st, we're probably drafting 4th line and 3rd line players at best. Unless we can package like 2 or 3 or 4 firsts and some seconds to someone in the Top 5 or Top 3 -- and I doubt the other team wants that.

Zuccarello gone...Hayes gone....Kreider not untouchable...the guys we traded last year.....:banghead: I didn't know we had the 1980's Edmonton Oilers and 1990's Pittsburgh Penguins coming to us via the draft. And with late-1st Round or 2nd or later picks, too.

You could be right, but reading all the chitter-chatter the last few months it appears there were NO serious discussions between his agent and Gorton.