The precedent is that if they earn it, they get paid. Kakko and Laf are nowhere close to earning it yet. Kakko has 1 year left on his ELC. The odds are very slim that he earns a big payday coming out of his ELC. So more realistically, if Kakko earns a big payday, it will be 3 years from now. You know, the same time when Fox would be in need of a huge payday if we bridge him. Would you rather pay them both big bucks at the same time? Or would you rather pay Fox more now so he'll cost less 3 years from now? Like I said, it's good cap management.
Rather bridge and pay them big bucks on the third contract once kreider and trouba can be deal with ntc moving to limited ones that give the team options.
In your scenario fox laf and kk all get big deals while panarin, ck and trouba still have deals. Add igor and zib if he is resigned or whoever you grab for a 1c (eichel at 10mil!?!) So you want to carry 8 players all getting prime deals at once? Huh? That's literally not an option, and IF you set the precedent to laf and kk that if they produce in their 3rd year of elc they will get a payday on their second contract by handing fox a big payday then it won't work.
The rangers have historically ALWAYS bridged players on their second contract. If they do that fox, kk, laf are on bridge and getting their big pay days right as the other large contracts on the team are expriing or their ntc clauses are changing to give the org flexibility with movement options.
The idea is to graduate players to bigger contracts as you have elc and cheaper guys coming in behind them, and also while other big deals are expiring and have them all progress together. Otherwise if you line everyone up to have big contracts at the same time you have no flexibility at all and eventually you won't be able to afford your next wave of good player like schneider, miller, nils, kratsov, 2021 pick if they pan out as well. It's the difference in managing the cap of a team that has a small influx of elite young talent and that's it or a team that wants to keep a stream of talent going over several years. NYR already has a few big contracts locked in for a number of years with ntc, so they need to go with the latter option.
I'm not picking on Toronto but look at them. Pissed away cost savings on rfa years and they have been struggling to afford the complementary pieces for a number of years now, and are going to be in a pinch to resign riley. Edm has been boxed into cap issues. Chicago also was years ago.
Give the 2-3 year bridge deals and then over pay players for the last couple rfa years as you buyout predominantly ufa years. This fantasy that you will get a huge discount on some ufa years by overpaying players more in all the rfa years with a long term second contract is counter productive anyways.
