glenngineer
Registered User
Exactly this. If i hadnt bothered to put Fialas and Kamenevs name there and instead #2 RW and #3 C there wouldnt have been any reactions of how the numbers were too high. The thing is that you should budget position wise and not name wise and if one position is above budget (#3 RW, G) you have to cut somewhere else, which is why I believe Smith really needs to go for this team to improve.
Just like Chicago is paying Panarin top 6 money this year? We all get caught in if a player is top 6 he's going to make X. You have three years with any kid on an ELC. If he does well, he gets paid. If he does ok, he gets paid but not as well. If you put another guy in those spots you may have to pay that money, you may have a different kid who comes through the system and isn't killing the cap. None of us really know. I don't see anyone in the system worthy so we'll probably have to go the free agency route but maybe we make a trade for a kid on an ELC. Maybe Vesey signs here and he's on his ELC for the next 3 years.
We get so worked up over the numbers and there's no reason to. We're $8.7 million away from the cap. If indeed the cap doesn't go up or even goes down there's no need to fret because there are 23 teams ahead of us in spending that would have to shed salary so while the upper elite players will still get paid, the middle guys like Wilson and Smith get squeezed on most teams if they're going for raises and we may be able to add decent players at a decent cost, ala JP Dumont.