JvR is coming off (IIRC) a 6 year deal, that he signed pretty young, taking the security rather than a bridge deal to let him further establish himself. Over the last 6 years of that deal, he has scored at almost exactly a 30 goal pace; with very little variation.
In hindsight, he certainly would've done better financially had he signed the bridge deal.
Based on that, I personally don't see him taking a huge paycut to to get a 7 or 8 year deal.... however, I also don't see any team ponying up $7.5m+ for him. Yes, he scores 30 goals consistently, but he really is a complimentary player.
If one just goes by the responses in this thread, there are likely to be quite a few teams interested; and I'd imagine the offers will be quite similar... with the following variations.
He'll get an offer from a bad team or two, at $8m for 4 or 5 years, maybe a team like Arizona; where he knows it's unlikely that he'll have a chance to win a cup, but will ultimately get paid.
He'll get offers from a bunch of contenders between $6 and $7m; and the length of the contracts will depend on that individual GM's philosophy towards long term deals -- is it do whatever's required to win the cup in the next 2-3 years, and worry about the tail end of the contract later? or does the GM take a conservative approach?
Ultimately, it will be interesting to see if JvR is forced to choose between term and destination, or if one of his top choices ends up being one where they give him the 6 or 7 years.
As for Toronto, based on recent history and the approach taken with Kadri / Rielly, it seems that the Leafs expect players to take big discounts to get the security of long term deals... personally I don't think JvR is going for that.
