When you consider that Anders Lee and Evander Kane signed for 7 years X $7M and Brayden Schenn signed for 8 years X $6.5M - I feel that Landeskog is better than both Lee and Kane and probably on par or a little better than Schenn, I can certainly see Landeskog's perspective for wanting a bigger contract.
I don't really get why the Avs wouldn't want to get to that number. Why is it that all the other teams take chances and are willing to pay these guys into their 30s but we don't want to risk it? I understand that you want to give yourself as much flexibility as possible but I don't think you want to lose a player like #92 for nothing. I doubt very much that he's going to become the next Andrew Ladd or Loui Eriksson where they aren't even NHL players shortly after signing their big, mega deals. I think Landeskog on a long-term deal would age probably better and maybe similar to a player like Dustin Brown where he'll have some good seasons and some not so good seasons but at the back-end of his contract, he'll still be a useful player and whatever the AAV will be, it's not going to look as bad in 5-6 years.
One thing I will say - IF for whatever the Avs don't sign Landeskog and for me, I think that's a really big "IF", the only reason better be that it's because you've got something HUGE coming down the pipe and you've made a hockey decision to improve the team at another position at the expense of first line Left Wing.
In the end though, I think the Avs and Landeskog agree to terms on 8 years @ $6.75M per year or somewhere around there.
