I’m surprised they took it right to UFA, but if he is playing well and the team want to re-sign him to a fair value contract, what player wants to leave his fan base after that parade if he doesn’t have to? I think one of the advantages of winning is that you can fairly assume most guys want to be here, and are not going to be looking for reasons to leave.I really hate this contract. It's a lose/lose. If continues his stellar play, he hits free agency as young as possible and a half dozen teams will be bidding his contract up in two years. If he regresses, than we are paying $9M for an average goalie platoon. I'd rather go shorter term, even if it costs us more, say $6M for 1 year. Or go for 3-4 years at this price. If he wanted 2 years, it should have cost him a lot more on the AAV. 1 year at max we can afford, 2 years at dirt cheap, or 3-4 at $3.5-4.5M. But not 2 @ $4.5. Shesh.
As much as Ranksu is a troll, I suspect he was dead right and the AAV has a lot to do with being paid more than Allen. It is a weird number and too close to Allen for coincidence.. We really need to re-sign Binny as a priority next off-season if he plays well this season.
This contract looks like 1) Armstrong bent a lot from what he could have expected from the arbitrator. But that’s better than a poisonous arbitration hearing, and 2) Armstrong is showing respect for Binnington.
Maybe I underestimated the importance of the salary giving Binnington a clear signal that he was viewed as the starter. I was thinking 11-12M for 3 years, so the upper AAV was 4M. I was a little lower than the final numbers.
I agree with Armstrong paying a bit more to keep the term shorter. He must be pretty confident about getting him re-signed when it gets there. Or maybe Husso will make things interesting by then.