Zadorov himself doesn’t think he’s a finished product and I’ve been saying this for awhile. I mean there’s a very good chance he takes Cole’s role next year as the 4/5 defenseman and perhaps shows he’s capable of top 4 duties. He’s got the skating, offensive instincts, and defensive awareness to be able to play 20 minutes a night. Is he prone to mistakes? Of course, but Hughes himself makes glaring mistakes.
He’s in the same tier and serves a pretty similar role as a Cernak/Hague/McNabb/Carlo, only he averages 1-2 minutes less and has 20 or so less blocks. McNabb was essentially a bottom pairing defenseman until his 30’s. Hague, Cernak, and Carlo were thrusted into top 4 duties from the moment they made the NHL and due to certain biases and deployment next to elite defenseman, are regarded as top 4 defenseman. Zadorov has much better metrics than Hague + Carlo and offensively provides more than the others I listed above.
If you can get him under $5M by giving him a 6-7 year contract, say $4.6-4.9M x 7, I would do it in a heart beat. If $5M is what it takes, I got no issues with that.