Some how I guess I'm not being clear enough, so I'll boil it down even further so that my particular point isn't lost (not blaming you). I'm not talking at all about his 'market value', as in what EK could potentially make on the open market. I'm talking about what the Ottawa Senators are able go offer him. What a competitive offer from THIS team would look like.
It is clear that PD will make EK an offer that he thinks is reasonable, and fair. Given the fact that we are a small market team that doesn't pay to the cap it's not likely to be on the upper end of the spectrum of possible offers, and it could be topped by some other team that has more money to spend, should EK turn it down.
We can argue all day about what 'market value' is or could be, but for our purposes as Ottawa Senators fans, the only amount that we should care about is the amount the team can afford to offer one player, for 8 years, into his late 30's, with an eye to be a deep and successful team going forward.
EK has passed his statistical prime if we go by the averages, and so I bears some thought about whether we should be paying him prime dollars for the mid to tail end of his career, especially with so many question marks surround his ability to ever return to his Norris days. I have no doubt he can be a great player regardless, but is he a 10+ million dollar a year player for the next 8 years TO US, a 12+ million?
PD has some hard decisions to make, as does EK. Still, pretty exciting time no matter what we end up doing.