I understand the thinking. I think you are far too worried about a Subban outcome. Not that I don't think the longer term 3rd contracts won't be higher but being delayed they won't be as bad, relative to the rest of the situation.
I agree with the bolded but we see different paths to get there. If we give big, 6-8 year contracts to 22-23 YO players we get the Wheeler situation. Delay that by 2 years and they are past their peak years and we can offer them lower cost final contracts. These are not the 4-5 year terms that take your players to 27-28 YO and potential UFA if you don't bid high enough (like what we may have to do with Trouba). These are 2 years, followed by 6-8 years, getting 8-10 years after ELC in total. At least, that is the plan.
And speaking of the Wheeler situation - having him walk is what I'm trying to avoid. I'm also assuming that Chevy will extend Wheeler whether I like it or not. I wouldn't plan on letting him walk. I would trade him now if the intention is not to extend him. I know that would be unpopular but I wouldn't give up that return for 1 year of him.
I understand where you are coming from. I am not as worried about a Subban situation, more so concerned with maximizing the overall value for dollars spent on contracts on a team wide scale. It irks me that we have to short change a good young player due in large part because we have a couple of poor value deals on the team in Kulikov and Myers.
In the grand scheme of things inking your best players early represents your best chance of getting players who overachieve their contracts long term as you are generally signing them while they are still on the upswing and not finished products. The more of those that you have the better your team is and the more excess cap you have to surround them. While on the extreme end contracts to Mckinnon and Scheifele point to how important it can be to get things done early. Both signed at the same time and both would be looking at $10 million had they been off their two year bridge this summer. The most likely situation of a Morrissey bridge is that you have to pay him fair market value for a good all around number 1 dmen when it comes due. Not a Subban deal but a higher value then what you could get him for now while he has less leverage and a shorter track record.
In large part the reason why we have to bridge Morrissey is because we have the most expensive third pair in the league. That is a horrendously inefficient way to allocate cap space.
You like to bring up Tampa but would they be in a better spot now and over the past few seasons if they had not signed an aging declining player in Callahan to a nearly 6 million dollar deal and instead used that money to sign Kucherov to a long term 6 to 6.5 million dollar deal? Give me Kucherov for 7 to 8 years at 6.5 plus 3 million in cap space over what they had to do.
Value for money is also why I am terrified of a potential long term Wheeler deal. He will almost assuredly provide poor value for his contributions and that will have long term ramifications down the line up. We very well could be in the position where we have to let go of a superior player because we are overpaying 35 year boat anchor making $8 million.
Yes you can use bridges to effectively manage poor value deals but I would wager if a team could sign a base of players to good value deals through their core and round out the support pieces with a combination ELC's and money puck vet and depth pieces they would give themselves the best and most sustainable chance to win. See the New England Patriots in the NFL for an example. They consistiently move on from players once they age out and become too expensive for the value they provide.
At Lowry catch
