I just don't see any real reason to give a bottom pairing defender a 4 year deal. He's a #6. I don't know how often teams hand out long term contracts to these kinds of players but it seems hugely excessive to me.
* I'd previously advocated for 4 x $1.5M on the basis that it was more total $$$ than he'd get on the open market... so if you have sticker shock at $1.75 fair enough, I think that was a Friday typo on my part.
Having said that:
1) I'm not sure that I accept he's a simple run of the mill bottom pairing guy, not with the intangibles on PK and defensive stats he brings, but for the sake of the argument I'll accept that he is... even still...
2) What's the real risk? At 1.5M x 4 your worst case scenario is that you bury him in the minors and bury ~1.25M of his salary... you've then made a $250K mistake (assuming here that you can't trade him, which you probably can).
Keep in mind this conversation first came up when people were advocating shorter deals (2 years) at higher value (~$2M). Whatever the numbers, I'm saying this is a player that wants certainty... if you want him on the team, you are better off committing slightly longer for slightly less... it brings you into the territory where burying him and his salary is a real no-harm-no-foul option AND it lowers the AAV (in my example by $500K).... which matters today.
I'd rather have the certainty of "saving" $500K/year over the next two years with a limited downside of $250K dead cap for the final two years (if and only if things go south)... and keep in mind, he's only 27, so there is still upside and/or a neutral outcome of having him those extra two years with low AAV.
