At the end of the day, the only way to really get ahead in a capped system is to get more value from players than their cap hit. The best way to do that is to lock up your best players long term when you can, and in this case **in a perfect world where our cap sheet is not effed** we should be doing everything in our power to lock up both long-term. Yes, this will cost more in the early years than a bridge, but the whole goal of that is that you are buying future value as the player develops and begins to outperform their contract. So yeah the Canucks should absolutely be trying to give these guys long deals, but I expect we will not be able to get this done with EP
I certainly get that, a long term contract for each player would normally be the way to go. Look at Draisaitl as an example, he'd be getting WAY more right now. With that being said, there are three arguments that oppose this that need to be considered:
1) Whether some fans believe it or not, we have the potentially of opening up a bit of a "mini window" for cup contention in the next three years if a few things go our way. We'd need our players to get locked into decent bridge contracts, for our players to continue to develop, for additions like OEL to perform, etc. After 3 years you could be looking at a regression from Horvat and Miller (if they're still here), so our chance to win with those guys is now, so getting Hughes / Pettersson locked up for a lower rate would be beneficial.
2) If we sign these guys to a bridge deal of 3 years they'll be 24/25 when their contracts expire. At that point we can go 8 years (or less) and lock these guys up to age 32/33. This can sometime be more beneficial in the long run as opposed to allowing them to hit UFA status at age 30 right at the end of their prime, that can be dangerous.
3) We're in a flat cap era right now, and we likely will be for another couple of years. Hence, you could make a case that it may not cost us THAT much more to sign them after a bridge then it would right now, especially if JP Barry is asking for the moon.