Those TO contracts are what it looks like when the team bends over and lubes up.
Teams need to set a salary structure for their teams that allows them to eventually compete, and be willing to trade away players that insist on maximizing their piece of the pie at the expense of team sustained team success.
We have always had a team of players that have bought in. It doesn’t mean that you can’t get $64 million dollars for 8 years, but it does mean that you can’t get deals that will cripple the teams ability to operate.
I don’t expect players to get paid less, but I don’t expect them to get paid most of their salary before they step on the ice, and I don’t expect them to be able to hold the team hostage at the trade table.
I care about the team, not the individual guys, so if you take a me first attitude as a player, me as a fan will happily pack your bags. That doesn’t mean I hate the player, or don’t understand why they would do that for their personal lives, I get it, but I watch sports for team success, that’s as far as I care about multi million dollar players.
In the end the fans pay for it all, there is good reason to expect performance at a high level, and focus on team success over personal gain. We cheer, and pay, for championships, not contract negotiations.