Like I said, if you could get every player you try to sign to get on board with your idea of just "sign for league min bro 1 year only" Im sure every GM would be doing that but in FA almost every player has the leverage in talks. These are the guys that have to uproot their families or themselves to go to a different city and team. You have to remember the human aspect of all this. And please, enlighten me on who the Canucks should have picked up for league minimum short term? Because when I look at the FA board almost no one pops up. Unless of course you want strictly AHL reclamation projects and hopefully one of them is decent, like throwing darts at a board blindfolded. This whole conversation is over 1 mil anyways wtf are we arguing about lol.
If all that's available are the reclamation AHLers then that's all there is imo. This team isn't going to compete this season, so I don't see why it's necessary to overpay for a guy now. I would rather sign Schenn and try out Rathbone or Juolevi on their off-side at this point since both need ice time. It wouldn't be an issue for a year or two, if you have the cap, it's more locking into this guy for 4 years when he very easily could fall out of your top 6 in that time, especially since he's barely established himself as an NHLer as is. And yes, this is largely a small potatoes contract that isn't going to make or break the team, but it speaks to the fact that Benning hasn't learned anything from giving out these longer deals, and it's frustrating.