What UFA should we really go after?

[vladdy16]

Ehh, for a franchise like the Wings I don’t think it’s a big deal. Hell, they have two of those contracts on their books (Z and Franzen) and it’s not impacting them.

Re: Suter, are you saying you wouldn’t sign a 28 year old Suter to a max-term deal right now?

In short, if we could get 28 yo Suter or Trouba on the 19-20 DRW and the cost was 9.5-11.5aav x 8 yrs or whatever, yeah, i would probably find the risk of waiting to see what comes down the road lower than the risk that those guys will eventually return from one summer permanently outside the top 30 most effective dmen, as more ideally stay at home no. 2's or no. 4's.

Though I'm more saying I have a lot of respect for the impact of the cap and parity, and being able to dictate terms and timing is the only way to stay ahead of the curve.

Obviously dipping into the ufa or pending ufa market is where you have the least leverage to dictate timing and term.

As far as I see it, we're coming out of the worst phase of a rebuild with a handful of built in advantages, one of them being a completely fresh and flexible cap situation for Yzerman to build from.

On top of that, I sincerely believe that players like Suter and Trouba, all respect to them, kind of play the role of "stay at home no.2 d-man". If the term and timing takes account of that, it's a fundamentally different scenario to me than "we have money for a no.1, and no no.1, so this guy works for now... and hopefully the next 8 years."

Combine that hot take with my inflated opinion of 21 and 17's potential, I dont think my comfort level with leaving that slot unaddressed this off-season is that unaccounted for.