Fleury is probably increasing his value in these playoffs so I'm a bit worried what he would cost in trade especially if there are other suitors. Plus he's 32, which means more pressure on developing his heir apparent sooner than latter, which also worries me given our track record. If we could use more assets/money on the defense and offense I'd rather we do that and go cheaper in goal.
The only way other serious contenders would honestly pop up is after the expansion draft, and the Penguins can't afford to wait.
There are a limited number of teams who have an open protection slot for MAF. My bigger concern, assuming Nill wants MAF, would be Calgary. MAF's NMC clause is limited, but that actually doesn't mean anything. It's still designed in a way that MAF's agent easily can dictate the one spot he's willing to go. While it requires him to list 18 teams, there's nothing to stop him from say making that list:
1) Anaheim (Gibson)
2) Chicago (Crawford)
3) Boston (Rask)
4) Columbus (Bobrovsky)
5) Detroit (Mrazek)
6) Edmonton (Talbot)
7) Los Angeles (Quick)
8) Minnesota (Dubnyk)
9) Montreal (Price)
10) Nashville (Rinne)
11) New Jersey (Schneider)
12) NY Rangers (Lundqvist)
13) San Jose (Jones)
14) St. Louis (Allen)
15) Tampa Bay (Vasilevskiy)
16) Toronto (Andersen)
17) Washington (Holtby)
18) Winnipeg (Hellebuyck)
With that list, he's effectively blocked any trade from happening. None of those teams would expose the player I listed in favor of MAF, and personally I doubt any of those 18 teams would see MAF as an upgrade.
The Penguins fans acting like they have any control in this situation are delusional. The only thing they have going for them is MAF seems like a team first guy, and he might be influenced to help them out, especially if he can go to a team like Calgary who looks like they really only need a goalie to take another big step. It sucks, but Calgary clearly took a giant step ahead of Dallas IMO in terms of desirability to a goalie.
Many players though stick to their guns that this is a business. If I'm MAF's agent, I'm in his ear that being bought out is hands down your best option. It maximizes his earning potential. Rather than earning $11.5 million in the next 2 years, he's guaranteed $7,666,668 million in the next four. Given his major uptick in play, as an UFA, he won't get $5.75 over 4 to 7 years or anything crazy, but he'll probably pretty easily get, let's just be conservative and say between $4.5 to $5.25 on a 3 year deal. There's very little chance, should he remain on this contract, that he'll be getting multi-year offers at $4+ in 2 years at 34 years old.
So ... Get bought out and earn ... let's say $25 million in the next 4 years (Buyout Money + 3 year deal + 1 year deal).
OR
Knowing your injury history and the fact most goalies fall off a cliff before they hit 35 ... you're only guaranteed $11.5 million for 2 more years and you're probably looking at $1.5 to $2.5 million contracts for one year for the rest of your career assuming you get any more offers.
I have no clue where MAF's mind is at, but it's not like he wants to be forced out of Pittsburgh. His contract though gives him 100% of the control on what happens to him, and more importantly, this isn't some situation where you can reasonably expect a surprise suitor. The expansion draft only allowing one protection slot for a goalie effectively eliminates the guess work on who would add a starting goalie before free agency. If MAF is selfless and makes this process easy for Pittsburgh, they could get a good return ... and hey that's pretty admirable on MAF's part. The opposite is not true though. He's not selfish for making the best business decision he can.
It's honestly going to be pretty damn interesting.
