If he follows the curve he's projected on, it will be an increase sure, but nothing out of the oridinary.
Way more risk giving him 4 years versus 2 at this point of his career.
I guess it depends how high you are on him. If you see it as very likely that he continues to a solid top 4 defenseman, thats probably 4-6 million a year in 2 years. If you could have signed him to a 4 year deal worth like 2.5 per year(something like 1-2-3-4) you could have 2 years of a ~40 point defenseman making 2.5 when you're trying to make the playoffs and compete in a couple years. It all depends, do you think wolanin is more likely to become that top 4 offensive D, or do you think he'll have trouble earning his spot in the NHL.
To me, he looks pretty special. Obviously not like karlsson or chabot or redden or chara, but i see him as a step below that. He looks like he'll be better than all those other defenseman who we gave 1-3 million to be offensive defenseman for us. Guys like Lee, Campoli, etc. So i see it more likely that that wolanin becomes a top 4 than doesn't so i see the likeliness of that proposed 4 year deal helping us more than hurting us. Kinda like we gave turris a 5 year 3.5 per after a career high of 29 points because we knew he was about to be a good #2 center, so we got him at a bargain instead of signing him for 2 years, then again for 3 years at like 5 million per after he put up 58 points.
If we're planning to compete in a couple years, we need to think of things like that before, so we can fit all this talent at a cheaper cost. Someone in another thread asked "whats our advantage over the other teams?" It should be doing things like this. Know your players and whos likely to break out and who isn't and try to get ahead of it so you can have a couple year run at the cup with everyone on cheaper deals.
