That's not what I read in the explanation above, and why I asked for clarification.
Are you saying he could sign with the Oilers for less than $2 million on a one year deal?
I understood what Spawn wrote to say that he costs $2 million minimum, but we have the option to cut the cap hit by offering him more years at a lesser figure.
So we could offer $1 million for three years as an example because > $2 million.
Seems to me that means it costs $2 million to retain his services. Only the term is up for negotiation.
I guess I'd like a yes/no answer to the bold question. That would clear things up for me.
chrisj is right, sorry if I wasn't clear.
The Oilers can offer Kassian anything they want.
But, in order to retain his rights as a restricted free agent past July 1st, they'd need to tender him a qualifying offer. Which would be $2 million. And Kassian can just accept that offer and that would be that. It wouldn't make much sense for him to accept less if he was expecting a qualifying offer from the organization, unless it had some other benefit (like more term).
Now the Oilers could decline to offer him a qualifying offer and say. "We aren't going to offer you a qualifying offer, but want to bring you back for less." At which point Kassian would become an unrestricted free agent rather than an RFA and would have the option to sign with any team in the league without the Oilers having the right to match. But he could still sign with our organization at any time, for any amount of money/term that the two parties agree to.
Also, I believe the other option for the Oilers with Kassian would be to take him to club elected salary arbitration rather than offer him a qualifying offer. The arbitrator can offer up to 15% less than his salary was for this season. Which may not actually be that unreasonable of a move for the Oilers.