Joined: Jun. 2015
Posts: 894
Likes: 195
If Stone actually gets to RFA, Sakic would be crazy not to do this. It's not like burning a bridge with Melnyk will hurt him in the future. The guy is going to have to sell the Sens at some point or the league will step in and make him.
While I think the $7.3M would get matched very quickly, that was the 2015 number for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd compensation. Last summer was $7,851,948 on a $75M cap, so if we project that to $80M this year, the maximum offer before it goes to 2 1sts, a 2nd, and a 3rd would be $8,375,411. If I recall correctly, any offer over 5 years in length takes the total compensation ($8.375 x 7 years = $61.145M) and divides it by 5 years to get the "compensation salary" which would be $12.23M in that case.
My thoughts would be to offer Stone $8.375M per on a 5 year deal. Makes it the hardest for Ottawa to match, while still remaining in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd compensation range.