Quoting: rangersandislesfan
Wouldn't you be able to extend him next year?
Yes, but I don't get to use this year's UFA signing.
The "good players" aren't hitting UFA this year.
They won't hit UFA next year either (plus expansion).
So that will be 2 seasons with little to no possibility of signing a decent UFA.
Best I can hope for is to not improve through UFA this season, and lose to UFA next season. Net negative in the UFA department. At least with an extension available this season I can maintain what I have and hope to acquire rights for next season.
Otherwise it looks like the only UFA action I'll see over the course of two years is re-signing Patches.
If that's the case, so be it. I just want the ability to count an early extension towards this season's limit to be taken into consideration, before I resign myself to a pretty boring UFA process.