Emotionally in 2018
Joined: Nov. 2016
Posts: 9,290
Likes: 3,387
He sure as hell earned this payday this season. I’m worried that he’ll regress to being the $6M defenseman he was before this season, but I’m feeling that he can be a true #1 defenseman for around 5 or 6 years of this deal. Even if this is a career year for him (which I’d expect it is), I’d rather have my #1 defenseman locked up long term.
We now have at least two years of control for all of Ovechkin, Backstrom, Kuznetsov, Oshie, Eller, Vrana, Wilson, Burakovsky, Orlov, Carlson, Niskanen, Djoos and Holtby. The core is intact and it’s clear we are going to try and win while we have the guys to do so. Whatever cap issues will come later, they clearly play second fiddle to winning in our window.