This could be a complete steal in a few years, especially with how salaries are going up.

Yeah this could easily become one of the best contracts in the entire league. However it could also go in the exact opposite direction and become one of the worst. There's undoubtedly a lot of risk in giving Gibson this term but the reward is huge as it's most likely Gibson turns into one of the leagues best for many years.

How do you figure? as of right now, they have over $12 mil in cap space and that is at the current cap. They have to resign Kase, Ritchie, Silf, and the bottom D man (which can be filled via the young guys), and a back up goalie that can be in the $1 mil range... I think they are fine.

I think the $6.4M is fine, but I don't like 8 year deals for goalies. I like Helleybuck's deal a lot better. I know by getting the extra years of UFA status typically means more cap hit, so they are comparable, it's just that I wouldn't want the extra years of commitment so why pay any extra?

It's hard to want to be too stuck to any goalie. There is so much volatility in goalies performance, and since the difference between a good goalie and an elite goalie is very small, even minor injuries can really devalue a goalie. So being too committed seems to not make sense. It's unfortunate for goalies, but the truth is that even if you are amoung the best goalies of a generation, you become an albatross if the team has a cheaper option that is even close to as talented.

Goaltending is the only position where you can pick up a waiver claim or AHL goalie, and he can all of a sudden give you elite performance for a decent stretch (Dubnyk), or have a future hall of famer that is amoung the worst at his position in a given season (Price).

McDavid is the #1 or #2 best player it the league, depends if your a Crosby fan boy or a McDavid fan boy. Crosby signed for 14% of the cap at the time, McDavid @ 16% which your basically splitting hairs. Point totals are pretty much a wash Crosby has a couple more points but he also played #0 more games then McDavid.

Matthews should be getting around $10M to $11.5M at most. Until he can get his point totals up hes just a star player, Crosby and McDavid are Superstars.

The point is when you have arguably the best player in the world you pay that motherf**ker what he wants and then give him a rim job just for signing the page.

McDavid actually signed for 16.67% of the cap at the time.

The different between 14% and 16.67% of a $75,000,000 salary cap is $2,000,000.

A $2,000,000 difference in a players salary cap is no where close to splitting hairs....splitting hairs would be $200,000....and we're talking about 10 times that amount.

And the guy getting $2M more is also producing more ............. id rather pay McDavid and extra $2M then have to give it to a plug.

Cause your only options are pay McDavid more or give it to a plug?

How about just having $2M more in cap space....the team needs it right about now.