Joined: Jul. 2018
Posts: 349
Likes: 246
This is a great deal for Tampa. It's hard to say what a new bridge should have looked like for this level of RFA, this is higher than Kucherov's bridge was in terms of cap hit percentage, but still feels very low compared to where people thought.
With so many RFAs seemingly pushing for full market value on longer term deals, I think going short may create the greatest amount of cap efficiency if you can still get value deals. Point will easily out produce a $6.75M cap hit for 3 years, and if you need to sign him at essentially his full value in 3 years, he's likely still worth it. This way Tampa will get massive value out of point for 6 years (3 years ELC and 3 years Bridge). It even buys them a little space where they are tightest (next two years).
I am not sure how JB got this done after basically opening the vault for Vasilevsky earlier this summer, but this deal is a pretty big win given that Tampa couldn't really afford long term, even if it was a decent discount.