Quoting: Chigurrhh
"reasonable prices and term." "impact winger "
Pick one. Guys get to free agency at older ages and get overpaid, largely. You think Krieder will come at a reasonable price? Did you see what Kevin Hayes got for producing around the same each year? 7+ million a year.
"cap spending in the wrong areas."
And I would argue that overpaying for a forward in free agency that isn't a legitimate star player would be an example of that. At wing, they would brobably better off going in with what they have. Give a bigger role to a guy like Kahun and see what he can do with Malkin or Crosby. Then make a trade if you need to. The team has a good group of wingers already. Guentzel, Rust, Kahun, Tanev, Hornqvist (when healthy), Simon, ZAR, Lafferty. The way to upgrade that group this offseason is to add a star player (which is almost impossible). Otherwise, it's a lateral move and you aren't doing anything but spending cap space.
there aren't any legitimate "star" wingers available next year. I think you are looking at guys who are lower tiered and because of that get less.
I don't think Krieder gets Hayes money but that's a different story.
Hayes is a center they get more.
Either way they need to do better on the wing. They can't keep rolling with Simon who can't score, no way they resign Chucky even if he turns it around, and Hornqvist is always injured.
They will need a guy on the wing who can fly and shoot.
They could try to rehab a Vesey on a relatively team friendly deal. Something of that nature. A guy who would fit in better and improve the forward group.
Or Dadonov or Hoffman to a reasonable deal. At 30+ they probably aren't expecting to get 7 year deals.
But they would give real help on the wing.
Not that the team won't look for defense this offseason they will. But they aren't going to pay 4 million out on it. It just doesn't make sense to do that.