Hughes to NJ!!

Why is no player worth more than 10% of the cap? Seems like an arbitrary line to draw

Benning will overpay both. Book it!

+/- is a pretty bad way to judge a player. It doesn't account for a zone starts, quality of your linemates, quality of the opposition, whether you have a sieve in net or Marty Brodeur, whether you're on the powerplay, penalty kill, etc., etc., etc...just a bad, bad stat. For instance, Hughes was -24 last year...his expected +/- was -5.4. That's a pretty drastic difference. Also consider that the goaltenders behind him managed to put up a well-below league average .891 save percentage.

As for the percentage of the cap that a player is worth...10% seems like a pretty foolish spot to draw a line in the sand, and taking a discount to play on a "winning team" seems pretty arbitrary as well. First, there's a pretty significant difference tax-wise between somewhere like Vancouver and Tampa. Second, it isn't the players job to put build a team, it's the GM's. If someone like Benning can't put affordable talent on the ice to surround his star players, that's his own fault-It isn't Petterson or Hughes issue that Benning manages the cap like he has number dyslexia. I get a kick out of people talking about what they think a player is worth dollar-wise. An NHL players earning potential isn't a very long period of time, and they should absolutely grab as much money as they can, when they can.

"IMO no player is worth more than 10% of the cap but the market seems to think otherwise.."

still gives Pettersen a 9.75 AAV

Or hear me out
Petey 8 mil 3 years
Hughes 7.5 mil 8 years

Only because that's what the market demands, paying more than 50 -60% of a team's cap to 5 or 6 players seems excessive to me.
And Lenny, they can pay their GD taxes just like the rest us...except we're not paying on millions.