Quoting: Hammerwise
A little steep, but really hes coming off a career year and is in his prime years. I kind of thought he'd be in the 5.5-5.75 for 4-5 years range.
But considering Buffalo signed a guy (Samuelsson) with just 12 pts in 55 games NHL experience OVER THREE SEASONS to 4.28mil for 7 yrs, or Klingberg coming off a bad year getting 7mil for 1 yr, then Sanheim getting 6.25 makes sense. Theres other comparables, and maybe about 1mil too much, but maybe thats what struggling teams pay. IMO, about 500k and 2 yrs too much, but with the cap expected growth, its Really not a bad deal.
It also has to be in line with the team cap structure and "vision".
AGE and CONTRACT LENGTH: Philly has just 1 dman (expiring UFA Justin braun) over the age of 28 yrs old. Without Braun or probable NHL youngster Cam York their average age on defense is still just 25 yrs old. So the idea isnt that they cant move somebody but their young defense to develop is around for at least 2 yrs or more. Their defense (other than UFA Braun and DeAngelo with 2 yrs) is signed for 4 yrs or more and will either cement the defense as the team builds or be dealt for fairly good return with cap growth.
Its also about PAY STRUCTURE AND FUTURE VISION, Provorov is a first pair guy at 6.75, DeAngelo at 5, Sanheim at 6.25, Risto at 5.5, with Cam York, Zamula, Attard, Andrae, etc... on the way. So realistically their collective defense of seven guys makes about 26 mil and their top 4 guys are locked in at about 23mil long term (with an expanding cap). Thats pretty good for any team now and moving forward, even better.
Philly doesnt have a superstar, but with guys like Gautheir, Foerster, Brink, York, Andrae thats some good bluechips, with alot of intriguing possibilities in Attard, Zamula, Kaplan, Wisdom, Tuomaala, Desnoyes, Tippett, Frost, Allison, Cates.... so if they can sign long term the defense, (and they now have no UFAs of note to worry about next offseason), it allows them to play and evaluate the youth they have now (with alot of it at forward).
Hampus Lindholm is a very similar comparable in stats and playstyle and got 6.5 x 8 this was a fair contract for sanheim. Its not bad by any means but in terms of receiving assets he would've been better served being traded.