Quoting: DefenseFirst
Ah yes, that point per game player who has - hold on, let me count - oh yes, zero point per game seasons. An astounding .67 points per game in his career.
Oh, and there’s that little $10M QO for Meier, so there’s no guarantee he’s under team control.
Smith is a fine player at that cap hit. He’s been hurt this year, but I’m pretty happy with his deal. This isn’t a David backes level cap dump or anything.
Man, split that hair a little finer. 76 points in 77 GP last season is one crossbar off a PPG season, but fine. He's a guy with 2 30 goal seasons and 91 points in his last 95 GP. Legitimate top line winger on most teams in the league.
And you asked for comps and completely gloss over the fact that there's an obvious comp from only 4 months ago: Kevin Fiala. Coming off a 30+ goal, PPG season, big QO that the team wasn't thrilled about having to find room for, so extremely similar situation to what you're saying San Jose is looking at. LA gave up a 1st round pick and one of their top 5 prospects for just the rights to negotiate with him; in this case, Boston is getting the bonus of having 20ish regular season games & a whole playoff run before they have to figure out the new contract (and lucky them, FIala gives them another great comp they can point to with a sub-$8M AAV.)
Since Boston doesn't have a prospect near the same level as Brock Faber, I don't think it's crazy or them to sub in another 1st rounder instead. And again, that's before you ask them to eat 3 bad contracts to make the deal basically cap-neutral for the rest of the season - the Sharks don't give a damn whether or not the players you're sending them are any good, because they're a lottery team and Smith & Wagner are pending UFAs, and Reilly is expensive depth for them next season. They're not just going to take those players to make the deal work when other teams would be more than happy to meet the Fiala price tag without having to include money going back (or paying for retention if they need it.)