Quoting: Hockey_Hippy
Markstrom is one year removed from the Vezina finals. When a team plays defense in front of him he is fine. *As I mentioned* in the additional notes, I'm assuming you sign Hanifan to an extension. That makes the price worth paying as it is roughly comparable to the Meier deal. Hanifan on an extension plus Siegenthaler and Hughes makes Bahl irrelevant. Broberg plays both sides but needs a reboot.
Markstrom is 34 years old and has 2 more years after this one.
In the last decade just 1 goalie has played at a above average level through their age 34, 35, 36 seasons, while maintaining a starters workload. That was mike smith. And even in that stretch he wasn't a top 10 goalie (which is what markstroms cap hit would require him to be).
Even best case scenario for markstrom, where he plays at a level that no other goalie has from 34-36, he's still probably only just barely worth his contract that we could probably replace with a UFA
Worst case scenario he falls off like 95% of goalies at this age and we're stuck with 12 million that can't be moved bc he has a full NMC and destroys our current window, and our future window bc we gave up all these assets.
Meier was an RFA. Which meant we controlled his rights.
Hanifin is a UFA, which means we wouldn't. They are not comparable