Smart. DeBrincat was on one of those stupid contracts where the last year was wildly inflated so that his qualifying offer would be much higher than his cap hit. May as well go ahead and file if you can't get an extension done ... and they apparently can't. He's coming off of a down year, so why not?
They hired Patrick Sharp in a similar role a couple of days ago. FWIW, I 100% expected this kind of old boys stuff when they named Keith Jones as President and he spent all of his media availability talking about all the people that he knows in hockey. Briere may work out to be a fine GM, but the rest of that office is a dog and pony show.
Given the direction of the market, you'd have to say yes. Bratt probably won't age all that well since his game is so speed driven, but they locked him up until he's 32 and you wouldn't think he'd slow down a ton until the last year or two. By then, $7.8 might be actual chicken feed.
Here are the valuation figures from Sportico back in November...
Oh I have seen him plenty as expert commentator on broadcasts for SVT.
Devils filed for arbitration too.
Maybe had a part in the Canes not offering more.
I've seen a few hints leak out that the Devils early negotiations on a Meier extension did NOT go the way they anticipated. There's a very good chance that his situation drags out much longer than they'd like, and if he's willing to hold out it could end up in a trade. We'll see. They absolutely were trying to get Meier done before Bratt so they didn't spend all their capital on the less impactful guy, but here we are.
Amanda Stein, who is the Walt Ruff of the Devils, tweeted that GM Tom Fitzgerald spoke with Meier yesterday and Meier told him he wants to stay in New Jersey and that he asked his agent to negotiate an 8 year deal.
All well and good. Now, what's the number? Because I'm hearing it starts with a 10
Prolly not, but his last contract set him up to be north of $9 million and why not start out at 10 and work your way down? If you're comfortable projecting Meier out as a 40 goal guy, and you don't have to squint that hard to make that case, then $9-something million is the market range. The issue for Jersey is going to be how dug in he is on his number. If he's willing to sit in Europe and whittle like Nylander did to Toronto a couple of years ago, it's gonna get tougher and tougher not to flip the switch and justify finding somebody more willing to pay up.
