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Originally Posted by Drake744
Through these first 5 games I agree with you. I remember telling people that if he plays well in his time here and makes a big difference I have no problem giving him 6 mil/year or potentially even more than that. Now I'm of the mindset though that at this rate we do in fact need to bring him back at any reasonable cost. Concerns about his game fitting here? Gone. Concerns about being accepted and fitting in? Gone. Concerns about ruining team chemistry? Long gone. He is looking like a dynamic team player. As mentioned above, he bolted straight for AK after his goal because of the great pass by him. Then after that he skates by the bench and basically shouts at Pekka to keep it up and bring it home for us.
This isn't the same guy we had before. He is looking incredibly mature and team-oriented and, as was also mentioned before, he makes things happen every time he's on the ice. They don't often equate to goals (then again nothing in this game "often equates to goals") but he just has the knack of being where he needs to be, putting his stick is a good place, making good decisions and knowing where guys are going to be. It amazes me that not only does he do this, but he's doing it right away with not much time to blend in with the current guys on the team. The pass he made to Halischuk for the goal against Winnipeg was crazy to me. In his second NHL game in 4 years he makes a no-look pass on a breakout to a guy who isn't even on his line like it was no big deal at all and he had been linemates with him all year. It's possible that was the first time Rads and Hali had ever been skating next to each other in their lives and Rads knew where he was going to be without even looking. We've never had a guy capable of things like this.....in the prime of his career......who seems to enjoy playing for us.
Who knows how the season and playoffs will unfold, but the way it looks now we definitely need to lock him up and he has taken priority over Suter in my mind too.
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He's playing like the guy we hoped to develop here over the past four years. I'm not worried about his on ice or locker room presence, but, I'm still hesitant to see how things play out this off season when it comes contract time. We'll soon see just what he is expecting monetarily and what, if any, KHL obligations really exist (Medvedev and Daly aren't even in the same book, much less the same page). If he commits here, $6ish isn't out of the question ... but for that I'd want him to sign a relatively long term deal that takes him past day one of UFA eligibility.