Big market teams don't have to overpay to keep their players. Small market teams do.
It's easier for big market teams to keep players b/c players want to play in the big cities, etc. Smaller market teams need to sweeten the pot so those said players don't run off to the big cities.
Ville Leino makes $4.5 million a year (close to Ruutu's $4.75), for five more years. You can really make any contract in the NHL look fantastic or terrible solely based on the contract you compare it to.
Yeah I don't think the Ruutu contract is that bad. We're still not that far above the cap floor, so who cares if we're overpaying him? He is a physical 20-goal scorer when healthy, and you can't just get those for market value whenever you feel like it.
The market for players is not like a wheat market, where you can just go out and buy exactly how much wheat you need for exactly the fair price. I'm happy to overpay someone who has the potential to be our 6th 20-goal scorer, since we couldn't get anyone else instead. Our team would be far worse off without him.
