I feel like Hughes and Petty will get term. Some guys are just too good to bother giving a bridge. Both around $9.5mill x 8 years. If you do a bridge they'd end up wanting $10mill+ in 2 or 3 years. It all depends on what the player wants of course but I'd start with offering a long term deal. The Canucks success depends on whether Schmidt and Myers can play well enough to earn those huge contracts imo

I think with the flat cap the players will prefer to bridge and then go again when teams are less rigid against the cap. Pettersson could get over 10M on a long term deal for sure and there aren't many comparables for Hughes as Makar, Heiskanen and Dahlin will all sign at the same time.

I think normally its better for the team to get term, but it could be different now given the circumstances. Ideally you give your franchise players term at a fixed number, the first couple years are tough but as the cap goes up you get more flexibility. If the cap isn't going up, then you get the big number without the future flexibility. If both Pettersson and Hughes sign for 8 years, the cap wouldn't start rising again until around year 3. That means you have to manage those big cap hits with 5 years of growth instead of 8, which is tougher to do.