Lou is hands down best GM in the league. Benning is bottom tier, I woulda said worst but he has tough competition up in Edmonton. Francis might wanna join him
Most of NHL GMs are losing their minds. We're in a cap flat situation and they're spending money like there's no cap at all in the league. I'd like to be a GM in NHL, nowadays. I'm sure that I would be considered a very reasonable one compared to most of those lunatics guys.
They know there is money. There won't be a flat cap next year and they just added a team and tv contracts.
There is also starting to be a serious divide between the top and bottom players in the league.
You can see it on teams where 1/2 the cap is going to like 4 or 5 players. While they try to get everyone else for league minimum.
The middle is slowly getting squeezed out in the NHL, as it starts to turn into the NBA salary structure.
So biased based on his performance in playoffs. NYR sees Tampa have success by having a strong checking line and goes ballistic for those players. Fair value is 3 years at 2.5 mil AAV.