Go the get paid Market value at the time of their contracts and the guy takes a massive step forward in the contract making it seem like a massive steal later on?

What? If mtl doesnt think Gallagher is a top 6 forward, ill take him

There’s no obsession. It’s just an easy way to catalogue players by skill and what type of minutes they deserve or can handle.

Yes this is my favourite thing to happen. Every person who says Nate or pasta took pay cuts need to realize they took market value based on their play at the time. Unfortunate for both of them that they took off but that’s what happens in this business

yup. Nate signed the same market contract as Monahan, Gaudreau, & Scheifele. All those deals got done within a few days of one another. Mack just went from a good player with untapped potential to a top 3 player in the league after he signed it. He didnt give the Avs a discount. Neither did Tavares when he signed his deal.

Suzuki has Norris, Dach, and Hughes as probably his coming off ELC market comps in the RFA class. They will set their own market off one another. Happens every year

Nobody thinks he isn't. He's just good enough that it doesn't matter where you put him in the lineup.

Suzuki takes a deep discount and Montreal is ~2 mil over the cap with Byron....

What I love are the people who use these 3 phrases: top-6, bottom-6 and middle-6. And they'll argue that 'player x isn't a top-6 guy, he's more of a middle-6 guy' as if there are 18 forwards. Cracks me up.

I'm not disagreeing, but to play devil's advocate, referring to someone as a "middle 6" player really only means that the player is not a "top line" scorer (i.e., you'll probably never find McDavid or Mackinnon being referrered to as "middle 6" players). They probably hope that the people listening to/reading the discussion would understand that, in hockey, there are only 12 forwards dressed for a game, not 18. Again, I am not advocating for either: I am merely explainging why people may use that terminology.

I’ll agree with you that nobody important thinks he isn’t.

The point is that Montreal doesn’t care about the label of top 6 forward.
Gallagher will be useful wherever we put him in the lineup. He’ll never complain. And he’ll always be full value for his cap hit.
People who don’t get that in this market just don’t matter.

If you replace “easy” with “lazy” (largely means the same thing in this context), then I largely agree with this statement.

My point is that we can, and should, all do better.

Gallagher plays 15 hard, flat out minutes, no matter who we play him with. Completely irrelevant in his case any categorization of what line, top, bottom, middle, 6, 9, whatever…

Those who don’t get that, simply don’t understand Brendan Gallagher. If you’re a fan of another team, I can maybe understand that. If you’re a “fan” of the Habs though? That’s pretty weak.

One of Byron or Drouin probably won’t be back in 2022. Both being on the last years of their deals will be much easier to move.