Note he didn’t say, “Meier had one point per game season.” That also would be false but he said he was a point per game player. He’s .67 for his career. It’s ridiculously far off. It would be like saying McDavid is a goal per game player because he has 15 in 17 this year. He’s not. He’s a half point per game player.

Bahahahaha dude. Cmon. Comparing fiala’s quo to meier’s is just bonkers. One would be very underpaid if he signed his QO, the other would be ridiculously overpaid.

What are you trying to do here?

You want to argue which one is the better player? Fine. Do it with someone else.
Fiala with a $5.1 QO is worth WAY more than Hertl with a $10M QO.

As I said above, Fiala was traded for a 1st and top prospect when his career PPG was 0.67 and he had one outlier season to his name. And if you want to harp in on something arbitrary like FIala's single PPG season versus Meier's none, I think it's completely fair to mention that Meier has two 30-goal seasons and Fiala only has one. And that first 30 goal year was 2018-19 when he put up 30-36-66 in 78 GP for a team that made the Conference Final. So he's shown he can produce on a winning team, too.

And like I've said: the price for Meier would be a 1st and a top prospect. Boston doesn't have any top prospects beyond Lysell, so if they want to get Meier without emptying their prospect cupboard, they have to give up another pick. And if you're also going to ask them to eat $5.2M in cap this season like OP is doing here, I don't think it's crazy to ask for *at least* another 1st round pick as compensation.

What I'm trying to do is point out that even though everyone in the league *knew* that Minnesota had to offload Fiala because of their cap crunch, they were still able to get a better package for him than what's being offered here. San Jose has no strong need to move him - even if they just qualify him at $10M and don't work out an extension, they still have the cap to carry him. Typically a team that doesn't need to move a player is going to be able to demand a better return than the team that literally needs to move a guy to be able to dress 20 guys every night, wouldn't you agree?

And here's a fun thought: when was the last time a player at this level actually accepted their QO straight up? You're putting so much of the focus on part of Meier's contract that literally never gets exercised by top end talent. Does it get used as a negotiating tactic? Who even knows anymore - Fiala's 7x$7.875M extension sure lined up more with what the market rate for guys like him was than with his $5.1M QO. Consensus seems to be that Meier will probably extend around $8M as well(again, GMs will have an extremely appropriate comp to point out in LA if he tries to play hardball) so the only real negative I can see attached to his QO is the fact that you'll have an extra $2M hold hanging around your cap in the summer while you negotiate the extension. I really think you're putting a ton more emphasis on this than any GM is going to.

Kinda hit the nail on the head there. They qualify him and he signs the QO, all of a sudden he’s a rental. That knocks him out of the fiala discussion. Trade him this year, and no one wants to give him the QO, so unless an extension is in place, he’s more similar to a rental than a pending RFA. Either way, fiala has nothing to do with this.

We’re harping on the QO here. I don’t think you understand the implications of that.

nice story bro, give me an example of a player recently who excepted there QO and then dipped?. Why is there such a big deal about a "QO" who cares, a player would much rather sign a long term deal this isnt NHL 23 you worrying about. But i can see your clearly lost in misguided on how you value Fabian Lysell. This is a Boston sports moment. This is your last season of being a stanley cup contender before you become very bad so why not throw all the chips at it.