That was 34% of a 3 year contract, for a team heading into a rebuild. You're asking us to retain 50% on a 4 year contract, for a team (trying to) head out of a rebuild. Even if the value is similar, it's not the same thing. And yes, SJ got table scraps. That's about what we're asking for too.



To be fair...the Flyers retained 50% on Kevin Hayes $7M+ contract for three full seasons for a 6th, but that was also when we thought Philly was heading into a rebuild. That's the only one I could find going back to 2018. That's still only 3 full seasons.

You've just shown he's a 3RD, which wow! He's one of about four options for 3RD on the Columbus roster. Congrats to him on being better than Gudbranson, Bean, Peeke, and Christiansen. So valuable. Fact remains he's not getting top four minutes on a roster with Jiricek and Severson (and Boqvist, who's PP1 QB). Columbus has no interest in or room for RD.



Ah, yes, a player over 35 coming from a team just starting their rebuild for whom cap space was meaningless. I'll give you credit for finding an example, but it's not relevant here. Columbus is not just starting their rebuild, and has at least six important RFA's to pay in the next two seasons (Sillinger, Johnson, Chinakhov, Marchenko, and Voronkov... plus Fantilli and Jiricek in '26). We're not asking for anything in return for Elvis. We just don't want to retain til 2027. That 2.7 million is Chinakhov's money.

It's 3 1/2 years not 4... and you guys aren't going to be competing in that 3 1/2 years unless you guys have a bunch of in-house solutions for all of those problems that I'm not aware of... you guys still need 2 to 3 top-6 wingers, 2 to 3 top-4 defensemen and a legit #1 goaltender... and everybody is going to be on either cheap ELCs or RFA deals (with a few notable exceptions)... you guys will have the cap space

"six important RFA's to pay in the next two seasons (Sillinger, Johnson, Chinakhov, Marchenko, and Voronkov... plus Fantilli and Jiricek in '26)."- Columbus doesn't need to be the team to retain the $2.7m... you can dump it on San Jose, Chicago, or another bottom feeder but the cap hit on the Canes really needs to be less than $3m

We do, though?

Top-6 wingers: Marchenko, Johnson, Gaudreau, Laine*, Chinakhov, Brindley** (*when healthy, **if he's as good in the NHL as he is at world juniors/college level)
Top-4 D: Werenski, Severson, Jiricek, Mateychuk
#1 Goalie: Tarasov or (more likely) Greaves, who has the best GSAx/60 in the NHL for two years running. AHL All-Star with a .911 SV%.

Right now most of them are U23, but they'll be NHLers by age 26 easily.

Laine wants out if I remember correctly.
Gaudreau has been disappointing

Even if they all pan out you going to have a hard time competing with the Canes/Devils in the long term considering the prospects that both have in the pipeline... Bradly Nadeau, Alexander Nikishin, Seamus Casey, and Josh Filmon

I mean, what are we even doing here anymore? The whole point was Columbus doesn't want to retain because we think we're ready to compete in the next 2-4 years. If the Canes say no because they want significant retention, we're done here. I'm not about to get into "your team bad because prospects bad, my team good because good now and prospects good"