CarltonTheBear said:
Duchene's having a heck of a start to the season (27 points in 21 games, 6th in the league in scoring) but we're talking about a guy who turns 28 years old in January who's scored at a 55-point pace for the past 4 seasons. That contract would be insane.
I see what you're saying but I'm not sure I agree. Let's say, for the sake of argument that Duchene cools off a bit and finishes the year with, oh, 65 points or so with 25 goals or thereabouts. Then, let's say that there's sort of a general consensus that his 16-17 year was kind of a freak outlier that doesn't really reflect who he is. So then who is he? Ignoring 16-17 and figuring the numbers for this year we just did would give him a four year average of around 61 points per 82 games, 26 of those points being goals.
So what would a 28 year old UFA C with those numbers fetch on the open market? I think a few UFA's from this year tell us that between 8-9 million is, if not a great use of money, at least somewhat in line with what we could expect.
For one, Paul Stastny. His four year average would be around 54 points per 82 with only 17 goals and he's 32. He got 6.5 million.
Then, JVR. JVR's four year average pre-contract is 58 points per game with 30 goals. He's 29. He got 7 million.
Then you have your friend and mine, John Tavares. His 4 year average pre-UFA is 79 points per 82 with 35 goals. He signed for 11 million but was offered supposedly as high as 13.
So, again, a 60+ point 25 goal centre who's 28? I don't think it's at all insane to suggest that what Ottawa would be paying here is more or less what it would cost to sign him in the off-season. UFA dollars aren't always the best spent but that is realistically what Ottawa has to negotiate against with the knowledge that there's a huge recency bias here so if Duchene doesn't slow down and ends up with 70 or even 80 points then it's pretty likely to crowd out his less good years even more.
I think this is Ottawa deciding that they can't afford another summer of losing their top player and just paying a little on the high side of what the market would probably kick out anyway.