03-25-2021, 04:28 PM
(03-25-2021, 04:12 PM)dirkfansince1998 Wrote: I bet there's a side issue (that may actually be a big one for them) on the spending this summer that we don't see. That's the issue of the 2022 payroll, when Luka's massive raise will hit. They already know that's coming. It;s a huge hit. I think that they will be factoring that into the equation, and it might have made it impossible for them to re-sign J-Rich, THJ, and also Fournier (or someone else) at expected market prices on multi-year deals. So maybe in their estimation, Fournier could have only been a rental anyhow, because his price tag is going to be too high, which lessened his value considerably.Maybe the answer is more nuanced. Maybe he doesn't want to pay the LT, yet, because of the fact that a championship team will be expensive to keep with the escalation factors. And we all expect Luka (and others) to be around for a long time.
Dirk gave lots of hometown discounts. Basically taking whatever was left after MBT put the team together, which made cap management easier that Donnie and Mark deserved. I don't expect that from Luka, at least not for a while.