The Senators have to operate within their financial reality, though. They aren’t a team flush with cash, and don’t have the luxury of essentially writing blank checks to players and not worrying about the cost down the road.
It’s probably part of the reason that the Derick Brassard acquisition looked so appealing to them. Their 2017-2018 payroll was going to look pretty hefty if they were going to hand out long term contracts to Mike Hoffman, Cody Ceci, and Mika Zibanejad, all of whom were playing currently on discounts based on what their production was.