mr grieves said:
If some team decides Kapanen is a good bet for a 5 year deal at $4.25m or whatever -- which I think most of us would rate a good, fair, not too high deal -- then the Leafs would probably be stuck with a 2nd.
I'm not saying that this would be AS BAD... but the Zaitsev contract should be a lesson to us that signing a player to a pretty hefty long-term deal after a single full season in which he mostly played in a role he won't continue playing in might not be a great idea. In Zaitsev's case, he got paid for a season where he received a ton of PP time and pretty much everyone on the planet knew that Rielly was going to replace him there. In Kapanen's case, he'd be getting paid for a season where he spent most of the season as Matthews' winger and again we can be pretty confident that Nylander is going to take back a good chunk of those minutes.
I know your point was more about offer sheets, but just wanted to give my two cents on that contract possibility. It's probably a really good thing that we're being forced into a bridge deal for Kapanen. Let's see what sort of numbers he puts up on a 3rd line role with Kadri for a full season.