Hey I'll bite. Probably my fault we started this discussion now anyway, still think it's a year too early oh well. thanks rt for starting the thread! =p
Anyway as some of you know, I poked around capfriendly for a bit, after some number crunching I think we have ample cap space to offer AM34 $15-16m annually without screwing our team up (which also allows $6m for a goalie among other things, assumes current cap which may go up). But it ALSO assumes we do a good job avoiding bad contracts (ie not repeating Jaskin), which is obvi easier said than done.
Either way if you're curious I'd encourage everyone to poke around capfriendly and come to your own conclusion. What I think you'll find is that teams in cap trouble did not get there bc they are overpaying their superstars, it's because they decided to unnecessarily overpay too many other guys. For instance FLA's not in cap trouble bc they're paying Barkov $10m, they're in trouble bc they're paying Bob $10m (not stealing any playoff games) and also 6 mil for their bottom pair D (Montour / Gudas), and also Hornqvist at 5.3m. Those multiple high-value bad contracts are a disaster. Same with EDM with the Keith / Barrie deals, total they cost more than Drai does. MTL with Gallagher, Drouin, Petry, Vegas with Karlsson, Dadonov etc. Speaking of VGK, they're a really good example of this -- since acquiring Eichel they're now paying their 3C (Karlsson) almost 6m annually through 2027, he also has a 10-team no trade. Good luck sorting out that mess.
Anyway given our relative lack of long term deals (only Keller and Schmaltz, soon to be Crouse hopefully) we should be able to offer AM34 as least as much as any other team, and if we avoid bad long term deals (see paragraph above) we'll be able to do that while building a cup contender around him. Big if though -- we'll see what happens in a few years