Yeah, Greene’s going to have to have a hell of a year next season if he wants that much. Depending on any 1-year deals the Devils agree to this off-season, Parise is concern #1 next off-season, then Greene. I would offer him (as of now), around $2.75-3.25 million/year.

Long term deals are definitely a risk because anything can happen over such a long period of time (not the least of which are injuries and the possibility of a player failing to meet expectations), but you only list two players for which the risk appears to not be paying off (and Luongo could be argued. Not by me, but by some), though you could add Alexei Yashin and perhaps Lecavalier (depending on which Vinny shows up from now on) to the list.

On the flip side, Franzen and Zetterberg in Detroit both appear worth the risk so far, as does Ovechkin, Backstrom, Duncan Keith, Rick Nash, Mike Richards, Pronger and Hossa (though I’ll give you that the latter two were more about manipulating the cap than locking up young talent).

To me that says locking up young talent for the long term to cap friendly hits isn’t just the trend, but a good way to go. Unless you’re the Islanders. Seriously; they need some scouting help or something… they’ve got 2 of the “Oh man, that SUCKS!” contracts in DiPietro and Yashin…

Come back again? He broke his arm. That’s not typically a recurring injury.

I have no doubt that Lou would do his due diligence to make sure there were no long-term, nagging aspects to or indirect effects from the injury before signing him to a long contract… if he even chose to go that route.

My point was just that, yes, there are a couple instances where the long-term deal didn’t work out, but there are at least as many where it appears to be working out just fine. Whether Lou is even the type of GM to play the system in such a way, or Martin wants that kind of deal remains to be seen.