Sorry folks. I love Jay Beagle and his effort and so on and his history with the team, but at age 34 he's not worth 3 mil/year TO A VERY CASH STRAPPED TEAM as a 4th line Center just to win some faceoffs. At best he could take maybe 1/3 of the teams total draws and win maybe 58% of those?. That's a TEAM face off percentage improvement of maybe 2-3% best case. I know it's important and a undervalued skill, and we know he's a great guy and a good PK guy and such, but Dowd at $750k is basically the same guy for 1/4 the cost (minus some of the faceoff skill). And Dowd is 4-5 years younger. We have enough 3rd/4th line type PK guys. I am using Dowd as comparison because he is the 4C
SO I looked it up...
Dowd's FO % is right around 52.8% this year
Jay Beagle is a beast in the circle at 57.8%
That's a 5% increase for one player who will take likely less than 1/3 of the teams draws. That's a team's Faceoff % net increase of like 1.7%
That's not worth adding $2.25 million to this team. (Dowd is a flat out bargain at $750k per year)
Now if you want to trade Hags at 2.75 mill and talk VC into keeping $250k of Beags Salary then okay. But then you still have basically two 4C guys. I guess Dowd could play wing or you bring in one of the other guys (waiting in the wings)
.
But you still have to manage the salary problem.