Remember in 2014 when Garth Snow pulled off a stunning preseason double by adding not one, but two top-four defensemen from cap crunched teams? Later that season, they turned the acquisitions of Johnny Boychuk and Nick Leddy into a longer-term payoff by getting both to agree to long-term deals.
At the time, you knew both commitments carried risk, especially on the back half, but that is the price of pending free agency, particularly when convincing players to stay with the NYI. At the time, you probably expected Boychuk’s aging curve would get uncomfortable — though you might have figured the younger, faster Nick Leddy was a decently safe bet.