What Contract Offers Did Tarasenko Turn Down?

There wasn't a shortage of teams interested in Vladimir Tarasenko early in free agency, he was just rejecting solid offers from multiple teams. It was first revealed that he rejected offers from the Florida Panthers, Carolina Hurricanes, and San Jose Sharks before signing with the Ottawa Senators, but that wasn't the first offer the Senators sent his way.

According to Andy Strickland, he was told that Tarasenko had a four-year offer at $5.5 million AAV from the Senators early in free agency and also had one-year offers from Carolina at $5.25 million and San Jose at $6 million. The details about the contract offer from Florida hasn't been released.

Those are some interesting offers and what's even more interesting is why Tarasenko would turn them down. The most logical reason was he was looking for something longer than four years as he's 31 and hoping this next contract will take him to retirement. The cap only went up by $1 million this season and is expected to rise pretty significantly next year. This is why the one-year deal seemed ideal for him and why others around the league are also taking one-year deals.

As he was offered the most from the Sharks, why did he not go with them for one season? I believe that because they aren't a very good team, it might have hurt his numbers and hurt his chances of getting a better long-term deal after this season. As for the Hurricanes, they have much more talent to fill their top-six than the Senators have after they traded Alex DeBrincat for Dominik Kubalik. The Senators could have used the upgrade to the top-six and Tarasenko will be playing with a very skilled offensive group. The Hurricanes are a little more defensively-minded and they also have Michael Bunting, Seth Jarvis, Andrei Svechnikov, Martin Necas, and Teuvo Teravainen to battle for four top-six spots already.