I guess my view is that he was the 7th most valuable forward on a roster that was notably short on forward depth. While the 2023 roster was skewed in the opposite direction, I think he has trouble even cracking the game day roster. His true value is probably somewhere in the 9-11 range on a team looking to compete for a Cup. I don’t think he’s a horrible player, but I think the consequences of overpaying for bottom 6 forwards, even with his versatility, can be meaningful.
Ok, I'll frame it a different way. Danton Heinen had the same amount of 5v5 points as Pavel Buchnevich, 1 less than Kyle Connor, 1 more than Chris Kreider. He was 34th in 5v5 scoring for LW in the 2023/24 season for raw points and 24th for LW who played 900+ minutes at 5v5. When you couple that with his above average defensive impact, paying him $3m a year is not something that would hurt this team in the least. The Panthers have 2 guys making $3m on their third line in Luostarinen an Rodrigues. ERod was a bit better and Luostarinen was a bit worse, but similar players.
In general I agree you don't want to pay a premium in the bottom six, but this team has a bunch of bad players in their bottom 6 and this player is good, and criminally underrated. I think he's someone the bruins should retain unless they need that money to get an impact player, of which I don't think there are many that are going to be available this year. I'd much rather have Heinen than any of the other players in the bottom six other than Poitras and probably Fred. If they play Geekie on the fourth line, don't bring in some "vet snarl" guy for $2.5m on the fourth line, they would be in pretty good shape.
Heinen ($3m)- Poitras ($870k)- Frederic ($2.3)
Brazeau ($700k)- Beecher ($925k) - Geekie ($2)
That's 9.795m or 11% of the cap.
This year the oilers have $8.075 in their bottom 6 (and $3m next year lol Connor Brown) which is 10% of this year's cap. The Panthers have $9.475 in their bottom six, which is 11.5% of this year's cap.
TL;DR- Heinen is a much more valuable player than he gets credit for being and a 3 or 4 year deal at $3m is probably a smart move by the Bruins.