The Dougie Dilemma facing the Bruins is the most fascinating, multi-layered problem that the team has faced in some time. No fewer than five rational people can look at it and come up with five different solutions. For every argument, there’s a counterargument.

The Dougie of whom we speak is young Mr. Hamilton, of course. And according to some comparables currently being bandied about, he’ll be worth a long-term deal with an average annual value of anywhere from $5.5 million (Oliver Ekman-Larson) to $7 million (Drew Doughty), with Alex Pietrangelo’s deal of $6.5 million per year sitting somewhere in between.

Considering their cap situation, would the Bruins be better off without Hamilton, if in fact his management is shooting for the moon with this contract? Well, let’s look at five options, going from least palatable to most.

• 1. Sit tight, wait for an offer sheet and take the compensation. If a team gives Hamilton an offer sheet, it would likely fall in the range of 5.4 million- $7.3 million, which would net the Bruins first-, second- and third-round picks. If a team decided to get really aggressive and offer between $7.3 million-$9.1 million, the B’s would be owed two firsts a second and a third. That’s decent value, just not good enough value coming back to the B’s for where they are in their program.

People tend to forget the immediate result of the Phil Kessel trade, whose return consisted of two firsts and a second. The Bruins had to go a year without a very good player in Kessel and it resulted in a 91-point season after amassing 116 the year before. The B’s netted 96 points this year and it got the general manager fired. Of course, you could say the deal worked out in the end because the B’s won the Cup in 2010-11 with one of those draft picks, Tyler Seguin, playing a brief but brilliant cameo role. But with the age of this team’s core, it’s doubtful that a Cup is on the other side of what would surely be another down year in 2015-16 while they wait for draft picks to mature. If the B’s wind up settling for compensation, they might as well start the tear-down now.

• 2. Match an offer sheet. If a team does come in with an offer sheet, chances are it will be at a very aggressive (i.e., exorbitant) price, probably at the high end of the first compensation bracket cited or the low end of the second. That’s an elite price for a kid who hasn’t yet proven he’s an elite player. Then again, if a team is willing to pay Hamilton that kind of money, that becomes the market price.

• 3. Do a two-year bridge deal. The only way one of these would get done is if there’s no offer sheet and the two sides are at an impasse. Chances are one wouldn’t get done until well into training camp. The upside of a bridge deal is that it would buy the Bruins some time to see if either Malcolm Subban or Zane McIntyre could develop into a No. 1 goalie and they could then move Tuukka Rask and his $7 million cap hit.

The downside, of course, has been well-documented. P.K. Subban signed a bridge deal out of his entry level deal then, with arbitration rights, won a Norris Trophy and then held up the Habs for an eight-year, $9 million AAV contract. While it’s anyone’s guess which way Hamilton’s defensive zone play will go, it’s a good bet he’ll put up the kind of points that will garner a similar deal.

• 4. Trade him. Without knowing what’s exactly out there, it’s difficult to call this the best option, but it just might be. With the Bruins looking to shed salary, he could be part of a blockbuster multi-player deal that could reshape the B’s. (I’ll take a stab at one: Hamilton, Loui Eriksson and Chris Kelly to Edmonton for Jordan Eberle, defense prospect Oscar Klefbom or Darnell Nurse and another good prospect or high draft pick.) Whatever deal is out there, this problem could actually be a golden opportunity for the Bruins to fix some of their cap issues.

• 5. Just pay the kid and get it over with. The Bruins can start at Ekman-Larson’s $5.5 million and Hamilton’s side can start at Doughty’s $7 million and find middle ground that’s workable for both sides. They will be paying for yet-unrealized potential for the first year or two, and that’s a hard swallow. But these type of defensemen don’t come around very often. Chiarelli spent much of his tenure in Boston looking for one. And having a high draft pick doesn’t guarantee you’ll get one. Remember Jonathan Aitken (a bust at No. 8 overall in 1996) and Lars Johnsson (a Swedish no-show selected at No. 7 in 2000)?

Before dishing out this kind of contract, there are questions in Hamilton’s game that GM Don Sweeney, team president Cam Neely and the rest of the Bruins brass have to reconcile: Will he ever fill out enough so that he can be a true, nasty No. 1? Will players follow him as they would, say, Patrice Bergeron? Will a deal like this create resentment in the dressing room? Is he a cornerstone piece of a Stanley Cup champ?

Those are all tough questions that are as yet unanswerable. But if the B’s decide to move on from Hamilton, it could be a long wait before another player of his ilk is available to them.

KREPELKA A BIG LOSS

The business of hockey lost one of the good ones when local player agent Paul Krepelka decided to cash out last month, selling his interest in the Orr Hockey Group.

Intensely loyal to his clients, Krepelka — a Boston boy through and through (Arlington to be exact) — nonetheless, is as honest as they come. There was no better guy with whom just to talk hockey. Any NHL team would do well to use Krepelka if they needed help in crunching numbers.

BOLTS PROVE IT’S STILL TWO-WAY GAME

“There’s more than one net in a rink. There are two. So you have to be able to play in front of both of them.”

Think that was uttered by Claude Julien, Pat Burns or another defensive-minded coach? Nope. It was Jon Cooper, coach of the high-scoring Lightning and darling of the more-goals crowd. It came a few weeks ago when he was explaining why skilled but green Jonathan Drouin was not in the lineup earlier in the playoffs.

The sentiment illustrates that, though a higher premium is placed on speed and skill today, the need for defensive responsibility is going nowhere. Just look at how the Bolts’ run to the Stanley Cup finals has gone. There have been games in which they’ve put up big numbers. But when it’s been time to lock down a series, they’ve done it. In close-out games vs. Detroit, Montreal and the Rangers, they allowed a total of one goal.

In wake of his press conference last week, Julien was accused by some of being his old stubborn self when he dared to mention that not allowing goals was still important. He also said he is on board with Sweeney’s decree to improve the transition game.

As Cooper & Co. have proven, the two ideas can co-exist. Now the B’s just need to get some more players like the Lightning have and they’ll be all set.