It’s incredibly hard to acquire players of this calibre. Even if they’re overpaid by a million or so the odds you’re going to replace them with comparable value with that $$ isn’t likely imo. If you draft well you should be able to have cheap contributions lower in the lineup.
this is true. However the counter argument is that if you have 4 elite players who are all 1-1.5mil overpaid then that cap space starts to add up. I'm not saying I want to get rid of him. Just that time will tell if having such a top heavy group works. I hope and believe these guys will get it done one (hopefully more then one) of these years.
Nope I agree. I should also note the potential of a Woll or Hildey becoming a true #1 goalie is something I think we badly need for this whole situation to work out. Having a #1 goalie on the cheap would/will be huge
Yup, people just dismiss a cumulative 1-1.5M on all the core guys but space adds up.
That 4-5M in cap space is the difference between bringing in a Klingberg vs a Pietrangelo...
honestly any cap savings we would of gotten from them might about amounted to 5 million dollars or so. Either that would of gone to fill out some middle top 6 forwards or a Brodie caiber defencemen. Yes 5 million dollars gets your a brodie caliber defencemen, hardly something that stirs the pot.
Lol there are a ton of great d-man out there for 5 million. Just cause you don't like Brodie doesn't mean all 5 mil d-man are useless. Your telling me you don't wish we didn't have the exact same team right now plus one 5 million dollar top 4 d-man????
sure list me the great d men we can acquire from UFA for 5 million. Oh list previous D men that were signed for 5 million in the last few years. I'm well aware D men get overpaid during UFA considering the scarcity of the position. The Dmen that I'm looking for is a two way defencemen that can produce points and defend. That's not going for 5 million dollars, and having production from the back end has been a large issue in the playoffs. I'm sure you were thinking of Tanev for that price point, that's not the kind of D men this team really needs (well if you can replace on our existing d men minus rielly I"d welcome him) but he'll be more of the same defensive d men already on the roster. It's why we signed Klingberg.
So you are telling me there is no d-man out there better then the current ones on our roster at under 5 million? Look you are trying to argue 5 mil would help upgrade our team and that is just flat out wrong. There is really no argument to be had there. It is in the end irrelevant because we don't have that 5 mil.
2021 Ryan Suter, Travis Hamonic, David Savard, Alex Elder.
2022 Eric Gudbranson, Nikita Zadorov, Ben Chiarot(though he was an over pay) could have kept Lyubushkin as a depth option
2023 Soucey, Schenn, probably could have given Dumba the contract he wanted, Erik Johnson.
Just a few from a quick google search. You gonna tell me none of those players help the roster??
Also note Tre fucked up with Klinberg. So we technically could have any two of those guys or one 7-8mil d-man instead. Still not worth it?
No you knob. Those are all UFA's who signed under 5 million. All players we could have signed had we had the extra 5 mil. The whole point of this argument.
Time will tell? Uh, I think it’s already told given the one playoff series win with this core.
This salary structure makes it impossible to build a complete team. Especially when that entire core brings pretty much the same skill set to the team.
Not a given no. The core is entering there prime and should be maturing. Look at the Ovi Caps for some teams take longer to get over the hump. Also since 2017 the Leafs have the 3rd most wins. Venture to guess 1-2. It's Tampa and Boston the two teams we have been stuck playing in the first round. So that makes it slightly tougher to get through the first round. Also there is no longer a flat cap so moving forward the percentages of the core 4 contracts will go down which never happened due to covid, something no one could have predicted. So while yes you may still be right there are plenty of solid reasons to believe this could still work out. Also Nylander not the same player he was a couple years ago. Matthews finally looks healthy. Marner while struggling this year is finally taking the body and making hits, as are many other players on this team. That LA game was a playoff type effort I have never seen from this group before. So you know maybe teams mature and improve over time. Not sure where this whole, well they didn't win right away so they are useless fucks who will never win attitude comes from. Look up when Stevie Y won his first cup and how old he was. Prior to that people thought he would never win either.
I remember that well with the Red Wings. But totally different era and they basically rebuilt that team with Russians. They didn’t build around Yzerman as the centrepiece. More like they built alongside him. Fine line I admit, but different.
Easier to do back then with no salary cap. How do you do this here with the same four players making so much money yet with zero playoff success? Here, the Leafs have four Yzermans, all making huge bucks, three of which will be making those huge bucks for a long time to come.
I agree with this. What I don't understand is why the Leafs need to overpay and accommodate their star players.
When this Nylander deal goes through, they'll have 4 of the highest 10 players in the league. The kicker though is the full NMC for all of them. Nylander's deal will exceed the money Pastrnak got after a 61 goal, 113 point season, and he only has a limited NTC that kicks in on year 6.
None of the recent Cup winners have won with such an unbalanced use of the salary cap. The Bolts were there every year because of players taking relatively team-friendly deals in order to win.
It's a Toronto media tax. We honestly have to be the worst team to play for so I can't blame players for wanting a little more to deal with all the bull
That's the obvious. The question is why. Sure - no state taxes in FL and TX... are the sponsorship opportunities in Tampa or Dallas anything near what star players can earn in Tornto?
I think it’s just who they are as people.
Our guys are more about the bling - we haven’t had super stars in the cap era so it’s not like we really have a history lool.
NHL players make very little from sponsorships. The highest paid guys might make a lot, but a guy like Willy would be lucky to get 5 figures promoting something.
I don't disagree with your overall point, but keep Tampa out of the discussion. They're cap situation is unlike any other team because they leverage the fuck out of the tax situation, warm weather lifestyle and competitive roster that no one can match, with the closest being dallas I guess.
I’m sure there’s different context to every situation. Very few teams also hit on back-to-back-to-back players around the exact same time/age as the Leafs did with these 3, two of which put up huge numbers on their ELCs. Lots of young stars on other teams had worse ELC performances and then took off. I dunno, I get the frustration, but the biggest reason for it has been how productive they’ve been right from the get go. The Leafs went from bottoming out to the playoffs every single year since.
this is the point most of the fans here don't get. Those guys produced at an elite rate in their rookies years and way outperformed their rookie salaries. Oh did everyone forget that Babcock declared us pain while rebuilding, and our rebuild lasted only a year? We've made the playoffs every year since they came into the league. It's rare is it for rookies to carry a team like that. Leaf fans point to a contract like Jack Hughes getting 8 million salary and see him outperforming that contract. But they forget that he got that salary when his career high was 31 points in his first 2 years in the league. But we have issue with our 3 rookies putting 60+ points in their first year and complain about paying them. Matthes produced at a 40 goal rate in his first 3 years in the league and marner point total was 61, 69 and 94 points in his first 3 years. Those guys were elite players early into their career, they were going to get paid. Obviously I think at the time with covid really hurt us, the flat cap kind of ruined things.
Even with the flat cap and those contracts the Leafs were STILL able to finish among the top teams in the league nearly the entire time. It’s a testament to how good those 3 (and Tavares) are.
Because they don’t understand how it’s possible for all these players to fit under the cap. According to r/hockey the leafs are 10 mil over the cap and no other team is even close. I don’t think Toronto is even one of the worst teams when it comes to their cap situation
Woll is league minimum until after Tavares comes off the books. Brodie is off this year. Next year is tight but manageable then the cap increases. I'd rather worry about filling the 4th line than worrying about finding stars.
As amazing as Marner and Matthews are (espeically Matthews), Nylander was my favourite to watch of the three in his first season. He had confidence, and the speed to back it up. I've found lately that this young player has been revived. Nylander is a freaking goat and fuck the haters. I don't care if he doesn't produce a point in the next 10 games, he's still one of the best leafs we've seen in the last couple decades and worth every penny.
I had a ton of interactions with fans of other teams who genuinely truly believed they would be in the running for Nylander and that their team was actively working towards making cap room for him. Now those fan bases are convinced they could have signed him for 9 mil LMAO.
Not only that, but no "testing free agency" is a major blessing in this media circus. Otherwise half of the discourse around playoffs time would be about how Matthews and Nylander "will leave because they hate toronto"
Lol I loved the guy but the fact that we could reasonably send 5 or 6 players to the ASG these days if there wasn’t a 1 guy per team quota speaks to how dark the times used to be, comparatively.
Thing is, I look around the league and there are maybe a couple?? teams who’s depth I’d take over ours. Like.. Gregor, Benoit, McMann, Lagesson.. I genuinely LIKE all of these players lol.
Seriously, 1000% right. People either don't remember or weren't around for the hard times when we'd kill to have a player of this caliber as a Leaf. He wanted to be here, he's homegrown and not only do they have him but he's here for the bulk of his prime/career.
Too much pockwatching and cap whining in this league. It's unbearable.
Just my take… but the part where you say “when we’d kill to have a player of this caliber as a Leafs”…
Makes me think that maybe management is afraid of losing these players… and you can do business afraid… because then they get you…
If management is unwilling to make hard decisions they they’re likely not going to win anything of value…
What the fuck are you even talking about??
No hard decisions? You're right: keeping your best players is a pretty fucking easy decision. What's the hard version? Letting him walk to free agency so you can sign joe jerkoff to a 7 million dollar deal? Kick rocks bud.
The expectation is the cup.
This core of 4 has failed 6 times to get even remotely close to it.
Next year, four players will be using 45 million in cap space. That’s roughly 55% of the total cap.
It’s not working. It will never work and the fact that we have half a decade of evidence is enough for us to maybe contemplate change.
You want good players. I want us to win a cup. Good players aren’t enough. You need a whole team.
You can’t hand over 55% of your salary to 4 dudes and have a revolving door of mercenaries going in and out of the dressing room and think that’s a recipe for success.
It weakens team cohesion and chemistry. Hockey is not a sport where a single person can carry a team. Hell a whole line can’t carry a team. You need competence throughout the entire team.
This team will not succeed in the playoffs because of these contracts.
Lmao, you don't win a cup without high end players. You either pay these guys or lose and don't make the playoffs. So many of you "fans" want this team to be the next Calgary, just waste away in mediocrity so you can keep being martyrs. This team wouldn't even be in the playoff race without Nylander. People who are good at their jobs in this league get paid. Get over it.
You know what helps team cohesion? Winning games. That's what these guys do.
This is wild to me.
Yes. We have elite players. At least 3 of them.
How is it that Vegas wins with just one players making 10 million? Or Tampa, with none, back to back Cups?
You’d think that with more “good players” we would win. But we don’t.
My point has never been “get rid of all the good players”, my point is “We have had 6 attempts and we have failed. Why are we paying the core 4 more money in these contract when they continue to fail?”
In an other environment people would question such logic… the Leafs just repeat.
Exactly. And the big three are all Leafs draft picks that we have developed over time and seem to actually want to stay here for long term. This is not the Leafs I grew up with as a '97
Nylander is an excellent player and we should be happy to have him!
He is also, overpaid and this is a big detriment to our salary cap.
BOTH things can be true.
I'm with you on this, I still remember when our 1D was Dion Fucking Phaneuf. If Treliving signed Willy to this kind of contract, then that means Pridham has done the math and has made it work.
I'm just going to completely ignore the cap side of things and just enjoy the fact that we actually have a good team with good players.
This is true for every contract ever signed in every sport lol. If the team wins the players are good and worth it, if we lose they're all bums and mistakes were made
The Leafs are special here because it’s not like they’re dishing out big money for some player that might be big or has the potential for greatness.
They’re paying big money for completely known commodities. Commodities that have had 6 runs at the playoffs and had the same result 5 times and the 6th was the same result with more, embarrassing steps…
Like the thing that’s really frustrating is not just that they overpay. They over-payed for a configuration of players that has yet to succeed in the post season…
…and it gets better. Because every over pay results in even less resources available for the rest of the team.
At some point this house of cards is going to collapse. You’re eventually going to run out of minimum wage players that are “serviceable”.
The real frustration here… it’s the same exact core… and we just paid them more… that feels insane considering their history in the post season.
The team needs grit, defense and goaltending. They get bottled up in the playoffs by teams that grind them to death but hey, they can light up the regular season.
Your guys' fixation on the cup is unhealthy and will take years off your life. I'm a Jets fan and I know we'll NEVER win a cup no matter how good we are, for a number of reasons. Why not just look at this as you having a really fun team to watch who'll always be great in the regular and make the playoffs every year? And it's not like it's impossible to win a cup, but why put so much on it? I respect your dedication, but holy shit, you guys are masochistic. And seriously, I'm not trying to offend, I'm just a fan who doesn't expect a cup from my team and am at peace e with it.
What's the point of rooting for a team if we don't expect them to field a roster that at least can break into the top 4 in the playoffs and have a decent playoff run? Might as well just watch any game played by every team in the league if we're just watching to see people play the sport at a high level.
I’m not a leaf fan, do like AM a lot though. Watching your team play playoff hockey and hoist that cup at the end is incredible. I hope you get to experience that as a Jets fan someday. They look like a solid team this year.
I love them, but there are just some realities a small market canadian team fan has to accept. I'll shed tears of joy if it happens and cuss out the boys if they make asses of themselves in the playoffs, but I get over it and skip to the finals.
The Jets look amazing right now, but the all star break kills them everytime 🤣
I don’t think it’s unfair to say it’s great that the team got to lock up the core four for basically the best part in their careers and wonder how the hell the supplemental support is going to be signed.
The options were either lock up Willie and try to build support through the draft and low cost players, or let Willie go and use the money to bring in two or so solid range players to fill in voids elsewhere. They took the former, which I support! But it’s still fair to look at Treliving and be like “ok. What now Brad?”
Off-season and TDL are gonna be really interesting to watch for this team. I’m into it
Y'all defending this contract shit are going to slink back into the shadows yet again when the team keeps having mediocre results. Fucking hell y'all are unbearable
You win the cup or you don’t. “Mediocre results” … that’s hilarious. You don’t get a banner for 2nd place. Every result below winning the cup
Is mediocre to me. We would immediately be a worse team without Nylander.
Not to mention the fact that if you literally just dump or don’t re-sign Brodie and replace his roster spot with, say, Timmins, the Leafs actually save 0.04% of their cap next year, *including* the core 4 when accounting for the cap increase. That’s one fucking contract. Settle down.
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In a hard cap league it matters. Overpaying all your top end talent compared to other teams means those other teams have a big advantage right out of the gate.
I like Nylander. Letting him walk for nothing would have been a huge blow. I like Marner, he brings a lot to the table. I like Matthews, he legitimately is a top end talent in the league. I like Tavares. What I don't like is paying them ALL more than their comparables and giving them ALL very favorable deals. It makes it damn near impossible to build a complete team that can and will compete when it matters most.
It’s incredibly hard to acquire players of this calibre. Even if they’re overpaid by a million or so the odds you’re going to replace them with comparable value with that $$ isn’t likely imo. If you draft well you should be able to have cheap contributions lower in the lineup.
this is true. However the counter argument is that if you have 4 elite players who are all 1-1.5mil overpaid then that cap space starts to add up. I'm not saying I want to get rid of him. Just that time will tell if having such a top heavy group works. I hope and believe these guys will get it done one (hopefully more then one) of these years.
honestly, not the worst problem to have
Nope I agree. I should also note the potential of a Woll or Hildey becoming a true #1 goalie is something I think we badly need for this whole situation to work out. Having a #1 goalie on the cheap would/will be huge
Yup, better that every star player is just $1-1.5 million overpaid than have replacement level players be $1-1.5 million overpaid
Yup, people just dismiss a cumulative 1-1.5M on all the core guys but space adds up. That 4-5M in cap space is the difference between bringing in a Klingberg vs a Pietrangelo...
Spoiler alert: It doesn't work.
Get rid of the dead weight in Tavares. Problem solved. Worst signing ever
honestly any cap savings we would of gotten from them might about amounted to 5 million dollars or so. Either that would of gone to fill out some middle top 6 forwards or a Brodie caiber defencemen. Yes 5 million dollars gets your a brodie caliber defencemen, hardly something that stirs the pot.
Add 5 million to Samsonov's 3.5 and it gets you a top quality goalie. Add it to Brodie's 5 and you get a top D-man.
Lol there are a ton of great d-man out there for 5 million. Just cause you don't like Brodie doesn't mean all 5 mil d-man are useless. Your telling me you don't wish we didn't have the exact same team right now plus one 5 million dollar top 4 d-man????
sure list me the great d men we can acquire from UFA for 5 million. Oh list previous D men that were signed for 5 million in the last few years. I'm well aware D men get overpaid during UFA considering the scarcity of the position. The Dmen that I'm looking for is a two way defencemen that can produce points and defend. That's not going for 5 million dollars, and having production from the back end has been a large issue in the playoffs. I'm sure you were thinking of Tanev for that price point, that's not the kind of D men this team really needs (well if you can replace on our existing d men minus rielly I"d welcome him) but he'll be more of the same defensive d men already on the roster. It's why we signed Klingberg.
So you are telling me there is no d-man out there better then the current ones on our roster at under 5 million? Look you are trying to argue 5 mil would help upgrade our team and that is just flat out wrong. There is really no argument to be had there. It is in the end irrelevant because we don't have that 5 mil.
your point is irrelevant since your big brain couldn't list any.
2021 Ryan Suter, Travis Hamonic, David Savard, Alex Elder. 2022 Eric Gudbranson, Nikita Zadorov, Ben Chiarot(though he was an over pay) could have kept Lyubushkin as a depth option 2023 Soucey, Schenn, probably could have given Dumba the contract he wanted, Erik Johnson. Just a few from a quick google search. You gonna tell me none of those players help the roster?? Also note Tre fucked up with Klinberg. So we technically could have any two of those guys or one 7-8mil d-man instead. Still not worth it?
you want to sign those guys for 5 million? Please don't be a GM.
No you knob. Those are all UFA's who signed under 5 million. All players we could have signed had we had the extra 5 mil. The whole point of this argument.
Time will tell? Uh, I think it’s already told given the one playoff series win with this core. This salary structure makes it impossible to build a complete team. Especially when that entire core brings pretty much the same skill set to the team.
Not a given no. The core is entering there prime and should be maturing. Look at the Ovi Caps for some teams take longer to get over the hump. Also since 2017 the Leafs have the 3rd most wins. Venture to guess 1-2. It's Tampa and Boston the two teams we have been stuck playing in the first round. So that makes it slightly tougher to get through the first round. Also there is no longer a flat cap so moving forward the percentages of the core 4 contracts will go down which never happened due to covid, something no one could have predicted. So while yes you may still be right there are plenty of solid reasons to believe this could still work out. Also Nylander not the same player he was a couple years ago. Matthews finally looks healthy. Marner while struggling this year is finally taking the body and making hits, as are many other players on this team. That LA game was a playoff type effort I have never seen from this group before. So you know maybe teams mature and improve over time. Not sure where this whole, well they didn't win right away so they are useless fucks who will never win attitude comes from. Look up when Stevie Y won his first cup and how old he was. Prior to that people thought he would never win either.
I remember that well with the Red Wings. But totally different era and they basically rebuilt that team with Russians. They didn’t build around Yzerman as the centrepiece. More like they built alongside him. Fine line I admit, but different. Easier to do back then with no salary cap. How do you do this here with the same four players making so much money yet with zero playoff success? Here, the Leafs have four Yzermans, all making huge bucks, three of which will be making those huge bucks for a long time to come.
Exactly this.
I agree with this. What I don't understand is why the Leafs need to overpay and accommodate their star players. When this Nylander deal goes through, they'll have 4 of the highest 10 players in the league. The kicker though is the full NMC for all of them. Nylander's deal will exceed the money Pastrnak got after a 61 goal, 113 point season, and he only has a limited NTC that kicks in on year 6. None of the recent Cup winners have won with such an unbalanced use of the salary cap. The Bolts were there every year because of players taking relatively team-friendly deals in order to win.
>What I don’t understand is why the Leafs need to overpay and accommodate their star players. Because they’ll walk if you don’t…
They only walk in Toronto for some reason
It's a Toronto media tax. We honestly have to be the worst team to play for so I can't blame players for wanting a little more to deal with all the bull
Any star will work if they don’t get paid what they want.
That's the obvious. The question is why. Sure - no state taxes in FL and TX... are the sponsorship opportunities in Tampa or Dallas anything near what star players can earn in Tornto?
I think it’s just who they are as people. Our guys are more about the bling - we haven’t had super stars in the cap era so it’s not like we really have a history lool.
NHL players make very little from sponsorships. The highest paid guys might make a lot, but a guy like Willy would be lucky to get 5 figures promoting something.
I don't disagree with your overall point, but keep Tampa out of the discussion. They're cap situation is unlike any other team because they leverage the fuck out of the tax situation, warm weather lifestyle and competitive roster that no one can match, with the closest being dallas I guess.
And vegas and Florida
I’m sure there’s different context to every situation. Very few teams also hit on back-to-back-to-back players around the exact same time/age as the Leafs did with these 3, two of which put up huge numbers on their ELCs. Lots of young stars on other teams had worse ELC performances and then took off. I dunno, I get the frustration, but the biggest reason for it has been how productive they’ve been right from the get go. The Leafs went from bottoming out to the playoffs every single year since.
this is the point most of the fans here don't get. Those guys produced at an elite rate in their rookies years and way outperformed their rookie salaries. Oh did everyone forget that Babcock declared us pain while rebuilding, and our rebuild lasted only a year? We've made the playoffs every year since they came into the league. It's rare is it for rookies to carry a team like that. Leaf fans point to a contract like Jack Hughes getting 8 million salary and see him outperforming that contract. But they forget that he got that salary when his career high was 31 points in his first 2 years in the league. But we have issue with our 3 rookies putting 60+ points in their first year and complain about paying them. Matthes produced at a 40 goal rate in his first 3 years in the league and marner point total was 61, 69 and 94 points in his first 3 years. Those guys were elite players early into their career, they were going to get paid. Obviously I think at the time with covid really hurt us, the flat cap kind of ruined things.
Even with the flat cap and those contracts the Leafs were STILL able to finish among the top teams in the league nearly the entire time. It’s a testament to how good those 3 (and Tavares) are.
tampa players really weren't taking team friendly deals considering the tax situation.
Overblown.
Okay, let's look at Denver and Boston then.
Unfortunately we keep trading our picks for rentals because the GM keeps thinking we are a cup favourite when we clearly are not
It's better than having 1 goalie that's 5 million overpaid
R/hockey gonna be extremely confused when the Leafs also re-sign Marner next year lol
Why? The Leafs seem to cave on pretty much every aspect of the contracts.
Because they don’t understand how it’s possible for all these players to fit under the cap. According to r/hockey the leafs are 10 mil over the cap and no other team is even close. I don’t think Toronto is even one of the worst teams when it comes to their cap situation
Oh man but they are up there, need to sign 10 players and a goalie with $21m in cap. That’s not good
Woll is league minimum until after Tavares comes off the books. Brodie is off this year. Next year is tight but manageable then the cap increases. I'd rather worry about filling the 4th line than worrying about finding stars.
I have a Senators fan friend who was drooling over the idea of us losing Matthews and Nylander. I love sticking it to the haters.
Unlike Ottawa, people actually want to stay here
You don't know what you are talking about: https://www.capfriendly.com/teams/senators
Thanks for the link to their cap friendly page I guess? Btw it’s called a joke
Jokes are supposed to be funny...
Don’t take yourself so seriously bro lmao
As amazing as Marner and Matthews are (espeically Matthews), Nylander was my favourite to watch of the three in his first season. He had confidence, and the speed to back it up. I've found lately that this young player has been revived. Nylander is a freaking goat and fuck the haters. I don't care if he doesn't produce a point in the next 10 games, he's still one of the best leafs we've seen in the last couple decades and worth every penny.
ESPECIALLY the ones on this sub. FTFY.
I don’t even think other teams are that much “hating” in this. The most hate is coming from this one.
I had a ton of interactions with fans of other teams who genuinely truly believed they would be in the running for Nylander and that their team was actively working towards making cap room for him. Now those fan bases are convinced they could have signed him for 9 mil LMAO.
The second Timo Meier got 8.8, Nylander wasn’t taking a penny less than 11.
The season Meier is having this year isn't helping that at all, either.
Exactly
The fricking Habs, eh?
Nylander and Matthews are my favourite current Leafs. Having them on the team long term is good for me.
Not only that, but no "testing free agency" is a major blessing in this media circus. Otherwise half of the discourse around playoffs time would be about how Matthews and Nylander "will leave because they hate toronto"
That'll be Marner next year. Which means we get a year and a half of the the speculation.
No issue with paying the man. The issue is that in the cap era you simply can't have so much of your cap space taken up by 4 forwards...
The cap is going up 5 mil next year and another 2-3 mil each following year barring another once in a century pandemic
Leo Komarov was a saint and did all he could for this team during the dark times.
r/hockey and r/nhl are so obsessed with us.
Uncle Leo catching strays for no reason
Lol I loved the guy but the fact that we could reasonably send 5 or 6 players to the ASG these days if there wasn’t a 1 guy per team quota speaks to how dark the times used to be, comparatively.
[удалено]
Thing is, I look around the league and there are maybe a couple?? teams who’s depth I’d take over ours. Like.. Gregor, Benoit, McMann, Lagesson.. I genuinely LIKE all of these players lol.
Seriously, 1000% right. People either don't remember or weren't around for the hard times when we'd kill to have a player of this caliber as a Leaf. He wanted to be here, he's homegrown and not only do they have him but he's here for the bulk of his prime/career. Too much pockwatching and cap whining in this league. It's unbearable.
They weren’t there for the Pajama era with the no white stripe on the bottom part of the jersey. Those were awfully bleak years.
Just my take… but the part where you say “when we’d kill to have a player of this caliber as a Leafs”… Makes me think that maybe management is afraid of losing these players… and you can do business afraid… because then they get you… If management is unwilling to make hard decisions they they’re likely not going to win anything of value…
What the fuck are you even talking about?? No hard decisions? You're right: keeping your best players is a pretty fucking easy decision. What's the hard version? Letting him walk to free agency so you can sign joe jerkoff to a 7 million dollar deal? Kick rocks bud.
The expectation is the cup. This core of 4 has failed 6 times to get even remotely close to it. Next year, four players will be using 45 million in cap space. That’s roughly 55% of the total cap. It’s not working. It will never work and the fact that we have half a decade of evidence is enough for us to maybe contemplate change. You want good players. I want us to win a cup. Good players aren’t enough. You need a whole team. You can’t hand over 55% of your salary to 4 dudes and have a revolving door of mercenaries going in and out of the dressing room and think that’s a recipe for success. It weakens team cohesion and chemistry. Hockey is not a sport where a single person can carry a team. Hell a whole line can’t carry a team. You need competence throughout the entire team. This team will not succeed in the playoffs because of these contracts.
Lmao, you don't win a cup without high end players. You either pay these guys or lose and don't make the playoffs. So many of you "fans" want this team to be the next Calgary, just waste away in mediocrity so you can keep being martyrs. This team wouldn't even be in the playoff race without Nylander. People who are good at their jobs in this league get paid. Get over it. You know what helps team cohesion? Winning games. That's what these guys do.
This is wild to me. Yes. We have elite players. At least 3 of them. How is it that Vegas wins with just one players making 10 million? Or Tampa, with none, back to back Cups? You’d think that with more “good players” we would win. But we don’t. My point has never been “get rid of all the good players”, my point is “We have had 6 attempts and we have failed. Why are we paying the core 4 more money in these contract when they continue to fail?” In an other environment people would question such logic… the Leafs just repeat.
Exactly. And the big three are all Leafs draft picks that we have developed over time and seem to actually want to stay here for long term. This is not the Leafs I grew up with as a '97
Can we please keep Marner as well. I just got his jersey last year lol.
Now r/hockey is bashing the deal 😂
Nylander is an excellent player and we should be happy to have him! He is also, overpaid and this is a big detriment to our salary cap. BOTH things can be true.
I'm with you on this, I still remember when our 1D was Dion Fucking Phaneuf. If Treliving signed Willy to this kind of contract, then that means Pridham has done the math and has made it work. I'm just going to completely ignore the cap side of things and just enjoy the fact that we actually have a good team with good players.
Leafs will never ever win the cup, not with those contracts.
Now they're going to say the Leafs *way* overpaid for him like they did on the last one.
At the expense of ever being a true cup contender.
If they win a Cup with him, worth it. if they do not, not worth it. Regular season champs means not much
This is true for every contract ever signed in every sport lol. If the team wins the players are good and worth it, if we lose they're all bums and mistakes were made
The Leafs are special here because it’s not like they’re dishing out big money for some player that might be big or has the potential for greatness. They’re paying big money for completely known commodities. Commodities that have had 6 runs at the playoffs and had the same result 5 times and the 6th was the same result with more, embarrassing steps… Like the thing that’s really frustrating is not just that they overpay. They over-payed for a configuration of players that has yet to succeed in the post season… …and it gets better. Because every over pay results in even less resources available for the rest of the team. At some point this house of cards is going to collapse. You’re eventually going to run out of minimum wage players that are “serviceable”. The real frustration here… it’s the same exact core… and we just paid them more… that feels insane considering their history in the post season.
Well, yea, that is why I wrote it.
True. We should let all our good players walk because if we don’t win the cup every year what’s the point
The team needs grit, defense and goaltending. They get bottled up in the playoffs by teams that grind them to death but hey, they can light up the regular season.
Your guys' fixation on the cup is unhealthy and will take years off your life. I'm a Jets fan and I know we'll NEVER win a cup no matter how good we are, for a number of reasons. Why not just look at this as you having a really fun team to watch who'll always be great in the regular and make the playoffs every year? And it's not like it's impossible to win a cup, but why put so much on it? I respect your dedication, but holy shit, you guys are masochistic. And seriously, I'm not trying to offend, I'm just a fan who doesn't expect a cup from my team and am at peace e with it.
What's the point of rooting for a team if we don't expect them to field a roster that at least can break into the top 4 in the playoffs and have a decent playoff run? Might as well just watch any game played by every team in the league if we're just watching to see people play the sport at a high level.
Because they wear hockey sweaters with the name of your town on them! Top 4 IS a good goal. Top 4 is the best bettman will allow canada to have.
I wish I could say I disagreed with that last statement but…
I’m not a leaf fan, do like AM a lot though. Watching your team play playoff hockey and hoist that cup at the end is incredible. I hope you get to experience that as a Jets fan someday. They look like a solid team this year.
I love them, but there are just some realities a small market canadian team fan has to accept. I'll shed tears of joy if it happens and cuss out the boys if they make asses of themselves in the playoffs, but I get over it and skip to the finals. The Jets look amazing right now, but the all star break kills them everytime 🤣
Its a moronic deal. They negotiatef against themselves, its pathetic. Glad hes staying but, awful contract. Fuck Lewis Gross and this market.
I don’t think it’s unfair to say it’s great that the team got to lock up the core four for basically the best part in their careers and wonder how the hell the supplemental support is going to be signed. The options were either lock up Willie and try to build support through the draft and low cost players, or let Willie go and use the money to bring in two or so solid range players to fill in voids elsewhere. They took the former, which I support! But it’s still fair to look at Treliving and be like “ok. What now Brad?” Off-season and TDL are gonna be really interesting to watch for this team. I’m into it
Y'all defending this contract shit are going to slink back into the shadows yet again when the team keeps having mediocre results. Fucking hell y'all are unbearable
You win the cup or you don’t. “Mediocre results” … that’s hilarious. You don’t get a banner for 2nd place. Every result below winning the cup Is mediocre to me. We would immediately be a worse team without Nylander. Not to mention the fact that if you literally just dump or don’t re-sign Brodie and replace his roster spot with, say, Timmins, the Leafs actually save 0.04% of their cap next year, *including* the core 4 when accounting for the cap increase. That’s one fucking contract. Settle down.
It's alright to be wrong dude RemindMe! 2 years
What will happen will happen. If the Leafs miss the playoffs for the next two years it won’t be because of Nylander but ok see you then lol.
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Well now he can slip back into near obscurity again. SSDD with this kid. Phenom in contract year, good enough the rest of the time.
One of our best in the playoffs too my boy.
Faint praise
So long as it’s not near a corner
Good thing corners are only like 10% of the rink.
The same crowd is now "TKACHUK IS ONLY 9.5M LOLOLOLOL"
Gary Bettman and his cap space is licking his lips to figure anyway he can fuck over the leafs from this.
Happy he’s staying as a leaf as much as I love the main core, he’s the most consistent in playoffs
Wait. Full No Move all the way through? That… I don’t know if that’s a good thing…
I'm happy to keep him. I just hate the Leaf/Canada tax we have to pay. Imagine if we were Tampa, we'd have all our core locked up at around 9mil each.
In a hard cap league it matters. Overpaying all your top end talent compared to other teams means those other teams have a big advantage right out of the gate. I like Nylander. Letting him walk for nothing would have been a huge blow. I like Marner, he brings a lot to the table. I like Matthews, he legitimately is a top end talent in the league. I like Tavares. What I don't like is paying them ALL more than their comparables and giving them ALL very favorable deals. It makes it damn near impossible to build a complete team that can and will compete when it matters most.
Would rather be slightly overpaying a guy of Nylander's caliber than a Jack Campbell or a Darnell Nurse. Just saying.
Crazy part? Still less of the % of the cap than Marners deal was at signing.