Banni
Rejoint: mars 2018
Messages: 6,784
Mentions "j'aime": 1,915
For the most part, your bang on. Leafs have preached patience and development since Shanahan took over and they've stuck to the plan since. However, I could see a few changes coming:
1) lots of reports that Matthews could be looking at a 5 or 6 year deal which would bring his cap hit down. IMO that's where the Toews deal is a comparable, $10.5M for 5 years or so. On an 8 year deal it's been reported that it will just cost too much and not fit the Leafs cap plans. $11M on an 8 year deal doesn't get him done. At 8 years you're looking north of $12.5M and likely around $13M. People might think it's high cause it's higher than McDavid's deal, but the cap goes up next season and will probably continue to go up so it makes it seem like it's a lot but cap percentage it would be around McDavid's deal
2) That defence core is worse than this seasons. Hainsey has to go, sure he's a veteran presence but he's too slow for this team and league. Other veterans can be brought in that can still keep up and make smarter decisions
3) better backup goalie is going to be needed. You can argue that Sparks is good enough or he's not (I'd say he's not) but Babcock clearly doesn't trust him. Freddy's gonna need more rest as he ages and the backup has to play more than just the second half of a back to back. That could very well be part of the reason Freddy missed 8 games this year. Another veteran goalie could be brought in on a cheap deal, maybe less than $1M and save some cap space but it's an area that needs to be addressed
Overall, your thoughts are pretty good though. But the comparison to Detroit is far off because they had a defence core that could contend every year for a cup, the Leafs don't have that and you'd be naive to think that. Dubas has said he's looking to upgrade the defence so I can't see them going into next season with virtually the same 6 guys and no one added