If you think Jared Spurgeon will make more money than barrie please do not post on this site anymore

If you think he doesn't deserve to, don't post on this site anymore

this, although 9 mil is a lot to swallow, Spurgeon is super under-rated

I am not sure why you would not allocate that money a little better. Re-signing Muzzin and Barrie should take precedent over any new defenders, and with Sandin and Liljegren probably ready by then, that's 6 D when you include Rielly and Dermott as well. Next, Barrie is not getting $8 million on his next contract. Muzzin will probably get something like $5.5 million AAV. Gauthier is replaceable. No reason for Pysyk either.

The main reason for this is, if you look at teams that tend to go the distance, they have depth in their defence. In case of injury the defence doesn't turn into a sieve. That is why I made sure I had strong defenders and had depth, it is not a bad thing to let defence cook a while in the minors and take them out when they are ready at 22 or 23. That way when they make the show, they are really ready.

Looks at the forward lineup because the the Leafs went RHD crazy.....Petan, SDA, Marchment on the wings? Uggh. Cheap and good ELC Liljegren and Sandin are expected be Leafs.

Defence is a more tighter position than offence, You can decide to bench the 4th line of minors and run a game on 3 lines offence, but you can't run a good solid game on the back of 4 defencemen (unless you have 4 really good ones), it is better to run it on 5 , and the 6th taking less time, or run all 6.

That being said, I would have preferred a more solid offence than what I have now, but There is too much money tied up in offence on a fist full of players.

I rather have a solid defence than have a weak defence.

I wonder if Barrie is really that "solid". Sure he racked up a lot of PP points but he is deserving to be paid so much?

That is a good point, but pp points are still good since those goals hopefully equal wins. We will wait and see to see how the season progresses. Good thing too since his camp wants to wait until the end of the year to decide on an extension.