That's the most realistic one I've seen.

Shore makes the team

Seems like a fairly significant overpay on what would otherwise be a bridge deal, at least as far as term. If Marner wanted 3 years (which I do not believe is the case), he would have to accept something around, and probably under $7 million. The ideal situation is a 6 year deal, which would ensure his contract doesn't expire when Matthews' and Nylander's does. And I expect that AAV would come around $10 million.

I agree that all of this sounds logical, but the scope of this contract and term is very team friendly and my opinion is that Marner's camp is not in the business of making team friendly deals. And I can understand why Marner's camp is pushing back given how the Leaf's front office handled Matthews' deal.

Matthews' got: the perfect term; an amazing and "overpaid" AAV relative to his career success; and the perfect contract structure (bonus heavy). So when Marner's camp sees the Leafs give Matthews' everything without any major pushback, why wouldn't they push hard to get as close to that deal as possible? I get that people will use the Matthews' is a centre argument and goals are worth more argument, but what could Marner have done more in the past two seasons? Remember, Marner didn't get the full entry level bonuses and Matthews did; Marner got sent down to the fourth line when he was "struggling", but when Matthews' went 13 games without a point in his rookie year Babcock never sent him down to the fourth line; Marner proved to stay healthy and produce the past two seasons while Matthews' battled injuries. For context, I'm not hating on Matthews' - he's unbelievable and generally deserving of his contract. But if your Marner's camp, are you really going to stomach the front office telling you - again - that you won't get what Matthews' gets despite being an all-around more impact player who's effective in all situations? I can see why they're holding out and I know people will criticize this stance, but I can understand where Marner's camp is coming from. It's not their role to all of a sudden be team-friendly when Nylander's deal (to an extent) and Matthews' deals weren't.

I put the full blame on all these Leafs' RFA negotiations firmly upon the shoulders of our rookie GM. Had he negotiated earlier on with Nylander, a precedent of "holding out" would have never been set. I am more aggravated over the hold out, then on the AAV they settled it with that one. But then comes Matthews, and I would agree with most of what you said in analyzing those negotiations. In the Matthews' negotiation, I was pissed off both with term (should have been longer for the money he got) and the AAV should have been less, in my opinion. If Tavares, an established, still young, #1 centre gets x amount, Matthews, especially on a 5 year deal, should not have gotten more. That was a huge fail in my opinion.

Word around Leafland is that they want Marner signed at the start of camp. Although nothing has been said yet, or agreed to internally, management has at least discussed a hard deadline. Meaning that if doesn't sign by x date, the Leafs will go through the entire season without him. It's a harsh but perhaps necessary move. Honestly, at this point, I would have absolutely no issue with the Leafs making an example out of Mitch Marner.

I agree with everything you said - great points. And bingo - had Dubas called Nylander's bluff and used the CBA against him and made him sit-out a year without gaining anything, then I think the Marner negotiations have a way different trajectory than they currently do. What I still don't understand is why GMs are feeling the need to capitulate to RFAs (i.e., generally year 4 players), when the CBA was designed and agreed upon by both the players and owners to not give players of that category any leverage. So the player doesn't like the deal, holds out, sits out, then asks for a trade? It's not the NBA , GMs should be maximizing control as long as possible, and I'm player first for almost everything and want them to get paid. But don't do it just because 1-2 GMs made bad RFA deals.

At minimum, I think we will see the next CBA include some sort of ADR process with new deadline (aka start of camp) to deal with all first year RFA players so this doesn't happen in the future. It looks terrible on the NHL when their elite young players are holding out. As for the Leafs specifically, Kyle lacks quality and assertive negotiation skills. That's going to be an ongoing problem.