Matthews by a lot
Scheifele depending on the year
Marner by a lot
Nylander, especially given his ceiling
Rielly, but it depends on if you like OFD or DFD more
I'm a Jets fan but I think most of the Leafs players listed here are better but not by as much as most think, but wow are the Jets ever in a way better contract situation then the Leafs are.
Matthews by a lot
Scheifele depending on the year
Marner by a lot
Nylander, especially given his ceiling
Rielly, but it depends on if you like OFD or DFD more
Ehlers>Nylander makes no sense. Nylander was on track for 71 pts and almost 40 goals, while Ehlers was on track for 67 pts (A full 4 pts less!) but way less goals and a worse 2-way game.
When Rielly is healthy he scores 70 pts with 20 goals. (He played months with a high ankle sprain this year.) He is also great in his own end and the ultimate PP QB. Morrissey puts up mediocre numbers (30-40 pts), roughly half what Rielly does. Of course he is great in his own end, and has a respectable DPS of 3.2. When Rielly is healthy, he has a DPS of 4.7, so theres that. (Mostly because when Rielly is on the ice the Leafs have the puck, A LOT!) I don't think Morrisey is bad, but he is not Morgan Rielly.
Ehlers>Nylander makes no sense. Nylander was on track for 71 pts and almost 40 goals, while Ehlers was on track for 67 pts (A full 4 pts less!) but way less goals and a worse 2-way.
The thing is when you’re comparing point totals here, you have to remember that Ehlers doesn’t play on the Jets PP1 unit while Nylander gets to plays on the Leafs’ PP1 unit. So for comparison’s sake, let’s just say Ehlers was on the PP1 unit in place of Connor, and you swap around their PP point totals (Obviously the point totals wouldn’t be exactly the same, but it would be close enough). Ehlers would have 6 more goals and 6 more assists, making his point total 70 in 71 games and would be on pace for 81 points (36g, 45a) for the whole 82 game season. So now with equal PP1 usage and 5v5 usage (they already play within 10 seconds of each other 5v5), Ehlers now has a 10 point advantage over a full season.
And even if their playing time wasn’t equalized, Ehlers is still the better scoring 5v5 player (2.71 5v5P/60 vs 2.41 5v5P/60 for Nylander).
Also if you want to look at all of them together, I’d take the Jets simply because of the cap difference ($29.1M for the Jets vs $45.5M for the Leafs). The Jets could fit Wheeler and Hellebuyck in that $15M gap and still have room for 2 more ELC players lol.