they'd be worse and Kadri would have gotten suspended for going after PLD when he cheapshotted Muzzin

They'd have cap space to build a hockey team

Yesterday is a cancelled cheque. Tomorrow is a promissory note. Only today is legal tender.

Move on. Whats done is done.

yeah, they might even be able to sign a UFA who could contribute to the team in a huge way! they should do that, maybe get a guy who can score 47 goals in a season for em

The team likely would’ve been Much worse the past 2 seasons then they were and those FA’s would be less inclined to come here

Leafs decline

Then they'd be worse off. The reality is the Leafs were going to have to trade Kadri eventually. It's a bad deal in hindsight, but it looked like a good deal at the time. The majority of Leafs fans had been pining for Barrie for five years and were ecstatic when the deal was made. If they hadn't made that trade, then we'd been on here today reading a million proposals about how the Leafs should trade Kadri to free up cap space to overpay Barrie. At least this way we got him a year early and found out he's not worth it.

How's that worked out?

pretty good so far. I mean the first year they took one of the best teams in the league to 7 games despite having their 2nd best defender near crippled with a back injury, then the year after they had a few rough spots. both of their best defenders went down hurt for long periods of time, had really bad goaltending for like 2 months including an injured starter, then said player had a broken finger and missed almost 10 games with a broken finger, but he still was just under a ppg despite playing injured for a bit, and then they got goalied in some weird play in tournament due to a global pandemic.
You know, things that totally would have been fixed with 6 mill more in cap space

Six million defender that can kill penalties would make a huge difference for leafs yes. Or putting money into their bottom six could've helped a great del. Also Tavares contract probably raised the Matthews/marner deals by at least a million per year each

it really wouldnt have made a difference, especially with the compounded issues. And no, Tavares' contract didnt impact the other contracts at all since that's not how UFA vs RFA works

Matthews and marner very well can say they're not worth 2-3 million less than Tavares, rfa have less power but not the superstars, also they tens to have an ego with their self worth of contracts

and dubas would have said "that is because he has a UFA deal and you do not". Matthews got that money because he's arguably the best goal scorer in the league. Marner got it because, well he got over paid but it wasnt because of tavares

Agree to disagree, I think it didn't help in those negotiations.

i mean, sure if you want to completely make something up and assume it had an effect despite zero evidence, ok