Quoting: jaok3
So your going to trade Marner for a guy who's best season is less then half the points as Marner. So last season the 2 of them combined had the same point total as Marner did. So your saying their combined salaries would be 14.5 million. So why not keep Marner and his 90+ points a year and sign Sandin at 2.5 million and you have around the same cap hit. You trade Kerfoot, the cap goes up 1 million and Kessels 1.2 million comes off the books. So now you have 9.7 million to sign Reilly and a forward to replace Kerfoot.
You are criminally underrating Chabot in this deal my friend. He is a true #1 Dman, that replaces Reilly going forward, and is signed to a perfect contract. Thats why the deal "balances out", and even I as a leafs fan feel as if TOR would have to give more to make this deal work.
Regardless, The premise of this deal was to A, find the perfect replacement for Hyman (brady check), B, Find the long term replacement for Rielly after this season or if he gets traded (Chabot check), C, a major shake up for these guys that seem to continously choke in the biggest games of the season. The team they are built rn are built for Regular season success, not post season. its been evidently clear for the last 4 post seasons. I'm not disagreeing with you that Marner is the best player in this deal, however, this deal helps the Leafs long term, and rounds them out better then they are now.
Also, Matthews makes 11.6. He shouldnt need to an 11mill winger to set him up. Nylander can and has done that before just fine. Any player that you look around the league thats 5/6/7 mill cap hit can do that for Matthews. Hes a superstar and a line driver for a reason