Sandin is certainly worth a lot more than a cap dump.

cap dump to the isles, best goaltender of the century to the leafs

Keep telling yourselves that. A what 35 year old backup making 5 million. Yeah he's all yours.

keep losing in the first round since you enjoy it so much

Better than missing the playoffs and coming back with one of the oldest teams in the league and massive amounts of future dead cap space. You are already desperately wanting to shed 5 million dollars of dead weight backup goalie. The 5 or 6 30+ year olds with term and too much money are going to do so well as they get older.

If 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 have taught me anything, it’s that Leaf fans think they know a littttttttttttttttle more than they actually do about winning in the NHL. They would be significantly better with Varlamov than any other free agent goaltender.

He’s a backup for us because our starter is a top-five goalie in hockey. Varlamov was the primary starter when we made the semi-finals in back-to-back years and still very good. He’s a borderline top-10 goalie, even at 35. If the leafs want to finally make it out of the first round next year, having a proven playoff performer in net will be definitely help.

People forget that Varlamov playing in a “defensive system” probably robbed him of the Vezina in 2021. Put that guy on a team that scores goals and I genuinely think he wins it. I’m not exactly salivating at the chance to lose the guy, ya know?

Exactly. He’s often in trades for islanders ACGMs because although we’d love to have arguably the best goalie tandem in hockey, we can’t afford to pay 5 mil to our “backup” goalie that would be a starter on like 75% of the other teams in the league when we have more pressing needs, like LHD and a scoring winger. That doesn’t make him a cap dump, it makes him a cap casualty.

No matter how good you think they are, Backup goalies do not equal 22 year old dmen with years of top 4 / PP quarterback potential. Lou traded Toews for 2 and rounders (b/c he backed himself into having to make a cap dump); lucky to get much of anything for varly

Cool story from a non playoff team

Are the Leafs REALLY a playoff team though

Best goaltending ever for the team with the best record in the league eh?

Very clearly yes