Quoting: T0R
I disagree, the one major factor is that last season for Terry is a huge outlier for him, he has had over 30+ goals once & before that even hitting 20 seemed unlikely, it’s a massive risk on the Leafs part & that is without considering that tbh if Zegras,McTavish & Drysdale develop well, they will 100% be playoff contenders in 1-2 years time, Their prospect pool is deep as any & you guarantee an at least 60+ point player in Willy who is only 26 & not to make excuses but If you look at the numbers of Nylander on even the 3rd line last season with Kampf & Mikheyev he boosts xGF by nearly 5-10% he is a great playmaker as well as scorer who is proven, Terry has his one outlier season, Imo this is a risk for the Leafs more than Anahiem, I agree that Terry is cheaper & will definitely be cheaper on his next deal but i don’t understand how you look at Terry like a core star after one huge jump in production that he hasn’t even had glimpses of beforehand, Leafs at most add a second but definitely not Hirvonen
Look, it's quibbling, but to me an "outlier" season is 31-year-old Nazem Kadri beating his previous career high by 25 points; something like a 24 year old Troy Terry jumping to being a 37 goal scorer after basically 1.5 season's worth of NHL games under his belt is something I'd call more of a "breakout/making the leap/etc" kind of year. Terry didn't have enough of a track record coming into last year to draw much of a conclusion from.
And again, you can't simply ignore the cap circumstances this summer. Oliver Bjorkstrand has settled into a very nice groove as a 25-30 goal scorer, is a year older than Nylander and signed to a deal that's got more term and costs less, and Columbus basically gave him away for nothing. Max Pacioretty is older than Nylander and had bad injury luck last year, sure, but he's also scored at a better pace than Nylander over the last 3 years(75-79-154 in 158 GP vs. 82-99-181 in 200 GP), had the same cap hit with only one year left, and Vegas had to add a young roster player to get him off their cap.
Toronto, as it currently stands, is going to just barely get by icing a 20 man roster (22 guys on NHL contracts, $1.49M over the cap). Saving ~$5.5M by turning an 80 point Willie Nylander into a 67 point(on a much worse team) Troy Terry is something that the Leafs are going to have to pay up for - Anaheim isn't in the business of helping out other teams out of the goodness of their hearts, and with two very recent, very comparable examples to point at, they're going to have all the ability to push for a strong return if you want Terry.