I was thinking the same thing I don't think this is a bad contract for Matthews/Toronto, but I might be inclined to take 2 Hagels...

Yup agreed. Leafs fans are going to have to wait quite awhile for a cup at this point. The high risk of having large contracts with high $$ like this is very scary as if 1 player gets in a career ending injury, then thats a huge whole and they become cap strapped very fast

A career ending injury is obviously bad because you've lost your best player, but they effectively get back the cap hit to use on other players when he goes on LTIR, so it's not much different from if he had left as a UFA. A much worse scenario would be if he continues to play but for some reason can't play at the same level, or he develops an ongoing health issue that has him in and out of the lineup all the time.

I was told by Canucks fans that it would cost a second to move Kerfoot and a 2nd to dump Holl

crazy how both those guys got as much or more money in free agency, almost as if they're not bad players, and it was just the leafs' cap crunch... canucks fans had no business taking cap dumps anyway after they gave up a 2nd just to dump Dickinson

It's crazy... But Holl was awful in the playoffs though

I mean its easy Matthews

Top 5 C's dont grow on Tree's

You can find guys like Hagel for cheap via FA

not a huge win. such a stretch lmao. Good luck addressing the gaping issues in the lineup such as defence and goaltending!

not arguably, Mackinnon is a clear much better player.

Name me a star who hasn't signed 8 years. We will wait.

Still thinking the leafs have D issues in 2023 is a massive L



Players to sign for over 12% with less than 7Y: Datsyuk, Thornton x2, Gaborik x2, Malkin, Heatley, Iginla, Drury, Crosby, Redden, Boyle, Lundqvist, B. Richards, Phaneuf, Luongo, Kovalchuk, Hossa x2, Lecavalier, Niedermayer, Pronger, Khabibulin, Jovanovski, Havlat, Timonen, Giguere, Smyth, Vokoun, B. McCabe, O. Jokinen, Brodeur, St. Louis, R. Nash, Gonchar, and a bunch of others at 11%

All these leaf haters venting their fragile emotions all over this tread LOL

it's embarrassing as a fan of another team...GET YOURSELVES TOGETHER PEOPLE 😂😂😂

Lol cry hater

You sir are what they call a "naysayer"

It's odd to argue against the statement "most star players sign for 8".
Of the top 50 highest payed players in the NHL today, only 8 have less term than 7 years, and 2 of those are Ovechkin/Bäckström, who signed their deals when they were 30+.

Well that makes more sense! Not first in blocked shots/60 though, not that it matters all that much.

Yeah another guy said you meant among forwards. Although that is not what you actually wrote, you stated that "Matthews lead the league in blocked shots last season".

You can? Who is the cheapest 30+ goal FA?

Just thinking about Matthews new deal, which I believe is a good deal for the club.

However, only in isolation. And in a cap world, you can;t just go by pts. Its a good deal because its a smallish 11% increase for 4 years and Matthews is still in his prime. Its a bad deal IMO because the leafs still dont have the money or resources now or moving into the future to address whats gone wrong for 7 years now, because of the team structure which is being continued.

If Matthews is worth 13.2mil then why isn;t nylander worth 9 or 10? If Matthews is worth 13.2, isn;t marner going to get 14-15 (as the cap grows) in 25-26? and you still have a ton of cap tied up in 3 forwards, few impact prospects or picks to fill in the gaps.

They have 13 UFAs/RFAs expiring after 23-24, who'll want coin as the cap goes up, with really only one high impact prospect (Niemala) in the system, and only 2 picks in the first 2 rounds of the next 3 drafts = so little internal help to fill important slots, which means more bargain basement shopping.

So if I look to justify Matthews at 13.2mil outside isolation of his singular re-signing:

He was 22nd in the league in pts, with 2 teammates ahead of him in pts, which justifies a massive increase for Nylander and a 14-15mil salary for marner as the cap wil increase agaiun by the time hes a UFA.
In comparison to others of his age, he was outscored by a 9.5mil Rantanen, a Matt Tkachuk at 9.5mil scored the same amount of goals but 24 more assists without the support Matthews has and led his team in pts and to the finals, so his 105 pts for 9.5mil is alot better than a Matthews at 13.2mil for 85pts, isn;t it? Or a Koneckny AND a Farabee at 10mil and a collective 100 pts better? Or a MacDavid, with 24 more goals and 153pts is worth 5-6-7-8mil more than Matthews?

Just dont know given the lack of futures they currently have and the lack of quality in the AHL/prospects that they can continue this team structure, even under a growing cap (as contract demands will grow with it). It seems to me that this has to be the final roll of the dice.

Again its a fair re-signing figure, based on his prior contract, but 13.2mil in that team structure for a player who hasn;t elevated himself or the team? And please stop calling him a generational talent. MacDavid is that generation's generational talent, and some could argue that Tkachuk is the more desired player from the Matthews draft.

Sure, you get cap relief from LTIR, but the big drawback is that it won't let you accrue cap space throughout the season, which makes things tricky if you want to make a splash at the TDL. So having a big dollar contract like that on LTIR more or less ensures that you will be unable to accrue any cap space at all.

These are all valid points, but you don’t solve this problem by letting your best player go. If you have a player like Matthews, you sign him, and you find a way to make it work. It’s not giving big money to superstars that hurts you. With most teams it’s usually guys who are getting $5-8M who aren’t living up to their contracts. Look at Nashville, who’s now carrying almost $9M in dead cap from buyouts and retained salaries, which will go up to nearly $12M next year.

What messes Toronto up is having Tavares at $11M for two more years on a contract that can’t be moved or bought out (they’re actually paying him less than $8M, but his cap hit is still $11M), not Matthews, Marner or Nylander. Tavares’s contract comes off the books in two years, and if he stays beyond that it should be at a much lower cap hit, so it’s really only the 2024-25 season that could be a challenge if they want to keep all of those guys. All good teams have to let good players go because of the cap, but if one of Toronto’s top players has to go, it shouldn’t be Matthews.

I agree somewhat, Matthews was always going to get a raise on that last contract, and certainly the change (that I think TOR has to do) probably doesn;t start with him. And we cant go back to the Tavares signing to restart what should have happened.

However, sometimes the BEST player or the BEST player in any trade is rarely the right one or best one for the team. Prior to last season, when he was on the block, too many leaf fans would have never thought that a matthews for tkachuk deal was fair, however in retrospect with tkachuk's production, overall play and difference in cap hit, probably would have been.

Too often quality players, quality depth but mid-paid (1.5-5mil) Leaf players have been dealt or left to UFA because the team has been cap strapped, even players of type of players they badly needed, only to maintain this team structure of paying so much at the top that there isnl;t anything for the middle. They've constantly traded futures to for one year fixes on perennial weaknesses (tons of picks for quality depth, grit guys like Foligno, Nash, O'Reilly, Accairi), constantly bargain basement shopped on vets, and all the while not developed youth (Knies is the first promising impact rookie in 5 seasons). Young guys like Sandin, Liljegren are now in their 6th pro season, and liljegren hasn;t been given the team faith to be a top 4 guy and was a health scratch in the playoffs.

So when you know the team is cap strapped and needs quality forward depth, you sign old man, one dimensional 4th line, 6-8 mins a game Reaves for 3 years for 1.3mil forcing a quality 3rd line 13-16 min a night Jarnkrot out?

Do I think TOR should have dealt Matthews? Of course not. But I'd be crazy to think that if FLA didn;t offer tkachuk and forsling for him, that I wouldn;t snap it up, or that if CGY offered dube and hanifan for nylander I wouldn;t bit their hand off? I think its good to bear in mind that TOR assets get overexaggerated and whats best for the team isn;t always the BEST player.

As we go through this year, which undoubtably will be as always a contending one, with more than half the team expiring contracts, just a single prospect of real impact in the system and having only 2 pick in the first 2 rounds of the next 3 years, just need to be aware that we might be doing the same thing year in-year out until 2030, only to maintain what we see as our BEST players staying in Toronto, even though they might not be the best players for the TEAM.

Lets see

Tyler Toffoli will cost less along with Debrusk, Olafsson to name a few rn.

6.5m for a guy like this is to much when in FA there are many options capable of achieving 30 goals and will cost 1 to 2m less

Meanwhile try to find a top 5 Center in FA its impossible non of the options compare

I see your point to a degree, but it mostly just makes me hate the cap. I don't think someone is selfish for asking for their value. I think someone is selfish for pushing for above their value, but them being too good to let leave for a mildly bad contract. Its only the cap that makes us care. The two of them are borderline generational players and deserve to be among the top paid in the league as they are.

The truth is, if either of them demanded 15, most of the leagues team would do it given the opportunity. They may not like doing it, but they would. But 15-16% of the cap for MVP caliber players in their prime isn't selfish, its appropriate

Holl's issue in Toronto has always been that he is a 3rd pairing defenseman playing second pairing. He is fine. Just not good.