Quoting: palhal
Well, I don't necessarily agree the Leafs can/should sign Nylander long term. It's a 20 man roster as posted which is really impractical. But why even mention Marner and McCabe for 25/26. They are UFAs? Leafs don't have to pay those players either. Buit the Leafs can have cap as Tavares is off the book. McCabe? I'd been disappointed if the Leafs can 't find a LHD replacement.
A couple things here:
I mention Marner because you absolutely 100% re-sign him, especially when Nylander is the alternative. I mention McCabe because we'd be losing a top 4 D, not to mention the fact expecting Brodie to be worthy of top pair minutes on a contender in two years is optimistic at best. The money you save on Tavares in this scenario will immediately go to Knies, so where's your money for Woll, or Cowan, or Niemela, or a top 4 D through FA or trade?
I'll give you a hint: there isn't any, because we've literally watched this exact scenario play out already. We couldn't afford Knies' equivalent in Hyman and had to let him walk for nothing. We couldn't afford to keep Kadri and had to spend assets on rentals like Foligno and ROR to replace him, only to end up in the same position a year later with nothing to show for it. We couldn't afford to keep Andersen so we replaced him with negative value assets like Mrazek and Murray, only to have them start 0 playoff games while their presumptive "backups" posted a sub .900% in the playoffs two years in a row. We couldn't afford to replace our best defensive D man in Muzzin so we had to add 2 defensemen to the top 4 two years in a row with retention, spending considerable assets to do so and either watching them walk for nothing (Lyubushkin, Schenn) or asking way too much of them only to have them struggle when it mattered most (Gio, McCabe).
We've watched this playout over the last 7 years and have won a single game in the second round to show for it., IN 7 YEARS! WITH MATTHEWS, MARNER, TAVARES AND RIELLY!
I can't believe how obvious it is to not pay Nylander 10 mil until he's 36.... We can spend that on Matthews, Marner, Berttuzzi, Woll, Rielly, Niemela, Cowan, Minten, top 4 defensemen etc. instead. From day one we were told that investing that much into 4 forwards is not a good path to success, and even the people saying that didn't realize how right they were at the time.
Nylander is no longer a core piece after scoring his first PPG season at 27.
WAKE. UP.