Mighty Makar
I hate this fu*ken team
- May 24, 2016
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Rumor: 2023-24 Trade Rumors and Free Agency: Season Thread
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All I take from this is that Friedman should've kept the beard.
I don't think he cares much about winning. He'll be rich though. He's also the best player in TOR so he can ride that train as long as he wants regardless of winning a cup.
lionsDen
Hated And Proud
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NorthernAvsFan
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- Jun 25, 2014
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But my point is that if you get term you don’t need to walk away.
Matthews is maximizing the money to the extreme here. It’s a considerably worse deal than the MacKinnon contract.
Also… Matthews has a lot to prove to live up to the deal. He’s consistently sub-par in the playoffs. He was 22nd in league scoring last year. It’s actually crazy he was able to get this deal coming off a down year.
My point is the last 4 years may not have been the best value anyway. Many contracts age poorly after 30. Matthews is a fantastic player, but even with a rising cap him at 33 at a higher price may not be ideal. Could be fine, just saying it isn’t without risk.
Worse… yeah probably a bit. Considerably I personally don’t think so. Both are a slight discount on market. Both carry risk. In a more ideal world, Matthews would have an extra year or two. MacK would have a year or two less. Harder lean towards Matthews needing an extra year as the worse contract.
His ‘down’ year was better than most centers can even reach. The playoffs haven’t been there, but we are talking about arguable the best goal scorer in the league while being very good defensively. He’s unique, elite, and young. The writing has been in the wall for years that the progression on highest paid would be McDavid to MacK to Matthews to Drai to McDavid.
Honestly don't have the cap space for another top 9 guy. What we have is what we're going to have to start the season unless they pick up someone on waivers
NorthernAvsFan
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- Jun 25, 2014
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I think you’re overrating Matthews. The guy is not a leader. I think this contract says a lot about him, tbh. He’s not leading that team to a cup.
I would argue that given the term and AAV, this might be the best deal given out in NHL history from a player perspective.
- Jul 27, 2021
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13,25 Mil.... If that´s for more term (like 6-8 years), it would be in line. But for 4 years?
Jesus, Matthews and his agent really f***ed Toronto hard......So maybe Dubas wasn´t the only, or real problem in this org.....
Why do you think more term would mean higher AAV here? These four years would be the most valuable production wise in the contract. If anything the later years are for driving the AAV down. Toronto gets the best 4 years without needing to commit to an aging Matthews and can always re-up or trade depending on production and the franchise's outlook 4 years from now.
A trade probably like most logical.people. Guy plays hockey like he negotiates contracts, all about himself.
total self absorbed loser.
TruePowerSlave
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- Jun 27, 2015
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4 years at that cap hit is ok but far from ideal as AM will be in his prime. It's the next contract that will suck real bad.
Well it's either you sign him for 4 years or trade him. The players and agents have power too and can say no. Thats kinda how it works
forsbergavs32
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I’m well aware of how those things work. Doesn’t mean I have to like it for the Leafs.
- Apr 25, 2006
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Age is the biggest factor.
Mack's new contract starts at age 28. He realistically has 4, maybe 5 years of prime left. The best for the team would have been a 4 or 5 year contract.
Matthews' new contract starts at age 26. He has 6 or 7 years of prime left. The best for the team would have been 6 or 7 years.
Which is exactly why Mack wanted 8 years and Matthews wanted 3 (and settled for 4).
Mack's new contract starts at age 28. He realistically has 4, maybe 5 years of prime left. The best for the team would have been a 4 or 5 year contract.
Matthews' new contract starts at age 26. He has 6 or 7 years of prime left. The best for the team would have been 6 or 7 years.
Which is exactly why Mack wanted 8 years and Matthews wanted 3 (and settled for 4).
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Yeah pretty much. MacK's extra years bring down the AAV a touch, but provide him security into his mid 30s. If you simply take the 8th year off his deal and recalculate what the AAV would be, you're a shade under 13m. The AAV of the contract is 'only' 12.6 because of the mid 30s years and a year nobody else could offer if he went UFA.
Funny enough, if you look at the first 4 years of MacK's deal... his AAV would be 15.3m.
Matthews' bet is that he will be healthy and still producing at a high level when this contract is up so he can cash in on one last long-term deal (term to be decided in next CBA). Some team will pay market rate over the whole term even though only the first ~3 years will be of any real positive value cap wise. The last 3-5 will probably be very poor value.
In a way, this is a lesson learned from ROR's path. ROR pushed to get to UFA as quickly as possible to maximize his cash. Then when he did, he signed his long-term deal as quickly as possible. HIs mistake was going to 7 years instead of 4 or 5. If he had gone 4 or 5, he would have easily gotten a 8-9m deal with 7 or 8 years instead of his 4.5m deal for 4. Term might have been roughly the same, but he missed out on at least 15m.
- Apr 25, 2006
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If they play the same number of years Matthews has a legit chance to make more money than McDavid over his career.Yeah pretty much. MacK's extra years bring down the AAV a touch, but provide him security into his mid 30s. If you simply take the 8th year off his deal and recalculate what the AAV would be, you're a shade under 13m. The AAV of the contract is 'only' 12.6 because of the mid 30s years and a year nobody else could offer if he went UFA.
Funny enough, if you look at the first 4 years of MacK's deal... his AAV would be 15.3m.
Matthews' bet is that he will be healthy and still producing at a high level when this contract is up so he can cash in on one last long-term deal (term to be decided in next CBA). Some team will pay market rate over the whole term even though only the first ~3 years will be of any real positive value cap wise. The last 3-5 will probably be very poor value.
In a way, this is a lesson learned from ROR's path. ROR pushed to get to UFA as quickly as possible to maximize his cash. Then when he did, he signed his long-term deal as quickly as possible. HIs mistake was going to 7 years instead of 4 or 5. If he had gone 4 or 5, he would have easily gotten a 8-9m deal with 7 or 8 years instead of his 4.5m deal for 4. Term might have been roughly the same, but he missed out on at least 15m.
I could see Matthews getting 15M X 7 on the open market in 5 years.
LOFIN
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- Sep 16, 2011
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I have a small quibble with this. This is not how it works with star player contracts. With mid-tier players, you can use term to bring down the AAV. Players want more security, club might be willing to accommodate them by lowering the AAV. With star players, players might want security, but the club wants it even more. So players are going "you have to bring that number up if you want to keep me here longer, preventing me from signing another deal earlier".
Obviously this doesn't apply for retirement contracts, where it is expected the value of said player drops significantly on the last years. And we are talking stuff like 8 year deals from 30 years onwards, MacKinnon is not yet on that category. This is not his retirement contract.
Possible... but that would be a rather large hill to climb. McDavid is around 72m right now and Matthews at 53m. Roughly 19m to make up... that'll actually widen this year by about $2m. The extra he will get in the two years before McDavid's next deal won't makeup that difference. Then McDavid will make a lot more for 2 years before Matthews comes back on the market. He'll have to make something like 25-30m more than McDavid while they are in their 30s.
As players enter UFA, it certainly lowers the AAV even on star players. It has always worked like that. Not to the extremes of other players with term, but MacK's 8th year was to drive down the AAV. All teams know that players in their 30s are not nearly as capable as they were in their mid to late 20s.
The expected value of MacK will absolutely decrease on this contract. This takes him through his age 35 season. It is insanely rare that players don't regress by that point. It also isn't an uncommon age for players to retire. I don't think MacK will there, but I'd expect him to only get a ~3 year deal at the end of this one and for it to be under 10m.
If you look at the structure of MacK's deal, you really see the more realistic value per year. 16+m for 3 years, 12m for a year, then a shade under 10 to finish it out. That likely follows his actual value compared to the league's other contracts pretty well over that term.
- Apr 25, 2006
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What do you mean "the club wants it even more"?
The Avs know that Mack won't worth 12.6M in years 6, 7 and 8. They sure as f*** didn't pay him higher AAV to have the chance to overpay him for those years, it's the opposite.
LOFIN
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Pretty sure they did bud, pretty sure they did. Matthews will be just a year younger than MacKinnon when starting his new deal. Toronto still wanted max term. I can guarantee you, the Avs didn't even offer 5 or 6 years to MacKinnon, even though that might be the most effective way of using money relative to on ice performance. But it's not just about that is it. There's value to having these players on your team, that isn't measured just by points. Ask the owners.
- Apr 25, 2006
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