Salary Cap: 24-25 Salary Thread Crosbicles Volume MXVI: End of season wrap up

[CheckingLineCenter]

I mean, even Tkachuk was saying it after game 7. Toronto's a shithole to play in entirely because of the fanbase and the sports media. Psychopaths.

Marner's situation feels a lot like Phil's. He's gotta find a landing spot where he can do his thing without being the focus. Settle into a supporting cast role and excel.

The problem isnt solely Toronto being loony town

It’s Toronto is loony town in a league that plays 4th fiddle in pro sports. The alternatives are massively chill.

O’Reilly has a Conn Smythe and was like “f this I’m out”

 

[KrisLetAngry]

Our core + Washington's management probably gets us at least one Cup between 2019 and 2024

How is Malkin's contract ending badly? Let's see what happens for a second-line center after he is gone. I just don't get the disrespect toward 71.

It is as if some people believe Mike Sullivan was not a reason for his relative lack of production, which is still on par for a second-line center even at age 39!

Give me a break. If only all of this team's "problems" were as benign as Malkin.

Even if he performs this last year down. 6.3 million for these years has been fine. I agree he is one of our lowest problems.

If they somehow lottery their way to McKenna I can Sid playing until he's 45. Celebrini and MacKinnon seem to have given him a new lease on life. I think he needs a younger superstar to be competitive with everyday.

Yea imagine playing the old guy with young fresh legs so they can do some extra work for the old guy. Crazy

I think if Marner will come here for a reasonable number you do it 10/10 times

Problem is he’s only coming here if you’re throwing a big time bag at him, which probably isn’t prudent with where we are at.

Id rather spend on Marner then overpay for lower end top 6 player.

7 years 13 million. Id do a 1 year deal too with a 32 team NMC if he wanted to get traded to another team retained.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

I dunno. I think some of it is what you value but it's really funny to me that we will justify paying some doof like Jason Zucker his 5.5M or whatever as "fair market value" but then hold our nose when a 95ish point guy gets paid like a 95ish point guy.

 

[Big Friggin Dummy]

Anyway, I'd be way more bothered by my team's 70 goal 1C posting like 4 goals over the course of the past 23 playoff games or whatever Matthews' statline is.

That dude is a way bigger problem than Marner imo. Gonna be interesting to see how much Matthews' game suffers without Marner's elite playmaking or doing all the defensive grunt work away from the puck.

 

[Peat]

I'm not sure anyone thinks Marner should be a leader or a spearhead at the NHL level.

He's an elite contributor and should be paid as such though in UFA.

He's the 15th best paid player in the league (and that's at the end of his contract, not the beginning) and been an alternate captain there for five years. Leader and spearhead are the expectation. If he didn't want that expectation, he shouldn't have taken the money or the letter.

In the end why do we care if a player gets his money?

We get it... he hasn't done it in the playoffs and that sucks. But he's not exactly the only guy on the team and do we really think he hasn't lived up to that deal over the years? He's a pretty consistent ~90 point player for years and years. I feel like there have been far worse deals in that same timeframe.

In a hard cap league where every dollar is a dollar that can't go to someone else? Why wouldn't we care how much of the pie a player takes up. Happens at every team, with every player.

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

I dunno. I think some of it is what you value but it's really funny to me that we will justify paying some doof like Jason Zucker his 5.5M or whatever as "fair market value" but then hold our nose when a 95ish point guy gets paid like a 95ish point guy.

"It's laughable to pay a 100 point guy over $13 million per year, but I'll gladly champion ideas where we bring in two 40 point guys who can't create shit all for themselves $6 million each!"

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

He's the 15th best paid player in the league (and that's at the end of his contract, not the beginning) and been an alternate captain there for five years. Leader and spearhead are the expectation. If he didn't want that expectation, he shouldn't have taken the money or the letter.



In a hard cap league where every dollar is a dollar that can't go to someone else? Why wouldn't we care how much of the pie a player takes up. Happens at every team, with every player.

No disrespect but I would never expect a player to NOT take the money. Some WILL do that and if they do hey wow holy shit that's crazy we'll take it. But I'd never expect it and why would I? These guys have a limited window to get theirs and the next knee injury could be right around the corner so go get it.

I think people SELECTIVELY care. They see that big number and get sticker shock and are ready to nitpick every little thing... I get it... human nature. But I dunno... I would rather have an 11M dollar Mitch Marner that can DO something with the puck as opposed to two guys that add up to 11M dollars that completely fail to move the needle while collecting their customary 40-50 points every year. I feel like we've sure gone to bat for PLENTY of the latter a lot of years, here.

EDIT: This all applies to me, too. I complain plenty about cap hit versus performance when it suits me so don't think I'm taking a holier than thou stance, here. I guess I just don't get actively resentful of players negotiating for the best they can get. I might complain but I guess I don't BLAME them if that makes sense?

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

"It's laughable to pay a 100 point guy over $13 million per year, but I'll gladly champion ideas where we bring in two 40 point guys who can't create shit all for themselves $6 million each!"

Exactly.

 

[Big Friggin Dummy]

If we're gonna nitpick cap structure, which is entirely fair, Tavares was a horrendous signing for the Leafs. Dude somehow evades all criticism while also being 0-6 in game 7 situations (0-5 with Toronto, 0-1 with the Isles--1pt total in all those games). Signing a PPG dude to an $11M AAV deal when you've already got Matthews, Marner and Nylander was an absolute killer.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

If we're gonna nitpick cap structure, which is entirely fair, Tavares was a horrendous signing for the Leafs. Dude somehow evades all criticism while also being 0-6 in game 7 situations (0-5 with Toronto, 0-1 with the Isles--1pt total in all those games). Signing a PPG dude to an $11M AAV deal when you've already got Matthews, Marner and Nylander was an absolute killer.

Tavares seems like one of these guys that always gets a pass because he is perceived as having "intangibles."

It's just that... I could never figure out what those were supposed to be. Being really slow?

 

[Big Friggin Dummy]

Tavares seems like one of these guys that always gets a pass because he is perceived as having "intangibles."

It's just that... I could never figure out what those were supposed to be. Being really slow?

He's a leader, man. Forget that he's as much of a ghost as anybody in important situations, he wins like 58% of his faceoffs.

 

[Gurglesons]

He's the 15th best paid player in the league (and that's at the end of his contract, not the beginning) and been an alternate captain there for five years. Leader and spearhead are the expectation. If he didn't want that expectation, he shouldn't have taken the money or the letter.

I don't really agree with this mindset.

I mean, I get the idea, but, just don't agree 100%.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

He's a leader, man. Forget that he's as much of a ghost as anybody in important situations, he wins like 58% of his faceoffs.

Ahhhhhhhhhh that explains it.

He has a shiny FO% so a certain segment of the fanbase thinks that makes him an elite center even though it's one of the most overstated and frankly meaningless stats in the game outside of +/- -- got it.

 

[Gurglesons]

If we're gonna nitpick cap structure, which is entirely fair, Tavares was a horrendous signing for the Leafs. Dude somehow evades all criticism while also being 0-6 in game 7 situations (0-5 with Toronto, 0-1 with the Isles--1pt total in all those games). Signing a PPG dude to an $11M AAV deal when you've already got Matthews, Marner and Nylander was an absolute killer.

I mean other teams were offering Tavares more.

I think the reality is Dubas did a terrible job filling out the depth of the team, his trades and signings to better the team were largely ineffective, and ultimately the pandemic completely crushed their cap structure because of the unexpected flat cap.

 

[Gurglesons]

Dubas' drafting was decent, but he did a terrible job evaluating who to keep in the system.

He basically hit on two consistent NHLers from 2018 -2022 that he retained.

Knies is a great find, but the other pieces are like Holmberg / Robertson.

 

[JackFr]

Robertson will be a Penguin next year so be nice to him

 

[PamBallam]

Agree that Marner reminds me a lot of Phil the thrill. He's not THE guy, and unfortunately, neither are Matthews, Nylander or Tavares. Send him somewhere that he can be second fiddle to THE guy, and he'll thrive.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Robertson will be a Penguin next year so be nice to him

Ew why

 

[Big Friggin Dummy]

Robertson will be a Penguin next year so be nice to him

Hell yeah, I love Jason Robertson!

 

[Gurglesons]

Robertson will be a Penguin next year so be nice to him

Don't really see the point. We have too many young players as it is to be wasting a spot on him.

Honestly feels like Dallas tries him out.

 

[DesertPenguin]

"It's laughable to pay a 100 point guy over $13 million per year, but I'll gladly champion ideas where we bring in two 40 point guys who can't create shit all for themselves $6 million each!"

I don't remotely have the time, but I'd love to dig into some deep statistics on contract value vs advanced stats. Like, you can split 95m evenly among all your players and pay each of them 4.13m. Split minutes evenly where all the Fs play 15 min a night and the D 20, minus time on the kill while you're a man down. That's a deep team with no stars. Your power play probably isn't very good. You'll be great at team d, will struggle against top pairing defense but cave in 3rs pairs.

Or you load up on stars at 11-15m per and fill rest with scrubs. You have a deadly power play, but get caved 5v5.

Optimum is obviously somewhere in the middle, but where? Is it better to pay 14m to a 100pt player or 7m to 2x 50 point players? Probably good to have some of each to fill out the roster. You could boil this all down to an advanced statsoney ball optimum, and I'm interested to see the results.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Hallander just won the award for the SHL forward of the year and had 53 points in 51 games in the SHL. I don't feel like bringing him back to be a 4th liner or extra is something I'm that interested in. I firmly want him to have an opportunity to start in the top-9, or at most have only modest competition (like a Beauvillier type of addition) for the 3rd line LW role.

Their top-9 winger groups should be McGroarty-Rakell, Koivunen-Rust and Hallander-Tomasino as is. If you're bringing in someone new, it should be with selling Rakell or Rust.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

Is it weird that I don't think any better of Robertson than I do of some of this team's already-existing players in his age range?

What am I missing with that guy?

 

[DesertPenguin]

Hallander just won the award for the SHL forward of the year and had 53 points in 51 games in the SHL. I don't feel like bringing him back to be a 4th liner or extra is something I'm that interested in. I firmly want him to have an opportunity to start in the top-9, or at most have only modest competition (like a Beauvillier type of addition) for the 3rd line LW role.

Their top-9 winger groups should be McGroarty-Rakell, Koivunen-Rust and Hallander-Tomasino.

Agreed. We have Hayes, Ponomarev, Broz etc around if it fails, but assume that.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Is it weird that I don't think any better of Robertson than I do of some of this team's already-existing players in his age range?

What am I missing with that guy?

He scores goals but yeah that's about it.

He's just looking like another Beauvillier type of bottom-6 forward at this point, and I mean what Beauvillier is today and not what he used to be.