If you have a brain and understand how massive. prime-of-their-career PPG 1OA player free agent contracts work, you'll appreciate the fact that you can't judge his current season at his current cap hit, the contract has to be looked at as an overall package.
Remember Jagr's $11m/per 7 year contract in 2001?
Or Brad Richards $60m/9 in 2001 where he turned garbage so fast they bought him out after 3 years?
Kovalchuk's 15 year / $100 million absurdity?
Stamkos just signed $8x4 as a guy who is borderline washed up with his injuries, how do you think that's going to go?
JT is not overpaid, unless you look at things in a complete vacuum. These contracts often look a helluva lot worse than this in the last two years of them. The guy has 19 points in 19 games right now. He's produced pretty much exactly as expected, acknowledging that his playoff performance has been meh.
We got a guy who has put up 0.95PPG, averaging 30+ goals per season, for the past seven years for zero hockey assets, just cap space.
People in this thread are "increasingly concerned" about the way his play is dropping off in the second last year of his monster UFA contract when he's still point per game. God damn Leafs fans are stupid.
Of all the reasons I hate being a Leafs fan, the collective whining and hand wringing over JT's contract has to be near the top. You know how hard it is to get 7 years of PPG production for just cap space, even if it is 11m?