Proposal: Leafs Big contract move

[Tasteless Beaver]

Yeah, the Jets like not having contracts worth over $8 million. Captain Wheeler being an exception, but still a good example of why not to do it. We would never take on a $11m player, and we definitely wouldn't give up assets to do it.

 

[Suntouchable13]

JT's not going anywhere, for better or worse.

If there's one to move, it's Marner.

But I do think the Leafs "cap issues" are overblown. People have said this for two offseasons in a row and they've managed the cap fine. Next year Kessel's salary retention comes off, so that should pay for some of Rielly's raise (or replacement). They're probably forced to trade Kerfoot to re-sign Campbell, but that's pretty much all the cap maneuvering they'll need to do. It's not that difficult really.

That’s not the point. There is 0 balance. There is the big 4 and then crap. If Dubas thinks that Kase, Kampf, Bunting, are going to make a difference he is delusional.

 

[Arthuros]

I'm convinced that the Jones signing was a 5D chess move by Bowman to completely hamstring any playoff / cusp teams that are trying to sign young D (Rielly, Werenski, Makar, the list goes on)...

 

[The90]

I doubt Tavares returns nearly that much given his contract and age tbh. The main asset for the Leafs would be $11 million cap space.

Totally. Nobody wants a ppg centre 2 years removed from a career season lol.

 

[zar]

He’s not going anywhere.

 

[WetcoastOrca]

Totally. Nobody wants a ppg centre 2 years removed from a career season lol.

He hasn’t played at a point per game pace for the past two seasons. 50 points in 56 games last season puts him at a 73 point pace. He’s clearly a very good player but not the player he was 3 years ago.
A few teams without a number one Center would want him. But at soon to be 31 years old and an $11 million cap hit the return will be minimal. You’re not getting Perfetti and Pionk.

 

[Habs Halifax]

I feel for the Leafs. Not much options to improve the team at a key time. Flat cap was the worse thing to happen to the Leafs.

 

[Leafshater67]

and JT agrees to this why

If he wants to get to the second round, he’s gotta leave the leafs

 

[Stuzchuk]

Steven Stamkos agrees to waive his NTC for TOR
John Tavares agrees to waive his NTC for a cup

cap retained on Tavares to balance things out (1.250M)

 

[notbias]

The Leafs are going to be in CAP trouble for the next few years. They need to resign Rielly ($7-8 mil per year), Campbell ($2.5-3 mil), and fill out a roster that looks like more than spare parts outside the top 6 (could even say top 4) and top 3 D. The Leafs have also been trading away almost every draft pick we own.

The Leafs could use an upgrade on Def, restock picks and retool the lineup so it is not just stop the Top 4.

The Leafs should trade one of the big 3 contracts Matthews, Marner, or Tavares. In my opinion Tavares would be the one leaving the core group. This would give the Leafs the opportunity to spread the money out and the opportunity to dangle the "C" for Matthews to re-sign longer with a lower CAP hit once the current contract is up in 23-24.

Most of this is your opinion and not fact...
The D has been good, the forwards were supposed to be absolutely terrible this upcoming season because of cap reasons and they look to have more depth than last year.

Make a thread about Tampa needing to trade Kucherov because he makes too much for their cap situation, they had to let their third line go, it makes just about as much sense as this.

Cap trouble is when you are paying a fourth-liner 5 million and are capped out, not a 1C 11 million.

 

[bossram]

Just find 7 forwards each year making under a million to create a competitive playoff team. Easy peasy.

The Leafs are probably only going to have 2 or 3 such players on their roster, one of whom is Spezza who is signing league minimum contracts just because.

It really is pretty easy. Every offseason there are quite a few useful depth players available that clock in around ~$1M. They can promote some guys like Robertson, Brooks, Amirov, etc. in the coming seasons. It is absolutely no issue.

The reason to move a Core 4 player is to improve the team in some other way. Not "solve" some hardly-existent cap problem.

I might be missing some sarcasm here...

But if you are serious ... uh... what are you talking about?

They managed the cap just fine last year? The team had no depth at all and the signings that were brought in all flopped with the exception of Zach Bogosian. Joe Thornton was slow as hell and way over the hill. Jimmy Vesey was a total dud who was waived and left the organization. Travis Boyd did nothing and then got waived. Mikko Lehtonen clearly wasn't an NHL calibre player and got traded. These signings were terrible, did nothing to improve the team and they are all now out of the organization and Dubas went out and signed a bunch of other AHLers to league minimum contracts to plug the holes.

The team is in cap hell and has absolutely no depth.

Again, clearly wrong. The team sleepwalked to 1st in the Canadian Division. Their cheap-o signings like Thornton, Spezza (who was very good), Bogosian, and Simmonds, were perfectly adequate during the regular seasons. Yeah, they cut Vesey, Boyd, and Lehtonen when they realized similarly cheap players (Galchenyuk, Brooks, Sandin) could come in and do a better job. These bottom-end roster players are just moving parts, and you can swap them out with whoever is working the best. You only need a couple to work out. This year they just need literally one of Bunting, Kase, or Ritchie to be an effective plug-in player to complete the lineup.

And this team in "cap hell" was somehow able to add three trade deadline acquisitions. The cap was essentially a non-issue to Dubas through the season. If they wanted Hall vs. the other scrubs they acquired, they could've easily fit him in. They chose a different (wrong) route.

Again, what are you talking about? If anyone paid attention to the playoffs, it clearly wasn't the depth that lost them the series against Montreal. Spezza produced. Kerfoot produced. Galchenyuk produced. Nylander carried them and Tavares was out. They needed goals from Matthews and Marner, but didn't get them. Are you saying Colorado has bad depth because Mackinnon stopped scoring against Vegas?

 

[shortfuze]

Well.............the JT signing went south pretty quick...ruthless fans I guess.
He left money on the table they said.........he will be a great captain they said....
Geez guys, easy does it, he got injured in the playoffs this year, and now you want him gone?

Did you read what the poster typed? It’s all about the cap situation.

 

[Hunter368]

He hasn’t played at a point per game pace for the past two seasons. 50 points in 56 games last season puts him at a 73 point pace. He’s clearly a very good player but not the player he was 3 years ago.
Lots of teams would want him. But at soon to be 31 years old and an $11 million cap hit the return will be minimal. You’re not getting Perfetti and Pionk.

Not to mention the last thing the Jets need is a goalie, centre or wingers.

Jets need to add significantly to their D core from last year, which they’ve done but last thing would do is trade our best D player from last year. Plus Jets need more ELC contracts that can play with their stacked forward core.

Jets aren’t trading two critical needs for an aging expensive centre they don’t need.

If someone wanted to trade JT the Jets would be amongst the last teams interested in him. Maybe Habs, CBJ, etc who are weaker at centre, but not the Jets.

 

[Papi 4 Hart]

Kessel 1.2 mil off the cap pays for Rielly increase.

Kerfoot 3.5 off the cap pays for Campbell increase.

So they can easily keep the status quo if they want....

 

[Subway Schenn]

Yeah, the Jets like not having contracts worth over $8 million. Captain Wheeler being an exception, but still a good example of why not to do it. We would never take on a $11m player, and we definitely wouldn't give up assets to do it.

The Jets don't have a player worth a 10M+ contract. If Laine worked out, he'd be paid that much.

 

[SEALBound]

Send Marner to Arizona for Kessel @ 50%. That would be hilarious.

 

[McJedi]

The Leafs are going to be in CAP trouble for the next few years. They need to resign Rielly ($7-8 mil per year), Campbell ($2.5-3 mil), and fill out a roster that looks like more than spare parts outside the top 6 (could even say top 4) and top 3 D. The Leafs have also been trading away almost every draft pick we own.

The Leafs could use an upgrade on Def, restock picks and retool the lineup so it is not just stop the Top 4.

The Leafs should trade one of the big 3 contracts Matthews, Marner, or Tavares. In my opinion Tavares would be the one leaving the core group. This would give the Leafs the opportunity to spread the money out and the opportunity to dangle the "C" for Matthews to re-sign longer with a lower CAP hit once the current contract is up in 23-24.

Assuming Tavares waivers his no move.

To Toronto:
Miles Wood
Damon Severson
1st

To NJ:
John Tavares
Ilya Mikheyev

Or

To Toronto:
Neal Pionk
Cole Perfetti

To Jets:
John Tavares

Disgruntled Leaf fan floating ideas.

Did you float these ideas by Tavares? He of full NTC protection?

otherwise, you just conducted a time suck. A pure waste of time and mental energy.

 

[FerrisRox]

Again, clearly wrong.

Yes, I'm wrong, and you're right, the Leafs have terrific depth.

You absolutely deserve the team you have and the General Manager you have. Enjoy it!

 

[bossram]

That’s not the point. There is 0 balance. There is the big 4 and then crap. If Dubas thinks that Kase, Kampf, Bunting, are going to make a difference he is delusional.

All he needs is literally one of Kase, Bunting, or Ritchie to be a passable top-six player next to one of the Big 4 duos, and the lineup is set. Kampf is headed to the bottom-six, as everyone already knows.

The balance of the team is fine. Guys like Engvall/Mikheyev are actually pretty productive, relative to their ice time and role. They score points at even-strength at the same rate as a guy like Bo Horvat.

And in the playoffs, the depth wasn't a problem. Mikheyev/Engvall did their jobs limiting opposition offense. Galchenyuk, Kerfoot, and Spezza produced. Nylander carried the team. Tavares was injured, obviously.

They needed more from Marner and Matthews. That is why they lost. No team is realistically going to win in the playoffs if their stars go cold. Did you criticize Colorado as having "bad depth" or "0 balance" when Mackinnon stopped producing against Vegas? Or should they trade away Rantanen for "better balance"?

Obviously not.

 

[Tasteless Beaver]

The Jets don't have a player worth a 10M+ contract. If Laine worked out, he'd be paid that much.

And we are fine with that. Teams with $10m+ contracts have not done well in recent years because their depth suffers. There are 13 players with cap hits above $10m in the league, I'd argue that roughly 5 of them deserve that pay. Just because you pay 3 players over $10 million, doesn't mean you have 3 $10 million caliber players. Tavares' contract is an anchor, same with Marner.

 

[CupcakeSprinkles]

The Leafs should be fine. What you’re saying is we need to free up 5-7M in cap space.

Engvall 1.25
Dermott 1.5
Mikheyev 1.6
Kerfoot 3.5

Roughly 7M tied up in these players plus opportunity to move Mrazek 3.8M next year if Campbell wins out the job. Every year we get posters complaining about Leafs cap space. We have one of the best cap guy in the league - Brandon Pridham founder father of the CBA. The Team is well thought.

There also is good chance we do not resign Rielly and he ends up traded/walks. Muzzin/Brodie/Dermott/Sandin all can play the left side. Niemela, Kokkonen will likely be in camp next season. The expectation is that Liljegren could also take a spot.

Leafs have a lot of talent coming through the pipeline that will help with depth and cheap cap replacements. If not, signing bargain free agents on 1 years to fill out roster will happen.

 

[WetcoastOrca]

I don’t think we will see one of the big four forwards moved until Dubas is gone. No team in the cap era has won a Cup with four forwards taking up such a large percentage of the cap. I mean maybe it would work if two of the four were generational guys like Crosby and Malkin but it seems unlikely with lesser players.

 

[SFKingshomer]

So you want him to waive his NMC and get value for him? He wouldn’t get claimed off waivers. That contract is brutal considering his age.

 

[bossram]

Yes, I'm wrong, and you're right, the Leafs have terrific depth.

You absolutely deserve the team you have and the General Manager you have. Enjoy it!

Considering you refuted zero arguments and added nothing else, yes, I will assume I am right and you are wrong.

I don't really care about "deserving the team" or the GM. I make objective assessments. I'm more of a Vancouver "fan" and I'll be the first to tell you the team and GM of the Canucks are terrible. The depth on the Leafs isn't the issue. They need their star players to produce like star players, as every team needs.

 

[Puckclektr]

Even if Tavares agrees, The devils pass quite easily