Salary Cap: Marner Deal Discussion

[diceman934]

He knows. Doesn't matter. How do I know?

I think Marner is going to have a better year than Matthews
Speculation: - Nylander Contract Discussion IV
The Nylander Chronicles Part XXXII - Trade proposal arrive
Nylander Chronicles XXXIV - All Holdout and No Contract Make Bert a Dull Boy

Yeah he has had some of the worse takes that I have read.

The pro Nylander group have moved from stats to excuses.

 

[Fogelhund]

I've seen these projections and they often don't make sense. Notice how Matthews is conveniently missing. Probably because he breaks the mold.

Nah... I notice all players that were signed before this sheet was created aren't on the list. He downloaded a list of people who were still RFA and UFA.. Matthews wasn't on it, because he signed some time ago.

 

[biotk]

Yes marner was free to sign a contract at any point but why would he if they are low balling him?

Who says they were lowballing him? Marner's agent and father. We have heard what Marner's ask was last summer and if the Leafs had agreed to it at the time this board would have gone completely off the deep end and demand Dubas be fired.

He knew he was going to play with jt for the season so he gambled on himself and won. Dubas should've signed him last summer but here we are.

So Marner understood that playing with Tavares was going to inflate his numbers (like it does for everyone who plays with Tavares) and Dubas should have signed Marner last summer because playing with Tavares was going to inflate Marner's numbers but when we assess Marner's season we shouldn't take into consideration that Marner played with Tavares. Plenty of teams have overpaid the wingers who have played with Tavares and it has always worked out badly. But this time Toronto should overpay Tavares' winger because this time is different. Marner didn't really gamble on himself, he gambled on Tavares.

This year Marner produced at 3.00 pts/60 at 5v5 when playing with Tavares and under 2 pts/60 without. That is inline with his previous years (he is a career 2.10 pts/60 without Tavares).

 

[biotk]

I am just trying to be consistent. If the leafs think nylander and matthews are worth more than their comparables, why is marner left out?

Do they? The Leafs were so interested in not paying Nylander more than his comparables that they tried to trade him and didn't sign him until minutes before the deadline. Nylander’s cap hit is still less than what Pastrnak’s was, and Pastrnak’s contract is considered a steal. I am fine with the Leafs also trying to trade Marner if he demands more than his comparables (and he has been by a massive amount) and letting him sit or walk with an offer sheet.

Matthews is more difficult because I simply don't think that there are any decent comparables for him. G/60 at 5v5 over the last 3 seasons is 1.52. The next highest is Arvidsson at 1.33 followed by Skinner at 1.23. 5th in P/60 at 5v5 over the last 3 seasons with 2.59 (behind McDavid, Kucherov, Stamkos and Marchand). And 2nd in primary points per 60 at 5v5 over the last 3 seasons (McDavid 2.28, Matthews at 2.24). He was second in goals as a rookie despite few PP goals.

So who do we compare him with. McDavid is a completely different player, and is better, but also took a team friendly contract. Stamkos is a goal scoring C who won a Rocket during his ELC. He signed a 5 contract with a very big cap hit and then subsequently signed his next contract for 8 years at a lower cap hit.

If we discount his rookie season (where he didn’t put up many points) and just look at his second and third seasons his numbers still don’t compare to Matthews’ (even though we have included Matthews’ rookie season and excluded Stamkos’ rookie season).

G/60 at 5v5 over seasons 2 and 3 is 1.21 (9th in the NHL during that time period). 9th in P/60 with 2.53 (behind his linemate Martin St. Louis) and 8th in P1/60 with 2.03.

Malkin is also brought up. Again someone who signed 5 year contract with a massive cap hit following his ELC and followed that up with an 8 year UFA contract where not only was his cap hit lower, but his actual AAV was lower. Comparing Malkin’s 2nd and 3rd years to Matthews first 3 years (because 5v5 stats are not available for Malkin’s first year – and these are two years in which Malkin won a Ross and was second in Hart votes both seasons), Matthews’ numbers compare well:

Malkin was 45th in 5v5 G/60 with 0.95. He was 3rd in 5v5 P/60 with 2.84, and 5th in 5v5 P1/60 with 2.24. Remember this is comparing Matthews in his D+1 through D+3 with Malkin in his D+4 and D+5. And Matthews wins faceoffs, and blocks a f’ ton of shots.

 

[biotk]

One players high was 22 goals and 61 points. The other was 34 goals and 70 points in only 75 games. I dont know what's to argue when it comes to who had proven more.

Yes, playing with Bergeron and Marchand, Pastrnak produced more, as would be obvious. Pastrnak was separated from Bergeron and Marchand in the playoffs about 40% of the time at 5v5 and his production without them was less than half of what it was with them.

And because you whined about Nylander’s crappy playoff in the previous post, I will just make a mention, that despite playing with pretty sub-par linemates, Nylander led the Leafs in P/60 at 5v5 in the playoffs. Marner was 3rd last (ahead of only Hainsey and Zaitsev).

I guess we'll see regarding Matthews next contract. It's a bit worrisome that he has a nmc for his final year meaning he can walk for nothing if he decides. Just a bad contract all around.

I don’t understand why anyone cares about these kinds of things. Players should not be chattel. Last summer most of this board was giddy with the thought that Matthews, Nylander and Marner were at the complete mercy of the team and would have to suck it up and accept whatever scraps the Leafs offered. Well they sure were wrong. Nylander probably would have signed much earlier and probably would have signed for cheaper if he could have received a NMC clause for the entire contract. Force a player to not only be allowed to only sign with the team that “owns” the player and on top of that the team can trade the player whenever and wherever they wish, and then whine about a player - who again has no control over where he plays – refusing to say “yes master” and sign a team friendly deal. If the team wants to keep Matthews after this contract then make him want to stay.

So basically your worst case scenario for having traded nylander last offseason is that we would be in the same position we are right now, out of the playoffs in the first round.

No, that is not what I said at all. And believe it or not – things continue on after this season. Shocker I know for the reactionary fan base who view everything in short time spans.

 

[Mr Hockey]

The Leafs finally get some young superstars on the team and some geniuses want to trade them because they don't like there contract demands and without being in the boardroom and discussing the team's future direction

 

[biotk]

When are you Nylander fanboys going to stop making excuses for him.
Nylander fanboys reasoning
Nylander would be better if coach played him right
Nylander would be better if he played with Matthews
Nylander would be better if he didn’t miss training camp
Excuses excuses excuses

What you are responding to is the part of my post about the ridiculousness of making claims of certainty for alternative time lines.

 

[Notsince67]

Nah... I notice all players that were signed before this sheet was created aren't on the list. He downloaded a list of people who were still RFA and UFA.. Matthews wasn't on it, because he signed some time ago.

Date on the sheet is May 5. Jordan weal signed April 26. Nate Thompson April 25.
Jan Rutta May 3, Christian Folin April 18, Jacob Nilsson April 19

 

[LeafingTheWay]

As I mentioned in another post, maybe these "posters" who wanted marner traded after 30 games do not exist? I dont think the nylander contract is fine and at no point have I said/ thought that we need to trade marner.

I strongly disagree with your 2nd paragraph. I feel if this was put up as a poll on the mains we would lose handily.

Well that's your opinion I guess. If we're more worried about overpaying Nylander by less than 1 million, than the Matthews contract or upcoming Marner contact then there's some serious recency bias going on.

Why do we care about what the main board says? Just look at the Tampa cap vs Toronto cap. Look how many players that have committed 5 mill+ to long-term. Look at how many key players they have to re-sign. Our issues are nothing.

No I am not saying that.

All I was pointing out is that none of the recent cup winners were going forward with their 4 highest paid players being forwards. That's it.

Who knows, maybe we found a hidden "cheat code" that will win us multiple cups. I have my doubts though.

You are correct about Boston, although krug is in their top 10. Boston did an awesome job getting their defense signed for so cheap.

If we're not considering goalies, Washington just won last year with their 4 highest paid players being forwards (not D). Ovechkin, Backstrom, Kuzy and Oshie.

 

[BoredBrandonPridham]

Rofl where did I say the pens are better off because they had a goalie in their top 4?

Stop digging your hole deeper! Its embarrassing.

Oh I see, so you make weak comparisons to other teams but they don’t actually mean anything. It’s all just trivia to you.

 

[BoredBrandonPridham]

Well that's your opinion I guess. If we're more worried about overpaying Nylander by less than 1 million, than the Matthews contract or upcoming Marner contact then there's some serious recency bias going on.

Why do we care about what the main board says? Just look at the Tampa cap vs Toronto cap. Look how many players that have committed 5 mill+ to long-term. Look at how many key players they have to re-sign. Our issues are nothing.



If we're not considering goalies, Washington just won last year with their 4 highest paid players being forwards (not D). Ovechkin, Backstrom, Kuzy and Oshie.

She decided to include goalies after she suggested they all had a defenseman in the top four. But don’t worry, she wasn’t saying that it was important to have a non-forward in the top-4 salaries, one would be foolish to ascertain that. She was actually just curious as a matter of pointless trivia I guess.

But I think you missed Carlson for WSH last year. Not that it really matters.

 

[BoredBrandonPridham]

Do they? The Leafs were so interested in not paying Nylander more than his comparables that they tried to trade him and didn't sign him until minutes before the deadline. Nylander’s cap hit is still less than what Pastrnak’s was, and Pastrnak’s contract is considered a steal. I am fine with the Leafs also trying to trade Marner if he demands more than his comparables (and he has been by a massive amount) and letting him sit or walk with an offer sheet.

Matthews is more difficult because I simply don't think that there are any decent comparables for him. G/60 at 5v5 over the last 3 seasons is 1.52. The next highest is Arvidsson at 1.33 followed by Skinner at 1.23. 5th in P/60 at 5v5 over the last 3 seasons with 2.59 (behind McDavid, Kucherov, Stamkos and Marchand). And 2nd in primary points per 60 at 5v5 over the last 3 seasons (McDavid 2.28, Matthews at 2.24). He was second in goals as a rookie despite few PP goals.

So who do we compare him with. McDavid is a completely different player, and is better, but also took a team friendly contract. Stamkos is a goal scoring C who won a Rocket during his ELC. He signed a 5 contract with a very big cap hit and then subsequently signed his next contract for 8 years at a lower cap hit.

If we discount his rookie season (where he didn’t put up many points) and just look at his second and third seasons his numbers still don’t compare to Matthews’ (even though we have included Matthews’ rookie season and excluded Stamkos’ rookie season).

G/60 at 5v5 over seasons 2 and 3 is 1.21 (9th in the NHL during that time period). 9th in P/60 with 2.53 (behind his linemate Martin St. Louis) and 8th in P1/60 with 2.03.

Malkin is also brought up. Again someone who signed 5 year contract with a massive cap hit following his ELC and followed that up with an 8 year UFA contract where not only was his cap hit lower, but his actual AAV was lower. Comparing Malkin’s 2nd and 3rd years to Matthews first 3 years (because 5v5 stats are not available for Malkin’s first year – and these are two years in which Malkin won a Ross and was second in Hart votes both seasons), Matthews’ numbers compare well:

Malkin was 45th in 5v5 G/60 with 0.95. He was 3rd in 5v5 P/60 with 2.84, and 5th in 5v5 P1/60 with 2.24. Remember this is comparing Matthews in his D+1 through D+3 with Malkin in his D+4 and D+5. And Matthews wins faceoffs, and blocks a f’ ton of shots.

I agree that Malkin is the spot on comparable for Matthews. Some will claim that it’s not because Malking won a cup and an Art Ross. But there is no precedent for players to not get paid as much because their team didn’t achieve as much PP time and the team was overall deeper so he got less ice time in general.

 

[LeafingTheWay]

She decided to include goalies after she suggested they all had a defenseman in the top four. But don’t worry, she wasn’t saying that it was important to have a non-forward in the top-4 salaries, one would be foolish to ascertain that. She was actually just curious as a matter of pointless trivia I guess.

But I think you missed Carlson for WSH last year. Not that it really matters.

Yup, I don't see anything wrong with top-4 salaries being from forwards. It's only an issue if we have multiple other forwards signed to bad contracts. Outside of our top-4Fs, we only have Marleau (expiring after upcoming year) and Kadri that make over 3.5mill. Johnsson/Kappy will likely get 2.5-3.5 mill contracts this year.

Oh and Carlson was signed to a 3.9M contract when they won the cup. He got signed to the 8M contract the summer right after that.

 

[LeafingTheWay]

Yeah he has had some of the worse takes that I have read.

The pro Nylander group have moved from stats to excuses.

...

Fans like you deserve to be stuck in the pre-Shanny era lol. 'Pro Nylander' group, 'Pro Marner' group ... Only the Leafs fanbase could have such mixed opinions about their star players.

 

[BoredBrandonPridham]

Oh and Carlson was signed to a 3.9M contract when they won the cup. He got signed to the 8M contract the summer right after that.

Ah you are correct! CapFriendly recently switched to 2019-20 mode and at a glance I saw Carlson in the 2nd year of his contract thinking that it was for this season.

 

[Nooodles]

I aint even reading till thread XXX

 

[BoredBrandonPridham]

I aint even reading till thread XXX

But it won't even be November yet.

 

[Arzak]

I agree that Malkin is the spot on comparable for Matthews. Some will claim that it’s not because Malking won a cup and an Art Ross. But there is no precedent for players to not get paid as much because their team didn’t achieve as much PP time and the team was overall deeper so he got less ice time in general.

I don't think you can just dismiss the fact Malkin was proven playoff beast (second in MVP votes) prior to signing the deal, the same goes for winning Art Ross.

If you remove pushing your team to Cup win and winning arguably the biggest award individual can achieve in hockey prior to the second contract, the comparison is there. Otherwise not even close.


On the other hand, not need to be overdramatic, look at Eichel and his contract. I know, the moment you do we have a steal here with AM !!!! BUF would have to retain half salary/cap hit for player swap to happen and I would still be conflicted about it.

Matthews contract would be more than fine with two additional years. Still, I have a hard time calling it a bad contract.

Pay structure of his contract is what makes me wonder, what was his ask for 8yr without massive signing bonuses? 10M$ you can invest now and 10M$ you get when the year ends (if there is no lockout) won't amount for the same money at the end of your contract. Sponsorship in Toronto vs in X city had to be taken into consideration too.

 

[kb]

Lol. Marner is the Leafs best player. He just out produced both of those players and played on the PK.

Oh, the PK that nearly dropped to the bottom 1/3 of the league?

He played on the PK, just not particularly well. Not shocking that some would trumpet this as a benefit. The lone reason Marner outproduced Matthews because he had John Tavares on his line - period. Look at who Matthews played with this season if you don't agree. Certainly no one close to the realm of a Tavares. Have them switch linemates and we'll revisit this discussion on best. And Tavares made Mitch what he was this season. Without Tavares, he doesn't come anywhere close to leading this team. Had Mathews not missed those games (nor played with 3rd liners or worse), we wouldn't even be mentioning Marner as a candidate for best player at all. Matthews has it all over Marner in 5v5 goal scoring and primary points/60 for his ELC seasons (especially without Tavares).

Again, breaking it to the most simplistic reality for those who may have missed it before:

Tavares without Marner: 4 less points.
Hyman without Marner: 1 less point.

Marner without Tavares: 25 less points.

Tavares has (for his entire career) made linemates significantly better and more productive. This cannot yet be said about Mitch. Tavares had to be the setup man on the Isles to make his linemates better. He now plays with an elite passer in Marner, so he adjusts his game again to being more of a trigger man and his goals go up. Shocking. But the not so shocking thing is that Tavares' overall points was only marginally higher. Again, not shocking. Marner being away from Tavares would suffer statistically far more than Tavares being away from Marner. He's the elite player on that line which allows Mitch to be Mitch - JT has for years had game plans designed around him, and yet again teams eventually caught on that the only way to stop the line this year was to neutralize Tavares. Take away Mitch's passing options. It's precisely why Marner is fundamentally a 1 trick pony, because once you take away his primary passing option, he has little left in his arsenal to beat anyone. This was painfully apparent in the Leafs PP as the year wore on. Teams realized they were keying on the wrong player early in the season, and caught on to keying on Tavares again as the season went on. As Tavares went, so did that line.

Seriously, that was a post almost as misguided as Mitch's dad Paul could bring up. Oh,speaking of which:

Being the best forward on a team used to mean scoring the most points. In this day of participation trophies, I suppose we don't want fans committed to their wrong predictions of the past to feel like they are complete losers.
Carry on

Well, scoring the most points at the PeeWee level would probably qualify for the right of best player (AND a shiny participation trophy). But even then, maybe not. However, you can reference other posts in this thread with regards to 5v5 rate adjusted scoring over the ELC period for a reality check, and hopefully provide an answer to any further questions you may wish to pose about who really deserves the money. Take away Tavares from the line and perform all calculations again. I'm fairly certain that level of knowledge displayed in this quoted post accurately describes the aforementioned hockey level referred to in my opening sentence.

But hey, someone else is throwing up the stats in this thread that make these quoted posts look disingenuous, not me. I'll just let you guys keep doing what you do best.....which (sadly for all) has nothing to do with enriching any hockey related discussion.

 

[BoredBrandonPridham]

I don't think you can just dismiss the fact Malkin was proven playoff beast (second in MVP votes) prior to signing the deal, the same goes for winning Art Ross.

I think in general we as fans put too much stock in playoff performance when evaluating the value of a player. We shouldn't really pretend it's a different sport, just that it is a smaller sample of games. You can get yourself into trouble over-paying players based on their playoff performance, same with undervaluing players because they didn't seem to perform in the playoffs. That said Matthews played just fine in the playoffs.

If you remove pushing your team to Cup win and winning arguably the biggest award individual can achieve in hockey prior to the second contract, the comparison is there. Otherwise not even close.

I personally do, yea. You pay a player for what you think they will bring you over the duration of the contract when you put them on the ice, imo. Which is very comparable both for Malkin and Matthews. Again just because the team and league granted lots of PP time and Malkin was put on the ice a lot during the PP and 5v5 compared to a player shouldn't indicate he should make more v.s. less, there are more factors than the player's individual performance that will dictate their ice time.

On the other hand, not need to be overdramatic, look at Eichel and his contract. I know, the moment you do we have a steal here with AM !!!! BUF would have to retain half salary/cap hit for player swap to happen and I would still be conflicted about it.

Matthews contract would be more than fine with two additional years. Still, I have a hard time calling it a bad contract.

Pay structure of his contract is what makes me wonder, what was his ask for 8yr without massive signing bonuses? 10M$ you can invest now and 10M$ you get when the year ends (if there is no lockout) won't amount for the same money at the end of your contract.

Eichel isn't even a comparable to Matthews, it's a different tier. During their ELC, here are their 5v5 and PP scoring and production, including Malkin:

	Eichel (13.33% x 8)	Matthews (14.01% x 5)	Malkin (15.34% x 5)	Ovechkin (16.82% x 13)
5v5 g/60	0.79	1.56	0.9	1.49
5v5 p/60	1.75	2.61	2.67	2.88
PP g/60	1.83	2.97	2.2	2.59
PP p/60	5.74	6.39	5.45	5.68

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

So, who do you think the better comparable is if you consider how they produce when they're on the ice? I don't think anyone calls Malkin or Ovechkin's contracts bad, right?

With the information above, I'd say we did well to get Matthews at 8-9% less than Malkin.

Sponsorship in Toronto vs in X city had to be taken into consideration too.

My understanding is that most lucrative sponsorships are national and not regional, and even then I think I saw a figure indicating Crosby gets about $1m/yr in sponsorship deals. I don't think they factor in all that greatly.[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]

 

[Fakejake51]

Ok Minus Mitch.

Hey dice man Bozak is still way >>>>>>Kadri.

 

[DarkKnight]

This year Marner produced at 3.00 pts/60 at 5v5 when playing with Tavares and under 2 pts/60 without. That is inline with his previous years (he is a career 2.10 pts/60 without Tavares).

This is where context matters. As far as I recall they were glued together last year, with the exception of when Marner was moved to try and get the Matthews line going. That didn't work well, partially because Matthews was in a funk, also a small sample size. What was JT's production when he wasn't playing with Marner, you conveniently left that out, I suspect I know why.

Stats without context are useless.

 

[kb]

This is where context matters. As far as I recall they were glued together last year, with the exception of when Marner was moved to try and get the Matthews line going. That didn't work well, partially because Matthews was in a funk, also a small sample size. What was JT's production when he wasn't playing with Marner, you conveniently left that out, I suspect I know why.

Stats without context are useless.

You are questioning Tavares' numbers without Marner? There's a decade there.....where he was the sole focus of all defenses.

 

[DarkKnight]

Oh, the PK that nearly dropped to the bottom 1/3 of the league?

He played on the PK, just not particularly well. Not shocking that some would trumpet this as a benefit. The lone reason Marner outproduced Matthews because he had John Tavares on his line - period. Look at who Matthews played with this season if you don't agree. Certainly no one close to the realm of a Tavares. Have them switch linemates and we'll revisit this discussion on best. And Tavares made Mitch what he was this season. Without Tavares, he doesn't come anywhere close to leading this team. Had Mathews not missed those games (nor played with 3rd liners or worse), we wouldn't even be mentioning Marner as a candidate for best player at all. Matthews has it all over Marner in 5v5 goal scoring and primary points/60 for his ELC seasons (especially without Tavares).

Again, breaking it to the most simplistic reality for those who may have missed it before:

Tavares without Marner: 4 less points.
Hyman without Marner: 1 less point.

Marner without Tavares: 25 less points.

Tavares has (for his entire career) made linemates significantly better and more productive. This cannot yet be said about Mitch. Tavares had to be the setup man on the Isles to make his linemates better. He now plays with an elite passer in Marner, so he adjusts his game again to being more of a trigger man and his goals go up. Shocking. But the not so shocking thing is that Tavares' overall points was only marginally higher. Again, not shocking. Marner being away from Tavares would suffer statistically far more than Tavares being away from Marner. He's the elite player on that line which allows Mitch to be Mitch - JT has for years had game plans designed around him, and yet again teams eventually caught on that the only way to stop the line this year was to neutralize Tavares. Take away Mitch's passing options. It's precisely why Marner is fundamentally a 1 trick pony, because once you take away his primary passing option, he has little left in his arsenal to beat anyone. This was painfully apparent in the Leafs PP as the year wore on. Teams realized they were keying on the wrong player early in the season, and caught on to keying on Tavares again as the season went on. As Tavares went, so did that line.

Seriously, that was a post almost as misguided as Mitch's dad Paul could bring up. Oh,speaking of which:


Well, scoring the most points at the PeeWee level would probably qualify for the right of best player (AND a shiny participation trophy). But even then, maybe not. However, you can reference other posts in this thread with regards to 5v5 rate adjusted scoring over the ELC period for a reality check, and hopefully provide an answer to any further questions you may wish to pose about who really deserves the money. Take away Tavares from the line and perform all calculations again. I'm fairly certain that level of knowledge displayed in this quoted post accurately describes the aforementioned hockey level referred to in my opening sentence.

But hey, someone else is throwing up the stats in this thread that make these quoted posts look disingenuous, not me. I'll just let you guys keep doing what you do best.....which (sadly for all) has nothing to do with enriching any hockey related discussion.

Marner went from a bit player on the PK beginning of the year, to supplanting Brown on the top PK unit. To try and undercut that development, and say he wasn't good on the PK is pure answer utter BD, he was good enough to steal jobs and be out there most of the time. Now he's to blame because we can't doe anything down low on the PK and we're slow when the puck moves around. Yes, yes, there are two videos of him partially responsible, so go look at Kapanen while you're at it on the PK against Boston he was garbage, couldn't recognize anything, slow to move, passive....to blame Marner now for the PK, when all he did was evolve into a trusted guy on the top unit, is just crap. As far as I'm concerned, he's the lone bright spot on the PK moving forward, he and Hyman a great forward pair.

Here's a prediction, he will excel on the PK next year.

 

[DarkKnight]

You are questioning Tavares' numbers without Marner? There's a decade there.....where he was the sole focus of all defenses.

Last year, don't move the goalposts dude. Ya, and there's a decade there alright, his 5 v 5 production has never been close to last year.