Well, yes Tavares, Matthews and marner did take up $33mm of the Cap, but I don't blame the players for asking.
Tavares was UFA so that's market rate.
But Knies, Robertson and Holmberg are their drafted forwards (outside their picks for being bottom feeders). Rielly on defence. From those players you have 1 top 6 forward and 1 top 2 defender.
Again, that isn't a marner issue, that's a management issue.
marner is fine, and his upcoming $13mm is fine for the next contract as fans like to be entertained, even in the regular season. That's the Toronto payrate, which might be inflated, but no one held a gun to managements' heads.
The issue is never the individual, even JT as you mentioned was UFA. The key is always collectively they all choked in playoffs.
Some can put up their stats in playoffs and say, look, they are not as bad....but the truth is that they constantly find ways to lose in elimination games. After each series loss, people like to say Keefe sucks, or Dubas sucks, or supporting players sucks, or goalies suck, or dmen sucks but the fact that our top guys esp the THREE that makes over 10mil a year(the elites of NHL) just can't deliver.
Beside Euro Football, I really can't recall any leagues having THREE of the top 7 paid players in the league playing on the same team failed to win as much as AM, MM and JT. It is not like all three are not in their prime and just hanging onto past glories either.
Toronto payrate or whatever new buzzword the medias or MGT comes up with are just words that they use to hide the incompetence of the Leafs top players. AM, MM and JT are not Lowry, DD and Jonas where they were good or even great NBA players but not Lebron, Curry and KD of the League. AM when he is healthy had been compare to McD, some will even say MM is in the same tier as Kuch, Tkachuk, Rantanen, and Pastra as the best wingers in the League. JT is supposed to be the best 2C in the league as there is no other team that had a 10mil plus 2C. Yet, collectively they constantly fall flat in playoffs.
Thats why I really don't understand why any MGT will continue to be on them and hope they will eventually do it. Winning the first round is nothing, but somehow, it is the Stanley Cup for the MGT, team, players and a lot of people on this forum.
Let me put it this way, if the Leafs roster for the past 8 years been on any other teams in the NHL, NONE of you will be saying the team should keep the band together bc they are close and will do it. ALL of you will be laughing your ass off and trolling that team for being incompetence, foolish and dumb for keep believing in a whole bunch of underperforming overpaid chokers.