What evidence do you have that sitting Nylander would have benefitted future negotiations with RFAs?
It has only happened once or twice in the NHL’s history.
What’s more likely to have happened is that Nylander would’ve sat, then asked for a trade in the summer, getting the Leafs a fraction of his worth on the market because he’s forcing their hand.
Then the rest of the RFAs go hard after offer sheets. They just drop negotiations with Toronto. If the Leafs match, they’re getting Matthews at $14M x 7.
But wait, in your head only positive outcomes are possible when using 20/20 hindsight vision so of course Dubas just had to play hardball and Nylander signs for $3.5M x 8 and then Matthews signs at $1M x 8 out of shear awe at the power wielded by Dubas.
For one, the hostility is uncalled for. For another, you're being very disingenuous. You start by asking what evidence I have of the impact of playing hardball on future negotiations--okay, notwithstanding generic evidence, point granted--but then you follow up this reasonable question by positing an even more implausible scenario involving offer sheets (when was the last time one of those was signed?). And, to my previous point about generic evidence, we are never under any obligation to rush trading him for pennies on the dollar. Again, we have
nearly all the leverage in this context. Do you know how damaging it is for an athlete--someone whose window to cash in is already so narrow--to sit out for a significant period of time before signing their first big contract? In my view, the damage of that eventuality to him greatly exceeds the damage of losing his services to the team. It's really as simple as that for me.
Finally, I never claimed that Dubas could or should have been expected to sign our players to obscenely low contracts, nor were my issues with his approach only on the basis of hindsight (if you read through my post history, you'll see that I always favoured playing hardball, for the reasons already stated--and the history of under market value RFA contracts that are signed in the NHL are pretty good evidence that this is the right approach; incidentally, perhaps the reason players so rarely sit out is because they almost always cave to a GM playing hardball). In any case, I can see that we don't agree, and I don't particularly like engaging in a discussion where sarcasm and condescension are supposed to be substitutes for a cogent argument.
