For the record, over the next 3 years, how many picks do we have in the top 3 rounds?
We have two 1st round picks and three 3rd round picks, and an abundance of picks in later rounds, with all of our top prospects still in the system. Which is pretty good for a consistent top tier team, and more than what Dubas was able to find good pieces and improve our prospect pool with. If Treliving isn't able to draft as well as Dubas, the lack of 2nds could impact us a bit in the late 2020s and into the early 2030s, but it doesn't have much relevance to what internal options or depth we've had over the past 5 years or right now.
You're right about our players having proven to be better, thus earning bigger contracts. They certainly have won some awards for their performances, it’s just that it would have meant so much more if they wold have been able to carry it over into the playoffs!
What people miss is that they largely have carried their play over to the playoffs - especially when healthy. The only thing that hasn't carried over to the playoffs as much is production in a select few series (two of which Matthews was injured in), but that's not a result of our players performing worse. It's a result of running into external situations in a few series that would and did decrease the production of anybody that runs into it. An individual forward is only part of the equation that determines production. We use it as a rough proxy for a forward's offensive quality because over a regular season or multiple regular seasons, many of the external factors smooth out and trend towards what is internally driven, but those external factors do not equalize in the playoffs, since we're talking about small samples against vastly different singular teams and goalies over a short period of time.
You can have two forwards of the exact same offensive quality give the exact same performance over a series, and end up with massively different raw production. It doesn't mean one was better than the other. It means that their situations were different.
I don’t have it in front of me, yet, but I wonder how well they have done in games 5-7 in the playoffs?
Probably not as bad as most people think, but I don't know or care, because all playoff games matter. Playoff series in general tend to get lower scoring closer to the end of a series.
These 3 players feel entitled, and it’s management’s fault that they are that way.
The players are not entitled. The fans are. And management didn't do anything to make anything any way. They just re-signed their top players to appropriate contracts like every other management team does with their players.
Nylander is not worth $10 million, his salary should certainly be less than what Aho got, but he’s the one who has to bear the brunt of criticism from Keefe (or should I say all of it).
Nylander likely won't get 10m, but he has a good case for being worth a similar amount to somebody like Aho.
His ask has nothing to do with getting deserved criticism from Keefe. Nobody has been given special treatment relative to Nylander.
Nylander just has more moments to criticize and aspects of his play to improve from a coaching perspective than somebody like Matthews/Marner.
Keefe and Nylander have also spoken on the type of coaching style he prefers, which can differ from player to player.
Remember Marner’s temper tantrum he threw on the bench when he had to sit one shift out?
No, because it never happened.
Matthews and Marner have become so hard to like.
They're actually pretty easy to like when you don't arbitrarily refuse to like them for no reason. These are some of the best players this team will have in our lifetimes, homegrown no less, and they seem really committed to improving, and winning, and winning here. Not to mention the quality of them as individuals, and the amount they help the community.
they were overpaid on their last contracts with no consideration whatsoever for the team.
That's not true, of course. They were not overpaid, and there was consideration for the team and what worked well for the team.
No other team in the history of the NHL has made the playoffs five seasons in a row and lost all five first-round series.
To make matters worse and their record even more futile, the Maple Leafs took all five rounds to the seventh game before losing.
Primarily because a team being good enough to make the playoffs five seasons in a row, especially directly after being the worst team in the league with their core starting as teenagers, is really rare. And taking each series to the limit isn't a bad thing. Lots of teams and cores didn't win a cup by this point of their core's progression.
You're putting way too much emphasis on rounds, without the context of what actually happened, and what they actually faced.
