If contracts aren't a result of peak single season raw point production then why did he get 10.9 mil after 2 60 point seasons and 1 90 point season in the final year of the ELC? Believe the average for those 3 seasons was around 75ish points. How come other 75 point players don't get those kind of contracts to this day?
There is natural progression built into post-ELC contracts, just as there is natural regression built into mid-late 30s contracts. What you do as a teenager informs but doesn't equal what you're expected to do through your prime. It's how McDavid gets offered 17.67% for pacing 96 points. It's why players like Stutzle pace 54 points and get over 10%.
Pacing 76 points through that early age (and putting up a performance like he did in his final season) is very rare. And that per-game pace actually undervalues Marner's relative quality and impact during that time, due to being on a team that got very few PPs, in an era when league PPs were already at a low. He was one of the best performing young forwards in the entire cap era through his pre-signing period.
Guy gets paid better than players who put up 110+ points and we try and say the cap rising is why he will again? Are we really supposed to believe these players and their agents who signed new contracts the last 2 years didn't know the cap would rise?
They knew the cap would rise, and normal cap progression is built into contracts with term, but I don't think anybody knew that we were getting jumps in the cap like this until recently, and you sign under the cap you sign under. It's not about paying him more because the cap is going to rise. It's about the same percentage resulting in a higher AAV due to the cap. As the cap continues to rise, players worse than Marner getting lower percentages will get higher AAVs than him. We didn't see it as much through this past contract because the cap abnormally stagnated through the majority of it.
But also, you can't apply future seasons to a contract. You were pointing at Mackinnon's 110+ point seasons, but he didn't have that when he signed (his career high was also, funny enough, 99 points). There are only 4 players that have paced 110+ points over the past 3 years, and only 2 signed contracts after doing so. Both Mackinnon and Draisaitl got contracts in the 15-16% range, and I doubt Marner signs for that much, even though he could probably get it if he pushed it.
Got one of the best Centers in the league and possibly a top 5 player in the league in Matthews and Nylander who has become one of the better scorers in the league. Tavares too who would probably be a 1C on a lot of teams as our 2C. Losing Marner doesn't make us just better than a bottom feeder and idk how you or anyone could actually believe this.
When I say that "I'm not okay with just being better than a bottom feeder", it doesn't mean that I think we'd only be slightly better than a bottom feeder. It means that you talking about how much better we'd be compared to when we were a bottom feeder isn't reassuring, as that's not a comparison relevant to where this team should be. It's really simple. Losing Marner makes us worse. I don't want to get worse. I want to get better and win a cup.
Teams don't win by paying their depth guys league min or 2 mil and under.
We have 10 players outside of the core 4 on 2m+ contracts, and this is the highest percentage that the core 4 will ever take up. And yes, winning teams do tend to have a lot of cheap depth players, and get surplus value from efficiencies there.
