Official Tank Thread of the Toronto Maple Leafs

[Duckrider]

ok let me put it this way.. Does Chicago have the perfect organization? Id say no. Did they win the cup? Did they win it more than once? Are they close to being a dynasty?

 

[Jack Bauer]

and again not for max contract...

Agreed, but don't fool yourselves:

If Stamkos WANTED to be in Tampa, they'd have already given him the money.

Anyone thinking this is about Yzerman being prudent is quite frankly, an idiot.

 

[Pi]

Losers
Even
After
Fifty
Seasons

Price is your entire team. Enjoy it in the regular season because the Price isn't right in the playoffs.

 

[yubbers]

Losers
Even
After
Fifty
Seasons

But you live in Gatineau. Much worse

 

[Gary Nylund]

I would argue that 1 contract can't kill an organization.

Only numerous, as in 3-5, bad deals can really do that.

Signing Stamkos to a big money deal while the majority of the future is entering ELC's should not harm anything in the future.

Now signing Stamkos then giving Kadri, Rielly, and Gardiner big money to go with Phaneuf...and I agree you're getting into a territory where money needs to be moved around.

But I will say that I would rather gamble on 10 Stamkos' calibre players as UFA then 1 Clarkson who even at his best is a 3rd liner. At least Stamkos has game breaking ability, even if it's in his past, and a pedigree that should allow him to transition to a great role player. Some veteran experience to rub off on the youth is also something that's hard to put a price tag on. And god knows we need someone more then just Phaneuf to carry that load.

Killing an organization - that's a bit dramatic. I don't want any bad contracts period.

This post is also a little all over the place. Kadri, Rielly, Clarkson, Phaneuf ... it gets a bit muddled.

If the price was a 7 year deal at 11m with a NTC, would you do it? What about 12m a year? Is there anywhere you would draw the line or you don't care about price because "1 contract can't kill an organization"?

I do not want to be in a situation where we're just getting good and we're paying Stamkos 11m in the 5th year of his contract to "transition to a great role player". That just screams cap management failure to me.

I am all for bringing Stamkos home, but I am afraid what will have in 5 years. But if he was going to sign for 9M or something around that, for 6, maybe 7 years, that should be ok.

I would love to have Stamkos shelter our young guys when they come up. And maybe he will sometime in the future agree to play on a wing of Nylander.

One of the reasons for signing Stamkos is that he would take a spotlight from our younger guys and give them time to become great players. That is one of big pluses for me. But I am worried about our cap problems after those guys are of their ELC. Even though, if we could sign Stamkos for 6 years, that would mean that you could do a bridge contract on most of our most promising players, so Nylander, Marner, 2016 draftee, Kapanen, Dermott, and then sign them after his contract is up.

If he were to come here for a contract of 9M for 6 years, I am in. Even though I know already now, that he will very hardly score 50 goals in that time. Even though, it might happen, if you give him a really good playmaker, like Ovie has in Backstrom.

I agree. Most likely, 6 years is out of the question, it's 7 years and the only thing up in the air is price. If he wants to play here, it would have to be at a discount if I was the GM. I could maybe live with 9m.

 

[Gary Nylund]

Agreed, but don't fool yourselves:

If Stamkos WANTED to be in Tampa, they'd have already given him the money.

Anyone thinking this is about Yzerman being prudent is quite frankly, an idiot.

Because you say so? No offence but that seems like an idiotic thing to say. We're not privy to the negotiations but if Stamkos is asking to be the highest paid player in the league on an 8 year deal, Yzerman may very well be hesitant (to put it mildly).

 

[Jack Bauer]

Killing an organization - that's a bit dramatic. I don't want any bad contracts period.

This post is also a little all over the place. Kadri, Rielly, Clarkson, Phaneuf ... it gets a bit muddled.

If the price was a 7 year deal at 11m with a NTC, would you do it? What about 12m a year? Is there anywhere you would draw the line or you don't care about price because "1 contract can't kill an organization"?

I do not want to be in a situation where we're just getting good and we're paying Stamkos 11m in the 5th year of his contract to "transition to a great role player". That just screams cap management failure to me.



I agree. Most likely, 6 years is out of the question, it's 7 years and the only thing up in the air is price. If he wants to play here, it would have to be at a discount if I was the GM. I could maybe live with 9m.

I would say any wise GM uses Toews and Kane as the benchmark.

So yes I would say $12mil per is too much. But I can also see how someone like Shanahan can justify it for 1 player in an effort to change some of the perception around his organization. Much like $50 mil for a coach in this sport is laughable, 99% of the time.

If you have a good amount of youth coming through on ELC's and still do not yet have an established core like say a Chicago then I think overpaying someone like a Stamkos while the Marners and Nylanders are on ELC's or bridge contracts makes some sense.

Add in 2 more teams worth of revenue, and a slight rebound of the Canadian dollar and it's easy to see how the salary cap continues to get to a point where rolling the dice on the high priced UFA(When it's a Stamkos/Tavares talent hitting UFA at the end of his prime) makes sense assuming your organization has the youth to handle the contract.

And while I say $12 mil is too much. If that's what it takes to get it done....7 years and $84 million. Then yes I do it for a Stamkos even knowing and admitting it's too much because players of that caliber just don't hit free agency that often.

We need to improve the perception of our team as much as we need to improve our team. I think Stamkos is one of the few who can help do that. We're not having this conversation about many others, but I think he's one of the few worthy of at least discussing going outside the box a bit and breaking/bending a personal belief about contracts and term.

 

[Jack Bauer]

Because you say so? No offence but that seems like an idiotic thing to say. We're not privy to the negotiations but if Stamkos is asking to be the highest paid player in the league on an 8 year deal, Yzerman may very well be hesitant (to put it mildly).

Absolutely but I would say it's idiotic to assume the negotiation is either max or nothing.

If Stamkos wanted to be there we all know the figure is around $9-$10 million to stay in Tampa. The market has dictated that.

Not much negotiating to do on Yzermans part for this one. It's convincing the player to stay in Tampa that he really has to do. I think if Stamkos wanted to be there then he'd already be signed to the 8 year extension.

 

[Gary Nylund]

I would say any wise GM uses Toews and Kane as the benchmark.

So yes I would say $12mil per is too much. But I can also see how someone like Shanahan can justify it for 1 player in an effort to change some of the perception around his organization. Much like $50 mil for a coach in this sport is laughable, 99% of the time.

If you have a good amount of youth coming through on ELC's and still do not yet have an established core like say a Chicago then I think overpaying someone like a Stamkos while the Marners and Nylanders are on ELC's or bridge contracts makes some sense.

Add in 2 more teams worth of revenue, and a slight rebound of the Canadian dollar and it's easy to see how the salary cap continues to get to a point where rolling the dice on the high priced UFA(When it's a Stamkos/Tavares talent hitting UFA at the end of his prime) makes sense assuming your organization has the youth to handle the contract.

And while I say $12 mil is too much. If that's what it takes to get it done....7 years and $84 million. Then yes I do it for a Stamkos even knowing and admitting it's too much because players of that caliber just don't hit free agency that often.

We need to improve the perception of our team as much as we need to improve our team. I think Stamkos is one of the few who can help do that. We're not having this conversation about many others, but I think he's one of the few worthy of at least discussing going outside the box a bit and breaking/bending a personal belief about contracts and term.

Fair enough. We'll just agree to disagree then, no way in hell do I agree to those terms.

 

[Duckrider]

Fair enough. We'll just agree to disagree then, no way in hell do I agree to those terms.

I wouldn't either.

 

[champs*]

12 million for stamkos makes lupul,bozak, Phaneuf, kessel, etc good signings!!

 

[Daisy Jane]

Fair enough. We'll just agree to disagree then, no way in hell do I agree to those terms.

I would be maaad if Lamoriello and Pridham did that. maaaaaaaaad.

 

[LeafsandSharksfan]

PAP padding his points!

 

[RoyalGremlin]

Guys, we shouldn't forget about Tavares. Isn't he unsigned for next year as well? Maybe both Tavares and Stamkos are secretly vying for the Leafs and between the two of them something's gotta give cap wise.

 

[Menzinger]

Fair enough. We'll just agree to disagree then, no way in hell do I agree to those terms.

Same. I don't believe the Leafs can be a competitive team with that much cap space invested into a single player.

I'm not totally opposed to signing Stamkos, but the price has to be in favour for the Leafs.

 

[HamiltonNHL]

Guys, we shouldn't forget about Tavares. Isn't he unsigned for next year as well? Maybe both Tavares and Stamkos are secretly vying for the Leafs and between the two of them something's gotta give cap wise.

Rumor is that Crosby wants out of Pittsburgh.
We might get all 3 !!!

 

[dballislife2]

look how good eichel looks and matthews is just as good maybe even better...i hate losing but we need to tank this season bad

 

[mallory67]

Has a player with Stammers ability been on the open market at an age of 26?

Yeah ... just some guy named Gretzky? I think he was 27 ... then "the Trade" happened.

Again, anyone have an example of going out and buying a #1 center for big bucks and then actually winning a cup? Got to be one example?

 

[JackJ]

Leafs slip into top 5 territory.

 

[shelf]

Has a player with Stammers ability been on the open market at an age of 26?

Joe Thornton, Dany Heatley, Ilya Kovalchuk, Marian Hossa.

 

[JackJ]

look how good eichel looks and matthews is just as good maybe even better...i hate losing but we need to tank this season bad

Fine with either Matthews or Chychrun. Desperately need both core pieces.

 

[rdogg]

Very clutch loss tonight vs the buff

 

[The Thin White Duke]

Stamkos doesn't create offense on his own, at least not in a manner that warrants 9+ million dollars. He's a great addition to an already solid offense, but he can't be the guy that offense is built around. We already made this mistake with Kessel.

If we pay him 12 mil, how much is his playmaker or the line you have to hide him behind in the playoffs going to be making? You can't bank on getting as lucky as Tampa and having an elite line all for significantly under market value to balance out a huge contract.

If Marner/Nylander/Brown proved to be high end offensive players and were all locked up at 4 mil each long term, then sure throw money at Stamkos, but we don't know what we have yet or how much it's going to cost us.

 

[FlareKnight]

Stamkos doesn't create offense on his own, at least not in a manner that warrants 9+ million dollars. He's a great addition to an already solid offense, but he can't be the guy that offense is built around. We already made this mistake with Kessel.

If we pay him 12 mil, how much is his playmaker or the line you have to hide him behind in the playoffs going to be making? You can't bank on getting as lucky as Tampa and having an elite line all for significantly under market value to balance out a huge contract.

If Marner/Nylander/Brown proved to be high end offensive players and were all locked up at 4 mil each long term, then sure throw money at Stamkos, but we don't know what we have yet or how much it's going to cost us.

I'm not sure how much to take from this post considering Kessel was brought into this. The guy did make offense on his own and he was really good at setting guys up.

Plus what the suggestion then? If you don't even think that Marner/Nylander/Brown are going to be high end offensive players then we are screwed regardless of whether or not we get Stamkos. Just that if we don't go for him we are a screwed franchise with more cap space.

Doesn't seem like much reason to duck Stamkos.

 

[QuattroFTW]

Sens fans coming with gifts lol. I've actually grown more fond of the Leafs 1) since I moved to TO, and 2) because I despise everything about the Habs. Now I haven't seen many Leafs games, but what exactly do you guys think your achilles heel is for being a playoff contender this year? I would have thought that with the addition of Babcock and the departure of Kessel the team might have found a little spark.