That’s quite amazing that a team can time their injuries. Hopefully the Leafs can as well.
You can't time your injuries. That's the whole point. But you can manipulate return timelines in some cases, which gave the team you pointed to an opportunity to cheat, circumvent the cap, and gain a big advantage over the rest of the league. It wasn't some master plan and team-building demonstration by a genius owner and GM. They got lucky in a way that gave them a big advantage.
No question their goalie played a part, but you are just ignoring facts if you say they’re not a well-balanced team. Their 3 highest paid forwards make a combined $25.4 million, a total of 13 forwards at a cap hit of $48.2 million. A legitimate #1 dman making $8.8 million, combine that with a #2 dman who only makes $5.2 million, 8 dmen for a total of $28.6 million. That’s pretty balanced if you ask me.
Now let’s look at the Leafs. Our 3 highest paid forwards make $32.5 million (I believe we are the only team in the league paying 3 forwards this much money), 13 forwards in total making $58.5 million. Playoff Rielly is definitely a top 2 dman, he makes $7.5 million. Then we might have 2 top 4 dmen (1 if we see latter part of season and playoff Brodie), and the rest are #5 and #6 dmen, 7 dmen in total making a combined $21.9 million. Can we afford another dman at $7 million? Simple and only answer, at least right now, is no, due especially to the discrepancy in how much our forwards make compared to theirs!
You're talking about cap allocation, not team balance. The Leafs actually had almost perfect balance last year in their offensive, defensive, and goaltending ranking results.
Your numbers also don't seem right. Are you looking at capfriendly amounts for next year? What does that have to do with what happened last year? We've shifted cap allocation from defense and goaltending to forward this year more than we ever really have.
Our spending was a lot closer relative to Vegas last year, but let's go with the general idea that we spent more on forwards and goaltending and less on defense. Well, we had a slightly worse (but still top-10) defense, and better offense and goaltending. So... what exactly is the issue? Both teams got what they paid for.
And you are absolutely right, no player should be FORCED to take less than they could get elsewhere.I mean, no other players anywhere have done that. But, as I’ve said before, it comes down to whether greed or having a better chance to win is your deciding factor. And I know of a few players (obviously on other teams) who have taken less than they could because they wanted to give their team a better chance of winning. We all know what Matthews’ and Marner’s choices were last time. Will it be different this time?
Discounts are very rare. Most of the players that you're likely thinking took them probably didn't. You likely are just misjudging their worth at time of signing.
Wanting to be paid what you're worth isn't greed. I know that it's easy for people to disassociate from those who make a lot more money than them, but everybody wants to be paid their fair share at their job, and remember that we're talking about which millionaires and billionaires get which millions of dollars. Top players already get underpaid in this league relative to their quality and impact both on the ice and in terms of driving revenues, and now we're calling them greedy pigs for wanting to get the same underpayment relative to their impact that their top tier peers get?
Matthews and Marner's decision last time was to take a fair, average amount relative to their worth, consistent with top tier players throughout the cap era.
All fans want these super discounts, but no fan should be angry with an average contract.
