I still say it could have been done this year if they’d moved Brodie out in the deal. Cap in, cap out, expiring deal, shouldn’t have been an issue. Long term, Tavares deal comes off the books in a year, but I don’t want to waste a year waiting for that. I would say tough decisions need to be made, and they do, but we have little actual control until a year out from now.
The issue with this is that other teams have to want what you want, too
Would Calgary have traded hanifin or tanev for Brodie and a 1st? Neither of those players have term, either and there is no guarantee they would resign in Toronto anyways.
You probably could have gotten petro but that decision wasn’t made at the time.
But that’s the point, you cannot drastically change this team at the deadline. You can’t in free agency either
You either go with what we have and try to fill in deficiencies a little bit at a time, and keep trying to do that (this is what we have been doing for the past 6 years)
Or -and this is what I think Tre should do- you watch the team in the playoffs this year and you assess the team and the coaching staff in the offseason. The only card left to play now that Nylander has a NMC is to let Marner walk for nothing.
Unless you can convince him or Nylander to waive their NMC, which I would also ask them about.
Nylander is less likely, as he just signed but Marner is at the end of his deal. So you tell Mitch, after a first round loss again:
“Hey Mitch, we didn’t get it done again and changes need to be made. We don’t see you as part of the solution here going forward, unless you’re willing to sign long term for $8.xx”
“You want $12m? Okay, kid. You’ll get that in free agency. Wish you all the best.”
The only way to make the changes to this team that it needs to be successful, if this team isn’t successful for another year in the playoffs, is to move on from on of the 8 figure contracts.
That’s literally the only way, if you’re not willing to bend the LTIR rules, and it doesn’t look like the leafs are interested in bending the LTIR rules