Dubas HAD to overpay Marner....because he set the team market overpaying Matthews. If Matthews had signed for 11 million x 8, Marner likely gets 10-10.5 x 8.
But when you make Matthews the 2nd highest player in the league, all while coming off his best season and being 21st in PPG.....it sort of puts your back against the wall when Marner is 15th in PPG this year and has ACTUALLY posted a 90+ point season instead of a coulda/woulda season.
All along, I said I thought they would settle at $11x7/8. But Ferris even pushed it further for a better deal. Good on him.
Now, in saying that, I have also said that overpaying your stars is much better than overpaying your bottom 6 or bottom pairing D...and used Zaitsev as an example. You can't make those mistakes with that level a player. With your stars, they still have a much more likely chance of one day making the deal look good as the cap goes up.
It will be interesting to see if other GM's cave to this "new" RFA power and give in to term and money. Or if they stick to their guns and make the RFA's choose one or the other. Rants will be the real interesting one to compare once signed being a winger, better scorer, and produced the same.
Oh...and for those saying "Leafs are in cap hell next year, or in a few more years", let it go. They will figure it out...every team always does. This year, it cost them a 1st to figure it out which hurts. But as of now, they have no bad contracts to crap players. And with cap room being tight, they likely won't find themselves in that spot again anyways. They just need the prospects to keep developing and have guys like Bracco become point producer and someone like Sandin become a top 4...which he will IMO. Keep the pipeline coming. And if it means in a year you trade away a Kapanen and replace him with a cheaper Bracco, so be it.
And lastly...I think Nylander has a very good year this year...70+ points.
