Confirmed with Link: [TOR/OTT] Matt Murray (25% retention), a 3rd in 2023 and a 7th in 2024 for Future Considerations.

[ITM]

Would fans feel better about the deal if OTT retained 50%?

I doubt it.

The outrage (I think) is about how risky it is to go with Murray. Risky with Samsonov too.

Wing and a prayer/wish upon a star moves IMHO.

I wish we knew what the other negotiations were with other GMs and Agents. My guess it that TOR didn't have the assets or the cap space.

Irritating AF.

Re: Bolded: Don't doubt it for a moment. Our current cap situation (and our roster) needs every penny we can save. Pun intended.

In some instances the shock and disbelief with respect to negotiations rests in the information prior to our deal that a substantially better opportunity existed, but (apparently) wasn't acted upon.

And with respect to our situation (or others), we do have an inkling of what was possible given the actions taken by other GMs. What we don't know to a reasonable degree is what strength one player's preference or another played in movement; We don't know if Dubas called Husso's agent, offered a 2nd or 3rd for his rights and was refused based on Husso's (possible) preference not to play for Toronto, as an example.

 

[andora]

I gotta wonder how some players minds about playing in toronto can be changing

I wonder if we have missed out on people because while they may want to play in toronto they may ask themselves whats the point if they cant afford me after one year and have shown a consistency at a depth revolving door

 

[Zybalto]

He didn't leave enough cap space so he had no choice but to move the player.

Marleau fell off a cliff....he was done....career over.

Its not about leaving enough cap space its about freeing it up to actually be useful if you want to compete. We all had fears that 3rd year might come back to bite us and it did and the size of the contract plus trade limitations really put us in a tight spot.

It is what it is and we had to bite the bullet. You want to try and maximize not just the amount of cap but what you get from your cap and Marleau was 6.25 of negative cap. One of the worst contracts in the league.

 

[andora]

Marleau fell off a cliff....he was done....career over.

Its not about leaving enough cap space its about freeing it up to actually be useful if you want to compete. We all had fears that 3rd year might come back to bite us and it did and the size of the contract plus trade limitations really put us in a tight spot.

It is what it is and we had to bite the bullet. You want to try and maximize not just the amount of cap but what you get from your cap and Marleau was 6.25 of negative cap. One of the worst contracts in the league.

I think he may bring up the tavares contract as causing it.. which is correct in some degree.

As you say maximizing what you get from your cap is personally what always struck me with the tavares contract

1. Impending big contracts for young stars
2. Lots of depth young forwards coming up
3. A defence needing fixing/improving
4. Goaltending needing figuring out long term

Adding tavares created a whole bunch of other work needing to be done just to fit in .. or well make matthews and marner fit in.

 

[ACC1224]

Marleau fell off a cliff....he was done....career over.

Its not about leaving enough cap space its about freeing it up to actually be useful if you want to compete. We all had fears that 3rd year might come back to bite us and it did and the size of the contract plus trade limitations really put us in a tight spot.

It is what it is and we had to bite the bullet. You want to try and maximize not just the amount of cap but what you get from your cap and Marleau was 6.25 of negative cap. One of the worst contracts in the league.

Yes he was done and it was a terrible contract.
Why not sit him on the press box to open the season? If he's still not open to waiving after a few weeks, month then weigh other options.
You're rarely going to make a good move when you limit your options.

 

[Zybalto]

I think he may bring up the tavares contract as causing it.. which is correct in some degree.

As you say maximizing what you get from your cap is personally what always struck me with the tavares contract

1. Impending big contracts for young stars
2. Lots of depth young forwards coming up
3. A defence needing fixing/improving
4. Goaltending needing figuring out long term

Adding tavares created a whole bunch of other work needing to be done just to fit in .. or well make matthews and marner fit in.

Totally agree here.

Tavares was the start of the big plan and unloading Marleau (the right move at the time even if you didnt like the price) was part of it.

The big problems with what happened were that number 4 didnt look like it was a priority with Andersen being a 28 year old excellent workhorse top 10 goalie with apparently decent backup options and revenues had started exploding meaning the cap was going to skyrocket. (And covid killed that taking away all flexibility for all cap teams)

 

[Zybalto]

Yes he was done and it was a terrible contract.
Why not sit him on the press box to open the season? If he's still not open to waiving after a few weeks, month then weigh other options.
You're rarely going to make a good move when you limit your options.

Thats always an option too but who knows? Opening up all that cap to ice your opening night roster is good too and dont discount the negativity storm created by sitting one of the nice guys in hockey, leaving him in limbo.

Really no good end to that.

 

[Dekes For Days]

Yes he was done and it was a terrible contract. Why not sit him on the press box to open the season?

Because that would mean carrying significant dead cap and having to make moves to make the team worse in the present and future during a competitive phase. That's not an actual option.

 

[BrannigansLaw]

Not wanting to go to Buffalo is not the same as only willing to go to Toronto. Reports stated that there was another team than Buffalo that was an option. Acquiring a player like Murray with retention for the purposes of playing for you is different from acquiring a player for a buyout resulting in 6.25m in dead cap and costing million of dollars.

Yeah, he only wanted to go to Toronto or Edmonton. One whole other team that wasn't even interested in him in the first place and wanted Campbell. Quite the bidding war.

Two players, both cap dumps that their clubs were desperately trying to get rid of to the point where the Sens even put him on waivers with no takers. It doesn't matter if one was acquired with the intention to play for us or for the intent of buying them out; both clubs, Leafs with Marleau and Sens with Murray, were desperate to get rid of these contracts. One had to trade a 13th overall and the other gave up a 3rd and a 7th round pick and he even has one year left on his contract too unlike Marleau! It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

I'll give Murray a chance but Dubas pissing away assets/not maximizing value pisses me off.

 

[ShaneFalco]

I'll give Murray a chance but Dubas pissing away assets/not maximizing value pisses me off

NHL Agent Poll: Maple Leafs’ Kyle Dubas Deemed Most Generous GM

A recent poll suggests that Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas is — for better or worse — cozier with agents than the rest of his peers are.

www.forbes.com

 

[The Hanging Jowl]

Marleau fell off a cliff....he was done....career over.

Its not about leaving enough cap space its about freeing it up to actually be useful if you want to compete. We all had fears that 3rd year might come back to bite us and it did and the size of the contract plus trade limitations really put us in a tight spot.

It is what it is and we had to bite the bullet. You want to try and maximize not just the amount of cap but what you get from your cap and Marleau was 6.25 of negative cap. One of the worst contracts in the league.

I'm going to wildly guess about a hundred posters on here said the day he was signed the 3rd year on Marleau's contract was going to be a big problem. His career plummeting wasn't some big shocker.

 

[ACC1224]

Thats always an option too but who knows? Opening up all that cap to ice your opening night roster is good too and dont discount the negativity storm created by sitting one of the nice guys in hockey, leaving him in limbo.

Really no good end to that.

Yeah fair enough.
I think everyone could agree that having more options is better than having one.

I'm going to wildly guess about a hundred posters on here said the day he was signed the 3rd year on Marleau's contract was going to be a big problem. His career plummeting wasn't some big shocker.

Yep and no one on that day would have predicted they would need to dump it for cap space.

 

[Dekes For Days]

Yeah, he only wanted to go to Toronto or Edmonton.

Him having a preference for Toronto for obvious reasons doesn't mean that that was the only place he was willing to waive for. Of course he didn't waive for Buffalo. It's Buffalo. They're a complete mess, and it's one of the worst places you could go if you're trying to get good medical care and reset your career. Reports were that Ottawa had another option.

It doesn't matter if one was acquired with the intention to play for us or for the intent of buying them out

Of course it matters. One team retained millions of dollars, and traded a player that still had hockey-related value, who was acquired for the NHL roster. The other team retained nothing, traded a player that had zero hockey-related value, who was acquired for the purpose of the acquiring team paying millions of dollars and having 6.25m in literal dead cap. These are not remotely similar situations, and it's very easy to understand the price-to-move discrepancy.

One had to trade a 13th overall

The trade was an undetermined 1st that was likely to be relatively late in the round, that only wasn't later in the round because the rules were unexpectedly changed due to a global pandemic abruptly stopping the league and necessitating an entirely different playoff format, for the record.

I'll give Murray a chance

Yeah, it certainly seems like you are.

 

[The Hanging Jowl]

Yeah fair enough.
I think everyone could agree that having more options is better than having one.


Yep and no one on that day would have predicted they would need to dump it for cap space.

Also true, I was just addressing the one small point about his career going downhill

 

[ACC1224]

Yeah, he only wanted to go to Toronto or Edmonton. One whole other team that wasn't even interested in him in the first place and wanted Campbell. Quite the bidding war.

Two players, both cap dumps that their clubs were desperately trying to get rid of to the point where the Sens even put him on waivers with no takers. It doesn't matter if one was acquired with the intention to play for us or for the intent of buying them out; both clubs, Leafs with Marleau and Sens with Murray, were desperate to get rid of these contracts. One had to trade a 13th overall and the other gave up a 3rd and a 7th round pick and he even has one year left on his contract too unlike Marleau! It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

I'll give Murray a chance but Dubas pissing away assets/not maximizing value pisses me off.

I think we're all willing to give Murray a chance, hopefully (praying) it works out.
It's not the goalies fault the GM made a terrible deal, can't hold that against him.

 

[LeafChief]

I'm not sure how anyone can argue this was a good trade. There should have been more retention or better assets coming back with him.

Murray actually played pretty good last year other than his final two games which tanked his numbers (he also missed a bunch of time with COVID from what I understand). I'm cautiously optimistic that he's actually going to be pretty good playing for the Leafs but regardless of that, a very risky trade and I feel like the Leafs should have done better here.

I'm not against the move of picking him up, I just feel that the trade should have been more in the Leafs favour than it was.

 

[ACC1224]

I'm not sure how anyone can argue this was a good trade. There should have been more retention or better assets coming back with him.

Murray actually played pretty good last year other than his final two games which tanked his numbers (he also missed a bunch of time with COVID from what I understand). I'm cautiously optimistic that he's actually going to be pretty good playing for the Leafs but regardless of that, a very risky trade and I feel like the Leafs should have done better here.

I'm not against the move of picking him up, I just feel that the trade should have been more in the Leafs favour than it was.

Just wait 5 minutes

 

[andora]

Totally agree here.

Tavares was the start of the big plan and unloading Marleau (the right move at the time even if you didnt like the price) was part of it.

The big problems with what happened were that number 4 didnt look like it was a priority with Andersen being a 28 year old excellent workhorse top 10 goalie with apparently decent backup options and revenues had started exploding meaning the cap was going to skyrocket. (And covid killed that taking away all flexibility for all cap teams)

I dont think i would classify marleau as the right move but the necessary move given his number a d the new salaries starting

It was the necessary move as a result of tavares

 

[LeafChief]

Just wait 5 minutes

Maybe your comment is going over my head but I'm not sure I understand lol

 

[SeaOfBlue]

I'm not sure how anyone can argue this was a good trade. There should have been more retention or better assets coming back with him.

Murray actually played pretty good last year other than his final two games which tanked his numbers (he also missed a bunch of time with COVID from what I understand). I'm cautiously optimistic that he's actually going to be pretty good playing for the Leafs but regardless of that, a very risky trade and I feel like the Leafs should have done better here.

I'm not against the move of picking him up, I just feel that the trade should have been more in the Leafs favour than it was.

I guess it came down to we either make it like this or it doesn't happen at all... At least based on Dubas' press conference about it. Maybe Ottawa was not as desperate as the media made them seem.

 

[Mess]

Yeah he must have missed the lecture on 'Using Leverage' during his formative years at Brock.

Ottawa GM Dorion didn't miss that lecture as he knew he had "leverage" because Matt Murray was a former Soo Greyhounds goalie.

To 30 other teams GM that wouldn't have meant a damn thing, but he knew he was dealing with the former Soo GM, who had brought in the former Soo Coach, and he knew they desperately needed to replace their former departing Soo goalie Jack Campbell. So "using leverage" he issued an ultimatum to the only team he knew couldn't resist taking the bait.

When he tried a few days earlier to dump the bad Murray contract on Buffalo (before Murray nixed it on NTC), then he needed to add the 1st round #7th overall pick to move back to #16, without that leverage. However with the Soo leverage only need to toss in a 3rd and 7th to have someone haul it away. even holding firm on his disposal price as non negotiable take it or leave it.

Without the Soo leverage this would be illogical, as to explain the vast difference in cost of disposal for same contract within the same division which most teams try to avoid anyways.

 

[notbias]

Ottawa GM Dorion didn't miss that lecture as he knew he had "leverage" because Matt Murray was a former Soo Greyhounds goalie.

To 30 other teams GM that wouldn't have meant a damn thing, but he knew he was dealing with the former Soo GM, who had brought in the former Soo Coach, and he knew they desperately needed to replace their former departing Soo goalie Jack Campbell. So "using leverage" he issued an ultimatum to the only team he knew couldn't resist taking the bait.

When he tried a few days earlier to dump the bad Murray contract on Buffalo (before Murray nixed it on NTC), then he needed to add the 1st round #7th overall pick to move back to #16, without that leverage. However with the Soo leverage only need to toss in a 3rd and 7th to have someone haul it away. even holding firm on his disposal price and non negotiable take it or leave it.

Without the Soo leverage this would be illogical, as to explain the difference in cost of disposal for same contract within in the same division which most teams try to avoid.

Do you mind explaining why Soo player McCann was not protected?

Also, what do you think 9 spots is worth in the first round? Seems like a similar trade as what we got..

 

[Dekes For Days]

Also, what do you think 9 spots is worth in the first round? Seems like a similar trade as what we got..

Yeah, there's really two issues here. One is that people are assuming they know the exact Buffalo trade when it was only reported that the trade would "include" that, and it allowed people to spend time prior to the trade imagining all sorts of ridiculous, unrealistic fantasies. The other is that people are exaggerating the actual value of moving down those slots in a weak draft that saw less than usual prospect discrepancy in that range.

 

[Sypher04]

Where’s the 1st round pick?

So much for the argument that Lou screwed over Dubas so bad that dumping one year of Marleau required attaching a f’ing high 1st round pick. Looks like other GMs have no problem avoiding that. Dubas has already done it twice now lol.

I understand what you’re saying and I don’t even really disagree with the sentiment we didn’t get enough for taking Murray, but you are skewing the facts here to make things sound a lot worse than they are. The three situations really aren’t much alike. Re: the teams moving Marleau, Mrazek and Murray.

Capped out teams that see themselves as contenders do not trade for dumps. They simply don’t. So say whatever you want about whether Murray being one to Ottawa, that’s all true, but the fact the Leafs were even in on him hurts their leverage because the mere existence of discussions prove that they value the player. Another thing that hurts their leverage is the fact they had no NHL quality goalies under contract - that’s on Dubas and his team though. Regardless of how people feel about Murray, healthy, he’s easily an NHL goalie, and even last year he played well more than he didn’t. For those looking at a monentary glance of the stats, it is important to note his are pretty heavily dragged down by a couple blowouts at the end of his season. I think we as Leaf fans know all too well, blowouts to the tune of 8 goals are never the fault of any one person. They are a collective failure

The items in your post I take some issue with however are:

1) referring to our 1sts involved in the Marleau and Mrazek deals high first rounders is pretty generous. The 13th for Marleau was a mid pick, but a pretty good one. That said, Dubas replaced it shortly thereafter with a comparable pick. Hypothetically there may be a scenario we could have had both, but it’s pure speculation to suggest another a similar deal could have been made with Kapanen other than when it was made. File that under who knows, but possible.

2) we should not be equating the outright trading of pick with trade back 13 spots from the late first round to the early second. They simply are not the same thing. Maybe IF Ottawa had a late first and we’d had a 2nd we could have moved in the deal, a 1st would have been attainable in the Murray deal.

 

[Sypher04]

I think we're all willing to give Murray a chance, hopefully (praying) it works out.
It's not the goalies fault the GM made a terrible deal, can't hold that against him.

I don’t love it. Really needed that extra retention as far as I’m concerned, and I would have flipped our return to another team to make that happen personally (if possible) but I still think it’s hard to call a deal where you give up nothing terrible (yes I know, cap space). It’s most definitely a gamble. And if it pays off Dubas comes away looking like a genius. If it doesn’t, well it could end him. Just my 2 cents