Gabriel426
Registered User
- Jun 30, 2015
- 18,430
- 12,163
You do need top talent to win the Cup as shown over the past 10Cup winners.Matthews gave us fair retail value on his last contract. It was a luxury player at a luxury price, with very little room for surplus value to be found but we got our money's worth. My big issue with him this season is you bake the new salary, captaincy, injuries, inconsistency into one and it's massive regression and not building any momentum on top of anything from the past. So I don't trust our foundations to make massive short term additions.
In terms of an organizational shift from top heavy to a more distributed roster and cap structure, I'm not sure what the answer is.
I do believe in a team built on more depth and more fiscal responsibility, but I think it has to be built that way like the Dallas Stars model. They just drafted well, developed in house, promoted internally and handed out reasonable upper middle class deals. I think it's a different organizational mindset, they didn't grow up with the mentality that they were the best core of the era destined for great things.
I look at the Avalanche and Rantanen, I'm not convinced going from high end and changing stance by downgrading works. So moving off Marner to get Boeser and Ehlers might balance the cap sheet a little bit but if one of those guys goes south you're basically cooked.
Even the Blues had ROR(argubly the best two way C at that time) and Pietra( one of the few No.1 Dman at that time).
Now the question is can we consider AM, MM, Willie and JT top end talents? They certainly had not perform at the level of Sid, Ovie, Kuch, Point, Barkov, Tkachuk, Stone, Eichel, Mack, Rantanen, McD and Drai. Also it is not like they are on an island by themselves with no other top players to play with.
As for Avs and Rantanen. Necas is a downgrade but they still have Mack, Makar and Toews, all proven playoffs winners in their prime. They can afford a downgrade on Rantanen while getting a stronger supporting piece.
For the Leafs. Let’s say they are out in the first round again (as if they advance to the ECF and more while MM plays a big role, he should be resign), now would changing Ehlers and Colton for MM and Holmberg hurts the Leafs chance in making the playoffs? Another word, would the team take a step backwards with those changes. I would say not.
Would they take the next step forward, that would depends on AM and Willie more than how well Ehlers play.
Just thought of this, let’s say you can build a team with any players with the current cap.
I don’t think any of the core 5 will be on that team and that’s pretty much shown they are not overperforming their contracts.
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