That's not true at all. Leverage situations are not all or nothing like you seem to think, and high-quality players always hold significant leverage.
That's also not true. If there was any "army", it was an army of people refusing to accept the undeniable quality of our players, both historically and relative to their peers, and cherry picking exclusively raw points with zero context and specific contracts (many of which weren't even post-ELC) to make our players and their contracts appear worse than they really were.
Massive hyperbole (what else is new) aside, the far bigger problem was the blatantly incorrect ways you were trying to discuss contracts to begin with, not the taxes.
This is a good example of it. Player contracts aren't determined by labeling them as "X point players", based exclusively on their highest raw point total to date, with no context or consideration for their progression and prior production. You conveniently leave out things like the fact that the 60-point player was consistently a 60-point player, and the 70-point player was following up seasons of 26 and 27 points. You've even acknowledged the importance of things like this when it suits your argument, but then conveniently ignore it when it suits your false claims of "unprecedented dramatic overpayments".
Per-60 stats haven't disappeared at all. They are still just as relevant, though there is less of a discrepancy because the gap in PP time has decreased. Exactly which comparison do you think this makes a significant difference for?
Nylander likely signs this offseason, so what he does next year is irrelevant.
No reason to think they will get that much, and for the record, Marner wanting to be paid an appropriate amount - which was still less than Matthews - does not mean he sees himself as equal.
Nobody is changing their arguments. You just don't seem to understand or know how to properly apply the things people have been explaining to you for years.