$10.9M cap space is more valuable than Marner. Not even worth speculating on.

Difference between Marner and Huberdeau is that Marner is elite defensively as well and career-wise he is much better than Hurberdeau. He also did not always play with Matthews. Tavares was still elite but Marner was better. Plus, 1 year of Huberdeau & Weegar (they would have lost him or someone anyways) + a 1st + with just one year left got a younger forward superstar like Tkachuk with an extension.

You don't trade a superstar forward for a superstar goalie. The goalie will likely fall off long before the forward (Saros wasn't even in the Vezina convo this year). Even a forward for a defender is risky, but might make more sense for roster construction purposes.

Im confused. Why are we trading two 1st round picks, McMann, and Marner for Holl and Saros? Did I miss something?

So maybe it should be more like Marner + Rielly + 1st for Jack Hughes... Either way, the point is he might wind up getting way less production without a 69 goal scorer. I don't know that the defensive game makes up for the AAV, and I haven't forgotten Pasta's game 7 goal yet.

I just needed to get a troll trade in with the McMann deal. I think you guys got him for a good AAV

$11 million spent in UFA would be a disaster, remember Tre spent $5.5 million on Bert, $4.2 million on Klingberg and $1.3 million on Reaves.
How did that work out for the Leafs >?

Marner's player comparables in overall production are Pastrnak and Rantanen. Pastrnak is the goal scorer, Rantanen is the more complete offensive player (he can score and dish the puck), and Marner is the playmaker + most complete two-way. Marner has the lowest value of the 3 (assuming Pasta had a year left like them), but it's not night and day.

That Pastrnak-Lindholm set play was ELITE and probably need to give props to the coaching staff since someone probably saw that the Leafs' defense coverage in that position would be prone to that play.

I don't think Treliving did too bad in free agency as you don't win them all and Bert and Kling's deals are 1-year and Reaves could be buried for most of it. In the end, it did turn out fine. That being said I don't want him binge-shopping in FA. If Marner's entire cap comes off the book they'll have nearly 30M to spend and would surely end up with 2 or 3 bad long-term contracts + same results more than likely or worse.

His pace over the last 6 years is 100 points and it's been pretty consistent, with or without Matthews. Don't think it's fair at all to assume a massive drop in production just because Huberdeau fell off a cliff. You can make that argument for any player in that case.

Only problem with McMann is he can't stay healthy.

Good depth player.

The old Joe Louis Arena used to have a dead spot behind the net at one end and Red Wings defensemen used to aim for it knowing it would usually kick the puck out in front of the goalie.

They scored so many goals from it.

It was usually Lidstrom who succeeded the most at doing it.

I'd love marner but so many things have to happen for it work. He'd have to agree upon an extension or he just waits a year for teams to chase him. He has all the leverage if he just wants to stay in Toronto.

I'm just saying Jonny Hubes is pretty similar. At age 27 he had 591 GP, 168 G, 330 A, for 498 P.

Marner has more assists, but he's also playing with potentially the best goal scorer of all time, so I'd expect him to have a few more assists per season than most other distributing wingers. I think it would be naive to think he'll keep up that pace when most of his points are assists.

Just to put it in context, Detroit's 2 top goal scorers combined scored less goals than Mathews. Where would he get his points (insert any other forwards from any other team)? You think he's going to boost them that much?

How nice of Nashville to just take on $21.5M in cap.

Marner has 576GP 194G 445A, 639P. So, while Huberdeau and Marner might have similar production between 2019-2022, that just means that Marner at 22-24 was as good as Huberdeau at 26-28. Maybe Marner does also fall off a cliff at 29/30, but still got two more years until that.

We all know Vegas will get him somehow.

He had his best two assist total seasons last year (when Matthews only scored 40) and 18-19 when he didn't play with Matthews, but instead led Tavares to the best goal-scoring season of his career. Marner's a creator - one of the best in the league - and he's consistent at it. So I don't think it's naive at all.

Huberdeau fell off a cliff when he couldn't play with Barkov anymore, not because he turned 29.

At the same point in their careers, Marner has 26 more goals and 115 more assists that Huberdeau.

Just a fun side fact, Barkov started playing 1 year after Huberdeau, and Barkov scored 181 goals by the time Huberdeau was 27. So they came up at similar times in the league together like Mathews and Mitch. The fun part is Mathews has scored nearly double what Barkov did... Just saying that 115 more assists seems a bit easier to come by when there's 187 more goals to potentially be assisted.

Huberdeau didn't play with Barkov much other than on the power play. His best year Sam Bennett was his center, a gritty physical hard forechecking go to the net type center. Huberdeau never had a goal scorer like Matthews to play with either.

Holy smokes, Tavares went from a previous season (career high) of 37 goals to 47... That's also the season he signed as a UFA. Maybe it was Marner, or maybe it was not being the main weapon for the Islanders anymore.

Considering he hasn't even sniffed that total again since Marner was taken off his wing, it seems like a good bet that it was the former.

Just compare them to when Marner didn't play with Matthews much (2016-2020):

Marner (19-22) 300GP 83G 208A 291PTS (only 57 of those points are from goals scored or assisted by Matthews, just under 20%)
Huberdeau (23-26) 264GP 90G 175A 265PTS

Huberdeau only has slightly better production with 4-years of experience on him.

Marner in his rookie season, was playing with Tyler Bozak (and JVR) and had 61 pts, none of which Matthews had a part in. I don't recall who was his C in his second year, might have been Bozak still or Kadri, but Matthews and Marner connected for only 4/69 pts. Years 3 and 4 was mainly Tavares (think he played a decent bit with Matthews in 4). Matthews and Marner connected for 15/93 pts and 38/67PTS. Barkov had broken out a year before Marner's rookie season, and by time, Tavares was playing in Toronto, he too was an elite player. Huberdeau's production did improve as Barkov's did but it's not like Huberdeau wasn't producing all by himself with little to no talent on his team. It's no different than Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak all have drastic increase in their production around the same time.

Well Toronto will surely keep him then for when Tavares signs a "team friendly" deal.