A lot to digest here.

1. Nylander and Marner will not sign for the same contract. Marner is the better and more consistent player, and does not need to sign this year. His agent is aggressive and will wait and see what Nylander signs for first, then adjust his asking price for Marner accordingly. Marner may end up taking a bridge deal, well knowing that if he bets on himself to out perform his bridge deal that he could land an even bigger one down the road.

2. Dumba and his camp knows there is a lot of interest for him this off-season. He will not sign for 4 million AAV, especially 3 years from now. The cap is going up, and his agent will be negotiating his deal based on the percentage of the cap that his comparables sign/signed to.

would love to know how marner is the better more consistent player, up until about the trade deadline marner was not good at all, if he didnt have a monster back half youre looking at a very underwhelming season as for nylander he has been pretty consistent in both years he has been in the league so far and scored a decent amount more 5v5 then marner did and he also played down the middle for a bit of the season and for a young guy all the pressure to be good in your own zone from babcock im sure took a little bit of nylanders offensive game away for a bit while he got adjusted .

as for dumba I said the contracts are not exactly what i think they really would be , he will prob get around 6mill i would assume maybe a bit less. or maybe more if he takes a step.

and a one star rating ? come on lol i guess as a detriot fan you do know more about leafs players.

I like the Backstrom idea. Maybe we can trade Kadri for him.

I find it funny that there is always a 4M gap that mirrors the Edmonton scenario. That situation is not applicable to the Leafs and the gap, if there is one, will be considerably smaller between Matthews and the other 2.

yeah maybe matthews gets less who knows but 6.5-7.5 seems fair for both nylander and marner in my opinion as for edmonton McDavid deserves 10mill more lol hes a monster

Yes I am a Redwings fan, but I watched almost every Leaf game this year. I listen to TSN 1050's Overdrive podcast and it's Leafs focused, so I like to be updated on what they talk about.

Marner had almost no leash with Babcock early in the season. One or two bad games, Marner was sent down to the fourth line for 4-5 games. Babcock has done that to Nylander too, but Nylander plays with two young and fast players. Also, notice how Nylander is fairly unimpactful when Matthews is out of the line-up. Marner is like Patrick Kane, he can make most lines dangerous with him just being on the ice. Nylander needs to play with another elite player because he can't generate too much on his own.

Marner - up until getting moved to a line with Kadri and Marleau - was playing with two slow players who are not high end offensive talents. Yes - JVR scored 35 goals this year, but he doesn't score off the rush or make defenseman back up when he enters the zone. He scores on the powerplay from in tight and/or around the net. If Babcock locks both of Nylander and Marner in on their top 2 lines for the entire season, and doesn't penalize them or push them down the line-up, I guarantee you Marner will out perform Nylander.

Two years in a row, Marner has out performed Nylander in points per game in the regular season and in the playoffs. The only reasons the Bruins Leafs series went 7 games was due to Marner and Andersen. Everyone else on the Leafs were awful.

I'll admit - one star rating was a tad harsh. It should have been a 2-3 star.

I really think you're undervaluing the type of player nylander is.. Nylander was pretty good without matthews and he was also playing C which he has not played since he was in the AHL so its an adjustment and he really was only playing with hyman and hyman isnt very good offensively i do think he is a good player tho but like id rather JVR on my wing then hyman offensively
. I think marner and nylander are both fantastic players and even if one ends up better then the other it wont be by much.
now about marner having a shorter leash that isnt true at all nylander has the shortest leash by far out of the 3. and JVR and bozak are both good players and im willing to bet most a decent amount of marners points came of a JVR/bozak goal or assist considering he scored a decent amount of points on the PP with JVR and Bozak.
and yes nylander is obviously better with matthews LOL but its the same both ways because matthews was clearly better when nylander got moved to his wing last year

& of course listening to he Overdrive podcast you're gonna hear that marner is better , he is canadian hes from TO and he isnt a swede lol. It been the same since Sundin toronto media will always say swedes dont work hard enough or have enough hart ect ...

We love him cause the kid scored 40 but he has produced at a fraction of the rate of McDavid and yet the blue koolaid has everyone annointing him god.

Matthews is a franchise centre just because he doesnt have two 100 point seasons under his belt already like mcdavid doesnt mean hes not worth the money he will get