I would love to stick it to the leaf fans but 16 million dollars is too much for matthews

It's signing Barcel at others the following year which makes signings Matthews improbable for the Isles still a cap for everyone.
leafs still probable win the trade. leafs have 11m Tavares, plus 5m, (what isles paid matthews), and four first rounders., isles have matthews.

No others that I count. Just Barzal. Griess and Martin come off the books. They can give him 6M plus however much the cap goes up, without even having to buy out Boychuck. Not sure that gets him to agree to much term, but if the cap jumps another 3M, an 9M RFA deal might not be too bad? Wait and see what he does without Tavares this year before assuming he'll cost over 9M/year. I think they could extend him at 8x8 the same day Matthews, Eberle, and Gardiner sign, and feel pretty confident they can make it work.

I agree that 16M for Matthews is a push. 11M for Tavares was a push, too, but Matthews is apparently better, and the Leafs could easily win a Cup this year, which could further increase his value.

Also have to consider Matthews is better than Tavares

Sure looks that way right now. Tavares has more accomplishments under his belt, and is still pretty excellent, but Matthews is scoring more right now on the same team with worse linemates. Plus you're getting him from ate 22 to 29 rather than 27 to 34, so you expect Matthews to improve throughout the length of the contract, which is scary. I think Toronto matches, but it irritates the hell out of them to do so, which makes NYI happy.

mcdavid is the highest paid is 12.5m...1.5m higher than next player. mcdavid has been the leading point getting and his won the Hart. matthews isn't close to mcdavid. so i don't see all this hype of mathews getting paid so much unless he can match mcdavid. still it only takes one team to make an crazy rfa offer. matthews could be the one player than that it would make sense to make an offer sheet. once you get over 10.1m it's four first rounders whether 10.1m or 16m. on your roster, matthews would gag having any of those guys on left wing. stay away from gardiner and save 6m

NYI are still trying to cement a fanbase in Brooklyn, and just whiffed, big time, on Tavares. I think they could be tempted to overpay for a star, partly just for the pleasure of taking one away from Toronto. Plus with the Republicans controlling all three branches of the US government, they can budget for some brisk inflation.

so you're saying the republicans are hockey fans (particularly Isles fans) are are manipulating inflation to make future salary cap higher? . don't know about you but whenever I see the government inflation rate. I wonder what they base it on. my "basket of goods" always seem so much higher in price.

Yep. Only seems to go up. And the paychecks don't. I wish they had such a good reason for it as cheering for the Isles. But it just seems to happen when they run things. Big tax breaks for the richest lead to big stock market gains, which increase the supply of money, which raises prices on a bunch of stuff, including hockey tickets, which raises the salary cap, so that in a couple more years, 16M isn't the biggest contract in the league. But hopefully things change at midterms.

these tariffs that the trump, and the commerce department imposed, are just taxes in disguise. with the tax cuts in the last budget, the feds are getting less money, but of course spending has gone up. how to recoup those loses? the hidden tariffs which are inflationary as now there is a hidden tax on imported goods. agree with you, hopefully the mid terms will put some restraints on the madness.