"the Coyotes signed Nick Schmaltz" "BUT HOW DOES THIS AFFECT THE LEAFS?!?!?" lol

ah, yes, "100% accurate and really not arguable," great words to convince somebody that you're right. absolutely. 100%.

I didn't bring it up. Someone said Nylander was overpaid, but please continue to be salty

Point well taken...But Nylander has to step up big in the playoffs. If he's invisible, all the critics will say I told you so, b/c $7M players shouldn't get a pass. BTW, Nylander has 1G in his last 16 games.

who said I was being salty? if Steve Dangle can make a joke about "but how does this affect the Leafs," I can, too.

agreed. 2 + 2 = 4 so why fight it

clearly. such ringing endorsements of your correctness.

It's because Their Arizona. They're going to entice 0 real free agents so they have to overspend to keep players. This isn't a good deal for a lot of franchises, but for Arizona it's one it had to make. Especially after the success of Strome in Chicago.

this lines up with Chayka's recent trend of signing young players to multi-year contracts, though I definitely did a double-take when I saw the AAV. I would think the coaching and management staff have more available information to make this decision at their disposal than I do, so my take is only so informed. my initial impression, though, is that Schmaltz is good enough to not be lowballed into a contract worth less than $5M per season, but I would've expected something less than $5.5M per season. this is a hair on the high side, for me.

if Chayka wants to make that bet, good for him. plus, the only other players that really need significant pay raises in the immediate future, per se, are Keller and Hinostroza, and a good amount of money will start coming off the books by the time Keller and Hinostroza need pay raises.

What do you think Keller's contract will be? Jokes aside. Keller is someone I'm worried about going down the path of Stome, Domi, Duclair, Perlini, etc... (Literally those guys off the top of my head) All highly touted and 1st round picks, but developed poorly. Keller had a great rookie campaign and now finds himself down 16 points compared to last year all while in a year where scoring is through the roof. It just feels like de ja vu all over again...no?

one point I'll make that seems relevant is that player development isn't really linear, on aggregate. the "sophomore slump" is a phrase for a reason. now, I don't know if this is truly what happened, but maybe the rest of the league figured out how Keller operated, and he didn't quite adapt in response. Keller also appeared to have had more consistent linemates last year compared to this year, what with all of the injuries the Coyotes went through. there's something to be said for sticking to the same line for at least more than 5 games at a time; that helps breed familiarity and chemistry.

I mean, yes, all of these players were "highly touted," but projecting players that early is a real crapshoot. major-junior results don't translate to NHL success with any real degree of correlation, so we essentially take somewhat-educated guesses. same goes for players picked in the 1st round; it's a somewhat-educated guessing game at the time that you play it. "highly touted" and "drafted in the 1st round" don't automatically mean immediate and great NHL success. some players have to take the long road to find success.

But what about the success these guys are having on other teams IMMEDIATELY after they leave AZ. I mean Domi and Strome would be 1 - 2 in points/goals/assists etc... Church is really the only prospect that AZ can claim that they're developing well. Keller's still a question. I hear ya on Sophmore slump no doubt, but you can't deny there's flags all over that he might be just another name to the list of AZ prospects stubbing their toe. Maybe he gets traded too and then he'll become close to a point per game player like Strome/Domi.

Domi and Strome are the only two you can really say that about; Perlini and Duclair haven't really experienced "immediate success," per se, not in the way that we'd usually think about it.

I think coaching and play systems do have an effect on how a player performs. Craig Morgan wrote a piece at The Athletic about how Chayka's moves this year will define his tenure as GM, and he posted a comparison of Strome and Schmaltz's zone entry and exit stats from Corey Sznajder and CJ Turtoro's work on microstat-tracking. Schmaltz is insanely good at the transition game and moving out of the defensive zone and into the offensive zone with the puck; Strome is only so-so at zone transition. Strome probably wasn't a good fit for how Rick Tocchet wants to play because his foot speed is not the best, and Tocchet's system is big on speed through the neutral zone.

Strome's a fine player in the right system, I'm sure, and it's not like the Coyotes lost Strome and didn't get anything back in return. we might debate over whether Schmaltz deserves quite this much money, but it's hard to dispute that he's not a good player. Strome has 48 points in 55 games with the Blackhawks; if Schmaltz had played 55 games with the Coyotes at his pace before he got injured, he'd have had 45 points in 55 games.

similarly, it's not like the Coyotes traded Domi for a bag of pucks. Galchenyuk had hit the 30-goal mark before, and that's one of the things the Coyotes kinda needed and still sorta need, is goal-scoring talent. you can see it in their shooting percentage trends. Domi's history of goal-scoring makes his 14.4% shooting percentage this year look like an outlier; Galchenyuk had been able to sustain a double-digit shooting percentage for pretty much every year in his career besides last year. I think Chayka wanted somebody who could score goals, and you have to give to get.

Why do you think Nylander's signing was more of a risk than Schmaltz?


Nylander's cap-hit is only $1,100,000 higher than Schmaltz ... but his pre-signing career production was miles ahead of Schmaltz:

0.73 PPG over 198 NHL games (50 goals + 94 assists) = Nylander at signing.
0.57 PPG over 183 NHL games (34 goals + 71 assists) = Schmaltz at signing.

Also Notable:

- Nylander's above totals were accrued from age 19-21 (Schmaltz accrued them from age 20-22).
- Nylander's ATOI was 1:40 less than Schmaltz in their two years prior to signing (typical Babcock).
- Nylander didn't have an injury history when he signed his contract (Schmaltz did).

You can retrospectively argue that Nylander is having a bad season ... but that's not relevant to his contract negotiations.

And he did finish the year with 24 points in his last 34 games (58 point pace ... not terrible given his ATOI was only 15:31 and his SH% was under half his career average).

I have a feeling he'll get some redemption next season ... plus his defense improved drastically this year.

But that's just my take.

Its entirely possible nylander gets some redemption. I hope he does! He's very talented. To me, the reasosns are just what I said above which doesnt discount anything you've said. I just think Schmaltz is a better team player and harder worker. He didnt hold out and then fail after the hold out. Nylander has had a terrible year. 7 goals in 54 games FOR A GOAL SCORER is bad. It can 1000% be made up for in the playoffs right now. It's his time for redemption and he absolutely can have his redeption. Its also $1M less and AZ doesnt have cap issues like TOR does needed to extend Marner. You mentioned defense. Schmaltz is very under rated defensive forward. You could be correct. It just seems like a bunch of little things that add up.

I'll pipe in on Nylander. Let's forget this year. The Leafs signed him based on projection by he did have two season of 20/40/60 totals. By all comparables IMO he overpaid by at least .5m a year.
I can't explain why the Leafs decided that Matthews was deserving to be paid the second highest in the league at 11.634m. For some reason the Leafs thought it was wise to pay "hometown premiums".
Leafs will try to explain to Marner/Kapanen/Johnsson they should be paid on league comparables this summer Those players will look at the the Leafs desire to overpay to their own RFAs.
I would be very surprised if all three are inked to Leaf contracts by opening day in October

Agee .... but he's a playmaker not a goal scorer.

He was definitely touted as scorer after being drafted .... but people realized pretty quick that he was a better passer / worse shooter than they thought.