I thought at first glance that kadri and brown were getting the old lupul treatment

Ask Jarmo Kekalainen how things should be served for bridge ( Bjorkstrand )

Next year go Poile style......

Arvidsson screwed himself with term badly....i dont think any kid will repeat that mistake....

Also Poile style would be :

Matthews 8 x 11M ( Jul 2019 )....or even less
Nylander 8 x 6,6M ( Jul 2018 )
Marner 8 x 8,5M ( Jul 2019 )

with the above in mind, we are more in Chiarelli waters than anywhere else......

So if the salary cap goes go up to $83 million and Marner will sign for less then 10 the Leafs could come back with the same team next season minus Gardiner, Kadri and Brown with no improvements on the back end, fans won't like it but it is an option Dubas may have to consider until Marleau is off the books.
I can't see Marner signing anything that has an AAV less then 10.

The Matthews deal certainly leaves some thoughts lingering... However, scoring centres don't come along everyday so I'm willing to give Dubas a pass there. What he does with Marner now is key.

Kadri is a better player than Johnson and Kapanen, idk why you would do this

I. Think this is terrific and is probably close to what happens. It means betting on kapanen and johnsson long term..those are bets it would make.

By the end of next year you will have hopefully Sandin and Liligren both ready for the lineup.

You will have marleau off the books, and be able to resign Muzzin, Dermott or go get a top RHD in free agency

Asset management. Being a centre, Kadri holds more trade value. And to keep him, he needs to move to the wing and play with Tavares.
On his own, he doesn't drive a line. Nylander does.

The concensus around here is to dump Zaitsev and Marleau which is not the only option. The idea here is to provide cost certainty for the duration of Tavares tenure as well as get great value out of the young wingers before they put up bigger numbers on a better Leaf team.

I mean I don't agree. Kadri's numbers are great, and the only real reason he doesn't take off in point production is mostly due to getting defensive assignments. Zaitsev is hardly a bottom pairing defenseman, Kadri is a #2 centre on most teams in the league and they cost the same. I think asset management is important, but to a team struggling to get under the cap you need the best possible players on the cheapest deals possible, and Kadri is great in that regard, Zaitsev isn't. The same goes for Johnson and Kapanen, who are both (in my mind) inferior players that will make the same amount of money this way. You don't lose them for nothing either, as you can either package them with Zaitsev to get better d back, or trade them for picks/players on an ELC.



This to me is just another argument to get rid of Zaitsev over anyone else - you have the replacements in the organisation

Zaitsev has to provide a return or he can't be moved. He and Gardiner were not good together but away from Gardiner, Zaitsev was fine. Paired with Muzzin, his production and confidence began to return and a two way 30 point defenseman has value on the trade market.
It was also pretty clear that the organization changed Zaitsev's usage, much like they did with Rielly, to help grow his defensive game and the underlying numbers support improvement.

Kadri isn't being maximized anymore in his role and given his playoff suspensions, something has to happen.

Last year's third line with Marleau and Brown was terrible and if the Leafs deal their only young wingers with skill, the problems will persist.

Well I just disagree. If you give away Zaitsev for free and sign say Strålman in free agency for the same contract you've made a vast improvement of defense. I think Kadri's absence proved his worth more than anything, Marchand has the same tendencies, no one thinks the Bruins should get rid of him

Now you're chasing greener grass. Stralman's best days are behind him and Zaitsev's are yet to come. They may even have a similar career arc..

Marchand is still playing...and you can't talk about Kadri in the same sentence as a player that just put up 100 points.

You're making the argument that losing Zaitsev would present any sort of issue. If I were the Leafs I'd pay to get rid of Zaitsev, that's how important not only cap space is, but using cap space well.
Kadri is a 6 million player on a 4.5m contract, just because Marchand is a 9m player on a 6m contract doesn't mean there's no place on the team for Kadri, they're both great. Zaitsev is hardly worth 1m and earns the same amount as Kadri. Zaitsev is literally in the bottom few percentages of most relative and adjusted metrics for any defensemen in the league, he's a replacement level defenseman. It doesn't have to be Strålman, whom despite being basically the reverse of Zaitsev is somehow projected to getting paid about the same amount, it can be anyone who can produce similar or better results for less money - which again is not that hard to find.

Literally one out of 31 teams win every year. The Leafs are in a tough spot with Boston and Tampa having the, in my mind, two best teams this season, but you can't overreact to that by shipping out a valuable player on a good contract. Tampa got swept because random things happen in the playoffs, everything isn't deterministic, the Blue Jackets weren't secretly better all along. The Leafs win that series vs the Bruins half the time, and I'm saying that as a Bruins fan. The Leafs have a favorable aging curve to not only the Bruins but Tampa as well, I'd just stay the course if I'm Dubas. It's not that you're making the 3rd line worse, it's that you're making the Matthews line so much worse by not having Nylander there. I think you'd find quickly that neither 34 or 29 would produce up to par without each other.

Again, I believe the Bruins would be better off facing a Kadri-less Toronto team, but it'd just hurt my soul like Chiarelli shipping off Edmonton's good players, because I don't think Matthews and McDavid are any less deserving of a cup because of what I consider to be poor decisions like this would be

1) Zaitsev is only RHD that TML has at the moment. Instead hunting additional one, you are advocating to get rid of only one ( his 1M overpayed but his term will make you to overpay a lot to get rid of him ) Hes decent 2nd Pair player and paired with Muzzin he did just fine.

2) Kadri is 4,5M player on 4,5M contract

As for Kadri from some other debate :



Hes 29y old and this year will be primetime to ship him and get something in return still....or he will just walk as JVR and Gardiner

So much storied "monsterous depth at C" didnt bring much of results this year.......

Well again basing your decisions of one season is results oriented in the worst way possible. If the playoffs started tomorrow I'd still take Tampas roster over anyone elses.

Kadri is still tasked with the heavy defensive assignments. He's tilting the ice in Toronto's favor. Zaitsev gets sort of the same treatment but has the opposite effect. You can attribute the last season to losing his winger, but he also lost playing- and PP time to Tavares. He also played fewer games. Over the course of the season Kadri has a great penalty statistic, even when tasked with defensive duties. The impact of playing a LHD on RHD is way smaller than the difference in skill between Kadri and Zaitsev

its Cap era now and im not talking from the aspect of quality and impact of player on the ice but from marketing ( strategic ) view......only fool can claim that Zaitsev is better player in his end then Kadri...

but thing is as i said:

1) getting rid of Zaitsev will cost to much, so you are giving away instead of bringing in....

2) Kadri is merchandize that still has value at the moment with 3 years on his contract.....the return income is falling with every year of his age and contract remained....