I love how Rantanen is actually better than Marner but yet everyone says Marner will need 11 mil and Rantanen is like "Oh cool, 9.5 is fine. Thanks bossman"

true lol he should get more now that i think about it

No 9.5 is fair. Rantanen is probably the 5-7th best winger in the league, Marner the 8-10th. They shouldnt be paid like the best. Marner should actually be about 9 and Rantanen 9.5. But the media is blowing it was up and people will be proven wrong soon enough.
These high priced RFAs dont get offer sheets. Is its 10.5 or less the team would just match so its a waste, and no player outside of Mcdavid/Crosby/Matthews etc is worth 4 unprotected 1st round picks.
This means 0 leverage

There is about 1M in tax difference at that amount. Rantanen deserves about 10M...... The thing is how it compares to his teammates.... Matthews and Tavares make 11M. Look at Landeskog and MacKinnon...

And how Marleau will need to be packaged with a 1st to move his contract while a guy like Callahan would only require a 3rd

That literally means nothing though. They are scoring centres not playmaking wingers

Thats a good one too

When it comes to teams who are weaponizing their cap..Marleau buyout is still 6.5m in dead cap space regardless, Callahan is 2.6m and 1.5m over 2 years. Thats why the values are steeper for Marleau over Callahan, not saying they need to give a 1st rounder o get rid of Marleau, but to take on that cap hit, they will exploit the leafs more based on the buyout hit

And don't kid yourself, teams aren't looking to play these guys, they will buy them out

Teams "weaponizing" their cap aren't near the cap. It's not like every one of those contracts gets bought out.

that's exactly why they would take them on, so they can buy them out, gain a nice asset, and still open up a roster spot for one of their younger guys. No team is looking at Marleau or Callahan as man we need them to anchor our Bottom 6 to compete for the Cup

Of course they aren't likely looking to compete for the cup. That doesn't mean they'd look to buy our every person of that nature. Marleau is a great leader and is good for 30 points. You can retain 50% at the deadline and get more assets.

There's some stuff to nit-pick, but why in the world would we sign Varly for $5M/year for 4 years?