There's no way the Leafs give in to Mitch at $11.2 x 5. The only way he gets even close to $11 mill is if he goes 8 years. You are aware that Aho just signed for $8.45 x 5, right? Marner is not worth almost $3 mill more than Aho...

Matthews signed at $11.634 x 5 so it's possible. Marner isn't using Aho as his comparable, he's using Matthews and I doubt he signs for anything under $11 million. Marner might not be worth $3 million more than Aho, but Aho also got lowballed by Marc Bergevin.

If Aho "got lowballed by Marc Bergevin," who put a gun to his head and forced him to sign the offer sheet?

Exactly. Marner may not be using Aho as a comparable but the Leafs sure are, and so are other teams who are "willing" to offer sheet him. If he wants $11 mill or even close to it than he's going to end up signing for 8 years, sitting, or being traded.

Its more Aho was lowballed by Waddell , so he pushed his price up even with 3rd Grade Offer-sheet......

tho you are correct about Matthews - Marner mess.....with overpaying each by 2M, chances to built badass D just flew away......

I keep seeing this argument that "Marner isn't using Aho as his comparable, he's using Matthews." Well, Matthews has averaged 37 goals in his three seasons, Marner has averaged 22. Matthews plays center, which has at least a modicum (even in Toronto) of defensive responsibilities; Marner plays wing. Matthews is a scorer; Marner is a playmaker. In short, Marner considering Matthews a comparable is as silly as using Erik Karlsson or Brett Burns as comparables because they've all scored a similar amount of points over the past three seasons -- in other words, idiotic.

Matthews is not overpaid, neither will Marner, just like Nylander isn't over paid and Tavares isn't either. The Leafs have exactly zero overpaid players right now.

Noone mentioned Nylander and Tavares here

Paint it as you want.....being a fan doesnt always mean wearing a blue blinders....

i would agree that going by the AAV they arent overpaid but the term is what hurts.

No it doesn't but I have been saying this for years and have been ahead of the curve. You never get in trouble when you pay elite players big money. Giving older guys, depth guys, and playoff heros big money always ends up bad. In the NHL there are stars who make everyone around them better and then there is the rest of the players. Giving those star players big money is smart, giving the others bigger term and money is how to end up like LA and Edmonton.

Let's say Kapanen wanted to make 5+ million, there would be teams who would pay that much, is he worth it? Absolutely not. He doesn't make those around him better. Doesn't mean he isn't a good player but in a salary cap world you just can't throw money away needlessly. So lets say Dermott wants 5 on his next deal, trade him, for someone cheaper because the fall off won't be much but the fall off between Marner and a guy like Kapanen is massive.

Marner will get paid and its fine, the team will be better for it. The landscape is changing and the Leafs are in a position to take advantage of it. They have 4 forwards who are absolute upper echelon players, there may not be another team that has that kind of firepower on the team. The rest of the spots can be filled with cheap depth. On defence, they have Rielly and Muzzin who are both great players, and hopefully they have struck gold with Liljegren and Sandin, the rest will fill its self out with proper player development.

Lowballing Marner so we can throw big money at players leaving their prime doesn't make the team better, it gives us a future cap anchor.

It goes hand in hand....

who on earth can ask 8 x 13M after 63 and 69 Seasons ? Is he illegitimate son of Gretzky and McDavids mom ? McDavids contract in Jul 2018 ( or Jan 2019 ) would look like 13,7M with Cap rise and "inflation"

11,634M should be 8 years, if he wanted to go out asap ( as its obvious he wants to ) after 5 years, the money should degress logically to 5 x 9,5M, cause McDavid got 8 x 12,5M, Eichel 8 x 10,5M and Draisaitl 8 x 8,5M, and all of them are amassing way more points then "Golden Boy from Arizona", the franchise player called by fans, but he doesnt want to be one and rushing out of organization at first opportunity. Helping TML with shorter Term my a.s.

And his contract is now dragging all the crap thats going on with Marner now....

Actually, Aho played the Offersheet game perfectly, Montreal is the one that bungled it. Aho camp, from rumors, was asking for 5yrs at 9.5m AAV, Carolina was offering 8years and 6.5m last I saw. Aho got Montreal to sign an OS that brought Carolina up closer to his terms, but also wouldn't have cost MTL that much in picks if Carolina chose not to match, but I'm pretty sure Aho new Carolina would match and used that to get his term and 1m less than his ask and not 3m that Carolina was offering.



Just going to throw this in here, since he seems to rile Leafs fans up... rumor is Lou is working to clear out CAP space and recoup picks to offer Marner a Matthews sized OS.

And your source is a guy on twitter....pls go home.....

I'll believe it when I see it. This offseaon has been the "king of false rumours" so it's hard to believe anything coming from the media right now, especially if it's coming from Dreger.

Honestly though, as an NHL and a Leaf's fan, I'd love to see Lou offer sheet Marner to a Matthews-like deal because the Leafs would get 4 first rounders and be saved from overpaying a player for years to come and it would increase the excitement of the NHL offseason!

You have this all wrong, you are looking at it in a vacuum. These young players aren't trying to get to FA as quickly as possible, they are looking to maximize their earnings. I think terms are going to get shorter and shorter in the future, players don't want to get tied into a long term deal and then have it look like a steal of a deal by year 4 and still have 4 more years.

Matthews makes a fair contract for 5 years and after 4 seasons, they can discuss an extension where I imagine the team will offer a longer term for less money or a shorter term for top dollar. Why? Because by then there will be zero chance GM's still thinking giving huge term to a 28 year old makes a lot of sense.

For Matthews situation, he will be able to take advantage of the current state of the league's finances after 4 seasons instead of waiting 8 years to see whats what. It makes sense and actually benefits the team as well. What happens if Matthews just doesn't have what it takes to get the team over the top? After 3 years he's easily traded to almost any team in the league since they don't have to worry about a tonne of term.

Focussing on FA status is putting the blinders on and not even bothering to think about all the other moving parts in the equation. Flexibility is everything and Dubas has shown he's probably the best in the league from this standpoint.

Several actually, all of which had about a 90% accuracy rating throughout FA with signings (terms and dollars). The one guy actually broke Panarin to the Rangers, full contract terms, a good 30 minutes before anyone else even suggested he was signing with the Rangers... but as I said, it was just to rile up Leafs fans, so take it however you want

As i said, you can twist it as much as you want, rest of League Managers doesnt agree with you and are still signing franchise players to long-term contracts ( 21 + 8 = 29 ) for the bucks based on previous seasons stats-wise....

Matthews changed that. So we live in a different world. Adapt or be like Jim Benning and Chiarelli and spend a lot of time setting up kindling around your house and then wonder how it burned down when you throw a match on the pile.

Marner will get 5-6 years or less, same with Point, Rantanen and the rest. You don't think guys that signed longer term are kicking themselves? When McDavid is 4 years in and still not making the playoffs, you don't think he's going to regret his decision? Pastrnak already probably wishes he would have gone down a different path.

Landscapes change, the league evolves and you either stay ahead of the curve or you stick to your guns and wonder why nothing works.

You keep hanging on Term part while im talking about $$. 5 years for Matthews shouldnt be 11,634M. You will start wonder how nothing works also soon enough when those overpayment(s) will backfire ( as it already is with Cap troubles for signing Marner, Kerfoot and Ceci even with major bad contracts unloaded ) and you will have 40M in First two lines, 10M in third line and Rielly plus Andersen coming for their bucks at 7,5-8M....good luck playing Lindgren, Borgman and Holl as 4, 5, and 6D ( for being under the Cap ) against TBL and BOS on the way to Conference Finals at least.....

The Leafs are just climbing the mountain, Tampa has major cap issues coming up next year, way worse than TO. They will need to give away good players to sign Sergachev and Vasilevsky plus they are getting older by the year. Their defence isn't deep either.

Boston is another year older, how many years can Bergeron defy father time? Matthews is one of the best players in the league under the age of 23, he's only going to get better, his contract is fine. He's a star making star money. Wanting to pay him less so you can then pay Gardiner 7-8 million is exactly the type of moves that happen every year that end up blowing up in the face of teams. Paying McDavid 12.5 million didn't hurt Edmonton, its everything else they've done.

Paying Toews and Kane what they gave them isn't why Chicago has sucked so bad, its because they drafted so poorly and handed out big term and money to depth guys that hurt them. Stars never hurt their teams and eventually GM's will learn this lesson. When that happens, its not the stars who feel the pinch, its the depth guys. 4th liners should never make much more than the league minimum. 3rd liners won't make much more than 3, then you try to find and develop as many top end players as possible to fill out the top lines.

Same on defence, if you have a top flight defenceman, pay him. The depth players will get what they can but not much more.

Gardiner = Rielly...hasty typo.....

I remember you were one of those with "great year ahead climbing the mountain" last summer also....didnt pan out well....at my age i defenitelly wont be here long enough if this goes into another 52 years.....and with teh repeating "McCabe and Kaberle and 4 nonames" pattern it defenitelly will......

A telling response.

Rielly will get a big deal when he's up for a contract but I am so thankful he has 3 more years on his current deal. Why? Because in 3 years the Doughty contract is going to look really bad. You just don't give term to guys entering their 30's. What will that mean for Rielly? He'll have a choice, big term for less money with most of it front loaded in bonuses or he'll take top dollar on a 4 year deal and then see his contracts get lower and lower as he ages.

Its the only real way to manage your cap in a responsible way. We know enough at this point in time that the Male Athlete is at their physical best at around 24, and that prime lasts up until around 29 before most start regressing a bit. Compare the age of teams now compared to the Kaberle and McCabe era and you see its dropped in a big way. Playing into your late 30's is becoming a rarity.

So with that in mind, why would players take smaller contracts because they haven't earned a big deal yet only to not be able to recoup their lost money when they are older. I feel for guys like McKinnon and Schiefele who are so underpaid right now. When they hit 28 and FA, they will have trouble getting the big term big money deals other guys have done. There will be way too much supporting information to show how risky a long term deal is for a guy turning 29. They will probably be among the first for guys who take big money but low term as they leave their prime.

I am definitely not the smartest person in the hockey world, so I am very confident much smarter people than me see what I see and will plan ahead. Dubas is definitely one of those people. He doesn't make moves without thinking about how this affects other moves 2,3-6 years down the road. There is a lot we don't know we don't know yet but being flexible is key.

With all that said, if Dubas can get Marner to sign an 8 year deal under 11 million, I'd be thrilled with that.