Quoting: Laudan
You keep hanging on Term part while im talking about $$. 5 years for Matthews shouldnt be 11,634M. You will start wonder how it doesnt works also 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 Gardiner plus Andersen coming for their bucks at 7,5-8M....good luck playing Lindgren, Borgman and Hollowell 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.