did you see the point totals Marner put up last season? He doesn't do that with Kadri as his C

Marner scored at a higher than a point a game pace in the 2017-2018 season during the second half when he was put on Kadri's line. Literally everyone is forgotten or are willfully ignoring that. Obviously Tavares is better than Kadri but the whole Marner is nothing without Tavares stuff is just ignoring facts.

Who said he's nothing without Tavares? All I said is he's significantly better with him, but if you want to talk about offensive production by Leafs players lets dive into last season's stats; Matthews generated the 3rd most goals scoring plays in the league behind McJesus and Crosby, Tavares generated them at the 12th highest level, just ahead of players like Aho, Nylander slid in at 22nd, and Marner was 26th, so while everyone is questioning the Tavares signing because of Marner's agent and dad's unreasonable contract demands, keep in mind he's still arguably only their 4th best 5v5 offensive player...

The only must last year was signing Tavares.

"SHOULD THE LEAFS HAVE SIGNED TAVARES". You must be kidding. It's like saying the Oilers would have been if they hadn't drafted McDavid and drafted a 5m player instead.
If you think Tavares is fair value as UFA at 11m. then you sign him. In a cap league what has the Tavares signing cost the Leafs this year, Marleau at 6.25m, a first rounder to get rid of Marleau and 2.1m Connor Brown. Sound like a bargain to me. Having players on bad contracts is bad business. Having too many good players on fair contracts is what a team wants, even it means trading a player or two to be cap compliant.

The worst is when people call it "Cap hell". Cap hell is when you have too many players on bad contracts. Leafs have too many good players if anything

My cap hell: Bad contracts....which can't be traded without sweeteners, long term retained contracts (Kessel), buyouts (think Rangers). NTC/MNC for guys you want to trade (think Tampa)

Every team has some bbad money. Non playoff teams shouldn't be at the cap. In a perfect world, Cup contenders are the only teams near the cap.

And further to that, not overpaying depth which the Leafs don't do under Dubas. If guys like Johnsson (who is probably underrated still) Kapanen, Kerfoot, etc want 5+ million because they outscore guys like Wilson, let them go elsewhere. Depth guys aren't hard to replace if you draft and develop properly. Stars are extremely hard to find, when you get them, pay them, because not having one and trying to find one is way harder and more costly.