I'll disagree with your line "Dubas did a decent job considering the alternatives could have been trades or offer sheets." How do you figure that? Were any offer sheets coming?....like four first rounders. Doubt it. Trades? There wouldn't be any trades unless the Leafs agree to then. Point is the Leafs overpaid by about 4.5m on those contracts considering the term. 4.5m would have gone a long way in acquiring a good Dman and goalie.

You forgot about ceci. His QO was 4.3 million and he got payed 4.5

Switch ceci from 4.5 mil to like 3.83 mil

Except he had a QO from Ottawa that came with him for $4.3m. It's not like Toronto could walk away from it, it was already tendered and waiting for Ceci to sign which he likely would have if it got to it being that or seeing what he was worth in free agency. If he thought he was worth more in free agency, he wouldn't have signed a contract for only $200k more.

Yes his QO was 4.3 but he was ready to go to arbitration - past arbitration shows that he could have easily come out north of 4.5mil - that deal was the safest option at the time.



As per the above post Goldninja0 Ceci was eligible for arbitration off of his previous RFA contract with a need for a first offer from the team to be a minimum of 4.3mil for it to qualify (hence QO qualifying offer) so in the ideal world of rainbows and unicorns the Leafs would have paid 4.3mil for Ceci. Unfortunately arbitration usually awards the player more so I think that 4.5mil was actually pretty reasonable given that arbitration just looks at similar players coming off of similar contracts and DOES NOT take into account quality of that players play and since Ottawa overpaid Ceci we had to as well. All told I think 0.2mil was worth it to avoid what could have easily been a 4.8-5.5mil one year arbitration award given comparable d-men coming off of a second RFA contract making 4mil a season.

thanks, this really helps.

Yeah fair point. I'm saying you run the risk of losing the player. Maybe you get good value back. but that wasn't their vision for creating the team. Not sure where you get 4.5 million from. I disagree that 4.5 million is the amount they overpayed

Let's imagine the Marner was offered over 10.4m (though I can't see of anyone who had the cap space), the Leafs would have got first first rounders but also the 10.9m they have spend on Marner.
Not sure why 4.5m isn't reasonable. Pasternak a superior players signed for 6.67 a year earlier. Larkin of Wings signed a 6.15m X 5 in the of 2018. Those were comparables. Nylander had no leverage has the Leafs were on 120 point pace last November. 6.5m X 6 would have been generous. So that's 500,000.
Marner. Aho and Marner had identical stats for two straight years and Aho may have been even more valuable to Carolina. Aho signed for 8.5m X 5. Let's give Marner 9m X 6... he signed for two million more....So that a 2.5m overpayment for two guys.
Matthews. In what world did Matthews deserve to be paid the second highest player in the league. I would argue Aho numbers were more appropriate.. Eichel at 10m X 8 could be comparable. So if Matthews wanted a five year deal, 9m X 5 would have fair. So he got paid 2.5m too much. 2.5m overpayment for Matthews, 2m for Marner, .5m for Nylander. That's 5m.
I don't see how it could teams "vision" to overpay their RFAs who have no real leverage. Think we see the result. A good Dman and good backup could have really helped the Leafs instead of wasting 5m on limited cap space.

After the 'pro'-formance tonight the chatter above is pretty hollow...but often accurate to a tee!!
"Over-payed for Under-played group"...
Dubas got played like a cheap fiddle by the players/agents...Tank-Nation!

Ok. The comparables you used are either poor or you are comparing them incorrectly.

Nylander to Pasta - At the time of signing both of their deals, their career numbers were 185gp and 135p for Nylander and 172gp and 123p for Pasta. Nylander actually had better career numbers at that point. Pasta signed for 6.66 while the cap was 75 mill.. The cap took a huge jump to 79.5mill in which Nylander signed a front loaded contract with the cap % in years 2-6 being 8.76 while Pasta signed for 8.89% of the cap. It is very reasonable with extremely similar career production to Pastrnak that Nylander get the cap hit he did. We are so biased now by the fact that Pasta is one of the leagues best.

Marner and Aho are not a close comparable. Rantanen is the closest comparable. Rantanen has slightly less production than Marner in both career numbers and previous season. So Marner should make slightly more than Mikko. Mikko got 9.25 x 6. How do you think 9x6 is fair when Marner produced more than Rantanen?? To me 9.5ish x 6 would have been fair. So yes, an overpay, but by 1-1.5 million.

Matthews compared to Eichel. At the time of signing, Matthews had produced at a much higher rate. 182 games and 178 points for Matthews, but 142gp and 113p for Eichel. So its perfectly reasonable to assume Matthews deserved a higher cap percentage. Again, cap %.... Eichel got 13.33%. Matthews got 14.63%. Based on production that is not unreasonable, but as I said, they got hurt by a lack of term. Eichel also signed when the cap was 75 mill. Luckily for the Sabres the cap shot up the year Eichels deal kicked in.

You have to use cap % as your main point of reference. And you have to use career numbers as well to determine a players salary. The Leafs got overpayed, yes, but by an unmeaningful amount. Its when you sign older free agents that really hurt, not overpaying your stars a little bit. Ladd, Okposo, Lucic, Erikkson, etc... Those are what hurt teams. Dead weight.

I don't think you really looked at any comparables just to support your argument. Look at the last years of Aho and Marner....virtually the same. How can you logically suggest they weren't even close, except you want to support a false argument
Eichel is just one year difference when there new contracts kicked in. So Eichels starts when the cap was 79.5m So the Leafs overpay Matthews 1m a year plus have three year less term. Matthews didn't have any leverage except not to play in the NHL.
Nylander signed after :Pasta break out year....so of course the Leafs had a comparable.
Yes, the Leafs said somewhat of precedent by overpaying their RFAs....unlike some team who overpay for UFAs. But really all rational indicates the Leafs overpaid by severely of their RFAs when they didn't have to.

if you want people to praise your dumb comments maybe try sportsnet.