Quoting: palhal
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.
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.