Quoting: JaredOfLondon
Nylander, Johnsson, Kapanen, Spezza, Kerfoot and Muzzin are all on 'team friendly' deals. They arnt steals, but they are not even remote over payments. Tavares took less money from toronto than offered by other markets and Matthews contract is fine. Marner is the only over pay. And the funny thing about having 4 elite scoring players is that you do need to pay them like that, especially when they all come due at the same time. The only one of those Dubas had any control over was Tavares.
Next year Tampa has the same issue only 9.5 million of theirs is taken up by a goalie who isnt worth that. They are also paying 3 guys 5+ million to play in their bottom 6 most games. I'd rather over pay Marner by 2 million than over pay Palat, Killorn, Mcdonagh and Tyler Johnson by 1.5 million each, or Jamie Benn and Joe Pavelski by 3 million each, or Bobrovski, Matheson Yandle and Straleman by 3 million each.
at least the leafs players are earning their money most nights
Muzzin is signed at 5.6 until he is 35. That is not team friendly, Johnsson and Kappenen have bridge deals that are market value I.E not cap friendly. Spezza is a team friendly contract, and Kerfoote is an over payed 3C, Toronto can not afford to pay their 3C more than 3M when their top two make a combined 22M. So the only 'Team friendly' Contract was Spezza.
Toronto screwed them selves with Kadri they had a great 2C (50-60pt excellent two way center) on an amazing contract that they completely got screwed up when signing Tavares. As nice of a player Tavares was to come along he completely screwed up their cap situation. That is why you rarely see big name free agents moving in the offseason cause it either screws up teams or teams that are competing cant afford it, and when a lot of money is given to FA's it tends to back fire, look at Pavelski, Backes, Lucic, Neal, ect. Instead of Matthews wanting 10M like Eichel, he immediately wanted more than Tavares. Then instead of Marner wanting 9M like Rantenen or even lower he jumped up cause everyone else was payed more. Without Tavares Toronto Essentially would have saved roughly 15M on the cap and would be able to bolster their defense and have a much more complete lineup. Instead now with each season they become more top heavy, they still have no defense and no plan going forward with how too deal with upcoming UFA's, they only thing they can do is pray the Cap Jumps up significantly, WHICH it will not do with the economy the way it is right now.
Either way back to the original topic of this conversation, Mikheyev the same as Zaitsev when he came over as a 24 year old will be getting a reasonable contract for 3 years similar but slightly less than Danton Heinen or he will take 1 year at roughly 1.5M to prove him self before another big jump. Otherwise he will go back to the KHL.