No team is going to give Shattenkirk 12.5 a year. Also, unless he has become a 2 way dman with shutdown ability we are not pursuing him.

I beg to differ. The point of the high salary is that Toronto has lots of cap space for the next 2 years before Matthews and Marner need their contracts. It's also an incentive to sign a shorter 2-year deal rather than a long-term deal worth around 50 million. Lastly, there's two ways to win, by being much better defensively or by having incredible offensive scoring depth, which is what Shattenkirk would give us. Look at the Penguins from last year as an example.

Show me proof that shattenkirk is not a 2-way dman. Go look on corsica or look at some hero charts. He is an elite shot suppressor and goal suppressor. Just because a d-man does not look like he is good defensively does no mean anything. Look at weber. 6'4 should be great defensively but is proable the worst defender in the league in his own end

THANK YOU

I guess why can witness the fabulous Blues defence tonight as they play the Leafs. Folks get really got up in stats. Talking to some my Blues friends, some think Shattenkirk is the third best Dman on the Blues. And the Blues are just a middling team like the Leafs. Hardly worth top money as a NHLer maybe not even justified in the top 20 NHL paid NHLer Dmen.

Elite shot suppressor and goal suppressor? Check this stat, Shattenkilrk has the worse plus/minus of any Blues Dman. To me the means he isn't a goal suppressor. He does get most of his points from the PP....18 of 34 points.
Even if Shattenkirk came to the Leafs with the ridiculous 2 year contract, do you think it really jump the Leafs much high in the standings (like he's done with the Blues)? Underpaid Zaitsev, Brown, Hyman. Having Corrado on the team isn't an improvement.

Yeah Shattenkirk isn't worth no $12.5 million per and he's not signing no ridiculous 2 year deal.

If you're seriously gonna use plus/minus as a stat then I'm not gonna argue. But shot suppression and generation is proven to be more predictive than plus/minus. He's elite in those categories. Zaitsev is by no ways being underpaid. Examples of players around his age around that salary: Muzzin, Martinez, Micheal Stone. Browns and Hymans contracts are supposed to be bridge contracts, you don't give middle-six forwards long term contracts outta of their rookie years. Lastly, Corrado is so clearly the 7th dman...smh

So polarizing. The RFA signings are pretty good and then boom...let's make Shattenkirk the highest paid player in the league? GM's are actually starting to learn their lesson league wide with the term and dollars handed out in free agency. Shattenkirk will get something comparable to Yandle. $6M+ over 6-7 years.