In other words, a contender

This makes them worse

Not at all

Not a fan of the goalie tandem. Swap Mrazek for Andersen

What does skipping the Tavares signing 3+ years ago have to do with signings last summer and this summer??

Also, Larsson was selected by Seattle and signed before UFA started.

Finally, those Saad and Danualt deals will be anchors in a few years.

No lmao. It's a far better and more balanced roster.

if only dubas had let half the team walk in UFA in 2018, and had his 21 year old premier playmaking winger disappear so he could wait 3 years to sign tatar, saad, danault, toffoli, and tanev in the span of 9 months

Downgrading Marner and Tavares to sign a guy who was scratched in the playoffs, a middle 6 winger and #4 dman?

Marner and Tavares are already anchors. Their contracts are holding a knife to the team's throat.

But if by "anchor" you mean their value decrease by 50%, Tavares will be one soon enough. The guy's getting slower and slower. I take a 5.5M Danault over an 11M Tavares anytime.

Makes them worse

Even scratched, Tatar did more than Marner ever did in the playoffs. The Habs shouldn't have scratched him.

This is just the usual Capfriendly Leafs suck mob think.

It's not. What have top-heavy teams accomplished in the salary cap era? Not much. All it took was our 1C being matched against Danault in the playoffs to witness our whole salary cap structure crumble. It simply doesn't work.

Should be considering firing Kyle Dubas

Nothing really. Obviously it wouldn't be a direct substitute of all of these players for Marner and Tavares but I'm just trying to get at the general notion that a higher number of good players on cheap/fair deals is better than a small number of players on very expensive deals

Good point. I swapped him for Tanev

And Tavares' deal won't be? He will be 34 when his deal expires just like Danault, but at twice the cap hit. Saad will be 33 when his deal expires. I think Danault and Saad's deals will age better than Tavares' deal

I mean, ask Tampa or Pittsburgh

#micdrop

They compensated with quality depth, which the Leafs haven't been able to sniff in years.

TBLs highest cap hit for 2020 and 2021 was 9.5M with an 81.5M cap. Thats 11.66% of the cap

PITs highest cap hit for 2016 and 2017 was 9.5M with cap ceilings of 71.4M and 73M at the time. Thats 13.31% and 13.01% of the cap

Compare that to the Leafs who have Matthews making 14.28% of the cap, Tavares making 13.50% of the cap, and Marner making 13.38% of the cap. Thats 3 players who make a higher % of the cap than any single player on PIT or TBL did in the years they won the cup

Thats not exactly a direct comparable to the Leafs situation

Contracts weren't all signed at the same time and I'm talking about the years the contracts were signed

Pitt and Tampa clearly had high end contracts.

I hate the Leafs too, but atleast be right

Marner is 24 yo. When should they have gotten rid of him??

Trade him at 22 yo coming off a 90 pt season. How many times is that player traded? Please show me that list. At that point he's on pace to be Patrick Kane or better, but yeah, better trade him to improve their depth. No chance that looks incredibly stupid.

In your opinion when the Leafs were talking about needing to fill that 3C hole and that 2nd pair RD a couple of years ago, they start with their 22 yo 90 pt winger that finished top 15 in selke voting. That's really what people are suggesting? Should everyone start the trade Ratanen threads now before the big MacKinnon extension. Jost isn't looking great at 3C, that probably the best way for Colorado to plug that hole.

Mitch Marner is literally the 2nd best player the Leafs have had in the last 30 years, but gee I sure wish they had Saad and Tanev instead!

Also. Tavares is elite. When you get a shot at an elite player and it costs nothing but $$, you take it.

If the cap is $88m this season, people aren't whining about this. If Galchenyuk or Dermott don't cough up the puck in OT in game 5/6. Games the Leafs outplayed Mtl, people aren't whining about this.

Also quantity does not equal quality.

Except when it comes to the Leafs when of course, Depth >>>>>> stars

Just gotta say, you rank really high on my list of sensible Leaf haters.

Who cares when they were signed. As of right now the leafs have too many players making too much money

I get that the cap has been stagnant for a couple years and nobody could have predicted that, but it is what it is. The PIT and TBL situations were completely different

What are you talking about? I never said they should have traded Marner. All I said was that "a higher number of good players on cheap/fair deals is better than a small number of players on very expensive deals" and that the imaginary team I created above is better than the current Leafs team

You are simply wrong

Its mathematically correct though... The Leafs have 3 players who make a higher % of the current salary cap than any single player on TBL or PIT did in the years they won the cup. Thats a fact. You can say that the Leafs expected the cap to rise over time, and that would have been a very reasonable expectation at the time before COVID, but at the end of the day the current situation the Leafs are in is not the same as the situation TBL was in between 19-20 and 20-21 and is not the same situation that PIT was in between 15-16 and 16-17. Im not saying its the Leafs fault for not predicting the stagnant cap, but thats just the position they are in right now