It would be nylander knies and a 1st to move that horrible contract. But for know it's nylander knies and 1st to get them to pick up the phone. I think other teams just secretly like our players. Doesn't matter which way the value is going, they want what we have.

Matt Murray was very good most of the season, and even with a handful of absolutely stinkers mixed in he finished around league average. Mrazek was one of the worst regular NHL goalies this year.

If Nylander had more term , I’d for sure do it. What’s with the concern about him not going to the dirty areas tho?

Is Ehlers really available? He would be my main target

Ehlers 3 years vs Nylander 2 years
Fiala RFA
DeBrincat 1 year then RFA

Problem is we are not guaranteed that any of them would want to stay long term in Ottawa, they have some control over their destiny



Yeah I overlooked that so I edited to move Mrazek to scratch and not LTIR.



Last 3 seasons, Brown averaged a 0.61 PPG, Nylander a 0.90 PPG. Over 82 games, that's a 24 points difference

Yes it's a significant difference but :

- Brown is much better defensively
- Brown gives a much better effort (has to because he's not as talented), has a non-stop motor, coach's pet type, plays in all situations
- Brown doesn't rely on PP as much to produce offense (39% of Nylander's points on the PP last season, 23% for Brown, which was higher than usual : 10% in his first 2 seasons with Ottawa)
- Brown PKs a lo and would improve the Leafs PK (2nd most PK TOI/GP among forwards over the last 3 seasons)

Nylander has 2 years left at 6.9 AAV, Brown has 1 year left at 3.6 AAV

The difference might not be as huge as people think. Of course, most will value this 24 Pts over 82 GP difference a lot but I personally would not look to do this if the Sens didn't have Mathieu Joseph and Alex Formenton as perfect guys to play on the 3rd line. I am then looking to upgrade my 2nd line RW for Stutzle.

Moving back to 25th instead of 7th OA seems like a big deal for Sens fans and not worth this upgrade. Murray (due to his health status) is the Sens 3rd goalie so having Mrazek instead doesn't change much.

Murray is much better in terms of ability* but unfortunately for him, injuries have derailed him. He would need to stay healthy for a while to regain form.

* this was particularly easy to see during the 2017 playoffs. Ottawa was totally going to beat the Penguins in that ECF until they replaced Fleury by Murray. He single-handily turned the series around and was a wall the rest of the way. In April 2021, when he came from injury he posted 2 shutouts with a 0.954 SV%. Short sample size but he really made it look easy as the Sens team defense was NIGHT and DAY better compared to what it looked like at the beginning of the season. Even during the 2021-22 season, he had stretches of dominance when he was healthy (which never last very long). There was a period of time for 3 weeks where he was the best goalie in the NHL by far, with 0.962 SV%. Small sample size but it looked like he was back to form, then he ran into injury trouble again



Remember that game January 1st? It was the first game after the "covid break". Leafs looked normal, Sens looked like total zombies, except Matt Murray who did all he could, but still gave up 6 goals on 40 shots. Problem is almost every shot was a glorious chance. naturalstattrick says scoring chances were 46-18 (including 17-5 in High Danger chances)

There was also that ridiculous Arizona game where they let Nick "Gretzky" Schmaltz have a 7 pts performance... Murray was completely left out to dry

If you remove these 2 very "contextual" games IIRC he had a 0.919 SV% the rest of the way. There was ups and downs, the Sens defense was far from good in all the other games but it tells you how good Matt Murray (and Anton Forsberg) were this season, best goaltending we had by far since Craig Anderson prime

Yeah. The Murray contract is a problem because it's 6.25mil for a guy who can't be relied on to stay healthy over a span of longer than like 1 month. When he's able to get consistent starts over a healthy stretch he's totally capable. The problem with that contract is that he has not been able to do that for years, and it seems unlikely that he ever will again.

Murray's contract is not a problem for Ottawa this season. Either he's healthy and he plays, or he's not and he doesn't. His contract won't effect them having the cap space to build their roster, so doing things like retaining salary, trading assets or taking bad money back (like Mrazek) makes no sense at all. Especially when Ottawa has Nikita Zaitsev's actual nightmare contract hanging over their head like a noose on the tree.