Not when you are beating ****ty teams.

this is so embarrassing for you, just stop, you lowkey love Edmonton and its funny. all you talk about.

johnny hockey said he'd sign long term too, American players love the states bro

Tell yourself whatever you need to bud

same to you lmao

The difference is one of those cities is in Alberta the other is the biggest city in Canada and the biggest market for hockey on the planet.

I know the Leafs are a good team on the verge of breaking out. The Oilers are a team with the best player in the world and Draisaitl and then not much else. You will succeed in the weakest division in the league but that's all you'll get. Winning a couple of rounds on your way to getting crushed by actual good teams.b

are you seriously still talking

And the highest taxes in the NHL - yay!

Doesn't matter when you're entire check comes as a bonus. The interest on investing that lump sum alone is more than they'll make elsewhere. And the endorsement money doesn't get bigger than what you get as the face of the Leafs. The whole Matthews wants to leave crap is just media spewing stuff to get trolls like you fired up. It's pretty funny

You probably have trouble telling since you have had trouble reading stuff

are you 11 years old lmao

Nice work

Where did I say anything about Matthews wants to leave?? You're seeing ghosts!

But the tax situation is indiputable and exactly why guys like Matthews and McDavid have bonus-laden contracts, as they live elsewhere in the offseason and pay taxes in that jurisdiction (AZ, probably) on their bonuses.

There are lots of good reasons to live in Toronto, but the taxes aren't one of them.

I may have quoted the wrong guy. But my points stand, TO's ability to hand out major bonuses makes up for taxes. There isn't another team that can afford to give so much in bonus money.

Well, that's not true. Many teams have an $82.5M payroll, it hardly matters whether that gets paid in July or spread throughout the year. There would be a few cash-poor clubs that might struggle with this, but they're the exception, not the rule.

That response shows a complete lack of understanding of how bonus money works. Matthews gets a major portion of his money up front. So does Marner, JT, Rielly, even Kerfoot did as well. So technically they have been paying way more than 82.5 million in actual dollars. Few teams if any can match the reserve money the Leafs have.

The bonuses are paid out annually, as you can see from each players page right here on CF.

Matthews got a $7.2M bonus this summer.
McDavid got a $11M bonus this summer.

According to their respective pages linked above, Matthews' contract includes $54.52M in total bonus money while McDavid's includes $86M in total bonus money.

So you're clearly wrong in both your understanding of how bonuses work and your assessment of other teams ability to pay such bonuses.

Did you just ignore that Matthews made 30+ of his contract in his first 2 years? That's the point I am making. Marner, Nylander etc etc all get most of their money at the start in bonus money. Draisaitl didn't, Nurse doesn't. Most teams can't afford it

Draisaitl got a similar bonus to Matthews this summer, Nurse gets a $12M salary this year.
Front loading is nothing new, lots of teams do it. It just makes the contract cheaper on the back end. For instance, Matthews and Tavares are earning just $7.95M each this season while Marner and Rielly are making $8M each. That's significantly less than their combined cap hits.

The other part of the equation that you're missing is that Leafs players do this to decrease their tax burden, not simply because MLSE can afford it. If Matthews played in a so-called tax-free state he wouldn't need to structure his contract in such a manner, as it would make very little difference to his final take home pay. The tax issue in Ontario is real.

The difference here, TO can do it with anyone that wants it. And the taxes in Ontario are the same as Alberta. Income tax is the same across Canada. This is a known fact. The only difference is Alberta doesn't have HST. PST and GST are seperate and the PST is lower in Alberta than Ontario. That is all about purchasing things. Which doesn't make any difference. This is just overblown nonsense. TO has more money than Edmonton will ever have, they have more money than any team has. That results in major resources for the players, support staff, equipment, sports science departments, trainers, skills trainers etc etc. TO out spends everyone. Which makes up the difference between taxes.

As I have mentioned this is just the media saying stuff to get bitter fickle fans who hate the Leafs fired up. You guys dream of seeing the Leafs burn more than you dream of winning. It's hilarious

Also that is absolutely wrong. Whether you are in a tax free state or not, getting money up front instead of over the long term allows for major investment that means more money long term. A moderate investment fund will see a 8% return, a better fund could be much much higher. Meaning the 30 million matthews got upfront could have made him millions more already while other guys are getting smaller checks each year.

Once again, he didn't get $30M up front. Look at his contract breakdown for goodness sake - I even posted the link for you. This isn't hard!

virtual reality leafs?!?!?

You should spend 5 seconds Googling provincial tax rates. You're clueless.