Pulls out calculator....

Still $48M in cap allocated to 5 players.

Nope, still fired.

Never heard this argument before.... also a great point! The leafs have paid their star players therefore they should fire their gm. I agree! Would love to see what you would do?

they should do whatever they need to do in order to keep Mathews. Otherwise they r ****ed.

You're trying to throw 5 meh players/prospects into a shotgun and aim it at Seattle in the hopes that a 1st and a 2nd not only buys the two guys you want but also unloads a bunch of spare parts on your roster.

Seattle is going to want better prospects than Abruzesse, Holmburg, and Anderson.

Not top load the roster and put my team in cap hell. After they signed Tavares, they couldn't afford to give both Marner and Matthews 8-figure contracts. They should have picked the one they wanted to keep and traded the other for 4 or 5 top quality assets.

FYI, I said this even before the Marner contract was signed.

That said they shouldn't have given Tavares 11M. He wants to come play for his home town team Toronto should have offered him 8M max. I know he was probably worth it at the time but they knew they had other players to sign. If he didn't accept them move on and use that money elsewhere.

In hindsight, that was probably the first of bad decisions, but that was the decision he made at the time. He gave out the NMC and was stuck with it. After that, he couldn't afford to give out two more, so he should have chosen one.

Ahl forwards like Abruzzese,Anderson ,Holmberg aren’t trade pieces they have very little value

Here come all the classic, "I would have squeezed the stars to take way less like Colorado did with MacKinnon" despite him being a 50 point player for 2 of his 3 ELC years and also the 1st year of his last contract.

That doesn't get those guys from Seattle.

I didn't say that. Players want what they want, and I don't think you could have gotten any of them for less. When it was clear that Marner wasn't going to budge on his contract demands, they should have traded him immediately.

Again, I said as much at the time.

Lol I love it when people with a history of trolling the Leafs have all the answers and all those answers are a bunch of 20/20 bs or just complete nonsense.

This doesn't just apply to the Leafs. It applies to any teams that have 2+ 8-figure contracts. With Doughty and Kopitar on the books, I would say that the Kings should acquire either of Marner or Matthews, otherwise they'd be in the same situation that Toronto is.

Marner's contract being a mistake wasn't exactly an unpopular opinion at the time, so I'm not sure how you say it's a hindsight opinion.

Everything TO does is a mistake according to the popular opinion on here. When Matthews resigns for 13.5 million on am 8 year deal, all the usuals will be out in force saying he isn't worth half that. Or Dubas (or whoever the GM is) is such an idiot for signing him.

What's funny is that I don't think that signing Tavares or Matthews was a mistake. They were bold moves that took into consideration the best players available at the time, and while they might prove to be costly in hindsight, were probably the correct moves to make at the time.

What I'm saying is that after making those two decisions, signing Marner to an $11M deal which was the Leafs' third long-term 8-figure deal that the Leafs would sign, was a mistake and a poor decision, even at the time given the state of the team's salary structure. Had the Leafs gone on to win multiple Cups, those moves would have proven to be smart ones in hindsight, but IMO was still the wrong decision to make at the time.

It would all be fine had, you know, the global pandemic hadn't caused the cap to remain the same for 3 years but hindsight is 2020 right? Dubas should have been smart and assumed a once in a lifetime global event was going to happen. What a fool for not seeing the future. Of course you probably know that but you thrive on the troll so here we are.

I had the opinion that 3x 8-figure contracts were a mistake at the time before I knew the pandemic was a thing, so I can safely say I thought it was a bad decision regardless.

I actively advocated against the Kings pursuing Artemi Panerin when the they were reportedly among the top of his desired destinations, because he reportedly wanted 8-figures and the Kings already had Kopitar and Doughty locked up.

The pandemic certainly exacerbated the bad decision to sign Marner, but it still would have been a bad decision either way.

Of course you did. Just the smartest guy in the world. It's a wonder you aren't a GM

It has nothing to do with being smart. It has to do with having a budget and spending within your limits. In the salary cap era, giving over half of your cap to a handful of players is a bad decision. Teams win Stanley Cups. This isn't basketball where one or two players is the difference between the league basement and the Championship.

Someone was bound to try it. Toronto just happened to be the guinea pig that learned that lesson the hard way.

Paying stars is never a problem so long as you aren't paying big money for what they used to be able to do rather than what they can do. Doughty for example is being paid for what he did in his prime. Same with Kopitar. Making both deals bad. They will never be able to do what they used to be able to do. Matthews and Marner are getting paid big while they are able to produce. Nothing wrong with that. Overpaying depth is really bad as well, which TO doesn't do.

I think Kopitar and Doughty are still very much worth their contracts.

This is the first season that Kopitar perhaps hasn't been the best player on the Kings. Vilardi looks like he might take over that mantle. Getting 6 out of 8 good value years out of that contract is pretty good. We'll see if he lives up to it this season. It's too soon to tell. Don't forget that in addition to being the Kings leading scorer every year, Kopitar is also one of the premier defensive forwards in the league.

Doughty was having a Norris-worthy season last year before he was injured. He had several down years when the Kings were bad, and was rightly criticized for phoning it in when the team wasn't good. Now that the Kings are back in playoff contention, his play has returned to the quality that it was before the rebuild started. I don't regret his contract for a minute, especially considering that he's single-handedly mentoring the Kings entire defensive corps.

I agree that it's not bad to pay your stars, but each team only gets two stars. Any more than that and you're tying up all your salary at the top of your contract, and pricing out the other complementary players. Brian Burke said it best. "Your top six gets you to the playoffs, but your bottom six wins you the Stanley Cup." (paraphrased - I don't remember the exact quote). If your bottom six is made up entirely of replacement level players on league minimum contracts, you're not going to make it very far in the playoffs.

The Kings chose their two stars in Kopitar and Doughty. Until Kopitar's current deal ends, adding another eight-figure deal is out of the question, as it should be for every team.

How can you possibly think Kopitar is worth his contract but Matthews and Marner are not? Nothing else matters you are massively bias for the kings and massively bias against the Leafs. There is no rational debate here.

Who ever said that Matthews and Marner aren't worth their contracts? I think they're worth every dollar of their contracts, but having them on the same team along with Tavares was a horrible decision that crippled the team and prevented them from achieving any postseason success.

It'll come

If it does, I'll be the first to admit that I was wrong.

However, up until now, there hasn't been a Stanley Cup champion with one 8-figure contract on it, let alone 3.