Quoting: jr400
These are all valid points, but you don’t solve this problem by letting your best player go. If you have a player like Matthews, you sign him, and you find a way to make it work. It’s not giving big money to superstars that hurts you. With most teams it’s usually guys who are getting $5-8M who aren’t living up to their contracts. Look at Nashville, who’s now carrying almost $9M in dead cap from buyouts and retained salaries, which will go up to nearly $12M next year.
What messes Toronto up is having Tavares at $11M for two more years on a contract that can’t be moved or bought out (they’re actually paying him less than $8M, but his cap hit is still $11M), not Matthews, Marner or Nylander. Tavares’s contract comes off the books in two years, and if he stays beyond that it should be at a much lower cap hit, so it’s really only the 2024-25 season that could be a challenge if they want to keep all of those guys. All good teams have to let good players go because of the cap, but if one of Toronto’s top players has to go, it shouldn’t be Matthews.
I agree somewhat, Matthews was always going to get a raise on that last contract, and certainly the change (that I think TOR has to do) probably doesn;t start with him. And we cant go back to the Tavares signing to restart what should have happened.
However, sometimes the BEST player or the BEST player in any trade is rarely the right one or best one for the team. Prior to last season, when he was on the block, too many leaf fans would have never thought that a matthews for tkachuk deal was fair, however in retrospect with tkachuk's production, overall play and difference in cap hit, probably would have been.
Too often quality players, quality depth but mid-paid (1.5-5mil) Leaf players have been dealt or left to UFA because the team has been cap strapped, even players of type of players they badly needed, only to maintain this team structure of paying so much at the top that there isnl;t anything for the middle. They've constantly traded futures to for one year fixes on perennial weaknesses (tons of picks for quality depth, grit guys like Foligno, Nash, O'Reilly, Accairi), constantly bargain basement shopped on vets, and all the while not developed youth (Knies is the first promising impact rookie in 5 seasons). Young guys like Sandin, Liljegren are now in their 6th pro season, and liljegren hasn;t been given the team faith to be a top 4 guy and was a health scratch in the playoffs.
So when you know the team is cap strapped and needs quality forward depth, you sign old man, one dimensional 4th line, 6-8 mins a game Reaves for 3 years for 1.3mil forcing a quality 3rd line 13-16 min a night Jarnkrot out?
Do I think TOR should have dealt Matthews? Of course not. But I'd be crazy to think that if FLA didn;t offer tkachuk and forsling for him, that I wouldn;t snap it up, or that if CGY offered dube and hanifan for nylander I wouldn;t bit their hand off? I think its good to bear in mind that TOR assets get overexaggerated and whats best for the team isn;t always the BEST player.
As we go through this year, which undoubtably will be as always a contending one, with more than half the team expiring contracts, just a single prospect of real impact in the system and having only 2 pick in the first 2 rounds of the next 3 years, just need to be aware that we might be doing the same thing year in-year out until 2030, only to maintain what we see as our BEST players staying in Toronto, even though they might not be the best players for the TEAM.