popping in to say this is a solid acgm thread. keep it up.

Kind of a pointless argument if you could have both it wouldn't matter. Matthews would be the 1A center simply because he's better at defense now and in the faceoff circle. Jersey would instantly have a better chance at winning the Stanley Cup for the next 4-years if they can find a solution in net. NJ would be like the Oilers but instead of having an overpaid #1, they have Hamilton and probably overall a better D-core, so the cap structure could work at least for the next at least with Hughes on his ELC, trying to move Palat when his NMC becomes a NTC should help with being able to sign L Hughes comfortably.

im not, but theres context to jack getting the contract he has that people seem to forget, if only matthews was ass enough his first few years to get that deal

Oh no the faceoff circle.

If only NJD had

Mcleod: 63%
Lazar: 58%
Hischier: 58%
Haula: 55%
Mercer: 51%
To take faceoffs.

Jersey would not have a better chance of winning the cup in the next 4 years.

First off without retention we can't afford it this year.

With Matthews it would leave us just 12 mill to pay/replace:

Schmid, Mercer, Mcleod, Toffoli, Nemec.

Let's say you give mercer 6x8, mcleod 2x2, and schmid 2x2. (so you don't get term on either Mcleod or Schmid

Then another year down the line how do you pay luke and holtz?

And by this point nemec is a quality RD that it costs 6-7 mill to find in UFA still costing 900k.

Well there's that an the fact that the leafs let him, Marner, and Nylander all bend them over in Negotiations.

question, semi-related: can anyone recommend me a place where i can find a girlfriend that will be as devoted to me as devils fans are devoted to defending jack hughes?

nylanders contract is great lol, Matthews scored 40 goals as a rookie and was the best player on the team during his rookie contract. marners probably 1.5 overpaid,

what leverage did jack hughes have? all 3 of those leafs had more points in their rookie year than jack had his first 2 years combined

I never said there's a huge difference, but I'm just answering your question of "Where has he been better?" and pointing out your bias. Stamkos is a top faceoff guy and Nylander is a top takeaways guy. You say "Stamkos is less of a defensive liability" which probably means 1) there's no significant difference or 2) your comment is just purely based on your opinion whether it's true or not.

The whole point is that there isn't much difference between the two in terms of production but there's a huge difference in age. Nylander is clearly the more valuable player at this point in time and your comment below suggests that this isn't even nearly enough to land Stamkos in terms of value.

Well there's that fact and you also just let matthews,marner,and nylander bend you over on their contracts.

7 mill AAV to a winger coming off a 20 goal 60 point season and couldn't even get full term so now he's going to hit UFA and bend you over again for 12 million.

Forsberg got 6x6 coming off 30 goals. Pasta got 6x6.7 coming off 35 goals and 70 points in 70 games.

And if you notice the market didn't follow suit.

NJD got an extra year on Nico at 7.25 at a more valuable position with better production leading into the contract (and more draft pedigree).

You paid Matthews 900k less than what McDavid got and didn't even get full term. Luckily covid stopped the cap rise or you'd be looking at 14.5 mill AAV on matthews new deal (which you still somehow couldn't get term on and still reset the market for him)

On the marner front I just have to point to Rantanen. The avs got Rantanen 1.6 mill AAV cheaper, AFTER Marner had signed, for the better player who'd had better production

Lol, what does having those guys have to do with Matthews playing as the 1C (1A) and Hughes as the 2C (1B)? And again it's not just the faceoffs, it's also because he's the better defensive player.

Bringing in Matthews at 13.25M over Hischer's 8M, likely means they can't afford to keep Toffoli, so it's replacing Toffoli with a league-min guy. From, the on out, the cap outlook is not going to be much different. Nemec looks good but, if Dougie wasn't injured he wouldn't be playing, so they don't need to replace him per se.

If they are that tight-pressed for money after that, they won't be able to afford Nemec, Luke, and Holtz anyway.

They can take advantage of Nemec's 1-year at 900K or they can just take advantage of L Hughes 1-year at 900K now.

Im crying laughing this doesnt make sense for any team

nylanders contract is great lol, "bend over"
Matthews scored 40 goals as a rookie and was the best player on the team during his rookie contract.
marners probably 1.5 overpaid,

jack hughes got 8aav for 52 points in 2 seasons
nico did not have better production going into the contract lmao
luckily covid hit!? ahaha are you kidding lol if it wasnt for covid the cap would be past 90 million rn and those numbers are nowhere near as big, cap percentage means more than the number

what leverage did jack hughes have? all 3 of those leafs had more points in their rookie year than jack had his first 2 years combined tears of joy

That's part of my point but Matthews has more term than Hischier... And is better at everything else, not saying Hischier is a bad player... But him and a great prospect isn't enough for a top 3 player, IMO, in Matthews...

Florida trade: Leafs don't get a 1rst and FLO becomes significantly better

TBL: Toronto loses the better player in a 1 for 1 swap...

NJ: Leafs get a 1C, 1D, and significant cap room to add in free agency.

Florida: Both Bennett and Verhaeghe are playoff proven players on good deals with two more years left. They're stock rose after last year's run.

Lightning: Leafs have a good chance at resigning Stamkos. Tampa has zero chance at resigning Nylander with their cap situation so for them Nylander is a pure rental.

Who is going to want to join the Leafs after these moves other than FA who are looking for an opportunity to make money. Their current UFAs will have a good reason to ask for more, as well as any incoming ufas. Need to save cap for Bennett and Vaerhaghe as well.

Did the TB fans convince you that they couldn't afford Nylander? Anyways, they probably can sign him after making a move but if they lose Nylander, then there's a good chance that Stamkos just goes back there.

Nico in his D+2 year (the last year before signing his contract):
20 goal, 56 point pace
Nylander in his D+4 year (the last year before signing his contract)
20 goal, 61 point pace.

Nico was 2 years younger.

And let's look at the line pairings:

Nylander:
650 minutes with Matthews and Hyman (52% xGoals share)
90 minutes with kadri+komarov (this line got caved in to the tune of 39% xgoals share)
40 minutes each with Marner-Hyman and Marleau Hyman


Nico:
267 minutes with Hall and Palmieri (this line was absolutely dominant with 59% xGoals share)
120 minutes each with Marcus Johansson-Palmieri and 20 year old bratt-Palmieri
84 minutes with Johansson-Bratt
33 minutes with Agostino-Palmieri

Yeah you're right Nico was much better at a more valuable position with worse linemates, 2 years younger, and much more draft pedigree

What do you think the current players are interested in? Why did Domi and Bertuzzi only sign 1 year deals? Why did Matthews only sign for 4 years more? Why hasn't Nylander signed yet?

Players wanting more money is baked in the cake of every team.

thats alot of words to say nylander had better production still lol, but youve chosen to ignore everything else that was said, youre moving goalposts, this started with matthews vs hughes and ended up being nico vs willy lmao, and also for the record i never said willy was better lol so keep moving the goal posts,

bottomline of all this is matthews>hughes

Yes. Luckily covid hit which helped you out on their next contracts.

On an 8 year contract teams will pay more in the short term for the contract to be better in the long term. They "buy" the UFA years, where in general the cap will have gone up significantly and so will the price if they were to let them hit UFA. It's where the entire concept of a bridge deal occurs.

2 options:
1)
First contract 4x4, next contract 10x4
2) 1 contract 7x8
Same amount of money, different ways.

But if the cap stops going up suddenly for an unexpected reason, that next contract for option A suddenly becomes 4x8 because there isn't money out there anymore, benifiting the teams who went for bridge deals and immediate savings.

Eg. McDavid deal
8x12.5

vs Matthews
5x11.6
Now, if the cap was at 90 million or so right now, that matthews deal is probably at 14.5 and not 13.25

So because of the unforseeable event of covid stopping the cap raise, you got bailed out for not getting full term on any of your extensions

Every player wants money, but my point is, when you trade all your best players and have a ton of cap space, those who are interested are going to want to take that cap up. So, maybe if Bertuzzi wanted 6.5M, now he wants 7M+. They will leverage the teams need to improve. Of course, they would need to be better than Tavares, Hischer, and Vaerhaghe but at the end of the day, they aren't going to be saving any money. So, having cap doesn't mean anything if you can't sign quality players.

13.25 of 87 and 14.5 of 90+ is a difference of less than a full percent lol, if you actually think that covid benefitted the leafs then you are a bigger fool then I thought. the whole thing with the leafs is "you cant have 4 players taking up half your cap", if covid didnt hit, this wouldnt be the case, covid screwed the leafs, not bailed them out. not even a discusssion

Jack had the leverage of waiting if he wanted to. Nylander had 13 points in his D+2 season. Marner had 19 goals and 61 points in 77 games.

But if you actually watched Jack in either of the first 2 years you knew what was coming. Rookie year a ridiculously low 5% on ice shooting %.

At a normal rate of 10% on ice shooting, thats 42 points in 61 games as an 18 year old.

Even at 19 he was at a 53% xGoals% 5v5, playing with wayne simmons 75% of the time.

Matthews' contract being 14.25 -14.5M next year instead of 13.25M doesn't make any difference to the cap structure, it's still the same percentage roughly. The only difference is the real dollars. Covid didn't save the Leafs, it rendered their "overpays" useless, resulting in them having less cap to spend than anticipated which led to a lot of turnover. If the cap had gone up they might have had some more successful runs since they wouldn't constantly be losing their depth.

he had 52 points in 2 seasons, no leverage. if anything it was an overpay at the time
but he didnt shoot at a normal rate lol he shot at 5% which isnt good,

Again:

Team A pays
4x4 with the intention of signing player to a 10x4 after that in order to take advantage of the immediate cap savings now, but more expensive in the later term (this is the leafs not getting full term)
Team B pays
7x8 to take advantage of the later cap savings when the cap goes up

Oh, but the cap doesn't go up.

Team B (not the leafs) now gets EXTRA screwed in the short term bc that extra 3 mill they had to pay is a bigger% of the cap then they thought it would be. Then in the long run that 7 mill is still a higher % of the cap than they thought it would be, so they get screwed again.

Team A, which didn't go for the full term (the leafs) gets screwed somewhat in the short term, but not really because those cap savings they thought they would get are now even MORE meaningful. Then the bridge deal expires, and the cap is much lower than they thought it would be at this point. Now because of this lower cap they only have to pay 9 mill on the new deal, meaning they benefit long term


You got hosed on the contracts yes, and the Tavares contract (which is different as a UFA)
With UFAs you generally underpay in the early years and then overpay as they age
But for young RFAs on long term deals it's the opposite, you overpay as they develop and then underpay as they hit their prime.

So more term=higher AAV

If you would have went full term on Marner, Matthews, Nylander, it would have cost you more in the short term with the expectation of savings in the long term
Then when the cap doesn't go up, you get screwed in the earlier years and don't get the relief in the later years

Covid bailed you out of the lack of term you got on them.

Now, you massively overpaid as if you were getting full term regardless even tho you weren't, but a longer term deal would have been even more affected by the cap stoppage