Hischier and Matthews are for sure worse than prime ovi and bergeron

You seem to be struggling with some basic principles of young RFAs:

When you have a young guy hit RFA, you can do 1 of 2 things.

Option 1: Bridge Deal/Intermediate
You don't get full term and you have to sign them to a newer, much more expensive deal when the contract is over, but in exchange you get a lower AAV in the short term, and protection in case of injury/fall off
Option 2: 8 year deal
You offer them the full 8 years, locking them up through their prime years (28-31 or so), at a very reasonable rate, locked in price in the late term. In exchange you have to pay them more while they're still developing and assume the risk if they get hurt. (these deals often look like steals later on if the player breaks out and asthe cap goes up)

In normal times, the pros and cons for both generally balance out, as the early payments on long terms deals as the cap rises to make them look like steals.

Teams trying to immediately contend, and more often on their less core pieces, will more often go for bridge deals to maximize their immediate winning potential.

Teams that are more rebuilding, or looking to build a long term window/build around a true core piece, will often opt for the 8 year deals, knowing that the short term payments will be outweighed as the cap goes up and they develop into steals of a contract.

So, when the leafs did not get full term on the 3, it lowered the AAV they'd have to pay over the life of those deals vs an 8 year extension.

Whereas with Edmonton's 2, the 8 year deals raised the AAV to pay off down the line as the cap went up.

Now, when the cap didn't go up, the market stagnated. This meant that the higher AAVs that Edmonton had to pay early were even more pricey than they thought, and the money they thought they'd save compared to an extension after a bridge was less. This significantly screwed them over.

Now, compared to the leafs, when the market stagnated, this meant that the early money they saved by not buying those extra years was even more valuable than they thought it would be, and the money they thought they'd have to pay on the new deals was less than they expected.

The confusion here comes from 2 things:

1: the leafs got hosed in negotiations regardless, paying what they should have on an 8 year deal AAV wise, without getting said term. So fans looking back don't see the AAV savings bc they overpaid compared to the market
2: the Tavares contract, which is a UFA contract and so is a different principle.

On Veteran Long term UFA contracts, you almost always know that the deal will be bad towards the end of it as players leave their primes.
So with these you get a bargain in the early years, and pay the piper in the later years.
This is the reason Orlov got 7.75x2, because the term was short and so they don't have to pay the piper when he's 37, so they pay now.

WIth the cap stagation, that later price gets more and more hefty as it's a higher % of the cap than you thought it would have been.

The marner deal is especially unfathomable.

Here's a list of RFA wingers to get more than 9.5 million dollars:
Ovi at 9.538 on a 13 year deal in 2008
Marner at 10.9 mill.

Especially at 22 years old, with 4 full years of RFA control. And still not getting full term.
That's unfathomably bad deal considering he had never even cracked 30 goals.

Tkachuk after his 42 goal 104 point season, much closer to UFA: 9.5x8
Kucherov 1 year away from UFA after his 40 goal 100 point season: 9.5x8
Rantanen after his 74 game, 31 goal, 87 point season: 9.25x6

BENT OVER

So in order to bring in matthews NJD would need to build a significantly worse d core??

Or the other options are to shorten our window significantly by not getting term on mercer
or paying significant assets to sell Palat now even despite him playing fantastic with Nico&Bratt and being a fantastic playoff performer and leader?

So what you're saying is to fit Matthews NJD would need to make themselves significantly worse both now and into the future?

Stamkos is 6 years older, and Nylander is still on the upside side of the bell curve. I have nothing against stamkos. I have something against signing players in their 30s. From a pure valuation standpoint, Nylander is worth more.

No one is talking about whether the Leafs got hosed on negotiations or not. You claimed that Covid saved the Leafs which doesn't make any sense. How do you overpay, then get saved by the cap not going up? So, what I'm struggling with is not the concept of bridge deals and 8-year deals, but where you get the idea that the Leafs got saved by Covid after overpaying. I do not see the relevance of any of the hypothetical contracts that you mentioned either.

All those contracts except for McAvoy and Pastrnak that you mentioned in the previous post were signed before Covid with certain projections in the minds of the GMs. All those GMs were blindsided by the flat cap and had to deal with a cap crunch but it was worse for the Leafs because their entire cap structure relied on the cap to go up. Without Covid over those 3-years their pay structure would have balanced out. You mention OVI's 9.5M which is from so long ago, but look at the cap % that he took when he first signed.

Not significantly worse, because NJ does not have Marcus Pettersson. It's the same defense at the least but again that's based on your signings. What could be available to Fitzgerald is not limited to your hypothetical. There is the potential to have a better defense but that doesn't mean that it would happen, and regardless that does not mean that bringing in Matthews would make the team far worse in the short-term. You're bringing in the top goal scorer in the League onto a team that has the current top point producer by rate in the League. You also have guys like Timo Meier and Mercer underperforming, you don't know how adding Matthews would help or not help with that. I would assume that overall the offense would be better though.

Ovi was only better than Matthews in his first 5-years (up to when he was 25), not his entire prime. Matthews' years 6-8 are better than Ovi's years 6-8.

You have Ovi (20-25 - y1 to y5) scoring at a 0.63 G/GP rate and 1.29 pts/GP
then you have Matthews (24 to 26 - y6 to y8) at 0.69 G/GP and 1.27 pts/GP
Matthews (19-24 - y1 to y5) 0.64 G/GP and 1.12 pts/GP
then Ovi (25-27 - y6 to y8) at 0.51 G/GP and 1.00 pts/gp

Ovi's y6 to y10 production is 0.57 G/GP and 1.01 pts/gp. So, while Ovi has peaked higher at faster than Matthews, it's a pretty fair assumption that through their first 10 seasons, Matthews is likely going to have the better numbers.

Ovi deal was barely even worth mentioning:
A) it was 13 years of term
B) ovi signed it in the middle of the season where he won the Hart, Rocket, and Art Ross all in the same year.

Marner surpasses the next highest RFA winger deal (even to this day) by 1.4 mill in AAV. You gave it to him after a season a where he didn’t even crack 30 goals, recieve a single hart vote, finish top 10 in points. AND you didn’t get full term.

Making someone the 7th highest paid player in NHL history at 22 after a season where they didn’t crack 30 goals, 100 points, and you bought out just 2 years of UFA is getting HOSED.

I think it might be one of the worst negotiating jobs of all time

The overpay is a completely seperate topic. The fact that the leafs got hosed on all those negotiations is what makes people think Covid screwed them, when in reality it was giving out ridiculous contracts.

Paying out the 2nd, 6th, and 7th contracts in NHL history to a guy who wasn’t top 5, a guy who was maybe a top 10 C, and a winger who you have 4 years of RFA control on was going to screw you no matter what the cap did. And the fact that you didn’t get full term on Matthews, Marner, or Nylander made it even worse.

Nylander contract turned out well, but his production at the time said he deserved 6 tops.

Again.

Imagine if the leafs bought those extra 2 years on Marner and Nylander, and those extra 3 years on Matthews.

That is the alternative. Especially on a guy like Matthews you buy the extra years. Like if he wanted to he could have walked himself right to free agency and there’s nothing you could have done about it. But luckily the lack of cap space due to Covid meant that the money just isn’t out there for him to get a massive deal in UFA from another team.

Again, you didn’t get full term. If the cap went up that would have destroyed you on their new contracts. But the cap stagnated, bailing you out on those 3 deals

The point of me mentioning the Ovi deal is to show what would have happened to those cap hits over time. The question isn't whether the Leafs got hosed, it's how did COVID save the Leafs like you were claiming? Covid or no covid isn't going to change what they paid them, the only thing that it would have changed is the amount of cap they had after the fact.



The Leafs are getting/going to get destroyed on their next contracts because the cap is going up now, what do you mean? Matthews would have had a 14.5Mx8 deal instead of a 13.25Mx5 probably, his next deal could be 16MX8 and just look at how old he would be. So, the idea that COVID bailed them out is simply not true, it made them less competitive in those 3-years in particular and is going to cost them more.

You're saying to imagine a worse scenario, that doesn't change the fact that COVID did not help them.

In terms of overpaying, there wasn't anything wrong with the Nylander signing (similar deal to the Pastrnak deal but it's a slightly lower % - Pastrnak had 70 pts in 75 games, Nylander had two 61 pts in 82 game seasons, Connor got the same % as Nylander but additional year 57 in 76 and 66 in 82 under his belt, Jets got a better deal but Nylander's deal is still within reasonable range) except that it didn't happen before the season, which 1) meant the Leafs couldn't afford another holdout and 2) it affected Nylander's development. Getting the full 8-years on the Matthews deal would have been better but at the end of the day Matthews has been the top goal scorer since entering the League, so he had the leverage, he wasn't just "a maybe top 10 C". The biggest issue came with the Marner signing, the AAV was too high all because he had 1 more point than Matthews at that time in their career. They weren't going to have him miss games after the Nylander ordeal went down the season prior.

Worth noting though, that none of these guys just got paid off on one fabulous year, they had 3-years of solid production.

The leafs made a mistake not getting term:
The leafs made another mistake by overpaying by about 4.5 million AAV combined or so on the term they did get
The leafs made a mistake of buying Tavares when they weren’t ready to compete yet.
Those are SEPARATE mistakes.

The mistake of not getting term and not buying those extra years was bailed out by Covid stalling cap prices. This made the immediate AAV savings they got more valuable and lessened the hit of the next contract turning the mistake into a benefit

The mistake of overpaying was amplified by the lack of cap increase. A mistake turning into a more meaningful mistake

You seem to be unable to separate the 2.

If the mistake was amplified by the lack of cap increase, how did they get bailed out? I'm starting to see what you're trying to say, but it's wrong as you're thinking is flawed.

1) When you say the mistake was "amplified by the lack of cap space" that's true, and it's proof that Covid made them worse off than if the cap were rising. They didn't get a bailout in those years which is what it sounded like you were saying to me and Herb_Brooks.

Correct me if I'm wrong but you're saying "Covid bailed them out of their mistake, due to their next contracts coming in at a lower cap hit". The next two points address why that's a flawed way of thinking and ultimately untrue.

2) You're valuing getting what you think is a better deal on the next contract more than competing on the first one (i.e, getting value out of the current contract). You're saying it's okay that they suffered in those 3-years because after they got better deals (which they haven't yet).

3) Your idea of a better deal is merely having a lower AAV. Having a lower AAV doesn't necessarily mean they got a better deal. 13.25M with an 88.7M cap is the same as 14.93M with a 100M cap. Also, if the cap was regular now, let's say it was at 100M, and Matthews got 14.93M, it would likely be on an 8-year deal and not 5, because there is no anticipated significant jump in cap coming up. If by the end of Matthews' 5-year deal, the cap is 100M, he might take a smaller % of the cap and sign for like 14Mx8 (until he's 38), but now he's signed at the tail-end of his career for a lot more than he should probably get. So, even on the next contract they aren't better off like you thought they would be.

NJ: Leafs get a very good prospect and a 2C... Not very enticing without draft capital

Flo: Playoff proven? They both dropped in production come playoffs... That and a 2nd doesn't equal Marner... Even with his struggles

Lightning: Irrelevant bc Nylander is the better player... If you are set on getting Stamkos, do that in FA and trade Nylander for assets... That's better asset management

First, why'd you quote me...

Second, Matthews career GPG: 0.631

Ovi GPG: 0.62

Gretzky GPG: 0.601

Hischier GPG: 0.26

Hischier has a slight edge over Matthews in the defence department... But Matthews is better everywhere else...

I have to say well done KingExLeafs. When you have this many people arguing about your posts from both sides of the trades, you have succeeded m. Well done sir!!!

nico is bergeron now ahahaha

little boy hughes is matthews son

whose winning the fake trade argument

Prime Matthews outperform 21 year old Jack Hughes challenge (impossible)

matthews is hughes and the devils papa

Leafs cups since devils inception: 0

and yet hes still their papa

love it when both guys really want to get the last word in. we could be here for a while

Enjoy the extra 5.25 million a year in cap charges.

I will gladly thank you!