Obviously neither team does this but you have to add to Slafkovsky to get the best goal scorer in the league in his prime.

Obviously neither team does this? Please explain how Montreal does not do this.

I phrased that poorly, yes MTL does this specific deal, but if you even out the value they are not likely looking to trade for someone quite a few years older than their core who will need to be resigned at the same time as a lot of their RFA/ELCs.

Lol

Only TO says no, there is absolutely no rational argument to ever suggest Montreal doesn't jump at this

Habs definitely doesn’t want a 13,5m contract for a poor playoffs performer, especially not for their future star on an elc

Except that Habs don't want Captain Underpants and or his contract. Matthews is a great player but he is too selfish, he always puts himself before the team.

Lol Hab fans

Lol results of the experiment went how I thought they would. Matthews has more goals in 50 games this year than Slafkovsky has points in his career

It shouldn't come as a surprise that a team may not want Matthews.
$13.5M is a big commitment to a single player. The NMC is also a factor. There are philosophies for roster construction against both of those factors.
Especially when the teams employing those contracts have lacked significant success.

Of course Montreal would accept based on value alone, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong to reject it.
Not everyone attempted to sign Tavares when he was free. There's no single path to success and no single player guarantees it.

He only chose to meet with 5 teams. Lots of other teams wanted to meet with him

Just an example. Not everyone is interested in signing a player for that much money and/or with an NMC, even if it means losing the player.
Toronto should have signed Matthews, but a different GM may not have.

Just stop lol

To add to this Matthews is too greedy, he isn't a "team" player he is in it for the money. If he wasn't he would have signed for 8 years at 13.25 mil not 4 years, the only reason he didn't was to get another significant salary increase in 4 years at north of 15 mil. The guy isn't like MacKinnon who has publicly said he would take less if it means the team can upgrade the roster in other areas and remain contenders for longer.

I don't consider him "greedy".
I do consider money to be of a higher priority than winning, but that's true of most players.
When they are capable of being a driving force toward a cup, they are more concerned with money. After they've made their money and become more of a complimentary player (or a passenger), they start worrying about the cup.

You're making enough to have your cake and eat it too and I have more respect for players that recognize that.
I try not to hold it against players that don't, but you have to acknowledge that the more money they take, the more challenging it is to build a roster around them.

That's my point, guys like Stamkos, Crosby, Ovechkin, MacKinnon, Makar and Headman could easily have gotten 10+ mil but elected to take less to allow their teams to build out their roster more, that's part of the reason their teams were/are more dominant.

Ovechkin signed for almost 19% of the cap when he signed his contract, crosby almost 15%, mackinnon pretty much the same percent as matthews. 12.6 of 82.5 is virutally the same as 13.25 of 87.5. context of what the cap was at the time is important but easy to leave out when trying to drive a narrative.

Didn't leave it out just didn't have time to look it up

kind of an important thing to do

Crosby and Mackinnon had cups to back up their salary by the time they extended. Ovechkin in hindsight was able to get the job done afterwards, but at least he had a history of consistently getting past the 1st rd of the playoffs. Matthews has proven nothing for playoff success and has a specific playoff series under his belt that put his "effort" into question... *cough* his 1 goal performance against MTL *cough*...

But from a value perspective, MTL would be fools to turn down this deal. I like Slafs potential (imo he can still become a point per game (40g 40a) power winger), but that's nowhere near as close to the generational talent of Matthews. The Leafs playoff struggles aren't all on his shoulders, so any team imo would jump at the opportunity to add him. MTL included.

Crosby yes but this was in response to taking less which he didnt really taking in the context of the cap.

Ovechkin signed his deal which was almost 19% if the cap before he had even played a single playoff game then he didnt get past the 2nd round until his 13th season which then he won the cup.

Mackinnon didnt get past the 2nd round until his 9th season which then they went on to win the cup. in the grand scheme of things is there really that big of a difference between round 1 and 2? people looked at both ovie and nate as "guys that cant get past the 2nd round of the playoffs" more than "guys that always go to the 2nd round of playoffs" before they went to the cup final in 22 mackinnon had been to the 2nd round 3 out of his 8 seasons with 3 of those years missing the playoffs.

The playoffs success has not been there for Matthews and he struggled in the MTL series but I wouldn't credit that to lack of effort. he had a bum wrist which he got surgery on later that summer and the Danault line did a very good job of shutting him down. I do feel his playoff reputation is overshadowed by the teams lack of success as 2017, 2019 2020 22 and 23 round 1 he was great. 18 and 21 and 23 round 2 were not good but i honestly think Florida round 2 was the worst series for him

Didn't even think about the FLA series, but it's interesting that his worst series' were arguably those that had the most physicality (BOS 2018, MTL 2021, FLA rd2 2023).

I agree with you, I think Matthews's cap hit is appropriate. especially considering the cap is going up significantly over the next few years. For Ovechkin's past struggles (and MacKinnon's too if you want), in hindsight, we know now he was able to get over the hump and win a cup. So it was all worth it in the end. So until Matthews shows he can win his cup, he'll always face criticism of his past results.
Come to think of it, the criticism Matthews gets now is eerily similar to what Ovechkin was going through before he finally won. That doesn't mean Matthews will follow in his footsteps though lol Ovi's comments a few years (I'm paraphrasing) about how he and the capitals overall had to change their game to learn how to win, and that TOR hadn't learned that lesson yet. Still holds true.

As I said, I didn't have time, I was working and posting at the same time lol