It's the retention, that's what is the killer here.

Truly.Insane.Overpayment

No

Wouldn't the Leafs just be better ( a lot better), keeping cap free Niemela, Minten, the first, two thirds and having 4.875 to spend on a Dman this summer. A 30 year old Dman for six full season doesn't look very attractive to me. Maybe Parayko didn't want to be traded to the Leafs (he has NTC) but geez, in the two games against the Leafs in the past two weeks, he looked like just a guy.

Good player, not great, but that contract is obscene and given the acquisition cost - truly insane to try to trade for him imo.
I agree 100% - we target a more reasonable RHD @ TDL and keep most of our top prospects + picks & use cap space wisely during FA.

How!

Man... Parayko isn't the player he was when he signed that deal. He already isn't playing up to the 6.5M he's signed to and he's still only 30. He's going to start regressing more because of age and he's signed for like another 7 seasons or something stupid. If the Leafs could get him for

Parayko 50%Retained

Niemela
Abruz3ze
1st 2024

Then I consider it. However I'm not giving up the best prospect to hit the Leafs system S since Matthew's PLUS PLUS. For.an aging defenceman who's already not playing up to his contract he just signed. Going past 30 already...

That contract is going to become an albatross for any team who has it. The Blues had the perfect time to.trade Parayko around when they moved Petrangelo and they chose not to. They could have really scored for him and probably got close to what your going for but now he's just not that guy.

That's an un movable contract for the Blues even if they wanted to. He's making 6.5M . A team isn't going to do them a favor and just take all that on without retention. And Blues won't retain because of the length.

It seem like so many Leaf fans are on the bandwagon again......Acquiring ANY RHD at ANY cost. Kinda funny the Leaf had that nice winning streak with only one RHD, but lose one game to Vegas and the world is falling on the Leafs. Reilly, Benoit, Brodie, McCabe, Liljegren, Luby......seem OK to me when all are healthy. Still have Giordano Lagesson, Timmins, It's not like one good Dman addition and emptying out the Leafs future cupboards, is going to change the fate of the Leafs this season.

True to one extent, sure, but it's far from the only killer. This is an offer you try on a teardown team like Chicago or San Jose, not the Blues. Then there's the matter of quantity over quality. Leafs fans love to overrate their prospects, it's become a running thing here. While Cowan and Neimela are indeed their top F and D prospects, that's not saying a whole lot in and of itself. The Leafs have one of the shallowest prospect pools in the league, Neimela is the exact opposite of the type of D the Blues want and they already have an array of forward prospects better than Cowan. There's really nothing suitable about it, but try telling them this. We've been going through this for years now. At least back in the day they made offers of good value.

I agree. I also like how he tried to make his picks more valuable by saying "three of the leafs best picks in the next three years".

- Parayko has played the best hockey of his career this season. He's in the top 10, if not the top five, of almost every individual stat for a Dman they count.

- There is exactly nothing unmovable about a guy who has continuously been the persistent subject of GM calls, media nonsense and fan fantasies for 5-6 years. The mere assertion is baffling.

- Your "offer" barely pays for the retention Toronto is NEVER getting from Army. It's glaringly laughable. That's not a dig, it's pure reality.

- "Best prospect to hit the Leafs system since Matthews" ain't sayin' much, bud. Hate to break it to ya. Cowan wasn't even in Pronman's top 168 when the season started. Wasn't in Daily Faceoff's last top 75. The highest you'll probably see him is THW, which speaks for itself. The Blues have four, if not five F prospects that are higher rated, the majority of them far higher.

The Blues are not trading Parayko and if they did, they sure as sheet are not retaining

So you're saying Parayko IS the guy he was when he signed this deal for the last 40 games maybe?
I'm not saying he's a horrible defenceman I didn't say that.
What I said is he's unmovable. And that's where we differ. Look at that contract.... you're telling me that's a good contract? How about a year from now? 2 years from now? Three years from now? 4 years from now when he's 34-35 all the way to 37?
Now the saving grace I'll give you is the salary cap will be going up and players who are making 3M now will be making 6M then so it COULD mak3 sense...
I just don't see him because he had a good half of the season after a complete horrible seasons being traded with that contract attached. I dont... call me crazy.

And I don't see the Blues retaining like I said because of the Length . THATis why he remains a Blue. Not for any other reason.

You're really conflating separate concepts here.

- It's not 40 games. He's played at this same level since the last 20 games of last season, actually. And the claim was that he was not the player he used to be, which is not accurate.

- You may think it's a bad contract or whatever, but that's not the same as unmovable. Most everybody and their mother wants the guy, from GMs to fans. They want him now as they've wanted him for years, and they will probably want him again this summer. That is not an unmovable player.

Also, this assumption that his contract is bad is nothing more than an assumption. He's still an elite skater and his game is not predicated on the extreme physical play that often shortens career length/quality. He's not a bad cop Dman, despite his size. He's a smooth criminal. He plays D with his stick and reach and angles and body positioning. There's every chance he will age relatively gracefully. Unlike a bruiser such as Schenn, who is already showing concerning signs of slide.

- Parayko has never had "complete horrible seasons". At most, he's had one pretty terrible season, which was the one he missed a bunch of time and then played with a back that was definitely not 100%. You guys should stop reading The Athletic and analytics, and actually watch players play.

None of this matters anyway, as he is not going anywhere. So all those people who think he's not good or a bad contract can rest easy.