Minnesota isn't trading for Marner

Why not?

Because the salary cap exists

Why do so many Toronto guys keep trying to shoehorn Mitch Marner and his $10.9 million cap hit into cap-stressed rosters like Minnesota ($14.75 million dead cap next season) or Los Angeles ($20.9 million to re-sign Quinton Byfield and fill both goalie positions and eight other roster slots)? The proposed trade in this ACGM would add $5.2 million to Minnesota's already serious cap problem and create an almost hopeless inability to re-sign both Marner and Brock Faber in 2025. Please go play pretend-Marner-is-going-somewhere with teams like Utah and Chicago and Nashville and Columbus.

So another team covers 50% of his contract. And when you resign him you have one year where your cap is iffy (but the cap is going up) and then you're golden with a 100 pt player. He'd be the most talented player in your history

Islanders fan

Yeah or you could just trade him somewhere else

Marner is not better than Kaprizov.

I’m open to a Marner trade, but Spurgeon has to be going the other way.

And aside from being incorrect, this is relevant how?

This is how we keep getting Marner to Minnesota proposals

Realistically Spurgeon isn't going the other way, and realistically the Wild have no business trading for another winger that's going to be making 12M on his next contract. Between him, Kaprizov's next contract, and Boldy, they'd have 31M tied up in three wingers.

Lmao

Last three years Marner has scored 2 more points than Kaprizov, Kaprizov has scored 40 more goals than Marner

Marner is playing with a center who's better than himself in Matthews
Kaprizov's best linemate for most of it was Mats Zuccarello, who only looks as good as he does on the stat sheet because he got carried by Kaprizov

From a goal scoring ability perspective, it's literally not remotely close and you can't argue that point

Overall it might be closer but Kaprizov has done just as much, if not more (again, goal scoring), while playing with significantly worse linemates

Marner is not better than Kaprizov. You're just a homer.

How about on the other side? You know? Defence!! Marner played 142 mins on the PK this past year. Marner has more takeaways, Marner has more blocked shots, Kaprizov played more minutes on the pp (Toronto was near bottom of pp mins)

Kaprizov has played in 19 playoff games and has 12 pts, Marner who is not a playoff performer has 50 in 57

Kaprizov is a great player but he is not Marner and I do not like Mitchy. I want him off my team. But he is still a top 5 winger in the league

Oh wow, I didn't know you were going to bring up takeaways and blocked shots. Those almost make up for the 40 extra goals scored.

If Marner is a top 5 winger in the league, Kaprizov is top 4.

People don't want supposed top 5 players off their team. They want to keep those guys.

Oh boy, you should watch more hockey. You'd be surprised.

Let Marner walk and add the savings to the cap we can spend in 2025.

Yeah that's just weird. I'm not crazy about Spurgeon's contract either but he's still a good player when he plays and if you're going to trade him you could get something that actually helps the team long term. Cap space only helps if you actually have something to spend it on, and overpaying UFAs every summer is not a viable strategy to being a good team.

STILL CANNOT AFFORD FABER IF MARNER IS ACQUIRED.

Minnesota is NOT losing a 21 year old #1RHD just because Leafs fans want a player gone.

Make sense. Or at bare minimum learn to accept other teams needs aside from your own.

Great, so you can overpay an UFA who's half as good twice as much. Great strategy.

Cap space also helps keep players like Faber around, who Russo is already talking about receiving $9M+ per year. Rossi will need an extension. Kaprizov? Yeah, he's pretty important and will need a fat extension.

Cap space is also important in creating depth for the team. This is a one line team currently with an important player or two amongst a sea of misfits in the bottom 9. You know how good this team would be if they could persuade a couple of key free agents to join the team? They don't even have to be high priced guys. You could probably get Boeser at a discount because he wants to be here. Sam Bennett, Trent Frederic, Nick Perbix, etc. Plenty of quality depth to be had.


**** dude, I'd take someone that actually plays. Being good doesn't matter if you can't stay healthy. Being good doesn't matter when the playoffs roll around and you fold up like a cheap tent.

Spurgeon is the epitome of why this team never makes it past the first round of the playoffs. Keep being attached to mediocrity. Great ****ing strategy.

Uh-huh.

Overpaying UFA's IS NOT the salvation you think it is.

I think Faber's contract won't be an issue as that's when the worst of the buyouts drops off. Kaprizov's contract only requires an additional 3-4M from where he's at now, so that's easy (Zuccarello's 4M drops off that same summer). I haven't done a deep dive to see how much cap space we're actually projected to have in the summers of 2025 and 2026, so I can't really say for certain what the cap space looks like those years. Should have a few guys on ELC's in the next year or two though, which helps with cap space and highlights the importance of not trading 13th overall picks when you get them.

Point is I don't think Spurgeon's contract is an impediment to extending anyone they want to between now and the time it ends in 2027. The only guys who are going to command big money between now and then that aren't already making big money are Rossi and Faber, and it sounds like Rossi may not even be here for his next contract. Plus, you trade Spurgeon, and I'm not sure we're a playoff team anyway unless you can immediately replace him. We'd pretty much be watching last season again.

Still, signing free agents generally requires overpaying them with both term and AAV. That's basically what Fletcher's entire tenure was, and that resulted in jack. Great teams are usually home grown, they lock their guys up to lower AAV's than they'd get on the open market, and they have a few ELC guys playing like non-ELC guys. You build through the draft if you want to be a great team, not through free agency.

Keeping an overpaid often injured wannabe top pair defender isn't the salvation you think it is.

Fletcher's downfall was that he traded picks to get **** players (Hanzal, Stewart, Moulson, etc). Or the putrid Tuch+Haula to Vegas for expansion protection. We are still feeling the ramifications from some of those trades.

I think the issue not being taken into account is that you are not making your team better. You're treading water. Not good. Not bad. Perfectly Minnesota errrr I mean mediocre.

Look at all the top teams. Plenty of them have key free agent signings. I mean, look at Dallas: Marchment, Pavelski, Duchene, Smith, Steel, Suter, Hakanpaa, etc. Florida: Verhaeghe, Rodrigues, Mikkola, OEL, Bobrovsky, etc.

You don't have to go crazy. Like I said, if we could get Boeser, Frederic, and Perbix, I think we are sitting pretty. Maybe we don't need to trade Spurgeon for that to happen. But I have more of an issue with Spurgeon the player than his contract. I doubt that his two surgeries suddenly made him better. He's still a limited midget that has to rely on "smarts" that can be bulldozed and taken advantage of by bigger players. He doesn't play well in the playoffs. These things might be fine if the rest of our dmen were 6'3" bruising dmen. They are not. Our defense is so soft.