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Yup. All of the NMC doomers from Spring 2023 saw this coming -- same core, same top-heavy roster, same results, and so Marner's gone for nothing. There are no magic words that Treliving couldn't said in Spring 2024 that would've changed the dynamics here and made Marner sign a team-friendly...

That trade attempt was apparently after trying to sign him for around $13M per year,which is, where I come from, a pretty convincing gesture of commitment. There were no trust-shaking trade deadline asks about Matthew or Nylander when they were in the last years of their deals because they’d...

I wonder if we ought to give FLA some agency here. If there was one destination only, I imagine Zito could've kept Huberdeau and still got Tkachuk by adding Verhaeghe, Duclair, or Marchment, a better prospect, another pick, whatever. Gotta keep your elite talent. They could and they could've...

I don't know why you think it's an assumption. I think it's observable that he wants all those things. Because his last contract and reported next one make him one of the highest paid players in the league, we can see he wants to maximize his earnings; because he very obviously wants to win...

Analogy isn't equivalence. Two really good regular season teams lose to opponents who are so impressive that you can explain it away reasonably enough. I know folks have been talking about throwing the bums out, but not I. I've just been looking forward to the long overdue rebalancing of the...

We'll see what he signs for and what's already there -- cost-controlled, quality supporting players would certainly help. I think the list of players you can devote 13-15% of the cap to and survive the resulting depth mismatch is very short, and Mitch ain't on it. It's not a moral failing to...

Imagine if Florida had looked at their 2022 playoffs the way you're suggesting we ought to look at the Leafs' 2025...

I agree that needing emotional maturity from professional athletes doesn't mode well... certain types of mental illness and maladjustments can work too, I think? As to the idea that "other markets will be able to pitch players that they can have money, fun and win" -- pitch, maybe, but can...

You know very well we're talking playoffs here. Over most of his contract, Marner was the league's 5th highest paid forward. Do you think he was 5th in playoff goals over that period? Points? Points per game?

It’s what we want when we’re children maybe. We we grow up we learn you can’t have it all and have to make decisions. I think the level of criticism Marner got was related to two things: the misalignment between his level of compensation, expected level of performance, and actual performance...

Yeah, no point moving off the Core 4 only to end up back with another top heavy roster that can’t afford a decent bottom six… Florida’s top 4 forwards come in at about $35m. Toronto’s were nearly $47m. Even if our top four best their top four, they can spend $12m more throughout their lineup...

Ok so what’s the lesson the Leafs oughta take from being least quickly steamrolled by Florida?

People read the intention to attempt into the quote he gave at the press conference before Shanny walked away. The line was “perhaps the path needs to shift slightly and needs to be adapted slightly” and he then added, “You get in between persistence and full belief versus being a little too...

I think it’s really weird that he was so stubbornly stuck on holding homegrown talent when he was brought into DET via a trade.

The loss extended Carolina’s losing streak in Eastern Conference final games with Rod Brind’Amour as captain or coach to 14 games after the Canes were swept in 2009, 2019 and 2023. Still a lot of ECF appearances tho…

A good run down of how things went awry after early promise from MLHS. One thing that stands out, besides recounting all the consequences of trying to accelerate things amid mismanaged drafts and with too quickly spent draft capital, is how misguided they were in insulating the young stars with...

In most of these cases, the players had a lot more early career playoff success or their AAVs were a lot lower. There are exceptions, I'm sure, but in general the Leafs contract AAVs + playoff records + NMCs make their RFA contracts outliers. I think if we made a table with the data points...

And I said you can see from his reactions to the mildest forms of criticism and any on-ice adversity that there’s no level he can take. And that predates the golf balls and trash on the lawn. It’s who he is.

Who else got them as RFAs?

You don’t think he has a problem being criticized because he’s been targeted by some pretty over the line forms of harassment? I don’t see how one follows the other. You can hear him talk to the media, see how he responds to being benched, see how coaches have to walk back the mildest of...