2025-26 Toronto Maple Leafs General Discussion

[Guilt Trip]

Oh come on. If Lameriello didn't sign him to that stupid contract, Dubas wouldn't have been forced to make that trade. It's a pretty simple straight line. I don't know how this is a stretch at all. Dubas didn't create that mess.

And the thing was, everyone involved knew he wasn't playing the 3rd year of that contract here.

 

[Bender]

I do not think the core 4 was grossly overpaid by Dubas.
Tavares was a top UFA and probably could have got a little more.
Marner & Matthews have been top 10 scorers and good defensively since they came into the league
Nylander was a cut below because he was not great defensively and didn't rack up as much offensively.
But their contracts were in line with others in the league when you consider the timing of the signing, the duration, etc.
The NMCs were also common around the league.
Covid threw the cap growth off so they were cap tight to fill in the supporting cast

I'm so tired of the covid cap and "they were paid what they were worth" excuses. The whole league had to deal with the same cap and other players came due for contracts. Instead of pivoting when they knew the cap wasn't going up they doubled down on regular season success and playoff futility.

As for contracts, they played hardball with Willy and got him at a very good number (barring his first year) and refused to do that with Mitch and Auston and instead coddled them both, especially with Mitch's camp being highly unprofessional along the way. Point, Kucherov, Rantanen, Aho. The list goes on - the Leafs players had the most expensive contracts vs. their comparables, and the easy way to know that at minimum Mitch was overpaid was looking that he got barely over $1M raise from a contract he signed 6yrs prior.

If the management group had any stones like Vegas they'd have no problem trading one or both of them if they put themselves before the team.