[Signing] Leafs sign Auston Matthews to contract extension (5 yrs, $11.634 mil AAV)

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by FireGilbert

The contract is definitely high compared to McDavid's 8 year deal but Matthews is an excellent player and I do not see this hurting the Leafs. Building a team around Tavares and Matthews up the middle should give them a solid 5 year cup window.

The Leafs issue is the contracts to Nylander, Marleau, and Zaitsev which may cost them Marner and a bunch of depth.

I'll never understand why the Leafs didn't just deal Nylander in December when the team proved it could win just fine without him. Either flip him for some help on defense, which they still need, or load up on more picks and prospects and completely avoid any cap issues with Matthews and Marner


I still think they end up dealing him later on for a far lesser return than if they did so 2 months ago. Toronto suffers from the same "Our guys are better than any other guys" mentality that Edmonton does

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by Philly06Cup

Monahan / Gaudreau / Lindholm are all exceptionally underpaid given their current production. Woohoo, pat yourself on the back that we have these contracts. They are not relevant to what is currently a fair contract.

How are they not relevant? Are only the highest contracts relevant? That hardly seems fair.

[ST20]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

How are they not relevant? Are only the highest contracts relevant? That hardly seems fair.

Because they are the very best value contracts in the league and we are seeing the hind sight results. If these contracts are relevant than so is Neal's, Brouwer, and Smith's.

Nobody in the media (even when you exclude Toronto media) thought it was an awful signing when it happened... When an awful signing happens (Lucic, Roussell, Komarov, to name a few recent ones) you have stories about people questioning the signing. Everything that I've read on TSN, sportsnet, etc. indicates that Matthews got about market value at the point of signing (argument on term is valid) so in my opinion it's neither a great signing or bad signing. We will know in a few years with hindsight (or get a good feel after Tkachuk and the others in this RFA crop sign).

The hyperbolic statements thrown around in this thread are based on the very best hindsight contracts and are a little silly. It is not an awful/horrendous signing and Dubas is the worst GM ever (at least not yet).

[CalgaryFan1988]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

I'll never understand why the Leafs didn't just deal Nylander in December when the team proved it could win just fine without him. Either flip him for some help on defense, which they still need, or load up on more picks and prospects and completely avoid any cap issues with Matthews and Marner

What makes you think they didn't try?

[Azure]

Originally Posted by ST20

Because they are the very best value contracts in the league and we are seeing the hind sight results. If these contracts are relevant than so is Neal's, Brouwer, and Smith's.

Nobody in the media (even when you exclude Toronto media) thought it was an awful signing when it happened... When an awful signing happens (Lucic, Roussell, Komarov, to name a few recent ones) you have stories about people questioning the signing. Everything that I've read on TSN, sportsnet, etc. indicates that Matthews got about market value at the point of signing (argument on term is valid) so in my opinion it's neither a great signing or bad signing. We will know in a few years with hindsight (or get a good feel after Tkachuk and the others in this RFA crop sign).

The hyperbolic statements thrown around in this thread are based on the very best hindsight contracts and are a little silly. It is not an awful/horrendous signing and Dubas is the worst GM ever (at least not yet).

Every team has a bad contract, maybe even 2, and every team has a few good contracts. That is the nature of taking risk to try and make players work.

And then some teams have their top 4 players all on good contracts like Calgary, and some teams have their top 4 players where probably ever player is underpaid, like Toronto.

There has to be balance. That much we know for sure from watching teams deal with cap hell issues.

Dubas isn't a terrible GM, but he did get played on some of these contracts and the Leafs will have issues down the road.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by CalgaryFan1988

What makes you think they didn't try?

They pretty much did - didn't they let teams talk to him? Or am I misremembering.

I think a lot of teams were rightly leery that they'd trade and then be bound to give him pretty much whatever he wanted.