Interesting. So following that logic, you believe David Pastrnak was GROSSLY overpaid compared to Nylander. In Pastrnak's 2 seasons preceding his contract, he was the 19th highest producing player at his position yet signed the 6th highest paying contract in the league at his position, including all UFA aged players at his position.
And he was 5th in scoring among RWs in his contract year. Obviously, teams place some additional weight on the contract year. It’s best to take both into account.
Oh reeeeeallly?
Where were you in the whole discussion about Marner getting 9m after a 69 point season, and that affecting other contracts then? You conveniently disappeared until you came back to take shots at me and boost up the guy arguing against your own position.
I assume you agree that paying Marner 9m last offseason after a 69 point season would have been beyond stupid, right?
Oh, so context matters now, when the numbers don't say what you want them to say.
Maybe, just maybe, having consistent elite production throughout an ELC regardless of linemates and role is an important aspect of Matthews that is ignored when people only look at Marner's production in 1 year with a linemate many times better than anybody Matthews has played with to determine his contract valuation.
I definitely know one thing this thread would be far more civil without.
Yes, I agree that paying Marner $9M/8Y last off-season would have been a stupid idea at the time. It would look like a genius move now with the power of hindsight, but it would’ve looked pretty dumb at the time.
The “context” here is stuff that you and other Maple Leafs fans have brought up - linemates. I’m just applying additional context to that context, since the information itself presents a false narrative without it. Stamkos’ production in his rookie year without MSL on the ice is the largest driving factor of the variance in those splits, and his production in that year simply isn’t all that relevant to what he was paid as a Rocket winner with two top-5 scoring finishes.
I can agree that Matthews’ ability to maintain his elite scoring rates with any linemate is something that shouldn’t be ignored and something that was probably taken into account when signing his contract. But it’s not nearly enough to explain the major discrepancy between his contract and Stamkos’. Linemates don’t factor into contract negotiations nearly as much as Leafs fans in this thread are saying they do. They’re a consideration but not remotely enough to pay a 69 point player 25% more than a Rocket winner with two top-5 scoring finishes.
In Marner’s case, I definitely think it’s a concern that his production has only been elite with Tavares. But remember, he matched Tavares’ 5-on-5 scoring rate, and his primary scoring rate exceeded that of Tavares and any other player in the NHL. You also have to consider that Tavares’ scoring rate of 2.87 P/60 was more than 20% higher than it had been in any other season of his career. This is a 28 year old center who had never finished in the top-10 in 5-on-5 P/60, and in his first season with Mitch Marner, he finished 3rd. You don’t think that is strong evidence that Marner is an elite offensive driver in his own right?
Again, you keep subtly flaming people and then telling yourself that somebody else is the reason the thread isn’t civil. I’ve never personally attacked anybody in this thread, and never once trolled or flamed anybody because that really isn’t my intention in this thread. Criticizing Kyle Dubas or Auston Matthews isn’t flaming even if it manages to offend some people.
I am just going to respond to this because it is not true at all. Stamkos played 490 minutes away from Stamkos in years 2 and 3 - and yes his productions still dropped quite a bit.
Yes, I must have made a mistake somewhere there.
In reality, Stamkos played 1,097 minutes without MSL on his ELC. 607 of those minutes - 55% of them - came in his rookie year. I think I accidentally used MSL’s TOI without Stamkos in 2008-2009.
However, the fact is that Stamkos played over 600 minutes without MSL in his rookie year, and then less than 500 without him in the following two years. Him suffering a drop in production in the aggregate of all 3 seasons makes sense since he played most of them when he was an inferior player. Him suffering a drop in production in his minutes without MSL in years 2/3 is something that most star players with star linemates go through when they are separated from their star teammate with whom they have the most chemistry and when the sample isn’t that large without them. It isn’t automatically an indictment of their performance or their abilities or a sign that they’re being carried. It’s not remotely enough to suggest that a player deserves a huge decrease in pay because of it.