henchman21
Mr. Meeseeks
- Feb 24, 2012
- 63,289
- 47,803
I still think Toronto is pretty well set up to do some damage at some point in the next few years. They need Tavares to age gracefully and one of their young defenceman to become a really good top-4 defender.
They are too imbalanced to really make an impact IMO. They need a pretty bold move to re-shuffle the deck a bit. The second they signed Tavares, they had a strong 2 year window that they needed to take advantage of. Now they are going to be tasked with either losing top players, paying them towards the end or their prime, or severely lacking depth. They are certainly going to lose Barrie and Ceci... and no matter what people think of them, they are losing 2 NHL defensemen and will be immediately relying on youth... which is incredibly risky. Then the next season they either have to pay Andersen a couple million more, as he is aging out of his prime... or take a large step back at goalie (and certainly losing their Swiss Army Knife in Hyman). It doesn't end their though... the next season Rielly is going to be due a $5m raise, and if Sandin works out to what they need him to be, he'll be due a $5m raise.
To me... they should be looking straight at dealing Marner and getting a King's ransom for him. They could rebuild their defense and depth in one fell swoop.