Much like the debate over Stamkos in his UFA year, people seem to be polarized about the idea of trying to sign John Tavares if he makes it to free agency.
This obviously hinges on Tavares wanting to sign here.
It is known by all that Tavares is an exceptional talent in his prime that plays the most desirable position (1C), but the points of contention seem to be that his deal will likely be 7 years and in the neighborhood of $9-$11 million AAV, which would be a large cap hit, and that it would make it difficult to sign and keep all of the big 3.
While I love the idea of having the big 3 for their entire careers as Maple Leafs, I can't help but wonder if we will/should take a run at Tavares.
There are very few scenarios that I would part with any of the big 3, but this one is intriguing to me, because of how heavily the value slants in our favour.
If a player of Tavares' calibre, that plays Centre that is his age is willing to sign, you can't pass up on the free asset. While signing him likely costs you Nylander, we have to look at it from the standpoint that you are basically getting Tavares + the return for Nylander, for Nylander, because you would not be able to sign Tavares otherwise. The return for Nylander would be a very significant piece, and likely a young controllable asset on ELC or a sweetheart contract, or a number of other assets.
The scenario as I see it would be that we sign Tavares and sign Nylander next offseason, keeping Nylander for the season icing probably one of the best forward corps the league has seen in a long time, and then management would pull the trigger on a deal involving Nylander in the offseason before Matthews and Marner's contracts kick in.
In all honestly how many people can truly say if it was a straight up trade that they wouldn't trade Nylander for Tavares + an asset/assets of Nylanders value.
Curious to hear other posters thoughts.