Dumbest: Giving JVR's money to Patrick Marleau.
I remember when everyone said "just trade Marleau's cap hit in that last year to Vegas because they'll have to meet the cap floor".... completely disregarding the fact that Marleau has a NMC,, and not accounting for any sort of unpredictability.... like who could have predicted that Vegas would be competitive and not some dumping ground for our cap problems? Or who could have predicted that we might now really would like to keep JVR when maybe a year ago he was considered a secondary/tertiary piece? Or who could have predicted that Eichel would sign for 10, and AM34 might warrant closer to 12? Might have been nice to keep some of our powder dry, eh? The 4th, 5th, 6th, years of JVR's deal are less of a problem cap-wise, the real pinch is in these next 2 years, the years that we gave to Marleau. It was a gratuitous and short-sighted move by Babcock et. al. Nevertheless, even if we had not signed father-figure Patty, I was already prepared that we would not be able to keep JVR due to money/cap-management focused on our younger group. At this stage, I'll be amazed if we don't need to trade Morgan Reilly, dump Gardiner for nothing, or need to somehow somewher find a taker for Zaitzev's contract. No problem though, I'm sure Vegas will take him! LOLwait we can get on a 3 year deal? well I might change my vote. In the real world Marleau and JVR contracts have nothing to do with each other, Marleau's deal is up the 2nd year of Matthews deal and appears to be designed to make it very tradeable.
Leafs are dead last in power play opportunities this season. Factor that in when you guys make your fantasy predictions of whose replacing his goals. He'd be at 40 already with more power play time.
JVR is a weapon not many teams have. Go to tsn's NHL section, sort the statistics by goals. JVR is 11th on page 2. Now scroll horizontally to ATOI. Look at JVR's then flip the pages and look at everyone else while it's still sorted by goals. Keep flipping and flipping the page number. You won't find anything lower until about page 8. Travis Konecny with 22 goals in 14:45.
We lose a whole facet when losing JVR . A player you can stick on the third line but know that when the returns are summed at the end of the season you're getting top six goals. That DOES show up in the win column. Last I checked the team that scores the most goals win regardless of how good your selke performance is.
If you think Marleau is putting up 30 goals, recall this guy had back to back 20+ power play points recently and still couldn't reach 30 goals playing in San Jose's top six. Now he's 3-4 years older than that.
Nylander won't reach 20 goals this season but people think kapanen and johansson are gonna storm in here and put up 15-20 each. Hyman has better odds at putting up 15 goals in the NHL next season than they do. We don't have setup men for them after the first two lines and they won't do what JVR does for the first power play unit so how exactly can these guys make up for losing JVR?
If JVR isn't being re-signed then there must be a plan in place. I don't see them taking the addition through subtraction route because that doesn't apply in this case like people are trying to make it seem. They either have their eyes on someone else (like Tavares) or have plans in place to get a D-man in which they need JVR's cap room to make it happen.
Otherwise you sort of have to sign JVR for 5.5-6 while we are in this window to win on some ELC years still. Marleau is gone in two years freeing up 6.25. Even if we win the cup this season you bring back JVR for the encore performance.
Cap is going up and they dish out millions of dollars to professionals with MBA's to figure this stuff out. It will be fine.
I might offer $9mil on a 1 year contract. Then next year, his money goes to Matthews.
Can't really sign him for anything longer than a 1 year contract so I doubt this works.
Not sure if this would be allowed... but we could make a handshake agreement to sign him for a 1 year contract at $12 million... then the year after, sign him for 3 years at $4 million. That averages out to $6 million per year for 4 years... but allows us to front load the contract so we can afford Matthews and Marner the next year. I assume there is a rule about cap circumvention that prevents this... but you never know. Sometimes it's not a rule until someone does it the first time.
Not really comparable.Dumbest: Giving JVR's money to Patrick Marleau.
No way he takes that.I might offer $9mil on a 1 year contract. Then next year, his money goes to Matthews
Not really comparable.
Marleau has 2 more years. JVR could be 6+
We need a right D.True. If anyone is really going to be given the capspace people want devoted to JvR its going to be a defenceman, either via UFA signing, trade or by resigning Gardiner.
In spite of a recent hot streak, he hasn't historically produced goals per 60 like this. You have to consider his entire body of work along with the realistic chance that he will be productive the last half of his next deal. Scoring goals isn't this clubs weakness, its stopping them, and he doesn't help with that. He has great hands but he is the teams 5th most valuable forward and doesn't have a physical or defensive game that sets him apart from what they have. They can probably spend the same dollars on a UFA in the next three years that addresses an actual weakness. People say "how will you replace those goals", as though there is nobody else to take his pp minutes or that he isn't easily replaceable as an even strength contributor. Scoring wingers are the most common UFA on the market almost every year, he isn't unique. I don't dislike the guy at all but locking him up long term is a luxury and a risk. The cap only allows for a limited number of long term deals, and power play specialists aren't a smart way to use them.
I might offer $9mil on a 1 year contract. Then next year, his money goes to Matthews.
Can't really sign him for anything longer than a 1 year contract so I doubt this works.
Not sure if this would be allowed... but we could make a handshake agreement to sign him for a 1 year contract at $12 million... then the year after, sign him for 3 years at $4 million. That averages out to $6 million per year for 4 years... but allows us to front load the contract so we can afford Matthews and Marner the next year. I assume there is a rule about cap circumvention that prevents this... but you never know. Sometimes it's not a rule until someone does it the first time.
Yes, we won't replace his scoring and net presence for less than he'll cost.
What if we win the Cup this year, would you still let him walk? What if he scores the Cup winning goal? Sad if we let him go when he is still under 30.
What a ridiculous way to ask a question....everyone's answer should be "sure, we want to keep him". But obviously not at any price!
So there has to be a price/term point of letting the player go...to ask without that context is like a child asking dad when looking at a house they absolutely cannot afford, "do you want that house?"
Yeah, of course we want it! But it's too much, son...it it too damn much.