Hey guys, I was thinking this through the other day. The prevailing mentality seems to be to lock up a core of 5-7 key players and then continually build and prune around them as necessary. Assuming that’s the general consensus on how to build a perennial contender, what does everyone think this team looks like moving forward as far as contracts? I’m not a big salary cap junkie so I’ll leave the number crunching up to others more intelligent than myself but my thinking is that it’s pretty unarguable as to who the Leafs’ core 5-7 guys would be. In no particular order:
1. Auston Matthews
2. William Nylander
3. Mitch Marner
4. Frederik Andersen
5. Morgan Rielly
6. Nikita Zaitsev
7. Jake Gardiner
8. Timothy Liljegren (assuming he pans out as expected, and then you probably have a decision to make somewhere among the defence)
What does everyone think? Thoughts, opinions, different list than mine? I’m also curious as to what people think the team’s salary cap situation would look like with that setup (or whatever setup you envision).
1. Auston Matthews
2. William Nylander
3. Mitch Marner
4. Frederik Andersen
5. Morgan Rielly
6. Nikita Zaitsev
7. Jake Gardiner
8. Timothy Liljegren (assuming he pans out as expected, and then you probably have a decision to make somewhere among the defence)
What does everyone think? Thoughts, opinions, different list than mine? I’m also curious as to what people think the team’s salary cap situation would look like with that setup (or whatever setup you envision).