If we can agree that a contract for Bolland for around $5M and 5 years is a bad contract, the issue is whether and how close the Leafs came to offering said contract. If the Leafs purposely stayed away from these terms, then that's encouraging and stepping away from their previous pattern. If however, it was offered and Bolland rejected it for an even better (worse depending on pov) contract, then not much has changed and the Leafs were just lucky to not repeat Clarkson or Phaneuf part deux. One should be encouraged by the contract deals that have been actually entered into under Shanahan to date including the latest Gardiner deal.