Speculation: Leafs rushed the rebuild

[Leafs87]

They weren’t ready to add a huge UFA like Tavares. The timing they had to make a choice and I get it. I said at the time how much I hated the decision.

Here it is now proving to us all why it was the wrong one. Yes he’s a hell of player but he destroyed the cap structure on the team. Leafs should of re signed their core before going after Tavares.

That should of been priority number one not getting another high priced forward. It arguably took away 3 years of us being competitive. Can’t even imagine what the Marner contract will look like either. Fact is also Tavares was a luxury not a need at all.

Doubt Matthews contract looked like this if not for Tavares.

Reported asks for Marner 9X8 and Matthews 12.34*8 in the summer (although Matthews there was a lot of different insider opinions on what the number in the summer was but either way it was 8 years.)

Click to read more...

 

[Menzinger]

No, there is never a bad time to add a guy like Tavares.

 

[CantLoseWithMatthews]

yes, I also wish the leafs had fewer good players

 

[Jozay]

Lol get a grip

 

[BayStreetBully]

We didn’t rush the rebuild. We could win the cup this year. No one destroyed the cap structure but Dubas, though the young players aren’t helping.

Heck, other teams like Tampa and Winnipeg and Boston helped pave the way for Dubas to NOT screw it up, but alas.

 

[Notsince67]

Adding Tavares now would have only cost more

 

[socko]

Tavares the UFA was worth $11 x 7. You picked like the only contract that doesn't suck that Dubas can claim he had his hands in.

 

[Liminality]

Sign a 21 year old franchise center to 5 year contract.

"We rushed the rebuild!"

Let's never sign a Tavares type player again to the team?
Time to book an early vacation.

 

[LeafingTheWay]

**** it. Let's just restart. Trade away the team and let's try again.

 

[Leafs87]

Sign a 21 year old franchise center to 5 year contract.

"We rushed the rebuild!"

Time to book an early vacation.

Signed him for 5 years at a 8 year price when he was a RFA

 

[Paradoc]

Close the thread

 

[Liminality]

Signed him for 5 years at a 8 year price when he was a RFA

Welp, time to rebuild again. We didn't get him for an extra 3 years and he'll never sign after his contract is done.

 

[hotpaws]

lol at not signing JT , in fact we should also sign Karlsson and Panarin in the summer since there really isn't a hard cap in the NHL

 

[Kiwi]

I don't love the Matthews contract either but this thread seem more than a tad excessive

With the contracts on the books a good management team can make it work, we've just got no room for error anymore

Let's see how they wrangle this *****

 

[shortfuze]

I knew they would.

They weren’t ready to add a huge UFA like Tavares. The timing they had to make a choice and I get it. I said at the time how much I hated the decision.

Here it is now proving to us all why it was the wrong one. Yes he’s a hell of player but he destroyed the cap structure on the team. Leafs should of re signed their core before going after Tavares.

That should of been priority number one not getting another high priced forward. It arguably took away 3 years of us being competitive. Can’t even imagine what the Marner contract will look like either. Fact is also Tavares was a luxury not a need at all.

Doubt Matthews contract looked like this if not for Tavares.

Reported asks for Marner 9X8 and Matthews 12.34*8 in the summer (although Matthews there was a lot of different insider opinions on what the number in the summer was but either way it was 8 years.)

Other then Jake Gardiner which player can Toronto not keep? Zaitsev, brown and hyman. Those guys aren’t core pieces. The only 2 core guys they will have trouble signing is Kapanen and Johnsson. And by the looks of it they will keep both. They will have Matthews, Marner, Tavares Nylander, Kadri, Kapanen, Johnsson, Rielly, Muzzin and Andersen all locked up for a number of years. That’s the core right there. Plus prospects in the minors.

 

[Superstar]

Rushed the rebuild? Do you expect the Leafs to start gunning for a Cup when Marner, Matthews, Nylander and Rielly are all 27 year old UFAs?

 

[Gallagbi]

If anything we took it too slow.

 

[Throw More Waffles]

I screamed about this... SCREAMED about it... after the leafs 7 rookie team snuck into the playoffs. This was less than ONE year after we were told to "prepare for pain". I said that the rebuild WASN'T done. That we needed to improve our defensive prospect depth. But that MLSE wouldn't be able to control themselves and the rebuild would be over. And then (OF COURSE) the Marleau contract was signed, sealing our fate.

MLSE will never be able to not see the short term playoff profit margin. It will never go away. EVER.

And now we got too good too quickly, inflating our young players stats, making them sign for unprecedented numbers. This rebuild got royally f***ed up. Most leaf fans won't accept it yet. We've already been through so much, and they just can't accpet it. But they will. We pay unproven players far FAR too much money right now, and we won't be able to acquire the depth to make deep playoff runs.

 

[The CyNick]

Our young GM tried to play hardball but he didn't realize you cant get by with a 75mph fastball.

Had he locked these guys up this past summer, things would be much different. He had a gameplan, it failed miserably. Now eye going to lose players because of it.

 

[Papi 4 Hart]

Why do we have to ruin everything that is nice that happens to us?

 

[the squared circle]

It’s my own fault for clicking on the thread title. I don’t blame the OP.

 

[Throw More Waffles]

Why do we have to ruin everything that is nice that happens to us?

Because when all of our young elite star players were coming up to new contracts, ownership decided to put in a 30 year old rookie gm.

 

[lebdafor norris]

The mistake was, Dubas failing to take the "gamble" of signing Marner and AM this summer while their prices were still reasonably low.

 

[socko]

Our young GM tried to play hardball but he didn't realize you cant get by with a 75mph fastball.

Had he locked these guys up this past summer, things would be much different. He had a gameplan, it failed miserably. Now eye going to lose players because of it.

I don't believe it has anything to do with when the contracts are signed. It has to do with the talent of the GM and his ability to say NO. It's so unfortunate we didn't take a look at Yzerman when he unexpectedly decided to step down in Tampa. That was like the scene at the end of Dumb and Dumber when the bus full of models is looking for a couple of guys to apply suntan lotion...

 

[NightTrain1]

We have 6.....six.....SIX.. possible years to win a Stanley Cup now and we will have the primary skill and age of a corps of a team most of us have only dreamed about having for decades.

We have a Vezina caliber goalie that is not getting any younger at 29 years old and probably has 4-6 years of top end play left.
We have a Norris caliber Defensemen who just entered the prime of his career.
We have a franchise center with more skill than pretty much all but 3-4 players in the league and only 21 years old.
We have a top tier wing on par with the very best in the league and only 21 years old.
We have a whole host of young players with lots of skill and ceiling still.
We have 2 veterans creating an emotionally stable platform for these young guys to build off of, but both are in the final year or two of their career.
We have some very talented youth still coming up from the minors who fit to be key components of future Leafs teams.

How many years exactly do you think we should remain on the cusp trying to get lower production just so we can get slightly lower contracts?? I wish we could have gotten Matthews for another year at least, but both sides have to dance and not getting this one done would have been detrimental to this team. But we now have SIX years with him guaranteed that we can fight for a cup and after that it's not as if he is just gone, there is a good chance he will re-sign. So all you want to do basically is partially neuter the team so it doesnt preform to its best potential for a couple more years in hopes that we retain some players for...a couple more years so we can have a shot at the cup. It makes no sense whatsoever, especially considering the fact a player of Tavares caliber literally comes along once every 10 years and rarely hits the market and rarely moves to a different team, and rarely takes less money to do so.

We also now have another legit top 2 defenseman with experience and Cup rings to stabilize our back-end. Winning is NOW, not later. It's happening right now before our eyes and is something we as fans have been hoping would happen for longer than my old bones have been alive. Did I want Matthews guaranteed for a little longer, yes, but SIX YEARS STARTS NOW! Be excited for whats about to happen, because it's shortlived in todays NHL.