Is this really main board worthy? Nowhere does it say they're going to sign him. It's just a coach talking out loud.
What do you want him to say? "Nah, we dont want him back. Have you see our projected cap. You blem?"
Why is this on the main board? There's not even evidence about a contract in here. This is all conjecture at this point. There's nothing concrete about a contract.
We just had (still have) a 20+ page thread on how Babcock apparently hates Matthews and thinks he is a terrible leader because he didn't get a letter over several vets which has been DISPROVEN several times in the threads with direct quotes from each party involved. I am pretty sure if that is allowed we are allowed to discuss what a hypothetical contract will look like based on the coach saying they will sign him.
I have a lot of time for analytics and using them BUT the one thing you have to consider is the playoffs and how the law of averages doesn't apply as well over 7 game series as it does over an 82 game schedule.
Jake Gardiner is a guy that will do good thing maybe 70% of the time and bad things 30% (tbh I'm being generous I think it's less than that). Over an 82 game regular season, that works out for you as a net positive. In the playoffs, you CANNOT afford to have such a high risk dman playing that many minutes. He had a shockingly bad game 7 but people forget that he wasn't exactly good in their playoff series the year before or the Boston 2014 one. The guy is not the answer on their defence when it comes to the playoffs and it's insanity to keep trying the same thing out over and over again.
Haha what? Jake was the Leafs best player in 2013..not 2014. Against the caps he was also a great player and he had an overall good series against the Bruins outside of his last game meltdown. You are out to lunch on this one.
Lol leafs are screwed. If I'm jake I'm asking 6.5 mil for 6 years. Couple that will Nylander asking 6 mil plus and marner, Matthews contracts coming up, leafs are going to need to give up something.
It'a a good problem to have. However Marleau + Horton coming off the books is 10M right there. They will just keep replacing guys internally as they have their top 3 C's locked in and will have their top 2 wings locked in.
Once Hyman and Brown expire and get too expensive Johnsson and Kapanen will replace them, and those guys will get replaced on the 4th line. Down the road if Sandin becomes something and Dermott has taken a huge step, they will move Gardiner and his salary to fill a future need (maybe a top 9 LW for example) and keep repeating this cycle.
The Pens have won multiple cups on the backs of really two elite centers, an elite winger, and then a bunch of meh depth... And a goalie who can stand on his head when needed to. Leafs have that PLUS another elite winger which bridges the cap between the cores significantly (Crosby + Malkin + Kessel vs Tavares + Matthews + Marner + Nylander). Andersen already showed he is capabe of carrying the team for months at a time but he is also capable of letting down the team for weeks at a time.
They just need to go into the playoffs healthy and with Andersen going into one of his insane runs and they will win a cup.
