Who thinks the Tavares money could be better spent?

[Bluelines]

Hearing a few people saying that the Leafs would have been better served if they spent the money they signed Tavares for, in other areas of need, IE Karlsson.

Some Leaf fans have a history of being "Johnny come lately's" where with a few years of hindsight like to say, I never like that deal in the first place. So I though, I should create a place of record, so in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 years people can come back and say, see I told you so.

I'll give 2 answers to the poll, either you think it was money well spent, or it was money poorly spent.

For the record I think the impact of an elite center like Tavares far outweighs the impact of any UFA d-man available in the 2019 UFA class.

Click to read more...

 

[SprDaVE]

The best spent money I've ever seen.

 

[ShaneFalco]

Agreed. You don't pass up an opportunity like that. He will help transfor the team and Dubas can work on adding to the D

 

[hamzarocks]

Best spent money this offseason because there was no guarantee we could get karlsson (if there was I would have waited a year). But u do wish he took a bit less on his deal. 1 to 1.5 million less would have made his contract more fair imo. 11 million is a lot to pay 9.5-10 would have been better but I guess you have to pay a bit more for a UFA

 

[Marshy]

Saving money for a pink unicorn --> die with a bigger bank account.

You buy what is available and enjoy it. Now if the choice was a UFA Doughty or JT and they spent on JT....well I think that we can all agree that would be a huge mistake.

 

[Jmo89]

The grass could always be greener on the other side. You don't pass on an elite talent that only costs cap space. We will never know what the team *could* have acquired had they passed on JT.

 

[CantLoseWithMatthews]

maybe if we had the choice between Doughty or Tavares I could see the argument, but we didn't. Adding an elite player for only salary was the right choice

 

[Once]

If we didn't sign JT while losing JVR & Bozak we would not be anywhere close to the quality of last year.

 

[ACC1224]

...4 pre-season games in

Thankfully my phone is on mute.

 

[DarkKnight]

Tight poll breakdown, delete?

 

[GrizzLeaf]

Better spent? sure.

But you don't get to pick who comes to the Leafs. Karlsson was never coming here (Sens don't want to trade with anyone in our div) and you have to give up a lot to trade for him. So really, it's FA's we would need to court. Who was the best avail FA this summer again?

 

[Morguee]

Instead of a #1 centre in his prime we could have got a sail boat.

 

[Trapper]

The money is well spent. You have 2 quality centers a la Crosby/Malkin. You don’t pass that up.
The question is do you spend a lot of money on 2 wingers? We need a serious D.

 

[ShaneFalco]

Lou was trying to find an upgrade on D the whole time here.....and failed.

 

[Buds17]

Perhaps it's ideal if the AAV on the Tavares contract comes in at a bit less, but that's the downside of UFA and competing with multiple teams. The upside of UFA is that the addition probably only costs cap space, as I can't imagine the team went into this without looking at things from enough angles and determined they wouldn't be subtracting anyone irreplaceable. This opportunity was available and made sense, so it was pursued.

The conditional pick on the Karlsson trade indicates to me he wouldn't have been traded here, and there's no guarantee he even becomes a UFA, or then signs with the Leafs if he does.

 

[ShaneFalco]

The money is well spent. You have 2 quality centers a la Crosby/Malkin. You don’t pass that up.
The question is do you spend a lot of money on 2 wingers? We need a serious D.

That is the million dollar question (or 6+ million in this case )
I'm leaning towards no, but on the other hand, I'm not sure our D is this bad....the systems they employ may be.

 

[Suntouchable13]

Great teams are built up the middle.

 

[JonnyMacAwesome]

Even though signing Tavares does not directly improve our D-core, since Defense is a responsibility of everyone on the ice, his solid 2-way play indirectly improves our team defense. It is very well spent IMO, especially his ability to help mentor some of our young guys, while immediately providing more stability in the forward core.

I think if we used the same top 6 d-men as last year and they all played the same way, every one of them would look better overall with our stronger forward core having Tavares in it. Our defense problems seem smaller now to me.

 

[Toronto makebeleifs]

Seems to be a bit of a rout here

 

[Mr Hockey]

Who is saying the money should have been spent elsewhere, randon twitter people?

 

[Battle Lin]

ya like on mcdavid

 

[Trapper]

That is the million dollar question (or 6+ million in this case )
I'm leaning towards no, but on the other hand, I'm not sure our D is this bad....the systems they employ may be.

We will have to give it 20 games for the true test.
Can 37 year old Hainsey survive hard minutes for 82 games?
Gardiner and Zaitsev can play well but still haven’t passed my worst time consistency test.
Oz is a rookie in the NHL. He had good and bad moments in the Habs game. Will he have those every game? Over 82?
In the meantime, I think we have a winger who is about to go full on Patrick Kane. What’s the dollar amount there?

 

[Suntouchable13]

Let's say we could have EK instead of JT, would you rather EK+Matthews 1C + Kadri 2C or Matthews 1C+ JT 1C+ Kadri elite 3C + the D we have now?
I think I would rather the 3 top centres.

 

[ninetyone]

Montreal's been looking for a centre since Jacques Lemaire - you add an elite superstar centre if you're lucky to have the chance to. And the $11MM is less than what the market would bear - given what SJ was speculated to be offering.

This whole narrative of the Leafs not needing another centre is so stupid. And Gord Miller saying how Kadri or JVR had almost as many goals as Tavares over the past year/two years, whatever - is utterly ridiculous.

ELITE players are rare, those who make players around them better and more dangerous. Those who don't need a defensive breakdown or a mistake to create a scoring chance, those who can play against TOP players and still produce.

All things being equal, if there was an elite defenseman available for the same money (Karlsson) then maybe it makes more sense, but that's not a lock either. Pitts won a few cups with two elite centres and an arguably worse defense than what the Leafs have today.

Adding more scoring doesn't mean the defense is worse by comparison - unless you're only comparing the relative strengths of your offense vs. your defense, which is stupid. Adding more scoring only makes it easier on the defense, it lessens the burden on them.

So yesterday, the story is how Marner was superb, how the PP and PK won the game, not how many turnovers in the neutral zone, giveaways in their own end, coverage in front cost the Leafs the game. The result is a win and a celebration of offense rather than a loss and further question marks on the defense. Either way, adding an elite/rare superstar brings ZERO negatives to this situation - sorry Gord Miller

 

[Willy Styles]

Well looks like you got your answer.

lol