MyBudJT
Registered User
- Mar 5, 2018
- 7,429
- 4,576
I was against burning a year off his ELC at the time. I remember a lot of people critciszed me for saying it was a stupid move. Look what I posted on March 31, 2016:
If we didn't burn a year on his ELC and waste money on guys like Martin... we could have signed Tavares to a long term contract, and signed Jumbo Joe and Kovalchuk to one year deals. Sounds like fantasy hockey, but we could have done it. The reason we could do it is because we could have had Matthews, Marner, and Nylander all making less then $3 million combined. That's the most insane value ever in cap hockey. Imagine running with these forward lines next year:
Kadri - Matthews - Marner
Kovalchuk - Tavares - Nylander
Marleau - Jumbo Joe - Brown
We could have assembled basically a dream team this year. But we wasted a year of his ELC on a tanking season for no good reason. We signed guys like Martin to bad contracts. These little mistakes could add up to a player like Kovalchuk or Jumbo Joe not coming here because of cap space.
Imagine if we handed things over to Dubas this year with the big 3 all earning their ELC contracts. Dubas would have had a mountain of cap space to work with.
You were wrong then, and you're still wrong now.
Nylander would probably demand more money on his contract extension, has he had another ELC year to 'prove himself'.
Having Nylander, Marner and Matthews' new contracts kick in at the same time would be VERY hard to manage.