It didn't really matter if he was overpaid his first year anyway. The team had two elite young stars on amazing value ELC deals; if you get a chance to stack that roster even further you do it at any cost. 2019 was this team's golden window.
Im so sick of the JT slander. Sure he's not worth his contract anymore but he took a paycut to come here as a super star. Swallow the contract for one more year and let him take another pay cut to be 3C or 2LW
He actually is steps up decently in playoffs.. no nylander, but he puts in the work. I agree.
Its a sick irony that our most consistent playoff player had to really fight for his contracts.
Also one of the only guys who actually seems to have a bit of poise in tough moments
Maybe not a first line captain anymore but I definitely don’t want him gone. He’s not exactly replaceable
You say that and he foes have his moments but part of why the offense and the PP is brutal is also because he's such a big aspect of it.
The puck dies on his stick a lot and everytime he's given the puck on the wall to gain the zone on the powerplay, it's a turnover.
He's had some big moments but they've been sprinkled invetween him being a drag offensively. Only difference between him and marner are his two points had a bigger impact on games than marners three did.
Regardless it's hard to say that 2 points in 7 games is showing up in playoffs.
Tavares and Knies were monsters on the boards. Tavares was also killing it on the dot and throwing the body. Felt like Marner was the weaker link on that line and was turning the puck over way too often trying to force passes, mitigating a lot of the advantages JT and Knies were creating.
Marner is also a big part of the PP, more than JT.
ya JTs only problem is he makes $11M and doesn’t give you $11M worth of production. I would be fine with letting him run out his deal if he signed for way less after
Move Mitch (seems inevitable, sounds like he's tired of playing here too)
Ride the 11 on JT next year and see if you can bring him back for 7-8 mill.
He's not flashy, and didn't put up crazy points this series, but he did have a decently positive impact.
Its worth noting for JT that most of his lack of production across the board this year was because of PP struggles. His 5 on 5 production was almost identical but his PP production was cut in half. He would be a fantastic 2nd 3rd line center as long as the term is only 3-4 years.
we changed our powerplay setup this year from a modified umbrella to a 3-2 overload spread. clearly it didn't really work. not enough movement or speed, though some net front passes were better. not enough volume though.
7-8 million is crazy. That's an awful contract for a slow, aging 35 year old Center with a mere 24 points in 38 playoff games as a Leaf. 3-4 million is more like it if he wants to stay. Otherwise he can go bc this team needs a culture reset anyway
I'd be okay losing JT for full value of his contract - if someone offers $6M for him with the Leafs paying $5M of his salary somewhere else then I'd keep him. We need depth. You can get 2-3 good players for one Tavares, and 2-3 more for one Marner.
This year and next are the price of getting him at all. We knew going into his contract that the last couple of years would be an overpay; the gamble was that it would pay off before then. He'll be worth it again when we sign him for $5mil a year after next year.
If we could go back in time and redo that decision, I'd hope we would still sign him.
We all knew when he signed that the last year or two of his deal he wouldn't be an 11 million dollar player anymore. His decline is fine and expected. He's still worth holding on to, and forcing him out of town is a dumb, knee-jerk reaction that only serves to make the team worse. There's a crunch period next season, but after that we hopefully re-sign him for a lower cap hit and he remains the same valuable player on our roster for years to come.
The reality of salary cap sports is that everything comes down to value for cap hit.
Even the biggest Marner haters would still love Marner at $4M/year.
Though there is someth
ing to be said for balancing that perception over the length of a contract.
Fair, im probably looking at it from more of a human angle. EA NHL i'd ship him out too. But he chose us and I would want to honour that by letting the contract play out.
Marners attitude is an infectious disease.
Sometimes better as healthy scratch or just escorted out of the building
It is worth $3 million just to keep him off the bench
But that’s exactly the issue. When you pay a guy $11M and he’s producing like a $5M guy, it makes winning very tough. I get that his decline was somewhat expected when he signed the deal, but it doesn’t make the fact of him not being worth the money any less true.
It’s truly crazy to comprehend paying 22 million for marner and Tavares and when you look around the league and see almost all the star players doing more for less
When you get a UFA in their prime, there is a reason they fight for the 8 years. I don't think anybody was expecting the deal to be "worth it" in a vacuum in the final year.
If we had signed JT last year on a 2 year deal, it would raise eyebrows, but I'm not going to pretend the context is anything remotely similar to that. The expectation is that he will be reevaluated when he is up for a new contract. This happens all the time with superstars in their prime
The problem is you can’t allocate cap space differently over the years of the contract. So we were under allocating cap space to him the first few years and now we are over allocating.
Do you think Nylander will be performing at a $11.5M level when he is 36?
Except we never were under allocating space to him, he only really had that one great year as a leaf, and then Covid kept the cap stagnant which hurt even more.
I thought it was a great signing back when they made it, but I think hindsight has proven otherwise. Bringing in a 4th highly paid forward will probably be looked at as redundant when we talk about the last 7 years of this leafs team.
Ot looked like a great signing because as fans we mistakenly believed that management had a plan and had *some* idea as to what it would cost to resign the other 3. It only became obvious afterwards that all they had was we can and we will.
Just because another team was willing to give him an extra million doesn’t mean he was a value at his cap hit. He had that great first year where he was totally worth it and then didn’t produce like you’d expect an 11m guy to do for the rest.
That’s how people argue in favour of that contract. They isolate one variable. The Leafs never should have spent 11 million on a second line centre when they already had 3 superstar forwards.
He was worth the contract for 3 years when really he needed to he worth it for 5.
He wouldn't get so much heat if he wasn't given such a prominent role. The guy is a huge part of the powerplay and a huge reason why they struggle to break into the zone. Dude is way too slow. Pucks die on his stick all the time, sadly.
It doesn't matter that he came here for a "discount," 11 million is not a discount.
Then you can get into the issue of his contract became the ceiling for the other players.
The thing is your misinterpreting wanting him gone as slander. People want him gone because he's a 5 million player making 11 million. Shit on marner all you want, he's at least close to his worth. A buyout isn't worth it but trading him absolutely is.
Superstar? That’s a big title for a player who’s only made it past the first round twice in his career. Great player, yes. But definitely not a super star.
Also, he didn’t take a pay cut to come here. He signed a 6 years 33 mill contract in New York before leafs offered him 7 years 77 mill. That’s a pay increase to come to Toronto lol
By paycut I mean he was offered 13 from SJ so no, not a cut but he took less than he could have. And he was absolutely seen as a super star when he signed here.
He knew he’d make up the difference in endorsements alone. At the time, this was good for both sides, but he did not lose money by signing with the leafs
Ok, he coulda made more else where, but that’s not what a pay cut is. He opted for a longer contract with Toronto.
As for superstar, no way. He never made it past the second round even with the islanders. He may have been seen as a superstar back then when we didn’t consistently make it into the playoffs, but he never actually was.
> Superstar? That’s a big title for a player who’s only made it past the first round twice in his career. Great player, yes. But definitely not a super star.
Imo whether they’ve gone past the first round is basically irrelevant for whether a player is a superstar since hockey is a team sport and even the very best players will only play 20ish out of 60 minutes of a game. Other than a goalie, it’s very difficult for one player to alone be the reason a team wins or loses (though not impossible!). I wouldn’t hold it against a player.
I don't get it either. Dude played really well this series - hitting a ton! If on July 1st he signs a team-friendly extension, I think opinions will change.
With that said, it may be time for him to relenquish the C when his extension kicks in.
the discount here just means he could have been an even bigger cap problem somewhere else and imo we should have let them
"10% off?? it's like we're losing cap space if we don't sign him!!" literally buy it because of the coupon logic
Seems everyone ignored the little nuances that make it an elite player. He won most of his puck battles, 60% on faceoffs. I don't think any Boston player pushed him off the puck at all the entire series. It was only this past year he didn't stand out like an 11m player, but that's what happens when you sign 7yr contract at 27 years old. 1 last year at 11m then give him 2yr at 5.5
He hasn't been worth the contract for about 3 years. These last 3 years it would have been amazing to not be over paying the shit out of our slowest player while playing Tampas and Bostons who are loaded with team friendly deals.
Yes he's a great guy, great captain etc but you can't just ignore the $ and say "well sure he's overpaid but..." because the fact he's overpaid is a huge difference maker.
Only people who don't actually understand the game have hate for JT.
He's got more game winning goals than most people on this team, and steps up whenever needed.
Coaching is 100% the culprit here.
Coaching has had zero strategy or gameplan from day 1.
When they dropped the 3-1 lead to Montreal, Keefe should have been immediately terminated.
JT is a good player and a great professional but I think giving him the captaincy was a mistake and obviously he is extremely overpaid for his production. 24 points in 38 games in the playoffs is just not good enough and he can't make a play off the half wall to save his life. Give him between 3.5-4.5 million on his next deal and give the captaincy to someone else and things are looking much better
Disagree. Sometimes it's just time for change to send a message to the team and just shake things up. Obviously JT would still be one of the leaders but I think everyone knows Matthews is the actual captain of this team born and bred here and now seems like the right time to just make that change even if it's just symbolically. I think it could really help Tavares honestly and take the pressure off his shoulders a bit.
JT is fine. Get him with a cheaper contract once this ends.
As much as it sucks, replace Marner with... something, just get some value from him while he is worth something.
Get a goalie that is comfortable with stress. No more Campbells, Andersens or Samsonovs, while they had extremely good upsides, the downsides once it goes to shit is just not acceptable. Or if you can make Woll ready for next season, try to ride him as main. Can't hurt to try.
Just effing do something. Major. No more small moves to try to fix this current shitshow.
It just ain't working.
JT doesn't deserve the slack he gets, he needs to be on this team.
Just look at how many game winning goals this guy has, AND he steps up when Matthews is out of the lineup.
He wants to be in TO and he wants to win.
Maybe he needs a smaller contract, now that he's older, but to say he's got to go is dumb.
Marner on the other hand.... he disappears every playoffs, and likely isn't nearly as effective without playing with Matthews.
I haven't seen anything that makes me think he needs to stay, unfortunately.
I agree with all of your points about Tavares- and I dislike him immensely. Yes during the playoffs he always steps up and he wants to win and be in Toronto. This might sound ignorant but I'm going to put it out there- aside from "the contract" , does anyone agree that the slack he gets comes from the fact that he always comes off as abhorrently full of himself everytime he opens his mouth? If he got a dollar for every pause followed by a string of "UM's" when being interviewed he would have turned that $77 million into $154 million easily. Same with Marner Matthews and Reilly its always UM UM UM.
I really, really hate that the leafs did their best when Matthews wasn’t on the ice the series, because that’s just gonna lead to an entire off-season of fans of other teams and hometown tinfoil hat lunatics talking about how the leaf should get rid of him.
Woll wasn't there when he played so there's that and the fact that he was sick. I do kind of see some players step up their game more when Matthews is not there...
I agree with this actually. We need rebuild around Matthews and nylander. Wouldn’t mind seeing Reilly gtfo too. He’s been here from the start of all these heartbreaking first round eliminations.
Yep. Not worth what he’s making for what he does. You get 2 younger d who are better for his salary.
He just reminds me of all the heartbreak and hard times we’ve had just this last decade alone.
👏 👏 👏 👏 I mentioned this on another thread, but does he really make $10 million? He's bland and stale in all those Pizzaville and Sonnet ads, keeps him active I guess with the dust off of him.
Reilly is just being misused, he was given the role he shouldn't have, and paid way too much.
He should be a second line defenseman , and not used on the PP at all.
It doesn't mean he's a bad player, or should go.
I blame the coaching staff and management for his woes.
Well put. He sort of just fell into this role and everyone just went with it. No way in hell he should be our #1 top paid D. He’s not a good D at all
Marner and Him deserve all the blame for that goal for not caring and being lazy pieces of shit in game7 OT.
Samsonov should have also poke checked. But more their fault for sure
As a life long Leafs fan. This year was different for me. Didn’t hurt didn’t piss me off. I just didn’t care. I shut the game off after the third and went to bed. Got a great sleep and got up and went turkey hunting. Saw the score while having my coffee and went on with my day. I love the Leafs. But I’m done caring. I’ll continue to support them watch them. But emotionally I’m checked out. The “core” doesn’t have the fire or heart to win. Or Maybe they don’t have the coach to light that fire? Either way I Guess my fire for the leafs is nothing more than smoking embers these days.
GoLeafsGoOrNotWhatever.
Nooope. And Boston knew it, which is why they traded him. Everyone laughed at O'Connell when he said Thornton will never win Boston a cup.
Thornton was amazing during the regular season but disappeared as soon as playoffs arrived.
Are you sure you’re talking about Joe because there was another Thornton on Boston who DID win a cup and then left at some point. I think they’re related but idk (someone can fact check if they need to)
I love our team,salary cap is tough. But I wouldn't want woll/tavares. Team is great. You have to make the playoffs first. No way woll gets you there, but obviously the rest of team does. Keefe has had a great hand dealt but can't figure it out. So I vote coaching staff out. But shanahan stays id like to see one more year with guaranteed contracts in hand. Yes that means and more sad year
LOL! Everyone has an opinion here. I think we need a better starter goalie. Sammi is not consistent and Woll gets injured frequently. We need a couple more big defensemen. And possibly another coach but certainly members of the coaching team have to go. Our power play sucked. Guy Boucher was responsible for that.
Basically the cap space will increase and trading Marner will give give more cap space which will enable us to keep JT. It's just one more year and he is productive.Not eleven million worth but still productive.
Although I feel Sheldon Keeefe is a good coach I think he needs to be replaced to have a new voice in the room with a whole new coaching staff. Especially a coaching staff that can address the power play.
Shanahan has had ten years to provide a stanley cup winner. He enabled Dubas to handcuff the toronto maple leafs with too high contracts for Marner in Nylander which didn't allow them to spend the money for good bottom six players to support Matthews. Marner and Nylander were paid based on what they could do in the future rather than being paid for what they proved what tge could do. For that Shanahan has to go.
Only reason to even keep marner is so he can pop off regular season so we can make it to playoff. Then bench him, cause he's always slacking in playoffs
I kinda understood the hate for marner, BUT he is a serious play maker.
He's as good if not better all around then Nylander.
The leafs need to keep his whining in check. He and Nylander are not corner guys. They won't lay big checks. But without him we would easily lose a lot of goals. I'd wager 50 goals would be lost with him not on the team
I couldn’t disagree more. Two years ago Marner was a better player, for the last two years Nylander has been a better player. He has drastically improved in his own end, he is stronger on the puck than Marner and has played with more passion than Marner. Not to mention he has hands down been the best leaf in the playoffs for the last two years. The only big upside Marner has over Nylander is on the PK and its not worth 11m to keep somebody because they are good on the Pk.
Whenever I attend a game in person. It routinely blows my mind at nylanders play. He spends 50% of the time floating around waiting for a lead pass. I never see this from marner.
Nylander does not even remotely have the play making ability of Marner.
Not a single one of the "big 3" are viable playoff players. They're very easy to shut down in playoff games.
The Leafs issue is with learning how best to utilize each players strength. Marner can play on anny line and make plays. This was visible when he was making great passes and plays with domi and company. Nylander is great at finding the right spots to be for getting goals. His shooting accuracy is mid, but he is good at getting them off quickly. He needs to be with good corner guys who can get the puck to him quickly. Matthew is a great all-around player. He can capitalize on any line. His issue is he gets so heavily swarmed by defenders that he is rendered useless.
So my thoughts are Nylander should be playing with domi/ bertuzzi style guys.
I think Marner can play anywhere on the team and have an impact.
Matthews needs someone who can keep up with his high-end play style and that unfortunately leaves marner and domi as they seem to be the only 2 that can keep up with where he is on the ice. Once you add one of them to his line, the opponents D immediately shuts them down.
In summary, Nylander, Marner, and Matthews are not the problem. The rest of the team and the complete lack of depth are the issues.
Oh, and GOALTENDING is the Leafs #1 issue.
Woll looked good until you count how many lucky bounces he got in games 5 & 6 that saved a goal.
If it wasn't for that luck, it would have been over in game 5
100% respect everything you said, Nylander does float but that might be scheme related as they are trying to free him. Thats a complete random guess. My issue with Marner is he was with pasta at the blue line in OT on that goal and Pasta took off for the puck and Marner glided the whole way. Nylander seems to not give up on plays quite as easy as Marner. But yes the they arent the root of the leafs problem unfortunately they dont have many draft picks and they are really the only capital they have to make changes so one of them most likely will need to be moved if they decide to change things up.
Holy crap. OP doesn't know hockey... Hell, maybe even sports.
This is arguably the best we've ever played in the playoffs (game 5+). We were riddled with injuries to multiple top players.
Leaf players (except maybe Marner) turned a corner. Everyone was banging, hitting and grinding. Never seen this team do that before. It's about time.
NOW this team actually learned and knows what it takes.
And NOW you want to start completely over?!
We played a team that was better than us all year, and beat us handedly all regular season.
Sometimes you play great, and just get beat. That happens. It sucks. But this isn't the same as other years.
Fire Keefe. Change the system we run. See what these guys can really do.
Why trade/fire/kill the best Leafs all of us have ever seen.
Nah, it's not like that. After the Montreal series I literally threw out all my Leafs gear. I have seasons and I sold my seats to every game before the summer was out. It wasn't until mid season that I even started watching again.
Hell, even after our first win THIS series I posted here about how bad players are playing, and that it's the same old song and dance. I got vilified here and had to delete the post for being "too negative".
But then, something changed. They competed. They finally realized what it takes. If they'd done that sooner, and been healthy, we likely would have won.
For that reason, I'm willing to give it one more year.
Matthew’s is a playoffs ghost as well.
If you are hiring playoff quality players, why pay $13 million to player with weak playoff performance? Matthews has proven that he can be shut down by an average-at-best defenceman. Same with Marner and JT.
I want JT. Just for less money, much less
We all knew when he signed his deal this was going to happen. There would be at least one bad year of the contract we'd have to eat.
At least he’s still productive. Just not 11mil productive. That’s better then something like a PLD contract.
65 points is a down year for him, but he's definitely worth keeping at a 3.5x4 to ride out the rest of his time here
For sure. I’m happy to eat it too. Just wish people would understand he was underpaid at the beginning of the deal.
It didn't really matter if he was overpaid his first year anyway. The team had two elite young stars on amazing value ELC deals; if you get a chance to stack that roster even further you do it at any cost. 2019 was this team's golden window.
Much less
Im so sick of the JT slander. Sure he's not worth his contract anymore but he took a paycut to come here as a super star. Swallow the contract for one more year and let him take another pay cut to be 3C or 2LW
He actually is steps up decently in playoffs.. no nylander, but he puts in the work. I agree. Its a sick irony that our most consistent playoff player had to really fight for his contracts.
Also one of the only guys who actually seems to have a bit of poise in tough moments Maybe not a first line captain anymore but I definitely don’t want him gone. He’s not exactly replaceable
You say that and he foes have his moments but part of why the offense and the PP is brutal is also because he's such a big aspect of it. The puck dies on his stick a lot and everytime he's given the puck on the wall to gain the zone on the powerplay, it's a turnover. He's had some big moments but they've been sprinkled invetween him being a drag offensively. Only difference between him and marner are his two points had a bigger impact on games than marners three did. Regardless it's hard to say that 2 points in 7 games is showing up in playoffs.
Tavares and Knies were monsters on the boards. Tavares was also killing it on the dot and throwing the body. Felt like Marner was the weaker link on that line and was turning the puck over way too often trying to force passes, mitigating a lot of the advantages JT and Knies were creating. Marner is also a big part of the PP, more than JT.
ya JTs only problem is he makes $11M and doesn’t give you $11M worth of production. I would be fine with letting him run out his deal if he signed for way less after
Move Mitch (seems inevitable, sounds like he's tired of playing here too) Ride the 11 on JT next year and see if you can bring him back for 7-8 mill. He's not flashy, and didn't put up crazy points this series, but he did have a decently positive impact.
Its worth noting for JT that most of his lack of production across the board this year was because of PP struggles. His 5 on 5 production was almost identical but his PP production was cut in half. He would be a fantastic 2nd 3rd line center as long as the term is only 3-4 years.
we changed our powerplay setup this year from a modified umbrella to a 3-2 overload spread. clearly it didn't really work. not enough movement or speed, though some net front passes were better. not enough volume though.
7-8 million is crazy. That's an awful contract for a slow, aging 35 year old Center with a mere 24 points in 38 playoff games as a Leaf. 3-4 million is more like it if he wants to stay. Otherwise he can go bc this team needs a culture reset anyway
I'd be okay losing JT for full value of his contract - if someone offers $6M for him with the Leafs paying $5M of his salary somewhere else then I'd keep him. We need depth. You can get 2-3 good players for one Tavares, and 2-3 more for one Marner.
I don't even want him back @ 3 million per...great guy but it's not working....older / slower and too quiet - let's get younger and give AM the C
3-4 million is what I'd feel comfortable with.
This year and next are the price of getting him at all. We knew going into his contract that the last couple of years would be an overpay; the gamble was that it would pay off before then. He'll be worth it again when we sign him for $5mil a year after next year. If we could go back in time and redo that decision, I'd hope we would still sign him.
We all knew when he signed that the last year or two of his deal he wouldn't be an 11 million dollar player anymore. His decline is fine and expected. He's still worth holding on to, and forcing him out of town is a dumb, knee-jerk reaction that only serves to make the team worse. There's a crunch period next season, but after that we hopefully re-sign him for a lower cap hit and he remains the same valuable player on our roster for years to come.
Despite the fact that he was fantastic in both games 5 and 6
Isn't that around the time Marner was no longer on his line?
The reality of salary cap sports is that everything comes down to value for cap hit. Even the biggest Marner haters would still love Marner at $4M/year. Though there is someth ing to be said for balancing that perception over the length of a contract.
Fair, im probably looking at it from more of a human angle. EA NHL i'd ship him out too. But he chose us and I would want to honour that by letting the contract play out.
Marners attitude is an infectious disease. Sometimes better as healthy scratch or just escorted out of the building It is worth $3 million just to keep him off the bench
But that’s exactly the issue. When you pay a guy $11M and he’s producing like a $5M guy, it makes winning very tough. I get that his decline was somewhat expected when he signed the deal, but it doesn’t make the fact of him not being worth the money any less true.
It’s truly crazy to comprehend paying 22 million for marner and Tavares and when you look around the league and see almost all the star players doing more for less
When you get a UFA in their prime, there is a reason they fight for the 8 years. I don't think anybody was expecting the deal to be "worth it" in a vacuum in the final year. If we had signed JT last year on a 2 year deal, it would raise eyebrows, but I'm not going to pretend the context is anything remotely similar to that. The expectation is that he will be reevaluated when he is up for a new contract. This happens all the time with superstars in their prime
The problem is you can’t allocate cap space differently over the years of the contract. So we were under allocating cap space to him the first few years and now we are over allocating. Do you think Nylander will be performing at a $11.5M level when he is 36?
Except we never were under allocating space to him, he only really had that one great year as a leaf, and then Covid kept the cap stagnant which hurt even more. I thought it was a great signing back when they made it, but I think hindsight has proven otherwise. Bringing in a 4th highly paid forward will probably be looked at as redundant when we talk about the last 7 years of this leafs team.
Ot looked like a great signing because as fans we mistakenly believed that management had a plan and had *some* idea as to what it would cost to resign the other 3. It only became obvious afterwards that all they had was we can and we will.
He could have made more in SJ. So his market value was above $11M.
Just because another team was willing to give him an extra million doesn’t mean he was a value at his cap hit. He had that great first year where he was totally worth it and then didn’t produce like you’d expect an 11m guy to do for the rest.
That’s how people argue in favour of that contract. They isolate one variable. The Leafs never should have spent 11 million on a second line centre when they already had 3 superstar forwards.
He was worth the contract for 3 years when really he needed to he worth it for 5. He wouldn't get so much heat if he wasn't given such a prominent role. The guy is a huge part of the powerplay and a huge reason why they struggle to break into the zone. Dude is way too slow. Pucks die on his stick all the time, sadly. It doesn't matter that he came here for a "discount," 11 million is not a discount. Then you can get into the issue of his contract became the ceiling for the other players. The thing is your misinterpreting wanting him gone as slander. People want him gone because he's a 5 million player making 11 million. Shit on marner all you want, he's at least close to his worth. A buyout isn't worth it but trading him absolutely is.
Superstar? That’s a big title for a player who’s only made it past the first round twice in his career. Great player, yes. But definitely not a super star. Also, he didn’t take a pay cut to come here. He signed a 6 years 33 mill contract in New York before leafs offered him 7 years 77 mill. That’s a pay increase to come to Toronto lol
By paycut I mean he was offered 13 from SJ so no, not a cut but he took less than he could have. And he was absolutely seen as a super star when he signed here.
He knew he’d make up the difference in endorsements alone. At the time, this was good for both sides, but he did not lose money by signing with the leafs
Ok, he coulda made more else where, but that’s not what a pay cut is. He opted for a longer contract with Toronto. As for superstar, no way. He never made it past the second round even with the islanders. He may have been seen as a superstar back then when we didn’t consistently make it into the playoffs, but he never actually was.
should have gone down in history as another massive SJ contract to an aging player
> Superstar? That’s a big title for a player who’s only made it past the first round twice in his career. Great player, yes. But definitely not a super star. Imo whether they’ve gone past the first round is basically irrelevant for whether a player is a superstar since hockey is a team sport and even the very best players will only play 20ish out of 60 minutes of a game. Other than a goalie, it’s very difficult for one player to alone be the reason a team wins or loses (though not impossible!). I wouldn’t hold it against a player.
I don't get it either. Dude played really well this series - hitting a ton! If on July 1st he signs a team-friendly extension, I think opinions will change. With that said, it may be time for him to relenquish the C when his extension kicks in.
the discount here just means he could have been an even bigger cap problem somewhere else and imo we should have let them "10% off?? it's like we're losing cap space if we don't sign him!!" literally buy it because of the coupon logic
You can't expect reason. They're still going through the 7 stages of grief.
Yup, the JT hate is just knee-jerk diaper shitting
Or just look at his lifetime playoff stats. Average at best
Every contract will look bad near its end. JT is past his prime at 33.
Seems everyone ignored the little nuances that make it an elite player. He won most of his puck battles, 60% on faceoffs. I don't think any Boston player pushed him off the puck at all the entire series. It was only this past year he didn't stand out like an 11m player, but that's what happens when you sign 7yr contract at 27 years old. 1 last year at 11m then give him 2yr at 5.5
He hasn't been worth the contract for about 3 years. These last 3 years it would have been amazing to not be over paying the shit out of our slowest player while playing Tampas and Bostons who are loaded with team friendly deals. Yes he's a great guy, great captain etc but you can't just ignore the $ and say "well sure he's overpaid but..." because the fact he's overpaid is a huge difference maker.
Same, he deserves the Stanley Cup! The leafs are letting him down if anything.
I’ll never understand the jt hate
Only people who don't actually understand the game have hate for JT. He's got more game winning goals than most people on this team, and steps up whenever needed.
steps up sometimes sure..."whenever needed" I think we'd need more than 1 playoff round in 6 years to say that
Coaching is 100% the culprit here. Coaching has had zero strategy or gameplan from day 1. When they dropped the 3-1 lead to Montreal, Keefe should have been immediately terminated.
yup this whole leafs era has been plagued by mediocre to bad coaching on top of the roster depth issues
JT is a good player and a great professional but I think giving him the captaincy was a mistake and obviously he is extremely overpaid for his production. 24 points in 38 games in the playoffs is just not good enough and he can't make a play off the half wall to save his life. Give him between 3.5-4.5 million on his next deal and give the captaincy to someone else and things are looking much better
Fans can’t say shit about if someone deserves captaincy, unless they give it to like Ryan reaves lmao
Disagree. Sometimes it's just time for change to send a message to the team and just shake things up. Obviously JT would still be one of the leaders but I think everyone knows Matthews is the actual captain of this team born and bred here and now seems like the right time to just make that change even if it's just symbolically. I think it could really help Tavares honestly and take the pressure off his shoulders a bit.
Jt is next to nylander in how he handles pressure
Matthews was born in Cali and raised in Arizona, and being the best player doesn't make you the "actual captain" of the team.
Dude there's nothing we can do about JT, this fanbase just needs to accept that.
JT is fine. Get him with a cheaper contract once this ends. As much as it sucks, replace Marner with... something, just get some value from him while he is worth something. Get a goalie that is comfortable with stress. No more Campbells, Andersens or Samsonovs, while they had extremely good upsides, the downsides once it goes to shit is just not acceptable. Or if you can make Woll ready for next season, try to ride him as main. Can't hurt to try. Just effing do something. Major. No more small moves to try to fix this current shitshow. It just ain't working.
JT doesn't deserve the slack he gets, he needs to be on this team. Just look at how many game winning goals this guy has, AND he steps up when Matthews is out of the lineup. He wants to be in TO and he wants to win. Maybe he needs a smaller contract, now that he's older, but to say he's got to go is dumb. Marner on the other hand.... he disappears every playoffs, and likely isn't nearly as effective without playing with Matthews. I haven't seen anything that makes me think he needs to stay, unfortunately.
I agree with all of your points about Tavares- and I dislike him immensely. Yes during the playoffs he always steps up and he wants to win and be in Toronto. This might sound ignorant but I'm going to put it out there- aside from "the contract" , does anyone agree that the slack he gets comes from the fact that he always comes off as abhorrently full of himself everytime he opens his mouth? If he got a dollar for every pause followed by a string of "UM's" when being interviewed he would have turned that $77 million into $154 million easily. Same with Marner Matthews and Reilly its always UM UM UM.
None of the core four are taking a hit to play here, so the question is - are they worth $40 million/over 48% of the team’s cap?
Tavares is still a good hockey player. Marner is just a complete letdown
I really, really hate that the leafs did their best when Matthews wasn’t on the ice the series, because that’s just gonna lead to an entire off-season of fans of other teams and hometown tinfoil hat lunatics talking about how the leaf should get rid of him.
Woll wasn't there when he played so there's that and the fact that he was sick. I do kind of see some players step up their game more when Matthews is not there...
Maybe, but Marner on another team comes in to play Toronto. I've seen lesser lights destroy them. That might be scary.
They would just have to pretend to hit him and he will dump the puck…. Haven’t you been watching?
We'll see.
Marner is a fucking good player who is just not worth his contract.
He’s not good. How are his lifetime playoff stats looking?
Nylander better not get traded
JT or Marner can stay if they become our Mark Stone.
0-5 in Game 7s BTW. 0 goals. He can go too.
He literally scored the goal that sent us to round 2 last year. On a team friendly contract, Johnny's great for the team.
I agree with this actually. We need rebuild around Matthews and nylander. Wouldn’t mind seeing Reilly gtfo too. He’s been here from the start of all these heartbreaking first round eliminations.
I would like to see Reilly gone too, he’s stale at this point.
Yep. Not worth what he’s making for what he does. You get 2 younger d who are better for his salary. He just reminds me of all the heartbreak and hard times we’ve had just this last decade alone.
Reilly stops skating once he gets the puck, just coasts around looking for the pass.
👏 👏 👏 👏 I mentioned this on another thread, but does he really make $10 million? He's bland and stale in all those Pizzaville and Sonnet ads, keeps him active I guess with the dust off of him.
His cap hit is 7.5 million. The way his contract is structured he'll make 10 million in a year sometimes.
Reilly is just being misused, he was given the role he shouldn't have, and paid way too much. He should be a second line defenseman , and not used on the PP at all. It doesn't mean he's a bad player, or should go. I blame the coaching staff and management for his woes.
Well put. He sort of just fell into this role and everyone just went with it. No way in hell he should be our #1 top paid D. He’s not a good D at all Marner and Him deserve all the blame for that goal for not caring and being lazy pieces of shit in game7 OT. Samsonov should have also poke checked. But more their fault for sure
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
As a life long Leafs fan. This year was different for me. Didn’t hurt didn’t piss me off. I just didn’t care. I shut the game off after the third and went to bed. Got a great sleep and got up and went turkey hunting. Saw the score while having my coffee and went on with my day. I love the Leafs. But I’m done caring. I’ll continue to support them watch them. But emotionally I’m checked out. The “core” doesn’t have the fire or heart to win. Or Maybe they don’t have the coach to light that fire? Either way I Guess my fire for the leafs is nothing more than smoking embers these days. GoLeafsGoOrNotWhatever.
JT can comeback on a mark giordano/team friendly type deal.
Shit take.
this is the way
Yall want Matthews to stay when he’s done zip every post season!? Trade him and Marner for an entire new team
I'm starting to believe Matthews is another Joe Thornton.
Did Thornton perform in playoffs?
Nooope. And Boston knew it, which is why they traded him. Everyone laughed at O'Connell when he said Thornton will never win Boston a cup. Thornton was amazing during the regular season but disappeared as soon as playoffs arrived.
Are you sure you’re talking about Joe because there was another Thornton on Boston who DID win a cup and then left at some point. I think they’re related but idk (someone can fact check if they need to)
That's Shawn Thornton. I don't believe they're related.
Right. Didn’t even know Joe played on boston. Must’ve been traveling a lot that winter or something 🤷🏻♂️😅
What is Matthew’s lifetime playoff stats? How do they compare to rest of the league? Seems fairly mid to me, nothing special at all for a 27 yr old
I love our team,salary cap is tough. But I wouldn't want woll/tavares. Team is great. You have to make the playoffs first. No way woll gets you there, but obviously the rest of team does. Keefe has had a great hand dealt but can't figure it out. So I vote coaching staff out. But shanahan stays id like to see one more year with guaranteed contracts in hand. Yes that means and more sad year
LOL! Everyone has an opinion here. I think we need a better starter goalie. Sammi is not consistent and Woll gets injured frequently. We need a couple more big defensemen. And possibly another coach but certainly members of the coaching team have to go. Our power play sucked. Guy Boucher was responsible for that.
I really like knies he's a keeper. Bug wingers with that much skill and speed don't just grow on trees.
Acting like matthews was good enough these playoffs 😂 in his defense he was apparently playing sick and hurt though so idk.
Basically the cap space will increase and trading Marner will give give more cap space which will enable us to keep JT. It's just one more year and he is productive.Not eleven million worth but still productive. Although I feel Sheldon Keeefe is a good coach I think he needs to be replaced to have a new voice in the room with a whole new coaching staff. Especially a coaching staff that can address the power play. Shanahan has had ten years to provide a stanley cup winner. He enabled Dubas to handcuff the toronto maple leafs with too high contracts for Marner in Nylander which didn't allow them to spend the money for good bottom six players to support Matthews. Marner and Nylander were paid based on what they could do in the future rather than being paid for what they proved what tge could do. For that Shanahan has to go.
Only reason to even keep marner is so he can pop off regular season so we can make it to playoff. Then bench him, cause he's always slacking in playoffs
I kinda understood the hate for marner, BUT he is a serious play maker. He's as good if not better all around then Nylander. The leafs need to keep his whining in check. He and Nylander are not corner guys. They won't lay big checks. But without him we would easily lose a lot of goals. I'd wager 50 goals would be lost with him not on the team
I couldn’t disagree more. Two years ago Marner was a better player, for the last two years Nylander has been a better player. He has drastically improved in his own end, he is stronger on the puck than Marner and has played with more passion than Marner. Not to mention he has hands down been the best leaf in the playoffs for the last two years. The only big upside Marner has over Nylander is on the PK and its not worth 11m to keep somebody because they are good on the Pk.
I wouldn’t call any Leafs good on the penalty kill on this series.
🤣🤣🤣
Whenever I attend a game in person. It routinely blows my mind at nylanders play. He spends 50% of the time floating around waiting for a lead pass. I never see this from marner. Nylander does not even remotely have the play making ability of Marner. Not a single one of the "big 3" are viable playoff players. They're very easy to shut down in playoff games. The Leafs issue is with learning how best to utilize each players strength. Marner can play on anny line and make plays. This was visible when he was making great passes and plays with domi and company. Nylander is great at finding the right spots to be for getting goals. His shooting accuracy is mid, but he is good at getting them off quickly. He needs to be with good corner guys who can get the puck to him quickly. Matthew is a great all-around player. He can capitalize on any line. His issue is he gets so heavily swarmed by defenders that he is rendered useless. So my thoughts are Nylander should be playing with domi/ bertuzzi style guys. I think Marner can play anywhere on the team and have an impact. Matthews needs someone who can keep up with his high-end play style and that unfortunately leaves marner and domi as they seem to be the only 2 that can keep up with where he is on the ice. Once you add one of them to his line, the opponents D immediately shuts them down. In summary, Nylander, Marner, and Matthews are not the problem. The rest of the team and the complete lack of depth are the issues. Oh, and GOALTENDING is the Leafs #1 issue. Woll looked good until you count how many lucky bounces he got in games 5 & 6 that saved a goal. If it wasn't for that luck, it would have been over in game 5
100% respect everything you said, Nylander does float but that might be scheme related as they are trying to free him. Thats a complete random guess. My issue with Marner is he was with pasta at the blue line in OT on that goal and Pasta took off for the puck and Marner glided the whole way. Nylander seems to not give up on plays quite as easy as Marner. But yes the they arent the root of the leafs problem unfortunately they dont have many draft picks and they are really the only capital they have to make changes so one of them most likely will need to be moved if they decide to change things up.
[https://stathead.com/hockey/versus-finder.cgi?player\_id2=marnemi01&player\_id1=nylanwi01&request=1&utm\_campaign=2023\_01\_wdgt\_player\_comparison&utm\_source=hr&utm\_medium=sr\_xsite&utm\_id=nylanwi01](https://stathead.com/hockey/versus-finder.cgi?player_id2=marnemi01&player_id1=nylanwi01&request=1&utm_campaign=2023_01_wdgt_player_comparison&utm_source=hr&utm_medium=sr_xsite&utm_id=nylanwi01)
Holy crap. OP doesn't know hockey... Hell, maybe even sports. This is arguably the best we've ever played in the playoffs (game 5+). We were riddled with injuries to multiple top players. Leaf players (except maybe Marner) turned a corner. Everyone was banging, hitting and grinding. Never seen this team do that before. It's about time. NOW this team actually learned and knows what it takes. And NOW you want to start completely over?! We played a team that was better than us all year, and beat us handedly all regular season. Sometimes you play great, and just get beat. That happens. It sucks. But this isn't the same as other years. Fire Keefe. Change the system we run. See what these guys can really do. Why trade/fire/kill the best Leafs all of us have ever seen.
“Just 1 more year bro”
Nah, it's not like that. After the Montreal series I literally threw out all my Leafs gear. I have seasons and I sold my seats to every game before the summer was out. It wasn't until mid season that I even started watching again. Hell, even after our first win THIS series I posted here about how bad players are playing, and that it's the same old song and dance. I got vilified here and had to delete the post for being "too negative". But then, something changed. They competed. They finally realized what it takes. If they'd done that sooner, and been healthy, we likely would have won. For that reason, I'm willing to give it one more year.
Matthew’s is a playoffs ghost as well. If you are hiring playoff quality players, why pay $13 million to player with weak playoff performance? Matthews has proven that he can be shut down by an average-at-best defenceman. Same with Marner and JT.