cabber24 said:
Joe said:
Having lived through the Sundin era, and so have pretty much all of you, the willingness to throw away such a talented player is baffling to me.
Just imagine if Sundin had just one of Nylander, Marner or Matthews on his teams.
I?m 100% with cw on this one, supporting cast and goaltending are what need to be addressed.
It?s absolutely pathetic that the leafs haven?t drafted and developed a star goalie since Potvin. And the one they did they punted in what I call the worst trade in franchise history.
Anyway a few mini rants there.
How do you pay for the Goalie and D needed when you have 4 guys making 8-figures up front? It's not Marner, it's the ridiculous unbalance of spending on this team. You wouldn't trade him for a top D man and more cap towards a decent goalie?
They have $19.4 mil in cap space this season
and between $40-50 mil next season.
They have more cap space/roster spot than many of the contenders.
Potentially. they can get 2 decent UFA dmen this summer with a decent backup.
Next summer there might be some decent UFA goalies available if they need them.
They have to look at things like that because it is too late to draft and develop much to help Matthews Cup runs in the next 4 years. They're past "ideal world roster development". The window for winning with Matthews et al is probably closing in the next few years. So that is how they have to look at it.
Instead of burning draft picks at the deadline, they should over pay a little to get some young economical guys on the roster who will be able to contribute in the near future. Roll the future assets into the present - but not with assets that are gone July 1. Get some more mileage out of younger players.
The other thing they can do, as I've mentioned before, is use some of MLSE money to beat the bushes all over the planet to try and find a couple of economical guys like Benoit & McMann to help make up for their lack of prospects/picks.
I do not think it is rocket science to figure this out. The circumstances are fairly clear. I'm sure Leafs management is way ahead of me on this. They know. It is not that hard. To me, aside from the burning of draft picks on rentals, I like their position for the next 2 seasons - particularly '25-26.