Marner signs 6 year, $10.893mil AAV contract

[Bates]

Matthews is a 1st overall #1 center. Tavares is a #1 center. Any year without McDavid/Eichel, Marner has the potential to go 1st overall. After years of desolation, elite talent is here. They're getting paid. They're locked in. It's a good day.

Puck drops October 2nd.

Redo Marner's own draft and there is a decent chance he drops rather than goes higher.

 

[Phileas Fogg]

Redo Marner's own draft and there is a decent chance he drops rather than goes higher.

Uhh, how do you figure that? The only guy that comes up to top 5 discussion I can see is Rantanen, and certainly Strome drops out of third.

So at worst, Marner stays where he is at 4.

 

[Bates]

Redo Marner's own draft and there is a decent chance he drops rather than goes higher.

Uhh, how do you figure that? The only guy that comes up to top 5 discussion I can see is Rantanen, and certainly Strome drops out of third.

So at worst, Marner stays where he is at 4.

I think Barzal goes before him.

 

[lc9]

Redo Marner's own draft and there is a decent chance he drops rather than goes higher.

Uhh, how do you figure that? The only guy that comes up to top 5 discussion I can see is Rantanen, and certainly Strome drops out of third.

So at worst, Marner stays where he is at 4.

I think Barzal goes before him.

I don?t get the slight.  I?m not talking about the just this Barzal/Marner comparison.  How could you drop Marner?  Marner was 11th in scoring in the NHL, 4th most assists.  And among the top 11 scorers Marner was 2nd in plus/minus (not a great stat but it?s part of the picture).  I think everyone agrees Strome drops.  Eichel versus Marner is debatable.  Just not sure there is any chance he drops.  I wouldn?t take Barzal over Marner.  Barzal was 32 points behind Marner last year and was a minus 5. Certainly Tavares plays a role.  But Marner was a clearly better player.

 

[Kin]

Huh, so after all that posturing a reasonably equitable deal got done without Marner really missing any time. And all of the talk in the media proved to be just tactics.

I said in the now locked "Contracts for the Big 3" thread that 27 million for Nylander, Matthews and Marner combined might be optimistic. Turns out that was right but I was wrong about how I thought it'd be divided. I thought Matthews would get more than McDavid and Marner would be the team friendly one.

Eh, either way the three are signed long term and that's good enough for me. The few million more than most thought isn't going to make or break the club.

 

[Bates]

Redo Marner's own draft and there is a decent chance he drops rather than goes higher.

Uhh, how do you figure that? The only guy that comes up to top 5 discussion I can see is Rantanen, and certainly Strome drops out of third.

So at worst, Marner stays where he is at 4.

I think Barzal goes before him.

I don?t get the slight.  I?m not talking about the just this Barzal/Marner comparison.  How could you drop Marner?  Marner was 11th in scoring in the NHL, 4th most assists.  And among the top 11 scorers Marner was 2nd in plus/minus (not a great stat but it?s part of the picture).  I think everyone agrees Strome drops.  Eichel versus Marner is debatable.  Just not sure there is any chance he drops.  I wouldn?t take Barzal over Marner.  Barzal was 32 points behind Marner last year and was a minus 5. Certainly Tavares plays a role.  But Marner was a clearly better player.

The Athletic just did a for fun redraft with NHL players as GM's. Barzal went 2nd, chosen by Patrick Kane. The center has more value. Either way the best he goes is same 4th as before. But even leaving that aside the claim was he would go 1st overall in many drafts, I don't see that case unless we go back a ways.

 

[Kin]

I did the same.  Kucherov takes home about a mil more.

Which is one thing. There's also Tampa's team cap structure and just the economic reality of the revenues being generated by Leafs players and Tampa players.

The NHL wanted the hard cap system without meaningful revenue sharing. Because of that they have a system where Toronto's players are worth more but Toronto as a team doesn't get to spend that money. I tried telling people that a hard cap like this would be uniquely bad for big market clubs but there you go. You can't expect Marner to let his salary be dictated by what people in Central Florida are willing to spend on hockey tickets.

 

[Guru Tugginmypuddah]

I did the same.  Kucherov takes home about a mil more.

Which is one thing. There's also Tampa's team cap structure and just the economic reality of the revenues being generated by Leafs players and Tampa players.

The NHL wanted the hard cap system without meaningful revenue sharing. Because of that they have a system where Toronto's players are worth more but Toronto as a team doesn't get to spend that money. I tried telling people that a hard cap like this would be uniquely bad for big market clubs but there you go. You can't expect Marner to let his salary be dictated by what people in Central Florida are willing to spend on hockey tickets.

You keep saying this like it's the fans fault that there is a hard cap system in place now.

 

[Kin]

You keep saying this like it's the fans fault that there is a hard cap system in place now.

I say that because during both lockouts fans were overwhelmingly pro-NHL both times. And not just NHL fans as a whole. Fans of the Leafs. Here.

 

[Joe S.]

You keep saying this like it's the fans fault that there is a hard cap system in place now.

I say that because during both lockouts fans were overwhelmingly pro-NHL both times. And not just NHL fans as a whole. Fans of the Leafs. Here.

I don?t remember the second lockout, but the first one, my memory of the first one wasn?t pro hard cap around here. I remember a lot of us being in favour of team contraction over a hard cap to keep the likes of Phoenix and Atlanta afloat.

 

[Kin]

I don?t remember the second lockout, but the first one, my memory of the first one wasn?t pro hard cap around here. I remember a lot of us being in favour of team contraction over a hard cap to keep the likes of Phoenix and Atlanta afloat.

That is not how I remember things if for no other reason than, given the economic circumstances of the time, most of the contraction talk revolved around smaller market Canadian teams.

 

[Guru Tugginmypuddah]

You keep saying this like it's the fans fault that there is a hard cap system in place now.

I say that because during both lockouts fans were overwhelmingly pro-NHL both times. And not just NHL fans as a whole. Fans of the Leafs. Here.

Many of us argued against it, knowing full well one of the greatest advantages a team like the Leafs have over the rest of the league is money, and lots of it.  I argued that a hard cap system is tantamount to communism, but here we are.

I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just saying whether we argued for or against the cap, the NHL still wasn't listening to us fans. The NHL was always going to do what the NHL wanted to do. 

 

[disco]

https://twitter.com/TSN_Sports/status/1172663650789875713

 

[Kin]

Many of us argued against it, knowing full well one of the greatest advantages a team like the Leafs have over the rest of the league is money, and lots of it.  I argued that a hard cap system is tantamount to communism, but here we are.

Not to drag up old arguments but Communism, at least in theory, seeks economic equality. The Hard Cap is the opposite of that. Teams like the Leafs and Rangers are raking in money while teams like the Coyotes and Senators are still struggling. Total revenue sharing would be something akin to Communism but the NHL never went near that.

All the Cap did was drastically rig things in favour of management over labour. That is very much the opposite of what homeboy Karl Marx was looking for.

I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just saying whether we argued for or against the cap, the NHL still wasn't listening to us fans. The NHL was always going to do what the NHL wanted to do.

So, there's a limited value in us really arguing over things from 15 years ago when we don't have the paper trail to help us but I'd say three things to that:

1. I feel pretty confident that I wrote as much as anyone in those lockout threads and I very much do not remember feeling "Oh yeah, opinion here seems about as much with me and my pro-player stance as anything". I don't remember what you wrote specifically but I remember a lot of "Greedy players! 5 million dollars isn't enough for you?!? Bobby Holik got how much?!?! Ticket prices are too high!!!" and the usual stuff from fans during labour disputes.

2. I don't think there's a meaningful distinction between having been pro-Ownership and pro-Hard Cap when instituting a hard cap was the NHL's singular goal in the lockout. It'd be like voting for a political candidate and being like "Well, sure, I voted for him but you can't hold me accountable for him instituting those policies he campaigned on". 

3. I don't agree that what fans did or said had no impact. The NHL was confident in their ability to have a lockout, shut down for a season or more, because they knew fans would come back whenever they re-opened. Moreover fans pledging allegiance to teams over players effectively kneecapped any leverage players might have had over their own drastic actions(Remember talk of a player's league)?

 

[Joe S.]

I wish they had graphics like that back when Sakic and Forsberg we?re making around 9 and 11 million each.

 

[ZBBM]

For me, the bottom line is that I get to watch the 4 best individual talents the Leafs have ever iced at once play together for at least 5 years.  That's worth a lot as a fan.  A helluva lot, actually.  In my job I deal with bad news all the time, so I want to be entertained when I watch hockey.  These guys pretty much guarantee it.

 

[disco]

https://twitter.com/teachingsticky/status/1172650361024212995

 

[Kin]

So I know that this has been gone over lots during the Nylander stuff but are the Leafs actually paying him 45 million? I thought that was cap trickery so that he could get his full first year's salary of 6.9(or whatever it was with the bonus).

 

[Kin]

For me, the bottom line is that I get to watch the 4 best individual talents the Leafs have ever iced at once play together for at least 5 years.  That's worth a lot as a fan.  A helluva lot, actually.  In my job I deal with bad news all the time, so I want to be entertained when I watch hockey.  These guys pretty much guarantee it.

Agreed. There are a lot of downsides to the cap forcing every fan to experiencing every decision as a GM but by far one of the least useful is the "Sure this looks good now but what about in 2 or 3 years time when the cap situation is sticky?"

You can just enjoy the moment.

 

[Peter D.]

Going into all this, I would have bet big money that all three would be re-signed for 8 years. Still surprised not a single one did, let alone all three.