Bender said:
What I mean is it's up for debate with whether they actually had good management or not once they doled out all those extensions and hamstrung their own team, but your point is taken.
I'm not sure which extensions you mean then. The Kane and Toews 3rd contracts? Or deals to people like Seabrook and Crawford? Because if you mean the former then like I said I think reaching a point where you have to pay your stars something close to market value is inevitable(and in today's NHL getting players to sign deals akin to Toews/Kane's 2nd deals seems unlikely, accelerating the process). If you mean the latter, it's a fair point that those might not be "good management" but I think it's probably more difficult than we'd like to think to be that cold-blooded in dismantling a championship team.
We have to remember that teams aren't just floating collections of hockey assets with numerical value. Dealing guys who have been big parts of your success has consequences aside from on the ice if it's to make room for younger, cheaper options.
And anyways, like I said, even if Chicago could have kicked the can further by being ruthless with their secondary players and importing new ones you're still just delaying the inevitable for when those guys need to be paid. Even if you could build a team that seriously contends for 10 years or so things will catch up to you. Drafting low, having to pay guys...all contending teams have an expiration date.
Bender said:
Sorry, I know I'm coming off as curmudgeonly, it's just frustrating. I generally can lean into more positive or agnostic arguments but I seriously think now that it's entirely possible we could get to the end of Matthews' deal and just watch him (or Marner) walk for nothing without any (or minimal) playoff success between then and now. Granted, the opposite could also be true but I don't really have much faith in them at this point.
For sure that's a risk and it would be frustrating if that's how it shook out and while here's where I might be inclined to go into my "how the team does is outside of your control and you need to be able to enjoy sports aside from the wins and losses" spiel I actually think there's an instructive case here to consider which, ironically enough, is what happened with the Islanders and Tavares.
If, indeed, the Leafs reach the end of Matthews' deal without achieving much in the way of playoff success then they'll have a tough reality to deal with. But, the way contracts work in the NHL, they'll have a whole season to negotiate a deal with Matthews before he can talk to other teams. What the Islanders had to know, and what makes their fans' crybabying about Tavares all the more ridiculous, is Tavares was clearly ambivalent at best about re-signing there. The Islanders had all year to try and sign him and he rebuffed all of their offers. The Islanders management tried to kid themselves into thinking they might still work something out after the season but they 100% knew that Tavares leaving was probably in the cards.
If the Leafs are faced with the same thing with Matthews, where they clearly know he isn't inclined to re-sign no matter what they offer him, then they'll have the opportunity to trade him. Or, if the team is still in contention, they can keep him and try for another run. But that will be a decision they get to make, Matthews can't make it for them.
And, again, one of the reasons why the Islanders are instructive? If that happens, it's probably not the end of the world. The team will have a ton of cap room and a proven record of getting guys to sign here.
But beyond that, I mean, yeah. There's a risk that this doesn't work out. That's always going to be a risk. You can't avoid that. The outcome of it really isn't in our hands or even team management's. Best they can do is assemble the best team they can and hope it works out. Regardless, I said I wasn't going to do my whole "You need to enjoy sports beyond outcomes" thing and I won't but man, I really don't think it's a good idea to get too invested in a bad thing that may or may not happen three years from now.
