Matthews signs 5 year contract, $11.634mil AAV

[Bender]

I'm going to try and take this from a different angle. Zee, ZBMM, anyone else who is displeased with this deal, feel free to give your opinion here.

Let's just say hypothetically the league decided to do a hard reset. All contracts have been voided. All players are going into one giant dispersal draft. The team that picks first (goddamn Edmonton would probably win this lottery too) obviously selects McDavid.

You're the GM of the team picking 2nd. You get to pick any player in the league to start your franchise with. Is it Matthews? If not, who is it and roughly where would you imagine Matthews went?

I'd probably still pick Crosby 2nd, even if you obviously are going to get less potential term than you can with Matthews.

I'd have Matthews 3rd I think.

I wouldn't take a player over 30 to start a brand new team with the second pick, but that's just me.

 

[herman]

I'm going to try and take this from a different angle. Zee, ZBBM, anyone else who is displeased with this deal, feel free to give your opinion here.

Let's just say hypothetically the league decided to do a hard reset. All contracts have been voided. All players are going into one giant dispersal draft. The team that picks first (goddamn Edmonton would probably win this lottery too) obviously selects McDavid.

You're the GM of the team picking 2nd. You get to pick any player in the league to start your franchise with. Is it Matthews? If not, who is it and roughly where would you imagine Matthews went?

This is similar to the hypothetical I posed in the Stamkos thread.

Yeah I?d go with Matthews at 2, easily, beating out currently better centres the likes of MacKinnon due to age. Petersson might give me some pause but his admittedly meteoric production pace doesn't have the same track record that we have with Matthews.

 

[Peter D.]

I'm going to try and take this from a different angle. Zee, ZBBM, anyone else who is displeased with this deal, feel free to give your opinion here.

Let's just say hypothetically the league decided to do a hard reset. All contracts have been voided. All players are going into one giant dispersal draft. The team that picks first (goddamn Edmonton would probably win this lottery too) obviously selects McDavid.

You're the GM of the team picking 2nd. You get to pick any player in the league to start your franchise with. Is it Matthews? If not, who is it and roughly where would you imagine Matthews went?

Top 5.  I'd probably take MacKinnon over him.  Likely Crosby still.  Kucherov would make me pause for serious thought.  Eichel too, but push comes to shove I take Matthews over him. 

I would take him over Rantanen and Point, but I don't necessarily think he is head and shoulders above either.  Will be interesting to see what they get this summer.

 

[herman]

Kyle Dubas made the media rounds yesterday following the signing and initial presser.

It is an [unusual] number. We usually see things with round numbers. You can divide the number of years into the overall number and come up with something that at least ends with a bunch of zeros. How come this one is kind of goofy at $58.17 million?

Dubas: Yeah, I think the 34 is Auston?s number. It is a number of significance to him. That was important to their camp, so we just found a way to kind of make it get there. I certainly understand where the question comes from, but that is the answer.

omg hockey players

 

[herman]

https://twitter.com/meghanchayka/status/1092991090221821953

That?s a lot of green

 

[CarltonTheBear]

Top 5.  I'd probably take MacKinnon over him.  Likely Crosby still.  Kucherov would make me pause for serious thought.  Eichel too, but push comes to shove I take Matthews over him. 

I would take him over Rantanen and Point, but I don't necessarily think he is head and shoulders above either.  Will be interesting to see what they get this summer.

Yeah MacKinnon is the only guy who would give me some pause over Matthews, it still sometimes surprises me when I read that he's only 23 years old. Still, I go with Matthews. You look at the rise in MacKinnon's game over the past couple years and it's just too hard to not think of where Matthews can take his performance over that same period.

Personally, the other guys aren't even really close. I think Point's a fantastic player but he just doesn't have the track record. Rantanen's a scoring machine but as a winger the same value just isn't there. We've discussed Eichel vs. Matthews and while I'm actually happy that Jack is finally getting his due after being underrated for a little while there's just no case to be made for taking him over Matthews. Kucherov is like a mix between MacKinnon and Rantanen... he loses some value points being a winger and the fact that we'd get an extra 4 prime years out of Matthews. Crosby, yeah over 30 so as good as he is that just wouldn't make sense for a brand new franchise.

 

[lc9]

The sad fact is, rather than the Leafs getting any sort of "discount" to keep a great group of players together, it seems Leafs have to pay a premium.

That's not a fact. Matthews could have easily asked for 12 or more. What would the Leafs have done then? Traded him? Risked an offer sheet? Let him sit next year for months in the hopes that the price dropped the way they did Nylander?

The % of this deal, when compared to some of the other 5 year second contracts that have been signed, is pretty reasonable as CtB has shown. Many of the teams that signed those deals won cups. The idea that this is a "bad" deal is pure fantasy on your part.

Not fantasy at all.  Matthews isn't the 2nd best player in the league based on his points, yet he's being paid with the 2nd highest cap hit in the league as of right now.  I'd be fine with that if they could guarantee he's a Leaf for the next 7-8 years, but they only got 5.  Other teams have managed to get their stars for 8, so it's a failure on the Leafs part, pure and simple. 

Since Matthews entered the league only Ovie has more goals per game than him.  And he is 21.

This deal was really good. 

 

[Peter D.]

Top 5.  I'd probably take MacKinnon over him.  Likely Crosby still.  Kucherov would make me pause for serious thought.  Eichel too, but push comes to shove I take Matthews over him. 

I would take him over Rantanen and Point, but I don't necessarily think he is head and shoulders above either.  Will be interesting to see what they get this summer.

Yeah MacKinnon is the only guy who would give me some pause over Matthews, it still sometimes surprises me when I read that he's only 23 years old. Still, I go with Matthews. You look at the rise in MacKinnon's game over the past couple years and it's just too hard to not think of where Matthews can take his performance over that same period.

Personally, the other guys aren't even really close. I think Point's a fantastic player but he just doesn't have the track record. Rantanen's a scoring machine but as a winger the same value just isn't there. We've discussed Eichel vs. Matthews and while I'm actually happy that Jack is finally getting his due after being underrated for a little while there's just no case to be made for taking him over Matthews. Kucherov is like a mix between MacKinnon and Rantanen... he loses some value points being a winger and the fact that we'd get an extra 4 prime years out of Matthews. Crosby, yeah over 30 so as good as he is that just wouldn't make sense for a brand new franchise.

That's fair.  Outside of MacKinnon, yeah, I'm likely to take Matthews over them.

If the exercise was to highlight that Matthews being the second highest paid player is perfectly legitimate, that's fine.  But a day later and I'm still stuck on the term.  Whatever arguments I've read and heard, I'm still not siding with that money over 5 years instead of 8.

 

[herman]

Whatever arguments I've read and heard, I'm still not siding with that money over 5 years instead of 8.

I think the money figure has to be translated to cap percentage as projected average over the span of the contract.

With the cap growing so quickly these past few years, my emotional sense of the dollar amounts hasn't kept up. I just switched my perspective to % and it's all very upper-middle of the road instead of overpays.

 

[lc9]

At this point the difference between 5 and 8 years means very little. So much can happen between now and then.  So get so bent out of shape over the length of the deal doesn?t make much sense for me.

 

[cabber24]

Kyle Dubas made the media rounds yesterday following the signing and initial presser.

It is an [unusual] number. We usually see things with round numbers. You can divide the number of years into the overall number and come up with something that at least ends with a bunch of zeros. How come this one is kind of goofy at $58.17 million?

Dubas: Yeah, I think the 34 is Auston?s number. It is a number of significance to him. That was important to their camp, so we just found a way to kind of make it get there. I certainly understand where the question comes from, but that is the answer.

omg hockey players

I see a 16 in there too for Marner, bro's for life. Marner's deal will be 5 years at $10,163,400 per or $10,341,600.

 

[L K]

MacKinnon's an interesting one as you would obviously be taking a guy with exceptional production who is young but he's also a guy with 240 additional games on Matthews at this point.

MacKinnon's first three NHL seasons yielded 38G 94A 132P in 218 GP
Matthews first three NHL seasons (his 3rd only being a partial year) 97G 81A 178P in 182GP.

Even if we take MacKinnon's last three years to line up with Matthews it is 82G 140A 222P in 208 games.  There is no question that MacKinnon's production has been exceptional the last three years but given that he has three seasons on Matthews I'd wager that gap closes quite a bit over the next season or two.

I'll agree with the Crosby pick again because I think Sid likely remains productive over the next 5 years.  Everyone else I would say is a personal preference point so we are easily looking at worst case a top 10 guy if you are really stretching things and more likely a top 5 player.  I think the reality is that players are going to sign these types of contracts more often and it's just a reality of a the cap system reallocating money away from the bottom 6/bottom 2 defensemen and placing it into the top heavy part of your lineup.  Now we are seeing a similar shift to paying the stars of the game.

 

[Peter D.]

I think the money figure has to be translated to cap percentage as projected average over the span of the contract.

With the cap growing so quickly these past few years, my emotional sense of the dollar amounts hasn't kept up. I just switched my perspective to % and it's all very upper-middle of the road instead of overpays.

As I suggested earlier, I still align my thought process based on real dollars as opposed to cap %. 

 

[herman]

I think the money figure has to be translated to cap percentage as projected average over the span of the contract.

With the cap growing so quickly these past few years, my emotional sense of the dollar amounts hasn't kept up. I just switched my perspective to % and it's all very upper-middle of the road instead of overpays.

As I suggested earlier, I still align my thought process based on real dollars as opposed to cap %.

Why though?

 

[Peter D.]

I think the money figure has to be translated to cap percentage as projected average over the span of the contract.

With the cap growing so quickly these past few years, my emotional sense of the dollar amounts hasn't kept up. I just switched my perspective to % and it's all very upper-middle of the road instead of overpays.

As I suggested earlier, I still align my thought process based on real dollars as opposed to cap %.

Why though?

The variability of the cap year over year.  It's not like the $ amount is going to change as the cap moves up or down.

 

[herman]

The variability of the cap year over year.  It's not like the $ amount is going to change as the cap moves up or down.

So the portion alloted to the player adjusts with the cap. To me it's just like gauging a player by production rates over 60, rather than raw totals without accounting for time on ice.

A team in the Leafs position is fortunate to not have to care about the actual dollar figure all that much, just the cap proportion.

 

[OldTimeHockey]

I think the money figure has to be translated to cap percentage as projected average over the span of the contract.

With the cap growing so quickly these past few years, my emotional sense of the dollar amounts hasn't kept up. I just switched my perspective to % and it's all very upper-middle of the road instead of overpays.

As I suggested earlier, I still align my thought process based on real dollars as opposed to cap %.

Why though?

Because it supports his argument?

 

[Strangelove]

I am thrilled we got Matthews signed under $12AAV. Should he walk in 5 years, I may change my mind, but otherwise, I like that both sides turned away from the 8 year deal... at his age, he could still sign an 8 year deal in 5 years, in a new cap reality.

I was quietly thinking 13+/8 years (which I believe is the cap % of McDavid) and wondering how we keep the group together.

I am surprised (not in a hostile way, just genuinely ?wow, that?s not the reaction I would have anticipated?) at how many seem to have expected the centrepiece of a Leafs generational push to sign for less than Taveres... AM34 was always going to be the Leafs highest paid player.

I think people are focusing, not unfairly, on the fact that Matthews:

(1) is injury prone;
(2) would have been a restricted free agent;
(3) has never gotten 70 points in a season; and
(4) has a bit of a reputation for playing poorly in "clutch" situations, including in the playoffs and/or against top teams.

Add to that the fact that we somehow were unable to buy more than one free agent year at that price, and I think people are right to be a little luke-warm about this.

I also think others are right to point out that he would never have signed for less, for better or worse.

 

[AvroArrow]

(3) has never gotten 70 points in a season; and

This is literally a result of (1).  He was 1 point over PPG last year.  And is currently over a PPG this year.

(4) has a bit of a reputation for playing poorly in "clutch" situations, including in the playoffs and/or against top teams.

His first playoffs was 4G 1A for 5P in 6 games.

 

[Kin]

There's also a significant difference between "has been injured" and "is injury prone".