10 Oct 2018 05:47:22
If I was the leafs GM for a day, this is what I would probably do
1. Sign Nylander to a bridge deal at 5-5.5 mill for 2 years, this long term garbage isn't doing anything, and people may say Nylander is losing money daily, but I don't think he cares and has enough money to last him for a long time. Also, this ensures once Marleau's contract expires, the leafs can give Nylander an extra 1.5-2 mill

2. Re-sign Matthews 11-11.5 mill for 6 years and Marner 8-8.5 mill for 7 years

3. Re-sign Kapanen to a one year bridge deal at 2.5-3 mill. This is so when Marleau's contract expires, we have some extra money to give him, about 1.5-2 mill like with Nylander

PS. Signing Kapanen and Nylander to these bridge deals also helps give the leafs time for the cap to increase and give the leafs some more cap room to work with

Trades I would make:
1. To NYI:
Zaitsev, 2019 1st, Rasanen, 2019 4th
To Leafs:
Pulock, 2019 6th
Suggestions to add something? Take out something?

2. To Columbus:
Brown, Gardiner
To Leafs:
Nutivaara, 2019 1st, prospect

In these trades, the leafs get 2 defenceman on low contracts who can cover for Rielly's and Gardiner's mistakes. Together Nutivaara and Pulock equal 4.7 mill, so the leafs actually shed cap space when trading Brown, Gardiner and Zaitsev, seems like a good deal to me

Now I would also tell Babcock to Change his lines to this:
Hyman/Tavares/Marner
Marleau/Matthews/Kapanen
Ennis (for grit)/Kadri/Nylander
Johnsson/Lindholm/Leivo
*Goat
Rielly/Nutivaara
Dermott/Pulock
Hainsey/Ozhiganov
*Holl
Anderson
Sparks

Now, there are a few reasons for my lineup
1. Playing Nylander on the third line is for the Benefit of Kadri and it ensures that Nylander has a future contract that is lower then he is asking for right now.

2. The Matthews line is on fire, but I also don't want Matthews asking for 13 mill so we keep that line together just so that doesn't happen, but Matthews keeps scoring at least some points (for him that's about 75-80)

3. The fourth line is only going to play 5-7 minutes a night, we don't need to be spending over 2 mill on a player like Brown when we already have guys like Leivo who can fill his spot for less money and who we can sub in and out of the lineup (how Babcock subbed out Johnsson for Gauthier against the Stars)

1.) 10 Oct 2018
10 Oct 2018 06:27:43
Have you lost your mind?! Ignoring the trades, I just want to point out that you are wanting to deliberately under play or mis-play star players such as Matthews and Nylander so that they don’t perform their best. You want to put Nylander on 3rd line and give Matthews lower quality wingers so that he underperforms. All so you can maybe save a couple bucks. This is nuts. You’ve officially lost it. Any coach or GM that did this would be fired.

2.) 10 Oct 2018
10 Oct 2018 07:58:02
Zaitsev seems to have returned to form through the first four games this year. No need to trade him for a guy with a shorter resume.

But i agree that when/ if Nylander returns, he probably plays 3rd line. Not to artificially deflate player point totals, but to spread out the scoring and give Kadri some help. Matthews doesn't need Willy, let's let Willy prove that he doesn't need Matthews.

3.) 10 Oct 2018
10 Oct 2018 13:11:07
Ok LeafsGM, I probably didn’t state this correctly, sorry about that.
Kapanen plays with Matthews because that line is on 🔥, and Nylander comes back to play with Kadri so that line can get going.
Then in February Kapanenand Nylander switch
I was just pointing out that this could benefit the Kadri line very well, develop Kapanen, and at the same time possibly save us some money in the future if Nylnader gets less ice at the start of the season.

4.) 10 Oct 2018
10 Oct 2018 17:45:09
So you would just go ahead and sign Nylander eh? You are obviously don't grasp that he would refuse that deal. If it were that simple, they would have done it already.

5.) 10 Oct 2018
10 Oct 2018 23:11:33
@DBF
I don’t think the leafs would mind bumping it up to 6 mill, and the only reason that this hasn’t happened is because both Dubas and Nylander want a long term deal, it’s just that there is about $2mill seperating the two parties.