Toronto Maple Leafs: Time Vindicates Kyle Dubas on Big Contracts

Was the Term Long Enough ?

Ideally the Leafs would have signed both Matthews and Marner to twin eight-year maximum length extensions.  Instead Marner got six years and Matthews five.

Again, it is obvious that not getting eight year deals sucks for the Leafs and their fans.  This is really similar to the criticism that they should have signed them a year out from the expiration of their ELCs in that It’s such an obviously good move for the team, why would the player do it?

In order to get the players to sign those deals, the Leafs would have had to give them even higher cap hits.  Buying out UFA seasons from players who a) know they are among the best in the world and b) are fully aware of the TV, Expansion and Gambling deals on the horizon is clearly going to be expensive.

Almost no one mentions this when they are ripping the Leafs for these contracts.  Eight years would be nice, but five years with a cap hit lower by several million dollars might actually be better.

Much like the previous criticism, this one ignores the player’s agency as humans who are not complete idiots.

Before Covid, the NHL salary cap was set to see it’s biggest ever increase because the league was going to legalize gambling, take in a massive expansion fee from Seattle and broker a new, massive, TV deal.   Since the cap is tied to revenue it was bound to go up.  If I know this, and you know this, why do we criticize the contracts as if the agents for Marner and Matthews did not know this?

The Leafs couldn’t have had their players come up for new deals at a worse time.  A year before, they wouldn’t have been able to bet on the cap going up. A year later Covid would have destroyed the league’s revenue.

Frankly, Marner and Matthews had no reason to sign max-length deals when they knew the cap and the average salary would possibly be going up a lot, so it was potentially more expensive for them to sell their UFA years than it would be for any other player ever, up to that time.

Again, in a perfect world, they both sign eight year contracts. Leafs fans and critics are right to lament that, but it’s unfair to blame the Leafs for not getting the max length when they are  negotiating against professional agents who know that only an world-wide pandemic can prevent the salary cap from almost doubling in the next five or so years.

In one way, I think Toronto did get lucky: had they paid for the extra years with a higher cap hit, and then the cap froze for two years (and barely moved in the third year when it was unfrozen) they might have been completely screwed.  As it was, they may have won absolutely nothing, but they were something like the best team in the league this entire time, and were easily good enough to have won.