Toronto Maple Leafs: Time Vindicates Kyle Dubas on Big Contracts
By James Tanner
The Average Annual Value
The Cap Hit is the contract divided by the number of years it runs for. The cap hit for Marner was just under $11 million and for Matthews it was just under $12 million.
At the time, it looked egregious, but the argument for it was that if you overpay now, you might get some team-friendly deals down the road.
A lot of people disagreed with that. Some pro-Leafs, advanced-stat, contract and career forecasting experts said it was virtually impossible for Marner to ever be worth his contact.
Often, as I try to take a positive view of things, I find myself arguing against people who use results as a bludgeon, but really have no idea what they’re talking about otherwise. In this case, I was the one with no real argument other than I was just happy the team locked up their players, and figured the expansion, tv, gambling thing would take care of the problems.
The people whose opinions I respect all said Marner would never be worth the money. I was fine with that, because as a fan, I just want to watch him play. But I am pleasantly surprised that exceeded even the wildest expectations.
Life is funny, and even though it often seems like people want to take down the Leafs and rip them for everything they do regardless of whether it’s smart or not (usually justified because they are a hilarious franchise that deserves it), the one criticism they were absolutely 100% correct-at-the-time and 100% right-to-make turns out to completely wrong.
But really, other than Paul Marner, who is reading this and saying “I always knew Marner would be a top three forward and the best winger in the NHL.”? There are two players in the NHL who are definitely better than Marner, and they are McDavid and Matthews. You could probably put Cale Makar on that list, but as the fourth best player he’s still a crazy bargain for what he brings to the table.
It turns out that the Toronto Maple Leafs signed Matthews and Marner to contracts that are delivering massive value to the team.
Last year Auston Matthews won the Hart Trophy and scored 60 goals in 60 games while having the best overall season anyone in the NHL has had since 1996. He is currently the best player in the world, and will turn just 25 this season.
With two years left on his deal at an $11.6 cap hit, the Leafs are getting an absolute steal. According to the Athletic, Matthews is giving the Leafs a insane ton of value over what they are paying him per year on his deal. According to their formula, Matthews has the 8th best contract in the entire NHL based on the difference between what he’s paid and what his production is worth.
The cost of getting Matthews so cheap is that they walk him to Unrestricted Free Agency at the end of his age 26 season.
As for Marner, he was the NHL’s scoring leader from the time he returned from injury in mid-January last year, and he also scored at a 50 goal pace and was 4th in goals during that time.
He was the NHL’s most valuable player in the second half of last season. With three years left on his deal, the Athletic says he’s something slightly more than 50% more than his current salary. Not as much as Matthews (or the absolutely insane Makar and MacKinnon deals) but still very good.