JB7 wrote:They do, have the deck staked against them to some degree (taxes/weather). But considering Canadian talent still wins a lot of championships, if Canadian teams can show they are capable of winning, they can draw talent that wants to win in a Canadian city.
Well it hasn't happened in a number of cases so far with free agents even with teams like Toronto when they're a top team now. Remains to be seen if that will ever change.
If a team like the Rangers trades for him, I don't see them having a lot of success, as they will probably run into the same problems as the Leafs trying to build out the roster. But it is NY. Just having AM would be a success for them.
The team that could potentially build a competitive roster around a maxed out AM is Arizona, because they can build a team from scratch, with cap space and a number of draft picks and young players on cheap deals.
That's the problem isn't it? There are few if any top teams that could take on a Matthews contract without getting rid of some decent players to make room in the process. As for Arizona, it remains to be seen if they're capable of building a competitive team to surround a star like Matthews that will be able to fight for the cup anytime soon. Also I don't see why Matthews would ever choose to go and play for the Yotes just because he's from there unless he likes playing on a team that would struggle to even make the playoffs and have a much worse chance than Toronto to go far. There's plenty of GTA and Ontario players that never have a burning desire to play for Toronto or Ottawa just because they're from that province.
Other sports have this problem too. I don't know how many star players want to go to the Knicks. Dolan is one reason. The other is the pressure to win in a market like NY, that has not seen a championship for a long time.
If the Knicks were a well run team I think more stars would probably go there. Why wouldn't you want to play in NYC and be treated like a king even if you don't win a championship and if you do win you're a legend? Sure there's pressure, but that's apart of being a public figure. Minus well embrace it than win in a small market where potentially much fewer people care.
Again, because teams that are generally successful in the NHL playoffs are strong defensive teams, it usually results in low scoring games. To win in the playoffs, the Leafs need to be able to win in tight checking low scoring games, which they have not been able to do.
I don't disagree that preventing goals is obviously important, but I think you're putting wayyyy too much weight on defense vs offense. Go and look back at all the Stanley Cup winning teams for the past 30-40 years and you'll see a number of teams that have won with average to good defense and/or average to good goaltending. On the otherhand look at how many teams that have won a cup scoring 2 or less goals for the majority of playoff games and the answer is ZERO.
The point is its possible to overcome OK defense and/or goaltending, but its NOT POSSIBLE to overcome poor offense. You can go back and look at decades of Stanley Cup winners and NEVER find even one team that have only score 2 goals or less for over 70% of playoff games and still win the cup because you're asking for the impossible. No matter how good defensively your team is and how good your goalie is, inevitably you're going to have games where you give up multiple goals and you need a good offense to have a chance at coming back and winning those games.
The Leafs with Tampa's offense and same defense the past 3 seasons probably makes it past the 1st round if not farther a few seasons earlier. The Lightning with the Leafs offense this playoffs and same defense has ZERO chance of making 3 straight finals and winning back to back cups. Tampa had a great top 4 Dmen and a top goalie for the past 3 seasons before this year and they STILL had a couple of games practically every series where they gave up a bunch of goals and they still ended up winning some of those games. Why? Because their offense was good enough to come back and makeup for their mistakes.
Also just look at the Leafs and the difference in the Tampa and Florida series. Against Tampa in games 3 and 4, their offense was able to rise up and make a comeback and score enough to overcome their mistakes and take a critical 3-1 lead. Against Florida they were completely unable to rise up and score more than 2 goals in games 2 and 3 and lost both games and were down 3-0 when they could've easily been up 2-1 and if they win game 4 again then they're up 3-1 once more. That's the difference between losing to Florida and beating them to go on to the next round.
I'm not comparing them one to one. The idea is Matthews is considered one of those players on another level like McDavid. Crosby and Ovie were both thought of as generational stars. Crosby was clearly better, but they were still considered together as generational stars.
Question for you: Who was the better player when it came to winning: Gretzky or Messier?
Messier was a player built for playoff hockey. Gretzky was not.
Matthews is a top player, but he's NOT on the level of McDavid. Maybe if he's in top form and plays amazingly well going foward then he might be somewhere near McDavid in terms of offense and the kind of impact he has on games, but right now? No Matthews is definitely nowhere near a generational talent.
Crosby is better than Ovi when comparing careers. No question. However Ovi is still a generational player when it comes to his numbers where if he plays the 3 more seasons until the end of his contract he'll be the NHL's all time goal scorer and be near top 10 in points. McDavid and maybe Matthews if he can maintain his goal scoring pace might be the only two players that have a chance to break Ovi's record.
As for Messier vs Gretzky I'd say they're two players that fulfill two different roles on a good playoff team. Messier was neeeded to bring leadership and some toughness with good offense. Gretzky was needed to bring elite offense that was nearly unstoppable in his prime. Why do you think the 80s Oilers were so good? Because they had both along with a great supporting cast. It would have been much more difficult for the Oilers to have won all those cups without one or the other.
They have been paid like the type of talent that can carry a team to success, but they have not. They have been given 7 playoffs to try for a run, with one round won in those 7 years. Time to move on. I would keep Nylander over M&M. Matthews can get the team the best return, and Marner is the most over rated of the 4, and not worth investing massive dollars into.
Like I said after so many tries it definitely is time to explore moving one or more of the core, but to move them after 3-4 tries when they were still in their early 20s? No way. I don't fault Dubas for sticking with the core for so long because these were and still are young guys who he believed could grow and get better and eventually take the team farther into the playoffs. He was wrong on that one and it now makes sense to explore moving one or more of the core to shake things up.
If it were up to me I'd move Matthews as well, but mainly because in some ways he's the most replaceable. Marner can kill penalties decently well and be a threat to score shorthanded. He also has the ability to lead a line and drive the play which is why when he plays with Matthews or Tavares he's usually the guy who carries the puck into the offensive zone. He's a great playmaker and he has good speed.
Matthews would be even better if he had good speed and agility, but he doesn't. He's got OK speed for a big guy, but that makes it hard for him to create offense by himself when he can't break away from the other team's players and make his own offense coming up the ice.
MacKinnon, whether he can maintain his play or not, cannot do it alone, and the team is gradually losing its talent to FA. Kadri, while untrustworthy when it came to stupid dirty plays, was still their #2 C and productive. Losing him hurt the team, but signing him at age 32 to a 7 year deal would have hurt them more.
Well with the team that they have now MacKinnon doesn't have to go it alone and as I said I think he'll be fine for years to come. The current Avs team is still very good and with a few adjustments will likely remain a top team as long as their goaltending is good. I think you're wayyy overrating the loss of Kadri because as we're seeing now his impact isn't nearly as big as one would think when his numbers have dropped and he couldn't help get the Flames into the playoffs. Hopefully he'll rebound, but the Avs don't suddenly become an average team struggling to make the playoffs with losing him though.
Marner's too soft to play C. It's the reason he is so overrated. While extremely talented, he is moved off the puck too easily.
Is Nick Suzuki a tough player? Heck is McDavid tough? You don't have to be 'tough' to play center. You just have to be good in the face off circle and at least decent defensively and be a good playmaker. Suzuki is slightly shorter than Marner and is about 20lbs heavier and is below 50% in faceoffs. Marner is far superior offensively. If your center isn't a big, strong dude there's no reason why you can't play him with wingers who ARE strong and can battle in the corners for you. Isn't that what they do with McDavid when they play him with Hyman, Kane or Drai? Big guys who love to battle on the boards for the puck.
