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Austin Matthews may well be the best negotiator of the current age. His 2nd deal had made over 11 million with more than 50 million in bonus money. It was only for 5 years. His new deal when it kicks in has an AAV of 13.25 million with around 49.5 million in signing bonuses in just 4 years. 100 million dollars in bonuses between those two contracts. Wow.
That said, at some point the Leafs and Nylander may well be splitting up. There is an expectation of post season success and factors outside anyone’s control could stagnate the cap once more. This is a team that wants to win and for now still have their 4 “core… players.
Looking at the Atlantic, it’s a bit of a guessing game as to who will be better, worse or roughly the same as last year. Detroit has brought in several new players and there is some fan discussion of them grabbing a wild card spot. Boston just lost Bergeron and Krejci. Bergeron is a center that leads and I think his departure changes the team quite a bit.
Buffalo, Florida, Montreal, Tampa Bay and Ottawa all seem to be in different places. Tampa (after back to back cup wins) saw about what you expected. Players finding a better payday elsewhere. Florida made a surprise run through the East to get to the playoffs. Ottawa will soon have new ownership as Michael Andlauer had the winning bid, but it’s a vast ownership group. Per Brian La Rose:
Andlauer won’t be buying the team outright as his bid has several partners. Those include Anna and Olivia Melnyk (who will retain a 10% stake), local businessman Jeff York (whose portion has more than 20 local investors), the Ottawa real estate-based Malhotra family, Toronto-based investment group Yorkville Asset Management, Paul and Michael Paletta of Burlington-based Alinea Group holdings, and OHL Oshawa owner Rocco Tullio.
We obviously haven’t see the newest iterations hit the ice, but where do you think things will land? Will 2 Florida teams and Toronto lead the division with Detroit just outside in a wild card spot? Is Buffalo putting everything together for a good run? Montreal is sort of a “wait and see… and Ottawa has some transition coming their way. The desire to get a better location is high on the priority list.
My gut feeling is that by December a couple teams will have separated from that pack and the wild card spot is going to be a battle that could last until the end of the season. The hope is that goals were added and defense will be somewhat improved. The team still feels “transitional… but the skeleton of the final version may be starting to appear.
Take your best shot, who will lock in the 3 playoff spots and will Detroit grab a wild card? We may revisit this after about 20 games to see how things look. Which team do you think will take the biggest step backward and which will make the biggest leap forward? A lot of moving pieces have made this offseason very interesting.