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Leaf Rumours

Well, in fairness, it's an excellent argument. Luongo won't play "at least" 7 more years of his current deal. He'll play a maximum of 7 years, with it being pretty ****ing unlikely that he sticks around for 3.4 million at 39 years old to get through the 7th season. Not to mention the ability to send him to the AHL should he not be worth the money/cap hit at the time.
I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree on the seventh year of this deal. $3.4M is not an insignificant amount of money for a 39 year-old goalie, not even one who will have raked in as much money as Luongo has over the course of his career. Deeming it unlikely that he'll want to cash those paycheques strikes me as wishful thinking.

The odds of Luongo being good into his late 30's is pretty high, with the likely increase in salaries again after this bullshit is over with, a 5.33 million dollar cap hit with 80+ million dollar caps in 3-5 years won't be bad at all.

Would the Leafs be smart to sign Luongo to a 7 year deal with an average cap hit of 5.33 million dollar, with no NTC or NMC, right now? They would be ridiculously stupid to pass on it.
I agree. If Luongo was a UFA and Burke signed him to that deal, I'd have no difficulty living with it. It'd be a risk, but one that could pay off handsomely. Unfortunately, he's not a UFA, and his rights are controlled by a GM that seems to think that he needs significant assets in return for Lou, since having that contract taken off his hands isn't enough of a gift on its own. That's where I have an issue.
 
I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree on the seventh year of this deal. $3.4M is not an insignificant amount of money for a 39 year-old goalie, not even one who will have raked in as much money as Luongo has over the course of his career. Deeming it unlikely that he'll want to cash those paycheques strikes me as wishful thinking.

and if he's not worth it...he rides the bus in the AHL. Problem solved.

I agree. If Luongo was a UFA and Burke signed him to that deal, I'd have no difficulty living with it. It'd be a risk, but one that could pay off handsomely. Unfortunately, he's not a UFA, and his rights are controlled by a GM that seems to think that he needs significant assets in return for Lou, since having that contract taken off his hands isn't enough of a gift on its own. That's where I have an issue.

So, you're admitting that the contract isn't the problem then. You would sign him to the contract he's (ostensibly) signed to right now. At some point Gillis will play ball and take the best offer on the table...the question is, will it be the only offer on the table? The new CBA will determine in a large way, what the market for Luongo is going to be when they get back to playing games. But the current contract is not a problem for a team like the Leafs...in fact, it's designed very Leaf friendly with lower caphit than salary and no NMC.
 
I don't like the contract, I feel it is a negative asset, but no, it wouldn't stop me from dealing for Luongo. Like I said, the poison pill for me would be taking that contract (which I view as a negative) off Vancouver's hands AND giving them significant trade assets in return.

The most I'd be willing to give Gillis if I was Burke would be Tyler Bozak and a "B" prospect. And if Gillis wanted more, I'd be perfectly fine with walking away from the deal entirely and going with what we have in goal.
 
I'd rather just keep rebuilding.

at some point you have to make the decision to either push for it with the guys you've got or blow it up.

7 years without the playoffs and not a single pick as good as kessel, phaneuf or lupul. hopefully rielly hits that level, but the lefas history of banking on an accumulation of high draft picks hasn't really worked out for this team. ever.

this is the time to make a bit of a push. let's face it -- if this team is still trotting out .900 goaltending next summer kessel and phaneuf are not going to want to re-up here.

so you either go out and get the best damn goalie you can find... or you dump those guys. and given how hard it is to find 26 mpg 40+ point physical d-men and ppg forwards... and with a top five goalie on the market for relatively cheap, i think it's a huge mistake not to roll the dice on luongo.
 
I don't like the contract, I feel it is a negative asset, but no, it wouldn't stop me from dealing for Luongo. Like I said, the poison pill for me would be taking that contract (which I view as a negative) off Vancouver's hands AND giving them significant trade assets in return.

The most I'd be willing to give Gillis if I was Burke would be Tyler Bozak and a "B" prospect.

i don't know why you'd play hard ball like that. if another team jumps into the fray and kadri is what it takes to get it done then who cares. unless teh leafs are trading rielly, kessel or gardiner they are getting by far the best player in the deal.
 
The Leafs have never tried to build by accumulating high picks anyway. The only reason they've gotten any at all recently is because they have failed miserably at "competing now". The problem is they can't do that now, because to do an Oilers would likely take another 5 years of suck and they've already missed the playoffs for most of a decade. They have to try and build on what talent they have and keep them here, especially Kessel who is priority 1 for obvious reasons.

Having said that, they need more than Luongo to get anywhere. Just adding him would be a large improvement, enough to vault them into mediocrity from the basement even, but they need more talent to compete with the serious teams in the conference. A middling team can't be the goal.

If you're going to take on that financial commitment, you'd better be sure you can put a roster in front of him that makes the move worthwhile.
 
meh if you have kessel, phaneuf, luongo... plus gardiner and rielly... you have the makings of a pretty good team, imo. kessel needs some help up front. locking up lupul and having JVR will help. but they still need a centre.

even without, though it should be a playoff team. luongo is really good.
 
Well, in fairness, it's an excellent argument. Luongo won't play "at least" 7 more years of his current deal. He'll play a maximum of 7 years, with it being pretty ****ing unlikely that he sticks around for 3.4 million at 39 years old to get through the 7th season. Not to mention the ability to send him to the AHL should he not be worth the money/cap hit at the time.

The odds of Luongo being good into his late 30's is pretty high, with the likely increase in salaries again after this bullshit is over with, a 5.33 million dollar cap hit with 80+ million dollar caps in 3-5 years won't be bad at all.

Would the Leafs be smart to sign Luongo to a 7 year deal with an average cap hit of 5.33 million dollar, with no NTC or NMC, right now? They would be ridiculously stupid to pass on it.

We're assuming Luongo walks away from 3.4 million at age 39?
 
The Leafs have never tried to build by accumulating high picks anyway. The only reason they've gotten any at all recently is because they have failed miserably at "competing now". The problem is they can't do that now, because to do an Oilers would likely take another 5 years of suck and they've already missed the playoffs for most of a decade. They have to try and build on what talent they have and keep them here, especially Kessel who is priority 1 for obvious reasons.

Having said that, they need more than Luongo to get anywhere. Just adding him would be a large improvement, enough to vault them into mediocrity from the basement even, but they need more talent to compete with the serious teams in the conference. A middling team can't be the goal.

If you're going to take on that financial commitment, you'd better be sure you can put a roster in front of him that makes the move worthwhile.


Fawk finally someone taking the blue and white diapers off. Our team sucks. But Matt Frattin and Nazem Kadri at peak levels, might be able to inject something into an otherwise terrible team.
 
Have you guys seen the kind of money it often takes to get these kinds of elite athletes to come back and play when they're in their late 30's?......if you think a 39 year old who just raked in 57 million dollars in the preceding 8 years, is going to come back (while presumably not being the player he once was) just to collect another $3.3 million, I think you're out of your minds.

...and especially as Mindz alludes to, if he's been relegated to a back-up roll? You'd best hope something drastic happens where $3.3 million is worth a hell of a lot more in 2018-19 than it is today, or that Luongo loses a f*ckton of his money somehow, because unless he's still churning out #1 goalie numbers and is playing for the love of the game, he ain't coming back for that kind of money.
 
Even if he plays, and is a disaster, isn't one or two years of an expensive, shitty backup worth 4-5 years of an elite starting goalie? Seems like a no brainer to me.
 
In 18-19 the cap ceiling will probably be like $100M so that $5.33M cap hit shouldn't be a very big deal... especially for a rich team like TO since it sounds like you'll be able to trade for cap space... basically you'll be able to buy cap space.

They could basically trade Luongo away for a 5th round pick and pay his $3.4M salary and the "poor" team trading for him gets the cap hit without having to pay his salary.
 
Was having Ed Belfour in 05-06 not worth everything else he did previously for the Leafs?

No one in their right mind would say "I wish the Leafs never signed Belfour because he was expensive and done in 2005-06."
 
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