Kyle Dubas said this, and I think this is a really important way to view this. He said, His biggest mistake as least GM, the biggest mistake I think I made in my whole time was not taking care of three incumbent contracts. William Nealander was up. Mitch Marner and Austin Matthews could have been done on July first extensions. The thing I learned was once we signed John to that AAV, we lifted the lid on the entire ceiling. You look at what's happened in Vancouver with Quintent Hughes, You'll look at New Jersey with Jack Hughes, you look at Montreal with nick Suzuki. And these guys who are younger guys who are the future of their teams, and no one's making above what they're making, and they're making eight or nine. I look at the LA Kings, and I think, first off, my instant reaction was, wow, the Kings finally did a good thing. I know. It's been a while. It's been a tough run for them. The second thing is, I think that if you look at the Leifs core and the way that the League has reacted since those those signings and the pandemic with the flat cap, all of them have pivoted to what the senators did last year with Jake Sanderson, and they're taking bets, and even the Leifs are doing it, taking bets on younger players so that the top-end stuff doesn't happen because they realized that structuring a team the way the Leaps have doesn't work.

Literally and reasonably, all teams looked at the situation the leaves are in and they went, Oh, we don't want to do that. And they're better.

Isn't it interesting, though, that But previous to that, when guys were signed to contracts like this, teams were made fun of because what people used to say was, Well, those guys haven't earned it. You're giving them a bunch of money, they haven't earned it yet. They should have to earn it. That was the prevailing thought.

I mean, if there's sure bets out there, make the sure bet. Mcavoy, McCart, Fox, you're not screwing those up. You're not screwing- Quintin Byfield, I think, pretty good bet. I don't think you're screwing up Quintin Byfield. I mean, to a way, way, way, lesser extent, way, way, way lesser extent, Dubas with the Joseph Woll contract that he's currently on, he's like, You know what? Three-year contract under 800 grand. I remember at the time being like, he's barely played. What? Another one was Logan Thompson with the Vegas Goldenites. Almost identical. Might be literally identical. Like, Those are the ones on a far smaller scale. I'll be honest. I hate having to do this every time we talk But it is the story, right? Yeah. I think people think, I'm not trying to push an agenda here, and I'm not trying to be bitter about it. It affects Every single decision the team makes this current cap structure. You have to bring it up every time.

Let me ask the general manager in the room because we need some general manager stage advice. Matthew Knight Nyees is going into year three of his ELC, Jesse. He had 35 points last year in 80 games, but a real great payoff performance. Again, that's two years in a row. Do you try to lock up Matthew Nize, who is eligible for an extension right now.

Yeah, that should be the idea, right? You get Matthew Nyees on a similar contract where it's five or six years, six or seven, ideally. For as much as you can, you just assume that he's going to grow into it and surpass the contract that you're going to give him now. The overarching thing that's on every contract that's signed these days is that the salary cap is going up. In the next four or five years, it's going to be $100 million salary cap. It's going to be very difficult to sign a bad Matthew Nye's deal as long as you don't give him a giant contract like the Marner and Matthews ones that they gave them initially. Matthew's like, That's a fair contract, even though it was way above market value. He lived up to it because he's Austin Matthews. Matthew Nye is probably not going to live up to an $11 million contract, but as long as it's reasonable in AAV and term, it's hard to sign a bad Matthew Nye's deal. So you do it and you do a long extension.

Let me ask you this. Okay, and I want to ask you this is for both of you. So Matthew Nye is a year older than Quentin Byfield. Didn't come in with the same fanfare because Quentin Byfield was a second of the role.

It was a bit of a difference.

But both play very physical games. Matthew Nye's had 10 points less than Quentin Byfield last year. And As I said, he's a year older.

Does not play center.

Does not play center. Quintin Byfield technically listed as a winger right now, but can play center. What do you think a deal like that looks like? If you were to just... It's July talk, right?

And they're actually the They're both 2002 babies. Oh, they are?

Okay, sorry.

But they're different. They're draft picks, but they're both 2002 babies.

So they're apart by a few months.

One's August, one's October.

There you go. Oh, come on. I know. They got to make a cut off. I don't sign for a dollar less than the Michael Bunting contract that he got in Carolina.

Four and a half?

Is that what he got? I want to say it was four and a half times three. Or was it three and a half times four? I think the leaves This should 100% try to extend him.

Four and a half times three.

Four and a half times three. If I'm him, I don't sign for a dollar less than that.

What if it's over seven years and you're giving up? His UFA matinizes, his UFA doesn't start until 2030. This is the thing. You- You sign a six-year deal now, you walk him to free agency.

If I'm him, I don't sign anything that isn't at least five years long. Because, again, there's incentive for the Lefs to do this early. There's not for him unless you make it worth his while. I say that because who's on the Lefs' left wing?

There's nobody. I don't know what they have in terms of depth in the system, but I don't think it's that thick.

Nize, McMahon, and a bunch of fart noises. And Unless you... Okay, Pontus Holmberg is a full-time winger now? Well, no, he's not.

Even Easton Cowen is a right winger.

Yeah, dude. Well, I'm sure he could play left, and it wouldn't be that big a deal. Also, Easton has not played an NHL game in his entire life, and may not this year. I think he will, but he may not. I think, listen, this is anti-leaf fan right now. This goes against everything that I want. But if I'm Matthew Nye's agent, he's made some money in his career so far. So what I do is I take him to Home Depot and I buy one of those, those little flamethrowers that they have, those little ones. Yeah, the little torches. To get rid of weeds. Yeah, I buy one of those to burn every offer the leaves give me. You have no left wingers. I'm heading into a contract here and I'm your top left winger. Give me six million per year. Okay, well, you got 35 points last year. I'm not doing that. All right, well, and I set it on fire. You're signing me now because I might fuck around and play this full season on top line and light it up. Give me at minimum five years. I would say at four.

Well, if I'm him. Then my question to you guys is we're going to have We've been stuck in the same Cap era for half a decade. Everybody got used to what a $3 million player looked like, what a $6 million player looked like. It's not good. That is going to stretch. Jesse said it perfectly. It's really hard to sign a bad contract. Really hard. And so what does... Let's say he improves by 10 points this year, which is a big jump for anybody. He's up to 44, 45 points a year. How much does 45 points cost you in this 87.5? But it's actually not 87.5. It's probably $93 million world because the extension doesn't kick until after next season.

Playoff performance matters, and what you bring beyond the 45 points matters. If he continues to be a guy who takes too many penalties, and he does, and he continues to be a bit of a defensive liability, which he is, I think he'll outgrow both of those things. You need to at least take strides in that direction. I still think, yeah, I'm asking for at least $20 million if I'm him.

Jesse, what do you think?

I think we have a bar here with Bayfield. It's very convenient that this was signed in the last few days we have this conversation because I don't think Nye can make over $6 million. I think he's not a second overall pick. He hasn't proved what Bayfield has in this league. So I don't think $6 million is in the realm of possibility. But anywhere at 5.5 or 5, especially if you get them to year seven and then you clean up some of the UFA deals, UFA years, like you said, it's starting in 2030, I feel like that's reasonable.

You're right.

They could go eight.

Oh, yeah. They could. If you're a team-I don't think he would.

No, there's no reason. No. If you're a team, because then you're buying UFA years.

Yeah, you're buying your own years. Yeah, that doesn't really make sense.

If you're a team that has a really good young player coming off their ELC, that buy field deal is great news. That's super reasonable. Okay, so when do your UFA year start? 26 or '27?

'26. '26?

If I'm nice, I want five years.

There's the bar. The buy field deal walks him right to age 26, 20, 29, and he's a UFA. That's why it's scary for the Kings. But you take that compromise for having buy field at 6.25 for all of those years. You're like, Who cares about that, 2029, right now.

That was the Matthews worrying it, didn't he? Yeah.

No, who cares?

And it's Matthews. I know it's different.

You have that thinking where you walk into free agency and all that, and there's a big deal at the end. But you don't care about all those years in between because you have to win now, especially with the Toronto Maple leaves. You give him You sign that deal and you walk him to free agency. But then when that time comes around, you sign the next deal and it'll be fine because he either earned all of the money you're about to pay him or he didn't earn it and you move on. It's a win-win..