2025-26 Toronto Maple Leafs General Discussion

[rdowdall]

Do you think Rogers could inform the Leafs not to make any trades till Friday because they want content for their trade deadline day show?

 

[L K]

Obviously the tax factors into Tampa. I'm really fucking tired of the people who try and whitewash away the competitive advantage of players paying less money. Yes, there are tax loopholes to lessen the blow. Yes, you pay taxes based on where you play...but playing half your season in a no-tax state still matters. Playing in a place where the media doesn't give a shit about you matters. Cost of living matters.

But take a look at Tampa's drafting record:
2025 - 0 NHL games played
2024 - 0 NHL games played
2023 - 0 NHL games played
2022 - Isaac Howard (28 GP) - none in Lightning organization
2021 - Dylan Duke (2GP)
2020 - Gage Goncalves 115GP
2019 - Maxwell Crozier 52GP
2018 - Cole Koepke 140GP - not in Lightning organization
2017 - Nick Perbix 275GP
2016 - Taylor Raddysh 360GP, Ross Colton 385GP (most with Colorado)

Tampa is built on their drafts from 2010-2016 and trades/free agency.

The difference is where the Leafs splurge on acquiring guys like Nick Foligno and Ryan O'Reilly or guys like Laughton who are nice players but holy hell he has 15 points in 61 games with the Leafs. He has 10 goals in 61 regular season games and 13 playoff games.

Tampa acquires Jake Guentzel, Brendan Hagel, reacquires solid depth players like Yanni Gourde and Oliver Bjorkstrand.

Professional scouting has sucked for the Leafs.

But again, the Leafs are never going to get Kucherov for 9.5M, Hedman for 8M, Point for 9.5M, Guentzel for 9M.

 

[rdowdall]

Obviously the tax factors into Tampa. I'm really fucking tired of the people who try and whitewash away the competitive advantage of players paying less money. Yes, there are tax loopholes to lessen the blow. Yes, you pay taxes based on where you play...but playing half your season in a no-tax state still matters. Playing in a place where the media doesn't give a shit about you matters. Cost of living matters.

But take a look at Tampa's drafting record:
2025 - 0 NHL games played
2024 - 0 NHL games played
2023 - 0 NHL games played
2022 - Isaac Howard (28 GP) - none in Lightning organization
2021 - Dylan Duke (2GP)
2020 - Gage Goncalves 115GP
2019 - Maxwell Crozier 52GP
2018 - Cole Koepke 140GP - not in Lightning organization
2017 - Nick Perbix 275GP
2016 - Taylor Raddysh 360GP, Ross Colton 385GP (most with Colorado)

Tampa is built on their drafts from 2010-2016 and trades/free agency.

The difference is where the Leafs splurge on acquiring guys like Nick Foligno and Ryan O'Reilly or guys like Laughton who are nice players but holy hell he has 15 points in 61 games with the Leafs. He has 10 goals in 61 regular season games and 13 playoff games.

Tampa acquires Jake Guentzel, Brendan Hagel, reacquires solid depth players like Yanni Gourde and Oliver Bjorkstrand.

Professional scouting has sucked for the Leafs.

But again, the Leafs are never going to get Kucherov for 9.5M, Hedman for 8M, Point for 9.5M, Guentzel for 9M.

Yeah, I don't know why they can't create a cap that takes the tax into account. Like have the cap be different for each team based on what the state or province tax is. So the Leafs cap is the base plus the income tax adjustment.

 

[Bender]

Because they can make a bad deal and know that they still have a base that can beat most teams day in and day out. Also, in there case, it's just one bad deal. With the Leafs, what we have seen is that they are hesitant to bring up people from the Marlies, so they deal futures for veterans to play today. Not a bad strategy, but it backfires when none of those players stick around long term, because now you don't have a player that you can move to recoup the futures. It's like bleeding water in a space craft. Eventually you will run out because the system isn't closed.

The Leafs have also had some really unfortunate things happen. Most teams don't have a player die like Rodion Amirov did. They just don't plan for it. He may not have amounted to much, or maybe he would have been awesome. Truly sad that his life was cut short so young.

Overall though, it just comes down to Tampa being a better run organization. Call a spade a spade. They develop and promote within, and when they make a trade, it is usually with a long term goal or fit in mind. Plus they have an awesome coach. The Leafs don't have any of those things. At this point, they need someone to come in and figure out how to put this team back together, and the need to start at the bottom with the prospect pipeline and then build back up. Hopefully they can do it in a timeline where Matthews and Nylander can still drive a team.

As much as you have to push your chips in when you think you can win, they had no plan to develop from within to keep supplementing the group with talent. I don't see a world where this team really is a contender with our current prospects/draft capital and AM and Willy are in their prime. In AM's case he's fallen pretty far over the last couple of years - it's hard to see him as a $13M player for the remainder of his contract and then he can walk. It's pretty bleak.

 

[Bender]

rs. Playing in a place where the media doesn't give a shit about you matters. Cost of livi

Obviously the tax factors into Tampa. I'm really fucking tired of the people who try and whitewash away the competitive advantage of players paying less money. Yes, there are tax loopholes to lessen the blow. Yes, you pay taxes based on where you play...but playing half your season in a no-tax state still matters. Playing in a place where the media doesn't give a shit about you matters. Cost of living matters.

But take a look at Tampa's drafting record:
2025 - 0 NHL games played
2024 - 0 NHL games played
2023 - 0 NHL games played
2022 - Isaac Howard (28 GP) - none in Lightning organization
2021 - Dylan Duke (2GP)
2020 - Gage Goncalves 115GP
2019 - Maxwell Crozier 52GP
2018 - Cole Koepke 140GP - not in Lightning organization
2017 - Nick Perbix 275GP
2016 - Taylor Raddysh 360GP, Ross Colton 385GP (most with Colorado)

Tampa is built on their drafts from 2010-2016 and trades/free agency.

The difference is where the Leafs splurge on acquiring guys like Nick Foligno and Ryan O'Reilly or guys like Laughton who are nice players but holy hell he has 15 points in 61 games with the Leafs. He has 10 goals in 61 regular season games and 13 playoff games.

Tampa acquires Jake Guentzel, Brendan Hagel, reacquires solid depth players like Yanni Gourde and Oliver Bjorkstrand.

Professional scouting has sucked for the Leafs.

But again, the Leafs are never going to get Kucherov for 9.5M, Hedman for 8M, Point for 9.5M, Guentzel for 9M.

They were RFAs. Either they bend the knee on a reasonable price and not individually try and max out their value or they're getting traded. I mean NJ isn't a no tax state and Jack Hughes signed 8x8.

 

[Darryl]

Berube and Treliving out. Don't let him make any major moves.

 

[bustaheims]

Yeah, I don't know why they can't create a cap that takes the tax into account. Like have the cap be different for each team based on what the state or province tax is. So the Leafs cap is the base plus the income tax adjustment.

Assuming the cap continues to rise, I think the tax thing will start to become less of an issue. More and more teams won't be able to afford to push their cap close to the ceiling. But, I'm with you. There should be some sort of mechanism to even the playing field tax-wise. I don't know if that's a variable ceiling (feels more complicated than the league would go for) or having everyone get paid out of the NY office or some other measure, but there has to be something that can be done.