It's crazy how bad Shanahan and Dubas screwed that franchise up. They were a 105 point team when Lamoriello left them with a young core of Matthew, Nylander, Reilly, Marner, Hyman, Kadri, etc.
Tavares has a NMC so I doubt they can do anything with him. Marner does too but I assume if a trade came with a new contract to a destination he wanted to go, that's probably doable. I bet they ride it out and tell themselves it will be better next summer when they have JT off the books. Essentially they are pissing away the absolute prime years of Matthews, Marner, Rielly and Nylander waiting for the end of the Tavares deal, that's absolutely insane to me.
On a side note, the core 4 takes way too much heat IMO. Since the Leafs management decided to go top heavy on forward contracts , they've always been built like the Blackhawks or Lightning teams after they won their cups and lost all their depth. It's almost like Kuch, Stamkos, Point, Hedman and Vasy need a supporting cast to make a playoff run. I guess you can blame the players for being greedy but it's really always been a management problem in Toronto. How else can you explain a team basically holding the line last summer with Nylander at around the Meier deal and then deciding to go up to 11.5 AAV 3 month later because he comes out hot in Oct, Nov and Dec.
Let's go Bruins! I'm here for the circus North of the border when the Leafs are hopefully eliminated in the 1st round again.