Simmons: GMs not doing their jobs
What would it have taken for the Maple Leafs to make an offer of consequence on Steven Stamkos?
One year and $12 million? Ten years and $100 million?
The bottom line is: No one, including the Leafs, will ever know. Because no team in hockey made an offer on the restricted free-agent sniper, other than the Tampa team he re-signed with.
Some will call it collusion. Some will say the restricted free-agent business is bad for hockey. But this much is certain: Rarely are players with the talent and age of Stamkos and Drew Doughty available, and it’s not the job of hockey general managers to act as the conscience of the game. It’s their job to make their teams better.
There were no offers made on Stamkos: Worse, there haven’t been exploratory phone calls on Doughty, who may be the more complete of the kids.
Stamkos, we’re told, would have seriously considered signing a one-year, $12-million deal. But the problem with an offer like that is that Tampa would have matched it. The longer-term, larger-money deal, might have been too rich for the Lightning to match. That’s probably where the Leafs had to go if they wanted to play that game.
They didn’t. And the next shot at Stamkos will come at age 26, five years from now.
By then, maybe the Leafs will be in contention.