from Ken Campbell of The Hockey News,
The Leafs once again raised ticket prices this season. One friend who has a pair of mid-level seats said the cost of his season tickets shot up 16 percent for 2014-15. What they need to show to their fans is that they’re in it to win it and what better way to do that than by giving a massive offer sheet to P.K. Subban?
I know what you’re about to say. Why would the Leafs do that if the Canadiens are just going to match the offer anyway? It’s a valid point, but let’s just say the Leafs get really aggressive and offer Subban a two-year deal at $12 million per season. Either way, they come out ahead because they either (a) get the player; or (b) put a division rival at a significant competitive disadvantage by forcing them to match the offer.
The Leafs would have to give up four first-round draft picks if they were to get Subban and there’s no getting around that. But would you rather pick 15th in the next four drafts or have P.K. Subban for two seasons and, most likely, beyond that?
Any team that signs Subban would have him for the next two years, which is plenty of time to get him signed to an eight-year deal. All the other defensemen of his ilk – Drew Doughty, Erik Karlsson, Alex Pietrangelo and Oliver Ekman-Larsson are signed to long-term contracts and aren’t going anywhere.
Subban would almost certainly look favorably upon a team that would give him that kind of deal. In fact, even if the Canadiens matched the offer, in two years when he becomes an unrestricted free agent, you’d have to think he’d look fondly upon a team that was most responsible for him getting $24 million over the previous two seasons.
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