Bad Signing Loses Primary Reasoning

There’s a grocery list of reasons to not like Tyler Bozak being in Toronto for five more years at 4.2 million dollars per. He’s nearly incapable of scoring without Phil Kessel, the penalty kill improved when he was given fewer minutes, his possession stats below average, his faceoff advantage is negligible at best, he’s the least productive player on his line by a mile, he’s the least productive top-end faceoff taker in the league, he quantifiably has less chemistry with Kessel than the bulk of the competing Leafs centres over the years and several defencemen, and he cut his hair. I could keep going, but that’s for another day.

Lets look on the bright side today. They kept Phil Kessel’s best friend! After all, it doesn’t matter how good you are if you keep the star player happy, right? Pay the man what he wants and let objectively better players go to stay under the salary cap. You’re happy to have your best friend on the team back, right Phil? 

As Mikhail Grabovski would say,… [expletive]