Now that we’ve had some time to settle following the opening of free agency, it’s time to give general manager Brad Treliving his flowers for the John Tavares and Matthew Knies contract extensions. With the Mitch Marner contract saga dangling over everybody’s heads all season long, and even more so after the Toronto Maple Leafs‘ playoff run ended, everybody wanted a quick, painless negotiation for Tavares and Knies. It may not have been as quick as anybody wanted, but once the numbers were revealed, it’s clear that the process was closer to painless than painful. In the end, Tavares walked away with a four-year contract worth $4.38 million annually, and Knies got a six-year extension with an average annual value (AAV) of $7.75 million. Considering speculation that the former could have gotten as much as $8 million on the open market and the latter could have commanded as much as $10 million on an eight-year deal, the Leafs made out with a real best case scenario here, and Treliving deserves credit for it. Fo
