Why are people using the returns for expiring rental players at 50% retained, and 23 year old forwards on pace for 30 goals signed for 2 more years at 1.5M as a reason to keep bitching about the Toffoli return lmao, they're not remotely comparable situations at all. They're different trade markets entirely due to the cap flexibility inherent to Chariot/Hagel vs Toffoli.
These trades do not mean we could have got more for Toffoli today without retaining. Rentals or players on ultra cheap contracts are valuable mid season because you can add them to the lineup without causing any future headaches or decisions. 4.25M for Toffoli is not a big number, but the teams like Florida and Tampa Bay that are throwing 1sts around like candy right now are unable to add him without forcing themselves to do a bunch of other moves to make it work in the long term. They are not comparable trades,
There just seems to be this unfounded belief that by virtue of waiting another month the price on Toffoli would have skyrocketed. It makes no real sense to me, Florida or Tampa would not be interested unless we retained (which reduces the value of the overall package for us even if we got more assets back), and it's possible Calgary would have gone in another direction instead. Yes, perhaps we could have got an additional 4th or something but these trades do not indicate whatsoever that the Habs could have done dramatically better just by waiting another few weeks to move Toffoli.