VANCOUVER — During a post-practice meet-up with media in mid-December, Kyle Dubas pitched a confident, clear-cut message on the prospect of an offer sheet for his players.



Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner were both unsigned at that point and chatter in the market was running hot that one or both could be offer-sheeted in the summer of 2019.



“Our salary cap situation is set up that we could defend any of those threats with no worry at all,” the Leafs general manager said. “I know that they’ve become a huge topic of late, but I spend zero percent of my time having any worry about that.”



Just before the season, when William Nylander was still without a second NHL contract, he said the following on offer sheet drama:



“With our situation, I think there’s two ways of looking at it. There’s the fear — not a fear, but there’s the chance that, hey, an offer sheet can come. Can we match it? And...