Speculation: 2023-24 Free Agency/Trade Thread II

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Ducks DVM

sowcufucakky
Jun 6, 2010
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40-ish points? That’s just flat out lying. He was on pace for 53 last year on a dreadful PP and offensive team

The rest is fair I guess. Probably true now…but won’t be for long IMO. He’s on a similar trajectory to several other high end power forwards
No, he scored 42 actual points, which is 40-ish. Imaginary on pace for points don’t count for players any more than they count for teams. He had 21 of those points in the first 20 games, then only 21 in the next 44 games. He went pointless for 10 straight games before having 2 points in the last 2 games, and looked bad doing it. His play fell off dramatically in both seasons. There’s ample evidence that his “on pace for” wasn’t going to happen.
 

dracom

Registered User
Dec 22, 2015
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No, he scored 42 actual points, which is 40-ish. Imaginary on pace for points don’t count for players any more than they count for teams. He had 21 of those points in the first 20 games, then only 21 in the next 44 games. He went pointless for 10 straight games before having 2 points in the last 2 games, and looked bad doing it. His play fell off dramatically in both seasons. There’s ample evidence that his “on pace for” wasn’t going to happen.
i feel like mctavish gets a free ride because he's the prototypical "big canadian who plays hockey the right way", so people just ignore his faults.
 

All Mighty

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i feel like mctavish gets a free ride because he's the prototypical "big canadian who plays hockey the right way", so people just ignore his faults.
This isn't meant to be a shot at McTavish, but it's kind of crazy how inaccurate his draft profile was (or at least what I remember from it). All I ever heard was how big and mean and tough he was. He's really not that big (though I admit he is pretty sturdy for his size) and he doesn't really throw a lot of hits or mix it up physically. And he actually has much better vision and puck skills than I was led to believe.
 

Ducks DVM

sowcufucakky
Jun 6, 2010
52,941
31,204
Long Beach, CA
i feel like mctavish gets a free ride because he's the prototypical "big canadian who plays hockey the right way", so people just ignore his faults.
I think he’s young, and still hasn’t figured out how to play the game physically or mentally past about 40 games.

There’s also a bit of wanting validation for taking him at 3rd overall, and getting jazzed by the hot streaks, and ignoring the holes in his game.

IMO he will be good, but he’s a couple years off from it, and while I’m impressed by his serious nature and clear desire to be a student of the game, I also think a year in San Diego would have been better for him last year.
 

Hockey Duckie

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Jul 25, 2003
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I think I’d disagree and say he’s shown flashes of being a solid 2nd line center with significant periods of belonging on a 3rd line at this point in his career. 40-ish points isn’t solid 2nd line center material, and he takes far too many stupid penalties for the position as well. He’s also too frequently lost on his positioning and defensive responsibilities. I don’t think he’d be on the 2nd line of a single playoff team.

Yes, he’s 21. Yes, he was injured. Yes, he made Strome and Vatrano look very good for a month or so. Yes, he has great potential. But no, IMO he’s only a 2nd line player on a bad team at this point in his career.

Mac's early career is weird. He looked very promising in his first, full rookie season in the NHL as he worked his way from 2LW to 4C to 3C and then flopped around between 1C along with 2C. Huge positives was he played 80 games and was disciplined (44 PIM). It's the next season, or last season, that things went sideways. Looked amazing in the first 20 games and then looked broken afterwards.

Of course, we know now that he was playing injured for most of the season along with so many other youths. Are you basing McTavish's talent as a healthy Mac or a "playing through injury" Mac? The latter looked like shit, but then again he was wearing a boot and the next day he's playing on the ice.

I still see 1C in Mac, but he's gotta build old man strength to stay healhty and become a better two-way player. Year 1 in NHL was getting his feet wet. Year 2 was to focus on offense and FO's. Year 3, hopefully, will be improved defense as well as how to physically last a season like his rookie year.
 

FiveTacos

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Oct 2, 2017
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This isn't meant to be a shot at McTavish, but it's kind of crazy how inaccurate his draft profile was (or at least what I remember from it).

As the years go by I find that many draft profiles are total BS. I remember Jagr being described as solid but unspectacular, Getzlaf not being skilled or dynamic enough to be more than a 2c/3c, etc.. Just facepalm level bad.

So be careful what you believe with regards to any draft profile. They get it wrong an awful lot.
 

All Mighty

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I'm not sure where to put this (mods, feel free to move it elsewhere if you want), but I wanted to let you all know that I recently started a blog about the Ducks called "All Mighty Hockey Talk." I'm not a fan of self-promotion, so this will be the only time I post about it here. I'm not trying to be a writer or anything like that, I just wanted an outlet that I could use to post about whatever is on my mind regarding the Ducks. Since this is the Free Agency and Trade Rumors thread, I'll start by linking my piece on 11 right-shot forward options this offseason: Offseason Targets: Right-Shot Forwards

And here are a few links to other various pages:

Main page: All Mighty Hockey Talk
Introduction Piece: Welcome to All Mighty Hockey Talk!
Twitter: x.com

If you like what you read, feel free to subscribe (it's free), or even just leave a comment on one of the posts. And I would greatly appreciate any feedback anyone has for me. I'm new to this so I'm still learning on the fly. Thank you!
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Ducks DVM

sowcufucakky
Jun 6, 2010
52,941
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Long Beach, CA
Mac's early career is weird. He looked very promising in his first, full rookie season in the NHL as he worked his way from 2LW to 4C to 3C and then flopped around between 1C along with 2C. Huge positives was he played 80 games and was disciplined (44 PIM). It's the next season, or last season, that things went sideways. Looked amazing in the first 20 games and then looked broken afterwards.

Of course, we know now that he was playing injured for most of the season along with so many other youths. Are you basing McTavish's talent as a healthy Mac or a "playing through injury" Mac? The latter looked like shit, but then again he was wearing a boot and the next day he's playing on the ice.

I still see 1C in Mac, but he's gotta build old man strength to stay healhty and become a better two-way player. Year 1 in NHL was getting his feet wet. Year 2 was to focus on offense and FO's. Year 3, hopefully, will be improved defense as well as how to physically last a season like his rookie year.
Both. I think the start of the year showed promise, but I don’t think you can discount his inability to stay healthy the entire year, not excuse his mental errors by those injuries.
 

AngelDuck

Rak 'em up
Jun 16, 2012
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No, he scored 42 actual points, which is 40-ish. Imaginary on pace for points don’t count for players any more than they count for teams. He had 21 of those points in the first 20 games, then only 21 in the next 44 games. He went pointless for 10 straight games before having 2 points in the last 2 games, and looked bad doing it. His play fell off dramatically in both seasons. There’s ample evidence that his “on pace for” wasn’t going to happen.
Laughable to use raw points when he has a 2 year sample size. You’re going to knock him for missing some games in his age 20 season? Ok dude

And to discount the early season games but not discount the later season games is laughable too

Lot of flaws here. Anyway, McTavish will be a great center for us and these posts will look like a joke soon
 

Ducks DVM

sowcufucakky
Jun 6, 2010
52,941
31,204
Long Beach, CA
Laughable to use raw points when he has a 2 year sample size. You’re going to knock him for missing some games in his age 20 season? Ok dude

And to discount the early season games but not discount the later season games is laughable too

Lot of flaws here. Anyway, McTavish will be a great center for us and these posts will look like a joke soon
“Solid” 2nd line centers do not have 21 points in a 44 game stretch. That’s not a laughable position.

Who knocked him for missing time? I knocked him for not scoring more than 42 points, and gave evidence for why adding in more games does not directly correlate to him hitting that “on pace for” number, because his scoring was not even distributed, and was actually getting worse as the season progressed. Saying factually that “he didn’t perform well because both games played and how games were played (probably) due to injury” is a much better supported position than the purely speculative guess as to how many points he could have scored if he’d played more even though he couldn’t actually play more due to injury.

My posts also say “he should improve with time”.

They’d only be laughable if I said “he will NEVER BE a solid 2nd line center”, and that’s clearly present in none of my posts.

Tell me which playoff team’s 2nd line center he’d have replaced this year?
 
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Hockey Duckie

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Jul 25, 2003
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Laughable to use raw points when he has a 2 year sample size. You’re going to knock him for missing some games in his age 20 season? Ok dude

And to discount the early season games but not discount the later season games is laughable too

Lot of flaws here. Anyway, McTavish will be a great center for us and these posts will look like a joke soon

I'm one of McTavish's biggest fan before he became a Duck. Last year was rough for Mac. TBH, I'm surprised he put up point while playing like shit after his first 20 games. The reason he was playing like shit was because he was playing injured. Yet, before he got injured, he was cheating offensively in the D-zone where he didn't do that in his rookie season. His first 20 games was amazing as he carried Vatrano and Strome to new heights. That's a long flash and, hopefully, good things to come if he is healthy most of the season.

Mac is still a work in progress and I like his progression so far despite playing injured most of last season. We know he puts in work in the off-season to where he displayed his offensive wonder in the 1st 20 games and greatly improved his FO%, from 42.3% in his rookie season to 51.7% the next season. It's a great thing you don't have to move much to win FO's.

It's good to know his flaws so that we can see if he improves upon it the following season. Anaheim needs Mac to improve. Anaheim needs all of its youths to improve or we'll be another Buffalo or Edmonton situation of waiting over a decade to see something positive.
 

Hockey Duckie

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Jul 25, 2003
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This isn't meant to be a shot at McTavish, but it's kind of crazy how inaccurate his draft profile was (or at least what I remember from it). All I ever heard was how big and mean and tough he was. He's really not that big (though I admit he is pretty sturdy for his size) and he doesn't really throw a lot of hits or mix it up physically. And he actually has much better vision and puck skills than I was led to believe.

To be fair, those assessments were when he was in juniors pre-draft. His role was versatile at the WJC-18s. from scorer to being a physical bull. He ran over team Russia at the WJC-18's. It was probably easier for him to truck over players when he was more physically mature in juniors, or as a 17/18 year old. That aspect didn't or hasn't transferred to the NHL. He looks like he deferred too much in his rookie season and then slowly increasing his presence in year 2. I'm still waiting for his toughness to show up, but dunno if it will come out.

As for his vision and puck skills, it was as advertised if you listened to EP's Mitch Brown's recap of the WJC-18s as well as watched bigwhite06's highlights of McTavish's WJC-18 performance on youtube. The problem was there were many discounting Mac had those traits on HFboards often. Central Scouting did rank him the #2 prospect overall, but, then again, so many on HFboards didn't want to believe in why he got ranked so high.
 

Reveille1984

Registered User
Dec 3, 2014
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I'm one of McTavish's biggest fan before he became a Duck. Last year was rough for Mac. TBH, I'm surprised he put up point while playing like shit after his first 20 games. The reason he was playing like shit was because he was playing injured. Yet, before he got injured, he was cheating offensively in the D-zone where he didn't do that in his rookie season. His first 20 games was amazing as he carried Vatrano and Strome to new heights. That's a long flash and, hopefully, good things to come if he is healthy most of the season.

Mac is still a work in progress and I like his progression so far despite playing injured most of last season. We know he puts in work in the off-season to where he displayed his offensive wonder in the 1st 20 games and greatly improved his FO%, from 42.3% in his rookie season to 51.7% the next season. It's a great thing you don't have to move much to win FO's.

It's good to know his flaws so that we can see if he improves upon it the following season. Anaheim needs Mac to improve. Anaheim needs all of its youths to improve or we'll be another Buffalo or Edmonton situation of waiting over a decade to see something positive.
That's the most stressful part of a rebuild honestly for me, especially when the luck doesn't go your way and you miss out on the undisputed elite/generational guys. You kind of just have to cross your fingers and hope that these kids end up dragging your franchise out of the black hole, even though most of them can't even buy a beer.

There's a world where Leo becomes a legit 1C, Mac becomes a 70-80 point 2C, Gauthier becomes a 40G winger, Minty solidifies himself as an elite 1D, etc. There's also a world where most of these guys flame out and become just "pretty good" players, or get hit with a rash of injuries or whatever else. And of course all of the possible iterations between those extremes.

Hopefully at least one or two of these guys can have a legit breakout season in 24-25' to start giving the fanbase something tangible to latch onto outside of just potential.
 

Bergey37

Registered User
May 19, 2019
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I'm not sure where to put this (mods, feel free to move it elsewhere if you want), but I wanted to let you all know that I recently started a blog about the Ducks called "All Mighty Hockey Talk." I'm not a fan of self-promotion, so this will be the only time I post about it here. I'm not trying to be a writer or anything like that, I just wanted an outlet that I could use to post about whatever is on my mind regarding the Ducks. Since this is the Free Agency and Trade Rumors thread, I'll start by linking my piece on 11 right-shot forward options this offseason: Offseason Targets: Right-Shot Forwards

And here are a few links to other various pages:

Main page: All Mighty Hockey Talk
Introduction Piece: Welcome to All Mighty Hockey Talk!
Twitter: x.com

If you like what you read, feel free to subscribe (it's free), or even just leave a comment on one of the posts. And I would greatly appreciate any feedback anyone has for me. I'm new to this so I'm still learning on the fly. Thank you!
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Best of luck to you!
 

Kalv

Slava Ukraini
Mar 29, 2009
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I'm not sure where to put this (mods, feel free to move it elsewhere if you want), but I wanted to let you all know that I recently started a blog about the Ducks called "All Mighty Hockey Talk." I'm not a fan of self-promotion, so this will be the only time I post about it here. I'm not trying to be a writer or anything like that, I just wanted an outlet that I could use to post about whatever is on my mind regarding the Ducks. Since this is the Free Agency and Trade Rumors thread, I'll start by linking my piece on 11 right-shot forward options this offseason: Offseason Targets: Right-Shot Forwards

And here are a few links to other various pages:

Main page: All Mighty Hockey Talk
Introduction Piece: Welcome to All Mighty Hockey Talk!
Twitter: x.com

If you like what you read, feel free to subscribe (it's free), or even just leave a comment on one of the posts. And I would greatly appreciate any feedback anyone has for me. I'm new to this so I'm still learning on the fly. Thank you!
View attachment 885827
Not using X but feel free to remind me/us about this. Seems pretty nice
 

Dostwall

Registered User
Jun 17, 2024
86
152
I am starting to get worried that the Ducks may get left without a chair in the RHD market.

Chatfield and now possibly Pesce are off the board.

As far as T4 RHD in free agency, that leaves: Carrier, DeMelo, Montour, Roy, Tanev, and Walker?
 

Dostwall

Registered User
Jun 17, 2024
86
152
From Pagnotta:

“After putting up 37 goals and 60 points this past season, Frank Vatrano’s value has never been higher. Verbeek and the Ducks are also taking calls on him, as he enters the final year of his contract.”

I wonder if Winnipeg would have any interest in Vatrano, in a McGroaty deal.
 
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