Aaron Ekblad discussion thread

[batting1k]

 

[FinlandPanther]

Lmao let the excuses fly.

 

[Necrobutcher]

I do like him a lot but there's no denying he's too slow. My crystal ball tells me he'll finish his contract here but after that Jacob Chychrun will be our #1D.

 

[pantherbot]

He probably is dealing with injuries. But that in top of what he's already had happen... It's not looking good. I remember reading about how the guy has to prep a lot before games now, that's never a good sign for a guy who's not even 30.

Sucks because he was on such a great trajectory to start. Now we're without a top dman and no team can seriously compete without an anchor at D.

 

[GermanPanther]

What does this means now, Ekblad wont get faster because his Injuring hindering his play. NP
This Season is already f***ed up, lets put him on LTIR make everything he can rest well and recover and give this Season up on the D Side.
Or does this mean the System works when Ekblad is healthy. But how can one player make look a System that bad.

Or is this the overall excuse about Player playing with Injury and thats why the System look so bad.

No matter for who or whoever this excusements is, he wont get better.
He was healthy and looked only a bit faster and better on the ice skating. His first Steps looks more like a trompling Elephant, then a human with blades on his Feets.

Yes his NMC the next Years, doesnt make his trade chances better, but im also for get rid of him, get a pick or another Top4 or 3rd Pair in return. Maybe we find a team who likes and takes him or need his asstes, which ever they are.
And then with the Cap open look around the League if you find a TOP 4 on Ufa who really fit in a system or better a Top 2 2Way or stay at home defensman. We have so many offensive assets, we need more player who can clean the Own house.

 

[Bag Of Beans]

I think he's much like Tro.
Once that bone breaks, it's hard to get back to where you were prior.

 

[Felidae]

Yeah I don't want to presume. Maybe Ekblad has tried working on his skating and just doesn't have the talent.. but aren't these things usually reported?

If I recall, wasn't it reported that Barkov worked on his skating during an off season, and then he showed noticeable improvement?

 

[Dr Beinfest]

Proposition: 3-way trade with a contender and Arizona. Ekblad to contender @50% retained, Chychrun to Florida, contender sends some picks to Arizona, Florida sends prospect. Bring the boy home.

 

[Panthers Propaganda]

if he is injured just shut him down the season is over anyways.

 

[stagger00]

Unless his salary goes down Florida should get good assets out of him.

He was good from the start, but never truly improved.
The supposed off-season training has never shown on the ice.
I think I just had too high of expectations for him and waited for him to improve his skating for too long.

it's even worse if his recent bad play is because of lingering injury issues, the guy is constantly hurt.

 

[batting1k]

 

[Necrobutcher]

I don't think he's really THAT bad defensively. It's just that he's so slow which makes him always late. They really should try to mould him into a stay at home Dman who also plays PP's. Oh and tell him to shoot as much as possible cause that really is his best offensive quality by far.

 

[ShootIt]

I could live with his mediocre skating if he could at least be great offensively.

Of course last year he was almost a PPG defenseman but this year he has returned to his average of roughly a ~0.5 PPG defenseman. He just seems off on stuff that isn't seen on the basic stats, even though point wise he is still at that ~0.5PPG. Of course our scoring is down, so his +/- is almost as bad as his 2016 campaign.

Maybe he's playing through injury or maybe he's Trocheck 2.0 and not really taking it seriously anymore.

 

[Gizmoskevich]

I could live with his mediocre skating if he could at least be great offensively.

Of course last year he was almost a PPG defenseman but this year he has returned to his average of roughly a ~0.5 PPG defenseman. He just seems off on stuff that isn't seen on the basic stats, even though point wise he is still at that ~0.5PPG. Of course our scoring is down, so his +/- is almost as bad as his 2016 campaign.

Maybe he's playing through injury or maybe he's Trocheck 2.0 and not really taking it seriously anymore.

Probably afraid to hurt his leg again, if not still hurting by it. Doesn't seem like he's going 100%, but has been better lately.

 

[ProjectPanthers]

He's definitely playing at around 80%. You can just see it in him. His skating has never been strong but this season, especially since coming back from injury, he just hasn't looked the same.

 

[Howboutthempanthers]

All Ekblad has to do is stay at his position. That's where all of his troubles are. He tries to skate up front with the forwards. And leads to all of his problems. Gets out of position so he has to do a lot of recovery skating, which is very bad for him obviously. But even if he was a good skater, he's a defenseman. He needs to play his position more than anywhere else.
And even the element of skating up with the forwards does nothing. All he's doing is making less space for them to move around and pass to each other. And when guys need to pass the puck back to him at the point, he's not there. Occasionally he'll get an odd man situation because he skating forward. But it's not close to what he could contribute playing back at his position.
And not only physically would it help him, but mentally. He would approach the game from playing back and influencing things that way. Moving the puck differently, playing defense differently. It's little subtleties that would make a big different.
All of his problems are mental. If he played to his position like he should, there would be a big improvement. He's not a forward.

 

[TheImpatientPanther]

With Benning looking like an offensive spark in a few years, Montour and Forsling here providing 40ish pts each or more, think it's time for Zito to cash in while Ekblad still has value.

I get he has a NMC until next July but if Zito is straight with him about not re-signing him, do it this July and ship him to Dallas for a some solid prospects/picks/roster player

Don't think he's suddenly gonna hit another gear in skating department and will be around 30 when new deal kicks in

 

[pantherbot]

I think Ek's trade value is probably a lot less than you guys think. The rest of the league isn't blind and not many can just take on a $7.5M contract without giving something back. Plus if we're trying to get him to waive NMC and it gets out that we're shopping him, we'll have no leverage.

He's been awful this season, but I think the best we can do here is play out his contract and hope he gets better. That or trade him for pennies on the dollar.

 

[Jean Luc Discard]

With Benning looking like an offensive spark in a few years, Montour and Forsling here providing 40ish pts each or more, think it's time for Zito to cash in while Ekblad still has value.

I get he has a NMC until next July but if Zito is straight with him about not re-signing him, do it this July and ship him to Dallas for a some solid prospects/picks/roster player

Don't think he's suddenly gonna hit another gear in skating department and will be around 30 when new deal kicks in

If Ekblad is not going to waive if Zito asks him about it, then he's just like Huby who wasn't really interested becoming a well rounded hockey player but rather was solely enjoying the Florida lifestyle and focused on putting up points while cutting corners in the process. To Huby's credit he managed to stay relatively healthy outside of achilles tendon injury which taxed his speed but Ekblad is just proceeding from a major injury to another on an annual basis.

Maybe a FLA-DAL-SJS 3way deal, sending EK65 our way, Ekblad to DAL and picks/prospects to SJS.

Ekblad is going to be overpaid no matter what. He's going to get some +9mil per deal with no hopes of living up to it. I wouldn't be surprised if the return is less than what the Yotes got for Chyk.

 

[letsgrowcactus]

I think Ek's trade value is probably a lot less than you guys think. The rest of the league isn't blind and not many can just take on a $7.5M contract without giving something back. Plus if we're trying to get him to waive NMC and it gets out that we're shopping him, we'll have no leverage.

He's been awful this season, but I think the best we can do here is play out his contract and hope he gets better. That or trade him for pennies on the dollar.

This is probably where I'm at.


If there is a GM who believes this season is an aberration and is willing to give us a good return, then sure, sell while you can. Otherwise, we might as well keep him for now and hope against hope that he can recover during the offseason and come back better, even if "better" is a downgrade from last year.

 

[Panteras]

Trade him. Looking like a DiPietro ending if he gets another injury. He’s also regressing and not getting any younger. Opens up much needed cap space to sign younger faster D.

If we think his value is bad now imagine when he’s due for his annual injury next season….

 

[WaitingForThatCab]

lol. Even as Weegar is being mediocre as all hell in Calgary people still can't stop with this shit.

 

[pantherbot]

If Ekblad is not going to waive if Zito asks him about it, then he's just like Huby who wasn't really interested becoming a well rounded hockey player but rather was solely enjoying the Florida lifestyle and focused on putting up points while cutting corners in the process. To Huby's credit he managed to stay relatively healthy outside of achilles tendon injury which taxed his speed but Ekblad is just proceeding from a major injury to another on an annual basis.

Maybe a FLA-DAL-SJS 3way deal, sending EK65 our way, Ekblad to DAL and picks/prospects to SJS.

Ekblad is going to be overpaid no matter what. He's going to get some +9mil per deal with no hopes of living up to it. I wouldn't be surprised if the return is less than what the Yotes got for Chyk.

I think for sure the return would be ess than what Chyk got. Ek more expensive, older, NMC, poorer recent play, even more injuries than Chych including concussions.

Honestly I'd be surprised if Ekblad returns more than a late-1st rounder in a trade. It's just not worth it to trade him.

 

[FrolikFan67]

I think for sure the return would be ess than what Chyk got. Ek more expensive, older, NMC, poorer recent play, even more injuries than Chych including concussions.

Honestly I'd be surprised if Ekblad returns more than a late-1st rounder in a trade. It's just not worth it to trade him.

Arizona had better offers, they screwed themselves a bit. There’s plenty of dumb GMs. They see a big right handed D who was top 6 in Norris voting last season, one of the better goal scoring D typically, and a former 1st overall pick. NMC aside, he still holds value amongst GMs I’m sure. It’s just a matter of making things work within the cap.

 

[Jean Luc Discard]

I think for sure the return would be ess than what Chyk got. Ek more expensive, older, NMC, poorer recent play, even more injuries than Chych including concussions.

Honestly I'd be surprised if Ekblad returns more than a late-1st rounder in a trade. It's just not worth it to trade him.

Purely from the Panthers point of view, I wouldn't trade much more than a 1st + mid-tier prospect for him but I'm pretty sure that there's at least one GM who considers Ekblad as a top20 dman who is worth +9mil per for the next +6 years. imo his 57pts in 61 games from last season will tantalize some Chiarelli/Benning/Flethcher-type GM who is willing to look past his injury history and deficiencies as a dman.