Salary Cap: Bodie, Ranger, Kuli, Raymond, Bolland, & McClement: What to do with our UFAs?

[Durrr]

It's not the salary we are worried about; it's that cap hit and how it restricts us from signing players.

How do you expect to sign a Kulemin or Bolland to a cap friendly contract when you just went out and dumped a load on Clarkson?

I can guarantee you, we don't give a rats ass about what is being paid to them. It's that little thing called cap management.

When you tie up significant money in the bottom 6, you won't be looking to upgrade in the top 6.


----------------

Our system is flawed, everyone knows it:

We made deals, that a cup contender should make (Bolland, Raymond, Clarkson) - Raymond was a okay move, can't really go wrong. But it is a compliment player that slides in to put you over the top. We clearly weren't ready, and are clearly pretenders. Glad this year proved it.

However it will likely be another "through the ringer" offseason. Ship out the coach, bring in a couple new faces, throw em in the blender and hope they get us to the post season.

We need to admit loss. Trade the players not in 3-4 year turnaround - keep the picks and bottom out like Colorado.

Next year is the best year to do it. I will watch all 82 games if they admit and stay true to what they are doing; instead of patch working a team together. I am not saying they aren't trying to win, we are, but it is clearly the wrong way.

Keep: Kessel, JvR, Bozak, Rielly, Gardiner, Bernier (Along with picks and prospects with promise)
Retain/sign: Certain guys that will help in the rebuild/turnaround (short term, cheap)

Trade the rest for futures.

Gear up to compete, following next years bottom out.

I commend you on your knowledge of the subject, don't see it in many people in these doom and gloom threads. Nonis, the man who preached patience, was in no way patient this previous off season. He jumped the gun in a huge way, after just 1 playoff series where the team looked half decent for once. Patience would have been standing pat on the team, not signing and trading for a bunch of players to make RC happy. Grabo should have been kept, and at least transferred to the wing if Carlyle was going to be too stubborn to play him in an offensive role. We could have had a compliance left right now, and a lot of cap space to play around with after the season failed, instead we have our cap destroyed.

I'd add Kadri to the "keep list", at least for the next year because we have him on contract anyways. If he impresses like last season, his value to our team and as a trade piece both increase.

This team won't bottom out with Nonis at the helm though, our only hope is if Timmy L. views the situation in a similar way and brings in a new guy with his own vision. If not, expect this team to be in shambles as it is now, with no clear direction, just playing it by ear.

As for Dion (hot topic on this board), I was a huge fan of the contract signing as I think he's a capable D man (I actually watch hockey, not just the leafs). So many people are incapable of evaluating players on their own teams subjectively, they can't get past the emotions. Dion is a top pairing D man, whether your opinion tells you this or not. However, I think it's time the Leafs see if they're any takers before his no trade steps in. He's been at the helm through to many tough times, and has yet to manage to pull the team out once. Can't think of a bigger way to shake things up then trading Dion to a team like Edmonton/CBJ/Florida/PHX, no one should feel comfortable at this point in time.

The core you listed is actually pretty solid, we have some great pieces in every position (except center I guess =/ ). Now is the team to do what a team like Boston does, adding to a solid core with responsible young players eager to win.

 

[selltrade]

Bodie for $750,000.00 4th line depth guy. Ranger for $1mill as 6/7th Dman.. The rest goodbye..

 

[TheGroceryStick]

I commend you on your knowledge of the subject, don't see it in many people in these doom and gloom threads. Nonis, the man who preached patience, was in no way patient this previous off season. He jumped the gun in a huge way, after just 1 playoff series where the team looked half decent for once. Patience would have been standing pat on the team, not signing and trading for a bunch of players to make RC happy. Grabo should have been kept, and at least transferred to the wing if Carlyle was going to be too stubborn to play him in an offensive role. We could have had a compliance left right now, and a lot of cap space to play around with after the season failed, instead we have our cap destroyed.

I'd add Kadri to the "keep list", at least for the next year because we have him on contract anyways. If he impresses like last season, his value to our team and as a trade piece both increase.

This team won't bottom out with Nonis at the helm though, our only hope is if Timmy L. views the situation in a similar way and brings in a new guy with his own vision. If not, expect this team to be in shambles as it is now, with no clear direction, just playing it by ear.

As for Dion (hot topic on this board), I was a huge fan of the contract signing as I think he's a capable D man (I actually watch hockey, not just the leafs). So many people are incapable of evaluating players on their own teams subjectively, they can't get past the emotions. Dion is a top pairing D man, whether your opinion tells you this or not. However, I think it's time the Leafs see if they're any takers before his no trade steps in. He's been at the helm through to many tough times, and has yet to manage to pull the team out once. Can't think of a bigger way to shake things up then trading Dion to a team like Edmonton/CBJ/Florida/PHX, no one should feel comfortable at this point in time.

The core you listed is actually pretty solid, we have some great pieces in every position (except center I guess =/ ). Now is the team to do what a team like Boston does, adding to a solid core with responsible young players eager to win.

Agree, Kadri should be on the 'keep list' for now. However as it stands, that second line is abysmal. I still have hope that he will come around.

I seriously want something drastic to happen that lets us know the direction. If we sign Stastny and trade Kadri....it's back to well and hope that the new mix works. Which is something I can't handle for another season, (I will, but it's getting old fast)

Lupul should be moved, value or no value because of injury. We need to define our team by moving players like him and letting guys like Raymond, Bolland walk.

Unless Bolland is okay with taking a cut to play for Toronto and use his experience as a boost to our youth, then it's an easy walkaway.

Our core is young, our core is not the flawed part. Our core needs some more youth legs. We drastically need a bottom out, ALA Montreal (Galchenyuk) or Colorado (Mackinnon); one that is done where you still have core in place that is young enough to endure a 1 tough season.

We need to build our D around Gardiner and Rielly and not the other way around. Get a coach that knows how to deal with these type of defenders - because their strengths should be used and not sheltered.

We need players that will graduate faster. The next little few drafts are on you scouting staff! mold our future.

 

[fahad203]

Agree, Kadri should be on the 'keep list' for now. However as it stands, that second line is abysmal. I still have hope that he will come around.

I seriously want something drastic to happen that lets us know the direction. If we sign Stastny and trade Kadri....it's back to well and hope that the new mix works. Which is something I can't handle for another season, (I will, but it's getting old fast)

Lupul should be moved, value or no value because of injury. We need to define our team by moving players like him and letting guys like Raymond, Bolland walk.

Unless Bolland is okay with taking a cut to play for Toronto and use his experience as a boost to our youth, then it's an easy walkaway.

Our core is young, our core is not the flawed part. Our core needs some more youth legs. We drastically need a bottom out, ALA Montreal (Galchenyuk) or Colorado (Mackinnon); one that is done where you still have core in place that is young enough to endure a 1 tough season.

We need to build our D around Gardiner and Rielly and not the other way around. Get a coach that knows how to deal with these type of defenders - because their strengths should be used and not sheltered.

We need players that will graduate faster. The next little few drafts are on you scouting staff! mold our future.

I think you'll be tragically dissapointed. Nonis isn't type of GM that makes drastic moves on a constant basis. He did get Loungo but that was because it was bad trade from Florida point of view and an easy one.

He's too passive and too scared in my opinion. Complete opposite of Burke and Quinn. ( How I miss Quinn )

 

[gabeliscious]

Bodie for $750,000.00 4th line depth guy. Ranger for $1mill as 6/7th Dman.. The rest goodbye..

im not sure it will even cost that much. if nonis gives bodie a one way contract im sure he can get him for $550-6 which would be GREAT value imo. i actually have liked rangers game the past little bit. i think he is getting his form back and would resign on the cheap. if he only wants to play in toronto then it shouldnt be too difficult. ranger also needs ~80 games to be eligible for a pension so that might give him some more motivation to stick around. his pension might be more valuable then an extra $200,000?

 

[Bertie]

Raymond with his crafty hockey brain and valuable points and crucial goal scoring is not going to be replaced easily.

The Leafs would not have had a sniff at the wild card if it were not for him. Seriously 45 (19 goals) points from a 3rd line player........are you kidding me?

Go and look at the league scorers table and see who that puts him alongside. And most of them are not 3rd liners.

 

[BraveCanadian]

People think that the Leafs are going to sign Stastny?

 

[Al14]

Raymond with his crafty hockey brain and valuable points and crucial goal scoring is not going to be replaced easily.

The Leafs would not have had a sniff at the wild card if it were not for him. Seriously 45 (19 goals) points from a 3rd line player........are you kidding me?

Go and look at the league scorers table and see who that puts him alongside. And most of them are not 3rd liners.

Exactly, those around these parts that want him gone, need to provide names for his replacement. I doubt we have the goal scoring answer from within.

 

[Al14]

People think that the Leafs are going to sign Stastny?

He's not the answer! Clearly will be on the downside of his career soon, if he's not already.

ROR may be the better option.

 

[SprDaVE]

Raymond with his crafty hockey brain and valuable points and crucial goal scoring is not going to be replaced easily.

The Leafs would not have had a sniff at the wild card if it were not for him. Seriously 45 (19 goals) points from a 3rd line player........are you kidding me?

Go and look at the league scorers table and see who that puts him alongside. And most of them are not 3rd liners.

He has done his job well, I'll admit. When he'll make over 3 times the money he makes now though, is he still going to be a player we'll want? Probably not. Also, he's played a lot more on the 2nd line then on the third line, with 2nd line PP throughout the season.

He's another soft winger that is fairly average defensively, that constantly falls at the sign of pressure and isn't strong along the boards. Sure he'll show some great speed and put up points but I'm pretty sure the issue with our team isn't goal scoring at all, it's stopping them.

He should have been dealt at the deadline. I understand why he wasn't but I said at the time that he won't be here past this season, win or not.

I'll gladly take a downgrade in terms of offence for a player that is harder to play against. We desperately need to be harder to play against.

 

[gabeliscious]

Raymond with his crafty hockey brain and valuable points and crucial goal scoring is not going to be replaced easily.

The Leafs would not have had a sniff at the wild card if it were not for him. Seriously 45 (19 goals) points from a 3rd line player........are you kidding me?

Go and look at the league scorers table and see who that puts him alongside. And most of them are not 3rd liners.

People think that the Leafs are going to sign Stastny?

raymond put up points but he didnt do much else. ultimately he might be resigned because we will need someone and he might be cheaper then kulemin to resign but he isnt the answer. he makes stupid plays, is soft, and weak defensively. at a million dollars he was a stop gap/bandaid, at $2.5+ he is a liability.

stastny is a scary player because you dont know what you are going to get. his age is fine, at 28 we could give him a 6-7 year deal but the issue is he is inconsistent. he is also making $6.6 million this year so i dont know if he will be taking less. at $7 million im not sure if he is the player we should be looking at. if people are upset with phaneuf at $7 million they would probably be upset with stastny at $7 million as well. it is a risk that could pay off though.

 

[BraveCanadian]

stastny is a scary player because you dont know what you are going to get. his age is fine, at 28 we could give him a 6-7 year deal but the issue is he is inconsistent. he is also making $6.6 million this year so i dont know if he will be taking less. at $7 million im not sure if he is the player we should be looking at. if people are upset with phaneuf at $7 million they would probably be upset with stastny at $7 million as well. it is a risk that could pay off though.

So why are people talking about him like they talked about everyone else who got resigned the last few summers?

Every summer it is "after we sign so and so" who inevitably resigns where they are or signs elsewhere or turns into Clarkson..

Draft.

 

[fahad203]

He's not the answer! Clearly will be on the downside of his career soon, if he's not already.

ROR may be the better option.

Roy will quit if they trade ROR. His value is worth in gold to that team along with Duchene

 

[gabeliscious]

So why are people talking about him like they talked about everyone else who got resigned the last few summers?

Every summer it is "after we sign so and so" who inevitably resigns where they are or signs elsewhere or turns into Clarkson..

Draft.

im not the one advocating signing him. im just saying he could cost the same as phaneuf.

unlike other scenarios where players were ufa but ultimately resigned with their teams, there is a real chance stastny could test the market imo. with duchene, mackinnon, and ror stastny has been pushed down the depth chart. colorado might not want to spend so much money on him as well. there are teams out there who need stastny a lot more then colorado does. having said that it seems like roy loves him so i wouldnt be shocked if he stayed. could go either way

 

[Frelimo]

I have a feeling Bodie and Ranger will be resigned for cheap. Ranger, if I am correct, won't go elsewhere for personal reasons. He's a decent 6/7 guy, and for stretches much better than that. Need to make room on defence for an upgrade somewhere, but I'm hoping that's Franson.

Raymond is as good as gone.

I'd take McClement, Bolland, and Kulimen back for the same money, but I don't think that'll happen. The guy I want the most of these three is Bolland, but I also expect him to cost the most. I wouldn't be surprised if Kulimen is tired of playing here and wants to leave. I live him, but he's not worth offering a raise to. McClement is overrated on this board. He had a great year last year, but not so much this year. Sure he logs huge minutes on the pk, but guess what, our pk sucks.

 

[Jer416]

He has done his job well, I'll admit. When he'll make over 3 times the money he makes now though, is he still going to be a player we'll want? Probably not. Also, he's played a lot more on the 2nd line then on the third line, with 2nd line PP throughout the season.

He's another soft winger that is fairly average defensively, that constantly falls at the sign of pressure and isn't strong along the boards. Sure he'll show some great speed and put up points but I'm pretty sure the issue with our team isn't goal scoring at all, it's stopping them.

He should have been dealt at the deadline. I understand why he wasn't but I said at the time that he won't be here past this season, win or not.

I'll gladly take a downgrade in terms of offence for a player that is harder to play against. We desperately need to be harder to play against.

Agreed, he probably won't be here next season because of his salary. He's done AMAZING for a $1M player, but consider this season his showcase season. Teams were short on cash, and I'm sure Raymond knew he'd be getting a pretty good chance to rack up the points as a top 6 or 9 player on the Leafs. But now, he'll probably have offers of 2.5M and is it really worth paying that much for a player who while able to score, goes into long slumps, can't play d, and is as soft as tofu? I see both Kulemin and him being replaced by Ashton and Komarov (really miss him, our very own homing missle)

 

[kihei]

Kulemin, for sure. Bodie is good cannon fodder and should be cheap. Don't care much about the rest.

If any of the young core gets traded (unless the deals are spectacularly in our favour), that will signal a panic in our organization that will be lethal.

 

[pooleboy]

Kessel- trade to highest bidder of picks/prospects

Phanef- trade highest bidder for picks and prospcts

Lupul- highest bidder 1st +

Reimer- highest bidder 2nd+

Franson- highest bidder 2nd +

Kuly- 4 years at 3.5 mill or 4 mill for 3 years (or walk, shoulda traded at the deadline for a 2nd, **** asset management)

Bolland- 4 years at 3.5 mill or 4 mill for 3 years (or walk, shoulda traded at the deadline for a 2nd **** asset management)

Bodie- 1 year 1 mill

Raymond- gone (shoulda traded for a 2nd, **** asset management)

Mcclement- 1/2 years at 1.5 mill

Ranger- sign him to a 1 year deal at 1.5 mill, if not sign him to the marlies he was good their and i heard he enjoyed playing in the AHL

Keep: JVR (unless getting a massive overpayment), Rielly, Bernier

everyone else has a price (aka id trade kadri + Phaneuf to get edmontons pick outright at #2 or #3. They could use a young center as well as a top 2 Dman while we could use the pick to draft a top flight right handed Dman or a #1 C

 

[pooleboy]

So why are people talking about him like they talked about everyone else who got resigned the last few summers?

Every summer it is "after we sign so and so" who inevitably resigns where they are or signs elsewhere or turns into Clarkson..

Draft.

Every big name UFA usually ends up getting the Clarkson treatement. Want the big money better put up big numbers but usually UFA's dont. stop signed mediocure players to help us now, we need to help ourselves out in the future. DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT FFS JUST DRAFT

 

[SprDaVE]

Every big name UFA usually ends up getting the Clarkson treatement. Want the big money better put up big numbers but usually UFA's dont. stop signed mediocure players to help us now, we need to help ourselves out in the future. DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT FFS JUST DRAFT

It's almost like teams never sign a big ticket UFA except us...

Oh wait, that's completely wrong.

 

[pooleboy]

He's not the answer! Clearly will be on the downside of his career soon, if he's not already.

ROR may be the better option.

The best option is to tank and get a good center in next years draft.

Players we can trade for or UFA are players either teams didnt want or those players wanted to leave for a big ticket price tag. The best way to get players is through the draft. ROR is a dime a dozen player, he would be compared to Bozak in Toronto. We dont need that, we need a Mackinnon or Duchenne type of player and the only way to acquire players like this is through the draft. Hence the reason why we are talking about ROR and not Duchenne and Mackinnon because those are the players we need, not dime a dozen 3rd line centers.. we already have 1 of them playing on our top line.

McDavid isn't the only stud coming next year.

 

[pooleboy]

It's almost like teams never sign a big ticket UFA except us...

Oh wait, that's completely wrong.

how often do they workout?
Richards
Clarkson
Connolly
Scott Gomez
Drury
Brier

I can keep going, but i think you get the idea that UFA isn't the best place to make your team, acquiring a 2nd line winger to go along with your core that you have drafted is fine, but when you start signing the big names to 5+ mill 5+ year contracts are where u get into trouble. TBH i wouldn't even mind if Toronto just shut down their phones July 1st, tends to get the best players in late July anyway... and tbh Raymond who was a guy we gave a tryout too has played way better than our big FA signing clarkson.

 

[mydnyte]

Raymond
Bodie
Kuli
McClement
Ranger
Bolland

What happens to them realistically when the season ends?

They all want raises. Would you give it to them.

I guess there's a bit more money next year once Tucker and Armstrong are off the books.

Have you looked at the UFA list for next season? Anyone you want?

I don't make an offer to any of them ...Kuli maybe at the same contract, else ciao

UFA's Fayne, Stralman, maybe Niskanen ...and wildcard Pitkanen is he's finally healthy

 

[Commander Clueless]

To me, we need more strong defensive forwards who can pitch in a few points, like Kulemin. Not less.

I don't want Kule to walk, but I wouldn't be surprised if he did.


Bolland is 50/50 I think. Not sure which way the Leafs will go. I'd like him back if he actually plays instead of being injured.


McClement is a good vet to have around, and shouldn't be expensive.

Ranger I see sticking around as the 7th D.

Raymond is gone IMO.

Bodie is probably gone too, replaced by Ashton/D'Amgio/Broll, etc.

 

[Ricky Bobby]

Bring back Ranger + Bodie as cheap depth players on 1 year deals.

Goodbye Raymond. Too much of what we already have.

After that I'd welcome back Kulemin + Bolland. However, I'm just as much concerned about the term as the cap hit. I wouldn't overpay for either.

Toronto should be aiming to get players on 1 or 2 year deals with whatever cap space is left. 1 or 2 year deals only come with upside as they players can always be traded and will help create roster depth which means means guys like Percy, Leivo, Ashton will have to earn their rosters spots instead of being handed them (or we can always package these guys for other assets because of our depth).

One of these 1 or 2 year deals UFA additions (or even cap dumps) needs to be a solid vet Dman to replace Franson. Adding in a guy like Mitchell, Salo, Robidas, Hainsey, Stralman would be a huge upgrade.

Toronto can't fix everything this off-season and shouldn't be aimimg to hit homeruns this off-season and instead should be aiming to stock up on depth on short term deals which could lead to long term depth.

Deals like CMac as a UFA, Lombardi cap dump to gain Franson, Beauchemin to a 3 year deal, Kolzig cap dump to gain a 4th rounder, giving up spare parts for Versteeg at a low value point because of the cap who we later recycled are the type of deals that the Leafs should aim for. We simply need assets as much as we need to be trying to compete next year and don't need to be handing out long term deals when guys like Gardiner, Rielly, Bernier we'll need that money for in coming seasons.