Free Agency and Trade Thread - Playoff Edition II

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11th among NHL D in terms of EV xGF%

58th when you adjust for Team Relative.

He’s a very good player. I’d take him in a heartbeat.

He's also a more offensive oriented defenseman. We don't need those guys. Even with Gardiner gone, I don't know if he would get PP time, and a lot of his effectiveness comes from that. He's not a PKer. He's not a guy who shuts down other guys.

I'm not saying he is bad, but he's not the type of guy who fills a missing need besides being a passable top 4 RD... at that point, so is Hainsey.

I stand by my statement. He's not ideal.
 
He's also a more offensive oriented defenseman. We don't need those guys. Even with Gardiner gone, I don't know if he would get PP time, and a lot of his effectiveness comes from that. He's not a PKer. He's not a guy who shuts down other guys.

I'm not saying he is bad, but he's not the type of guy who fills a missing need besides being a passable top 4 RD... at that point, so is Hainsey.

I stand by my statement. He's not ideal.

Lowest GA/60, and Lowest xGA/60 among Vegas defense who played 1000+ mins at even strength.

43rd among all NHL d-men in xGA/60
20th among NHL d-men in xGA/60 who played 500+ mins
12th among NHL d-men in xGA/60 who played 1000+ mins

31st among NHL d-men in RelTmxGA/60 who played 1000+ mins

Thinking he is an offensive guy is wrong. He's good at both ends of the ice. Extremely effective. I would 100% trust him beside Rielly, with say, Muzzin and Dermott on the 2nd pair.
 
We didn't need Tavares or Muzzin? Don't need Mikheyev, Kivihalme, Korshkov, Petan?
Exactly. Of all the players who got traded during last season, there are two players that I think Leafs could really use, Coyle(who went to Bruins) and Stone. But I think the price for them are too high for the Leafs.
 
Lowest GA/60, and Lowest xGA/60 among Vegas defense who played 1000+ mins at even strength.

43rd among all NHL d-men in xGA/60
20th among NHL d-men in xGA/60 who played 500+ mins
12th among NHL d-men in xGA/60 who played 1000+ mins

31st among NHL d-men in RelTmxGA/60 who played 1000+ mins

Thinking he is an offensive guy is wrong. He's good at both ends of the ice. Extremely effective. I would 100% trust him beside Rielly, with say, Muzzin and Dermott on the 2nd pair.

How often is he deployed defensively?His 60%+ zone starts definitely say he's not going to be used defensively. If the guy is used in defensive situations, I would expect him to have a high GF and a low GA. It's not any different than Corsi in that regard really. If you are a defenseman who plays a lot of offensive minutes and not a lot of defensive minutes, you better be near the top in the NHL.

Also, this is a guy who plays less than 20 mins per night, likely not against top competition. He's not suddenly going to play 22-23 against top competition like Rielly does.
 
We didn't need Tavares or Muzzin? Don't need Mikheyev, Kivihalme, Korshkov, Petan?
I was refering to aquiring Petan when Babcock wanted someone with size! However, Babcock had Leivo at 6'2", and refused to use him!

Who says any of these guys, Mikheyev, Kivihalme, or Korshkov, even amount to anything? A bird in hand is better than 2 in the bush. The bird in hand was Leivo, and he wasn't even given a reasonable chance.

Muzzin wasn't exactly the right handed Dman Babcock wanted either.
 
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Lowest GA/60, and Lowest xGA/60 among Vegas defense who played 1000+ mins at even strength.

43rd among all NHL d-men in xGA/60
20th among NHL d-men in xGA/60 who played 500+ mins
12th among NHL d-men in xGA/60 who played 1000+ mins

31st among NHL d-men in RelTmxGA/60 who played 1000+ mins

Thinking he is an offensive guy is wrong. He's good at both ends of the ice. Extremely effective. I would 100% trust him beside Rielly, with say, Muzzin and Dermott on the 2nd pair.

How often is he deployed defensively?His 60%+ zone starts definitely say he's not going to be used defensively. If the guy is used in defensive situations, I would expect him to have a high GF and a low GA. It's not any different than Corsi in that regard really. If you are a defenseman who plays a lot of offensive minutes and not a lot of defensive minutes, you better be near the top in the NHL.

Also, this is a guy who plays less than 20 mins per night, likely not against top competition. He's not suddenly going to play 22-23 against top competition like Rielly does.

Cor, the stats are nice but SOB is right, Miller isn't a strong defensive player, he could probably do alright with a guy like Muzzin babysitting him but if the idea was to deploy Muzzin in a shut down role, Miller wouldn't be the right partner.

Miller has some appealing aspects, great heavy shot, good break out passes, and he can skate, he also throws the body a bit but he is a bit weak defensively. I don't know if we're the team that could really shelter him, we'd really need to tidy up our break outs and in zone coverage.
 
How often is he deployed defensively?His 60%+ zone starts definitely say he's not going to be used defensively. If the guy is used in defensive situations, I would expect him to have a high GF and a low GA. It's not any different than Corsi in that regard really. If you are a defenseman who plays a lot of offensive minutes and not a lot of defensive minutes, you better be near the top in the NHL.

Also, this is a guy who plays less than 20 mins per night, likely not against top competition. He's not suddenly going to play 22-23 against top competition like Rielly does.

Colin Miller has the third highest TOI_GP on the Vegas defense at Even Strength. He averages about 2.5 minutes less than Rielly at even strength. There's a difference but it's hardly drastic. Rielly starts in the offensive zone, 36% of the time, while Miller starts there 39% of the time. Again, there's a difference, but not drastic.

In terms of QoC:
Miller: 28.51 Qoc TOI% - 49.69 Qoc CF%
Rielly: 29.48 Qoc TOI% - 50.03 Qoc CF%

Again, a difference, but not drastic.

Point being, every differential stat you look at, Miller excels at. Whether it be expected goals, shot rates, production rates. He's solid at every aspect. Does he get the toughest zone start usage in the league? No, does he get the easiest? Not even close. Same thing with competition. He doesn't face the toughest, but he faces far from the easiest. These stats are per Evolving Hockey and Corsica btw

Looking at GAR, based on this season, Colin Miller would be our 2nd best d-man option next year, behind just Rielly. And this was a down year for him. In 2017-18, he was in the elite tier in terms of GAR. He may not be quite that good next season, but he'll be better than he was this season, and that's a player that significantly improves us.

Point being, at 3.8M for the next 3 seasons, at 26 years old, there isn't a more valuable option, dollar wise, for us to target, with the exception of maybe Brett Pesce, and I just don't see Carolina parting with him anymore.

We shouldn't allow the window to get Miller close like it did with Pesce.
 
Lowest GA/60, and Lowest xGA/60 among Vegas defense who played 1000+ mins at even strength.

43rd among all NHL d-men in xGA/60
20th among NHL d-men in xGA/60 who played 500+ mins
12th among NHL d-men in xGA/60 who played 1000+ mins

31st among NHL d-men in RelTmxGA/60 who played 1000+ mins

Thinking he is an offensive guy is wrong. He's good at both ends of the ice. Extremely effective. I would 100% trust him beside Rielly, with say, Muzzin and Dermott on the 2nd pair.

Wasn’t he scratched a few times?
 
Didn’t you suggest Ristolainen? Miller is significantly better than Rasmus
Analytics measure the performance of the entire team when that player is on the ice. Just because their team does poorly when they are ice does not mean they are the direct cause of that. There is so much more to it. You cant use analytics to just say player A is better than player B. If Buffalo becomes good and Ristolainen starts putting up crazy good xGF and CF numbers later in his career maybe you will learn that valuable lesson.

Analytics are a great tool and i value it a lot but its not the be all end all.

Miller is a good player, he can pass, skate and shoot the puck well...He isnt necessarily a defensively oriented player which is kinda what we need atm.
 
Analytics measure the performance of the entire team when that player is on the ice. Just because their team does poorly when they are ice does not mean they are the direct cause of that. There is so much more to it. You cant use analytics to just say player A is better than player B. If Buffalo becomes good and Ristolainen starts putting up crazy good xGF and CF numbers later in his career maybe you will learn that valuable lesson.

Analytics are a great tool and i value it a lot but its not the be all end all.

Miller is a good player, he can pass, skate and shoot the puck well...He isnt necessarily a defensively oriented player which is kinda what we need atm.
Ristolainen has a negative effect on everyone he plays with. Everybody is worse with him on the ice. Measures that try to control exactly what you mention honestly looks even worse for him.

Analytics are not the be all end all but it is a multi-faceted evaluation tool, and it's pretty telling when every facet says the same thing.
 
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Ristolainen has a negative effect on everyone he plays with. Everybody is worse with him on the ice. Measures that try to control exactly what you mention honestly looks even worse for him.

Analytics are not the be all end all but it is a multi-faceted evaluation tool, and it's pretty telling when every facet says the same thing.
I could be wrong on Risto but i think hes put in a situation to carry a horrible team and his stats reflect that. Just an opinion but i think he has a ton of potential to become an effective top pairing d man...I could be way off as i admit i dont watch every Buffalo game, ive probably only watched 7-8 full Sabres games this season.

The leafs scouts would do a thorough job scouting his game before trading for him and they would probably be searching for reasons behind his poor underlying numbers. If they found uncorrectable flaws in his game than im sure they wouldnt trade for him, especially with the price tag that he would command. I highly doubt he is the guy we end up with anyways, more likely that it will be a smaller fish.
 
Mirtle: Four offseason scenarios and how each one would...
But the reality is that, on this entire roster, the Leafs really only have two bad contracts: Patrick Marleau at $6.25-million and Nikita Zaitsev at $4.5-million.

Neither situation is ideal. If compliance buyouts existed, both deals would be Thanos-snapped out of existence. In both cases, you likely have to include an asset like a draft pick or prospect (or both) to get a trade done. Or eat some bad money coming back the other way, either through retaining salary or taking back a contract.

Marleau also has a no-movement clause, meaning any trade would have to be finessed, including significant involvement from his camp. There would likely have to be an arrangement where the acquiring team would then buy him out, making Marleau free to sign elsewhere as a UFA. (Possibly even back in Toronto but on a fourth-liner’s salary, the way Brooks Orpik did with Washington in the summer of 2018.)

That is not an easy deal to make.

Zaitsev, meanwhile, has five years left on his contract, and other teams around the league are skeptical he can be moved without attaching a decent “sweetener.” He also has a 10-team no-trade clause that kicks in on July 1, so if you’re going to move him to a struggling bottom feeder that he won’t want to play for, you need to do it ASAP.

It’s difficult to know exactly how this will play out, but I expect the Leafs front office to at least attempt to move one or both of these contracts. If they can somehow deal both, by including appealing non-roster assets, suddenly Toronto’s cap situation becomes very favourable.
If Marleau and Zaitsev both stay, and Marner successfully pushes for one of the largest contracts for a winger in NHL history, yes, things get really tough and they’re going to lose good players. But in talking to several sources the past few weeks, I consider it unlikely that that’s how this summer will play out.

All indications are the Leafs front office is going to be more proactive than that in finding a solution. If they’re successful, they can potentially even add another impact player on the back end.

And that will be the biggest story of their offseason.


As long as Marner gets signed, of course. Which remains priority No. 1.
 
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I could be wrong on Risto but i think hes put in a situation to carry a horrible team and his stats reflect that. Just an opinion but i think he has a ton of potential to become an effective top pairing d man...I could be way off as i admit i dont watch every Buffalo game, ive probably only watched 7-8 full Sabres games this season.

The leafs scouts would do a thorough job scouting his game before trading for him and they would probably be searching for reasons behind his poor underlying numbers. If they found uncorrectable flaws in his game than im sure they wouldnt trade for him, especially with the price tag that he would command. I highly doubt he is the guy we end up with anyways, more likely that it will be a smaller fish.
I wouldn’t mind gambling on him if the price is right. At the end of the day we’re going to need to try and fill the top pairing RHD with someone who is capable or someone who they think can become capable very soon.
 
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