Kasperi Kapanen (Aberg/J Lindgren) Traded to Pittsburgh (15OV/Hallander/E Rod/Warf to Toronto)

[JackFr]

Well, you can say much the same about James Neal (though his best asset is his shot, not speed) and he was pretty good with Malkin, so who knows.

That's just not true. Neal wasn't Wayne Gretzky but he was absolutely not just a shot. His underlying numbers were always strong throughout his prime including with Dallas and Nashville.

On top of that, if your main asset is your shot you can at least stand still and rack up goals as a trigger man. If all you have is speed then things are a lot tougher.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

I can't believe you are this dense, but our past interactions make me think you are.

Rodrigues isn't an "asset" any more than ZAR is. He's a depth forward that's ideally in the press box when everyone is healthy. Losing him is basically losing nothing.

"And I disagree on Rodrigues, I think he's a valuable piece to have as a depth forward. He's a guy who can play all 3 forward positions and play either in a scoring role or a defensive role, who should probably be cheap (less than $1.5 million) to re-sign. He's a guy I'd like to keep around, that's a good depth piece to have."

Salary Cap: - Pittsburgh Penguins Salary Cap Thread - JJ and Letang drama

- Empoleon8771, August 24, 2020

"Losing Rodrigues is basically losing nothing"

- Empoleon8771, August 25, 2020

 

[Gurglesons]

Kapanen isn't worth a first. And JR unloaded literally nothing and added more salary. Unless his next f***ing moves are moving Bjugstad, JJ and Murray I'm pretty f***ing livid mate.

Watch his stupid ass trade Rust. At which point I don't even know if I want to post anymore with how ridiculous this team has become.

I heard Sullivan demanded it and JR is not to blame according to local poster @Honour Over Glory.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

UMMM How bout Morehouse, Mario & Burkle ?

They're also .

 

[Jag68Sid87]

Lol I can see our attempts to offload Murray will include the return of a 1st now. Which on it's face makes sense, but seeing as how we got here; the asset management has been horrid

It sure has, and who is to say we are even looking for a 1st round pick. This organization treats draft picks like store owners treat patrons who don't wear masks right now. GTFO!

I'm totally sick of this bullcrap.

 

[Turin]

I mean, Jesse does the hockey breakdown thing as a career and is about the most trusted source for that sort of thing among Pens commentators, and I'm willing to bet he's seen Hallander more than the overwhelming majority of those here.

Pretty good reasons to give some weight to his opinion on a prospect.

Im not here to shit on Jesse nor am I going to simp for him because he’s on this board. A mix of Horny and Hagelin is a 7 million dollar player. There’s very little reason to believe that the 4th ranked prospect on the 30th ranked prospect pool is a star in waiting.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

I heard Sullivan demanded it and JR is not to blame according to local poster @Honour Over Glory.

I hear Sullivan is going to put him on the 4th line to teach him how to be a plug and play him as a LW on the 2nd line when his soul is crushed.

 

[Big Friggin Dummy]

Ok now I'm on the fire JR AND SULLIVAN wagon.


f*** this. What an awful trade.

Welcome, brother.

 

[Empoleon8771]

What are you talking about?

Barzal was a 16th overall pick in 2015. Kyle Connor was the 17th overall pick that year as well. Brock Boeser was the 23rd overall pick. Charlie McAvoy was a 14th overall pick in 2016, Suzuki was a 13th overall pick in 2017. You can definitely land talent in that middle of the road spot. Sure, you're not going to land another Crosby or Malkin, but the idea that "Oh it's just a 70 point player, who cares?" is ludicrous.

Why don't you list out all of the busts who fell in that range? All of the Kapanen/McCann caliber players who fell in that range?

Like I said, you would have had to have gotten lucky to get multiple players like that with those picks. For them to be good after Crosby and Malkin leave, they would have to get 2-3 hits on guys like Barzal, Boeser and McAvoy. They would have to be incredibly lucky to get that.

 

[Empoleon8771]

"And I disagree on Rodrigues, I think he's a valuable piece to have as a depth forward. He's a guy who can play all 3 forward positions and play either in a scoring role or a defensive role, who should probably be cheap (less than $1.5 million) to re-sign. He's a guy I'd like to keep around, that's a good depth piece to have."

Salary Cap: - Pittsburgh Penguins Salary Cap Thread - JJ and Letang drama

- Empoleon8771, August 24, 2020

"Losing Rodrigues is basically losing nothing"

- Empoleon8771, August 25, 2020

I really wish you weren't this dense, but honestly I'm not surprised.

Both of those can be true: Rodrigues is a good extra forward to have for all of the seasons I said, while he's not a loss to lose in a trade. It's pretty astounding that you're making a big shit out of that because I said a guy I'd like to keep as a 14th forward is also not a significant loss in a trade.

 

[Tacitus Kilgore]

Kapanen isn't worth a first. And JR unloaded literally nothing and added more salary. Unless his next f***ing moves are moving Bjugstad, JJ and Murray I'm pretty f***ing livid mate.

Watch his stupid ass trade Rust. At which point I don't even know if I want to post anymore with how ridiculous this team has become.

Imo Kappy is worth a 25-31st in a lesser draft. Thats obviosuly not the case here though. Agreed on the rest

 

[Big Friggin Dummy]

The only way I see that this deal makes sense is if JR has some f***ing 4D chess strategy lined up to move Murray, Rust, and Hornqvist (not all in the same move, necessarily) to land a top-10 pick and stud 3C.

 

[MrBrightside]

I dislike the trade more than I like the trade but are people seriously getting hung up on Evan Rodrigues? You can find 10 of those guys every offseason as free agents. He was almost certain to cost more in arbitration than he'd have been worth, and Sullivan clearly didn't want to play him anyway.

 

[Jesse]

I'm using baseball's definition of "replacement level", which is the widely used way that "replacement level" is used. If you're going to use common phrases in ways that they don't mean, you should probably clarify that.

I wouldn't be calling bullshit if you would have said "Kapanen's a good 3rd liner". I called bullshit on you saying he's been below replacement level for 3 of 4 years, based on what "replacement level" is widely used as. To me, "replacement level" means "extra forward or 7th D" based on how it's used in the MLB.

Okay, we're not talking about the same thing then. I wouldn't use the term replacement level to describe an extra forward or 7th D. I'll be honest, I don't know the first thing about baseball. The way I learned to look at it in hockey is that you can be below replacement level essentially puts you in the bottom half of forwards in the league. It's judging your performance against your peers in the league. For me, if a forward is in the worse half of the league with regards to performance, they're below replacement level. Because the number of players who can give you the same value in production, or more value in production, are numerous. Once you slip into the 40% range, it isn't hard to find replacements for the performance.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

Let me be clear. I like kapanen.

I don't like losing a first and still having the shitty contracts on this team.

That is a wasted opportunity in a draft where the Pens pick what, 3rd round now?

@pixiesfanyo piss off with the Sully stuff. You will never change my mind about how shit he is and JR, unless he magically gets a 1st back for Murray and dumps those bad contacts I talked about in his next moves, this better be his last f***ing year here.

 

[Jag68Sid87]

Sid and G are declining as goal scorers as they age and they’ve always been pass first players who don’t shoot a lot...Jake is the only one imo and who knows what’ll happen with him with his shoulder...I think the top 6 could use a Pastrnak for sure...

For sure we do, but do you know how to acquire a Pastrnak? You draft one in the first round. OR, you make a very smart trade.

In other words, we are not acquiring a Pastrnak. Besides, this team does not want a scoring winger who can create for himself and light it up. They want every line to look the same, every player to play the same way. To play like our coach used to play.

And since our coach is Mike Sullivan, and not Mario Lemieux, we're screwed.

 

[Gurglesons]

I dislike the trade more than I like the trade but are people seriously getting hung up on Evan Rodrigues? You can find 10 of those guys every offseason as free agents. He was almost certain to cost more in arbitration than he'd have been worth, and Sullivan clearly didn't want to play him anyway.

I don't think anyone is hung up on him. I think it is more the fact a user was talking him up as someone we should sign a few hours ago and now is saying he is nothing.

 

[ChaosAgent]

@pixiesfanyo piss off with the Sully stuff. You will never change my mind about how shit he is

I love reading these kind of sentences SO MUCH MORE now that I know you're British =)

 

[Lust for Life]

So do anyone wanna hear some stuff about Lindgren or are we not there yet mentally

 

[Empoleon8771]

Okay, we're not talking about the same thing then. I wouldn't use the term replacement level to describe an extra forward or 7th D. I'll be honest, I don't know the first thing about baseball. The way I learned to look at it in hockey is that you can be below replacement level essentially puts you in the bottom half of forwards in the league. It's judging your performance against your peers in the league. For me, if a forward is in the worse half of the league with regards to performance, they're below replacement level. Because the number of players who can give you the same value in production, or more value in production, are numerous. Once you slip into the 40% range, it isn't hard to find replacements for the performance.

Okay, so that explains the misunderstanding. Your use of WAR is more in line with baseball's use of WAA, which is Wins Above Average. A 0 WAR player in baseball is borderline between a MLBer and a AAAer, that's why I was so against that. A 0 WAA player is a perfectly average player, which seems to be more of what you're using WAR as. I thought you meant baseball WAR because that's how I usually see WAR used.

 

[SEALBound]

As I outlined earlier, these critiques have a habit of being an issue only after a player is dealt, and selectively. All we heard after we drafted Poulin and Legare was how skating issues in prospects weren't such a big deal and could be overcome. And Hallander was never considered to have as significant skating issues as a prospect like Legare.

Fair enough but like I said, it's usually not a good idea to be publicly dumping on a player in your own organization.

We don't hear every single behind the doors conversation with the front office, coaches, or scouts. His skating could have been brought up multiple times before. Just because you don't hear it doesn't mean its not happening. People here blast JR for never trading JJ but he's done it once already and was even in discussions AGAIN as we just found out. So again, there's a ton being said and talked about that we never hear about. So the idea of:

"Well, they decided to trade him partially because they didn't think his skating was very good" getting the response of "Nu uh! NU UH! I've never heard that! I've never heard! No one ever said that! They are just dumping on him to justify a trade!!!!" is a little silly.

It's entertaining watching Empoleon talk himself into this trade in real time during the course of this thread.

Believe it or not, there's a middle ground between liking the trade and hating it so bad you're about to jump off a cliff or slit your wrist. There's the initial "Oooo!" or "Fuuuuu!". After that, intelligent people that have control over their emotions and have the ability to hold a reasonable and logical conversation can actually step back from that initial emotional response and expand on it. Reactions to trades are not binary.

If the pick was 25-31....... ok yeah

but 15?
That’s exactly where you find gems in drafts from GMs who overthink things in the Top 10.

imean technically the barzal pick was Pittsburgh’s as well.

Mcavoy
Chychrun
Barzal
Connor
Larkin
Sanheim

Cherry picking a bit, but I get what you're saying. Now how long did it take all of those people to become the impact players they are? Only Chychrun made their team right away IIRC. All the others took time.

 

[Gurglesons]

So do anyone wanna hear some stuff about Lindgren or are we not there yet mentally

I imagine they hope he can duel it out with Ruhwedel for a bottom pairing role next to JJ. lol.

 

[Byron Bitz]

Hey guys wanted to give you the low down on Kappy as IV watched him closely his entire leafs career. The kid has some serious wheels, he has that extra gear that few players have. His wrist shot is good and he scores big goals at big moments. He plays on our penalty kill but I don’t think IV ever seen him get time on our top PP unit. It’s not nessesariky that he can’t play on the PP I think it’s just that he’s never been given much of an opportunity. He does not offer much in the way of vision or creativity. Also despite his speed I do not recommend using him for controlled zone entries.

 

[Tacitus Kilgore]

I think we might look back at this and the JJ signing as JR finally losing the faith of the fans. This one did it for me, JR can retire now and f*** off until we are successful again because i don't like even looking at him in the mean time

 

[JackFr]

Okay, we're not talking about the same thing then. I wouldn't use the term replacement level to describe an extra forward or 7th D. I'll be honest, I don't know the first thing about baseball. The way I learned to look at it in hockey is that you can be below replacement level essentially puts you in the bottom half of forwards in the league. It's judging your performance against your peers in the league. For me, if a forward is in the worse half of the league with regards to performance, they're below replacement level. Because the number of players who can give you the same value in production, or more value in production, are numerous. Once you slip into the 40% range, it isn't hard to find replacements for the performance.

Personally, when I use it I do mean 13th forward/7th defenceman. And even considering his points, Kapanen's on-ice impact on his team scoring goals/generating chances and preventing opponents from doing the same was at that level. Does that mean that Kapanen isn't an NHL calibre player? Probably not. But it does mean that he performed badly from an underlying number perspective in most of his NHL seasons which should be a major cause for concern considering that we just sold the farm for him.

He's an okay goal scorer, but he demonstrably doesn't make his teammates better. I think he's a bottom six calibre forward who's all tools no toolbox.