Speculation: Roster Building Thread 2019-20 Part XXV

[Mac n Gs]

In my head, I've always had the expectation you're looking at a second round pick if he goes solo, or a more intriguing return if he goes in a package. For the latter, I've said a few times that I could envision him being packaged with Strome in a similar manner to Stepan/Raanta.

That'd be an interesting scenario, although it's tough to imagine what time of team would be willing to take on 2 RFAs that should both be due raises.

 

[bobbop]

With all due respect to DeAngelo, Yandle did more with less in Phoenix. He never played with anyone closely approaching Panarin or Mika. I watched many many games here and he was the offensive focal point of the entire team.

His defense on the other hand....eh.

 

[Avery16]

We were probably right to move Ryan Graves given all the LD we acquired in the sell-off, but we could've done a better job in giving him playing time to showcase him, maybe get more than Chris Bigras.

 

[Avery16]

With all due respect to DeAngelo, Yandle did more with less in Phoenix. He never played with anyone closely approaching Panarin or Mika. I watched many many games here and he was the offensive focal point of the entire team.

His defense on the other hand....eh.

We absolutely botched Yandle's time here.

 

[Kovalev27]

I hear the proposals, and I do follow the logic they're basing the opinion, even if I don't necessarily agree with it. But I just really can't see ADA going anywhere --- not unless there is some landscape altering deal that reverberates around the league.

Let's hop in a DeLorean and time travel back to June 1, 2017 for a moment.

What if someone came on here and said, "Okay guys we have a chance to acquire a soon to be 22 year old RHD. He's on the smaller side, but he plays with an edge. He has some baggage from his past, he's going to need to be steered in the right direction, and his defense will be average at best. However, over the second half of his age 23 season he's going to produce at a 50 point pace, and he's going to produce at over a 60 point pace through the first half of his age 24 season. What do you think, and are you potentially ready to give this guy a $5-6 million contract after his age 24 season?"

Personally, I think this board would've been over the moon and talking about how we never get guys like this, how this is exactly what we've been waiting for, how great it would've been to have Dan Boyle in his prime and not the end of his career, and how those are the types of players you roll the dice on with contracts.

Power up the time circuits and return to good ol' 2020, and I don't know why that would change for us.

Fox is awesome. He's great. But he's not motivating me to move ADA.

Lundkvist is awesome, he's a hell of a prospect. But he's exactly that --- a prospect. And I don't think he's a replacement for ADA --- they are very different players.

We need left wings, I get it. I'd love to add a young stud on the left side. But I think we can do that without having to move ADA.

There's a lot of maybe's out there --- and that includes ADA's future production. But where he is now is a result of continual progress, not a sudden surge out of left field. In a word of question marks and maybes, I feel a lot more comfortable holding onto actual progress and dynamic results at the NHL level, over optimism that somehow we can replicate that same progress and success again. The odds say we can't. Even if we produce results that are very good, it still would be hard to trump what we have right now.

At some point, when we're fortunate, there's not much ceiling left to aim for. At some point, you reach the top floor, and outside of a generational talent, you're just about getting production that's as good as you're going to find from all but the top 1 or 2 percent of players in the game. So if ADA's offensive potential puts him in that 96th or 97th percentile, I'm not banking on the guys behind him somehow hitting 98 or 99. Nor is my first choice to move someone in the 97th percentile, for someone who is in the 90th percentile --- with the full understanding that even a guy in the 90th percentile is special and rare.

well effing said

 

[Fireonk]

The idea of having about 20 million in cap space next year attributed to Shattenkirk, Girardi, Spooner, Staal, Smith, and Backes is both hilarious and horrifying to me.

 

[Thirty One]

The idea of having about 20 million in cap space next year attributed to Shattenkirk, Girardi, Spooner, Staal, Smith, and Backes is both hilarious and horrifying to me.

Would have been a steal in 2010.

 

[Off Sides]

The idea of having about 20 million in cap space next year attributed to Shattenkirk, Girardi, Spooner, Staal, Smith, and Backes is both hilarious and horrifying to me.

And maybe Lundqvist's 8.5M hit to play as a back-up.

If they are going to take back cap hits to get better long term players, fine by me, but even as is without Backes, the cap dedicated to less than ideal stuff I think should come with somewhat lower expectations about next years wins/loses/place in standings.

 

[Trxjw]

I think the ask of Kapanen or Labanc for Georgiev is rightfully overpriced. Gorton is just playing his best hand and hoping that one of the other teams will blink. That's the cost to force his hand mid-season or you can wait and hope the cost comes down in the off-season after you missed the playoffs or got bounced in the first round because your goalie shit the bed.

There's no real pressure to be had for Gorton if he waits and deals Georgiev for a 2nd at the draft because that's the "typical" cost of a goalie. There's bad press to be had for Dubas if goal tending becomes their downfall. There's pressure for Wilson because the Sharks' season is quickly slipping away because of bad goal tending.

 

[Ola]

Yep. This is my contention too. Foot speed means very little to me. I want brain speed. The guy that knows where to be first and where to put the puck before everyone else knows. That’s Hockey Speed.

Yeah, and like when you know of TDA's persona it is just really surprising how well he executes on these things. Like its so "easy" to do the opposite when you come out of juniors. Like to hang on to the puck a bit longer instead, at that level most top talents has the ability to buy themselves more time and its nothing wrong with that when the opponents let you do that, but it creates bad habits that are hard to shake when you get to the NHL level. But TDA haven't had any problems at all in that regard, if anything he has been on the other side of the spectrum often delivering that easy simple pass so fast and through that just pushing up the puck tempo on the ice.

Right now I think there is a bit of a risk that TDA can almost be a bit overrated, its not like he is top 10-15 in the league overall. He still has issues. But just in relation to it being an area that I hope that management can be more aware of, I think they miss judged a bit just how impressive TDA's play has been more or less from the get go. And I think it was the same in relation to Zucc. Things worked out perfectly with Zucc, but it was darn close that we got nothing at all out of Zucc and its easy to forget that he bolted to the KHL and more or less were done with us. Over a 10 year period, he was basically our MVP after Hank. That is a big asset to blow so to speak. Its a different situation, but the circumstances are still similar. The talk went, "is Zucc really worth 2m?", at the same time as you could have made a really strong argument for that Zucc was one of the top 3-4 skaters for us on a nightly basis, and the other 3-4 skaters in contention were all making like 7x-8x as much as Zucc.

 

[Fitzy]

The Yandle-DeAngelo discussion can be summed up with a few points.

1) ADA is flashier than Yandle in the way he produces, which gets people more excited.
2) Yandle left here without any real controversy because we all knew we couldn't afford him
3) ADA is younger, and so folks think he may have the potential to get even better.
4) Everyone and their mothers, if given the choice, would have taken Yandle back over Kevin Shattenkirk knowing what we know now.

 

[RGY]

The idea of having about 20 million in cap space next year attributed to Shattenkirk, Girardi, Spooner, Staal, Smith, and Backes is both hilarious and horrifying to me.

We are ready to deal Kreider to get younger pieces back but we arent ok with taking Backes back for ONE year at 50% retained with it potentially meaning you get another young player back? Now if thats not the return then you walk away. But there are factors that could lead to Boston being willing to make that sacrifice.

And if you end up with Frederic and Studnicka, is the roster really going in the wrong direction for next season too? Backes probably ends up on LTIR. Maybe you move Buch and Skjei and bring back a better LD with the assets acquired for them. You re-sign Kreider.

Kreider-Zib-Kakko
Panarin-Chytil-Strome
Lemieux-Frederic-Kravstov/Studnicka
Fast-Howden-Studnicka/Vet option

XXXX-Trouba
Staal-DeAngelo
Lindgren-Fox


Forward group is vastly improved. You hope to get a legit 1st pair LD from the Buch/Skjei assets received and flipped. Maybe you can replace Staal with Rykov, making Staal the 7th. Kravstov only makes the team if he is on the 3rd line or higher. If not he needs to get 1st line minutes. Studnicka could then make the team on the 4th line with the ability to move up. Maybe they move on from Strome once they feel comfortable with Kravtsov/Studnicka’s progress.

I think that is a team that can starting making the push.

Again the forward group is made much deeper, potentially*, if taking on Backes results in getting a prospect like Studnicka.

 

[EdJovanovski]

With all due respect to DeAngelo, Yandle did more with less in Phoenix. He never played with anyone closely approaching Panarin or Mika. I watched many many games here and he was the offensive focal point of the entire team.

His defense on the other hand....eh.

Yandle was on much better teams than the 19-20 Rangers

 

[Fireonk]

We are ready to deal Kreider to get younger pieces back but we arent ok with taking Backes back for ONE year at 50% retained with it potentially meaning you get another young player back? Now if thats not the return then you walk away. But there are factors that could lead to Boston being willing to make that sacrifice.

And if you end up with Frederic and Studnicka, is the roster really going in the wrong direction for next season too? Backes probably ends up on LTIR. Maybe you move Buch and Skjei and bring back a better LD with the assets acquired for them. You re-sign Kreider.

Kreider-Zib-Kakko
Panarin-Chytil-Strome
Lemieux-Frederic-Kravstov/Studnicka
Fast-Howden-Studnicka/Vet option

XXXX-Trouba
Staal-DeAngelo
Lindgren-Fox


Forward group is vastly improved. You hope to get a legit 1st pair LD from the Buch/Skjei assets received and flipped. Maybe you can replace Staal with Rykov, making Staal the 7th. Kravstov only makes the team if he is on the 3rd line or higher. If not he needs to get 1st line minutes. Studnicka could then make the team on the 4th line with the ability to move up. Maybe they move on from Strome once they feel comfortable with Kravtsov/Studnicka’s progress.

I think that is a team that can starting making the push.

Again the forward group is made much deeper, potentially*, if taking on Backes results in getting a prospect like Studnicka.

I am actually not against it. I don't think you force it, but you have to have a buyer on Buch or Skjei that is actually fair value first.

I just don't necessarily want the always negative people to bring it up after every loss next year more than anything else....

 

[RGY]

I am actually not against it. I don't think you force it, but you have to have a buyer on Buch or Skjei that is actually fair value first.

I just don't necessarily want the always negative people to bring it up after every loss next year more than anything else....

I dont think that roster would be regressing next year.

 

[True Blue]

"Tony is so good offensively he doesn't need to play defense"

If this is for me, you are going to have a hard time finding where I said that.

 

[True Blue]

We were probably right to move Ryan Graves given all the LD we acquired in the sell-off, but we could've done a better job in giving him playing time to showcase him, maybe get more than Chris Bigras.

He had size and a physical edge to his game. AV had no use for him.

 

[East Coast Bias]

If this is for me, you are going to have a hard time finding where I said that.

no it’s just a generic sentiment by many here.

Yandle not being used correctly always revolved around people absolving AV and saying Yandle couldn’t be trusted defensively.

now defense doesn’t seem to matter at all as long as it’s one of our kids.

 

[True Blue]

now defense doesn’t seem to matter at all as long as it’s one of our kids.

Going to disagree to a point. I think that most rational people know his defense is not great and it needs to improve. Saying that people are willing to live with the defensive warts, is not the same thing as people saying never mind the defense.

 

[RangerBoy]

I think it depends on who is interested, where the pick falls, when it is, what else they might offer, etc.

You could be talking about the 37th pick in 2020 vs. the 55th pick in 2021.

San Jose has a 2nd in June. That will be a high 2nd. Wilson will be active at the deadline. He gets a 2nd round for Dillon. Maybe a 2nd for Melker Karlsson. He has flexibility to move his 2nd to the Rangers. That team is no position to rebuild with their contracts. Georgiev is better Martin Jones.

If there is a Kreider tax with Pittsburgh, there should be a Georgiev tax with Carolina.

Carolina has two #1 picks in June. The Leafs pick and their pick. One or both of those teams should make the playoffs. Both teams have 61 points. The Leafs are too good to miss the playoffs. They have their flaws. They are better than Columbus and Philly. Carolina will make it. The Rangers get the worst #1 pick of the two picks. The Leafs pick is top 10 protected this year. If both teams miss, the Rangers get the worst #1 in 2021. Georgiev can be the guy in Carolina for 5-6-7 years. They play in the Rangers division. Carolina has revolving door in goal. One journeyman after another. Georgiev can stabilize the position for them.

 

[Off Sides]

Yandle was a bad acquisition, they already had McD and Staal on LD. AV made it worse, but I don't think he really caused the problem. Similar to E Staal, they already had centers, yet AV did break up the only line that E Staal ever looked good on.

And I am in not a fan of AV, but I think management had poor foresight in both trades where AV just magnified it.

 

[DutchShamrock]

Sending (2x) 2nds to Carolina for Fox, in retrospect, was a no brainer. I'd be less thrilled if the chain of events in less than one year netted us Fox for Georgiev and (1x) 2nd. That's more of a push than a win, and a bitter push at that.

If you are going to torture yourself with trade trees and what ifs, at least flesh it all the way out and realize Georgiev was free. Undrafted free agent. Look at the bright side and call it Fox for 1 second round pick.

 

[LORDE]

And maybe Lundqvist's 8.5M hit to play as a back-up.

If they are going to take back cap hits to get better long term players, fine by me, but even as is without Backes, the cap dedicated to less than ideal stuff I think should come with somewhat lower expectations about next years wins/loses/place in standings.

Taking anything back needs to be for next yr only though... that's the key.

I couldn't care less how much dead space we have next season as long as we maximize who's on this roster/system and we have room to do what we want in the next.

 

[Edge]

With all due respect to DeAngelo, Yandle did more with less in Phoenix. He never played with anyone closely approaching Panarin or Mika. I watched many many games here and he was the offensive focal point of the entire team.

His defense on the other hand....eh.

I think it cuts both ways a little.

He didn't have the offensive help, but he also didn't have the defensive expectations either. As a result, Phoenix just kept throwing him out there and gave him a very long leash.

The result produced offensive numbers that are comparable to what ADA did if we look at his second of last year and first half of this year. If we just look at this year, they're slightly below what ADA's done.

But, in that same age (24), Yandle was also getting more than 4 mins more per night, or roughly 20 percent more ice time. When you combine the point differential thus far, including goals, and you factor in 20 percent less ice time, at worst ADA is on-par with him. Personally, I'd argue he's far more dangerous than Yandle was at the same point. To me, Yandle was the player you counted on to get the puck to the guy who wins the game for you. ADA is the player who can either get the puck to the guy who wins it for you, or just says "f*** it" and does it himself.

And that leads me to the non-offensive attributes of ADA. I like the edge he plays with, the passion, and his ability to set a tone for a game. I never really saw Yandle as a great tone setter. He's a guy who does well if the game is going well, and he contributes to why it does well. But I never saw him as a guy who can turn a game around. I see that with ADA. I think he's driven to be a game disrupter --- and that's someone you win with.

Yandle did, and to some extent continues to do his best work on "good" teams, but not necessarily great teams. To me, ADA has a chance to do his best work on great teams --- not unlike a Dan Boyle. Boyle was a guy who could give you something, even if he was held off the official score sheet. Yandle, eh, I always thought that was iffy.

And so ultimately that's what it comes down to for me. I think ADA has a chance to be Dan Boyle, and I take a prime Dan Boyle over a prime Keith Yandle without too much consternation.

 

[DutchShamrock]

We are ready to deal Kreider to get younger pieces back but we arent ok with taking Backes back for ONE year at 50% retained with it potentially meaning you get another young player back? Now if thats not the return then you walk away. But there are factors that could lead to Boston being willing to make that sacrifice.

And if you end up with Frederic and Studnicka, is the roster really going in the wrong direction for next season too? Backes probably ends up on LTIR. Maybe you move Buch and Skjei and bring back a better LD with the assets acquired for them. You re-sign Kreider.

Kreider-Zib-Kakko
Panarin-Chytil-Strome
Lemieux-Frederic-Kravstov/Studnicka
Fast-Howden-Studnicka/Vet option

XXXX-Trouba
Staal-DeAngelo
Lindgren-Fox


Forward group is vastly improved. You hope to get a legit 1st pair LD from the Buch/Skjei assets received and flipped. Maybe you can replace Staal with Rykov, making Staal the 7th. Kravstov only makes the team if he is on the 3rd line or higher. If not he needs to get 1st line minutes. Studnicka could then make the team on the 4th line with the ability to move up. Maybe they move on from Strome once they feel comfortable with Kravtsov/Studnicka’s progress.

I think that is a team that can starting making the push.

Again the forward group is made much deeper, potentially*, if taking on Backes results in getting a prospect like Studnicka.

We might be past the phase of adding cap attached to prospects. I guess my counter point is if we didn't have all of this dead cap last summer, what kind of deal is Deangelo locked up with? Buchnevich? Lemieux? TDA at a 4-6 year deal, probably under $4.5m. Lord. After seeing the JT Miller return in Vancouver, Buchnevich inked long term could be a feather in your cap. Lemieux signed after he shows his diverse value here.

I'm a fan of your thinking here but the opportunity cost associated with more dead cap is prohibitive for me. The major gripe I have with this front office is their unwillingness to just bit the bullet one time and let our dead cap issues go away.