Roster/Rumors/Speculation/Trade Talk - 2023-24: Hotel California

[SayItAintSoJohnny]

Haha. Love what you did there. You went "last six seasons" to make sure you included those (2) 32 goal seasons (the only ones of his career) and to make the comparison in scoring favor Kadri.

Truth is, even with both of their "career seasons", Brock has been the better goal scorer between the two.

Nelson has 205 goals in 676 career games (24.87 per 82) while Kadri comes up short with 219 goals in 739 games (24.3).

And it isn't necessarily the half goal difference that tells the real story either as Nazem has gotten almost a full minute more of ice time for his career and played with 2 of the more offensive gifted teams in the NHL while Brock has played over half of his in a defensive-first runned scheme on the Island.

And no, Brock would not have to sustain his 22% shooting percentage either. In the three MOST RECENT seasons before both of their career years of 2021-22, this is where they compare:

Nelson: 69 goals in 206 games (27.5 per82)
Kadri: 46 goals in 180 games (21.0 per 82)

Truth is, Brock is just the better shooter to boot (was a 14-15% shooter even BEFORE his career season last year, compared to Kadri's career mark of 11.2%).

Even the five (totally smashing your argument that Nelson would need to "sustain his 22% shooting percentage for the rest of his career then he has a chance to continue being half as effective as Kadri has been for the past 6 seasons" declaration) prior seasons doesn't hold much water...

Nelson: 108 goals in 369 games (24 per 82)
Kadri: 110 goals in 342 games (26.3 per 82)

24 is half of 26??? Huh?

And as I have already pointed out, Nelson has been better more recently...
And guess what??, Anders Lee is a better per82 scorer than both of them, no matter which multi-year standard you use.

No, truth is Kadri would just be another overpaid (especially if we sign him to 7/49) 50-60 point producer on our team, who ISN'T the scorer that either Lee or Nelson are.....

Even worse is no one on our team has a contract paying them past the age of 35 and if we end up giving Kadri seven years, his contract will pay him through his AGE 38 season....

Correction. Zach Parise has a 1-year deal with us at age 38.....

At what would be 1/10th the cost

 

[Hunn]

My gosh... If true, what huge overpayment in both cap hit and term.

 

[seafoam]

Unless Lambert had guys like Beauvillier, Bailey, Pulock, doing 6 hours a day firing at a shooter tutor, I don’t see how he can turn career non-finisher into finishers.

Next season is a pivotal year for Beauvillier whether he's an Islander or not. Does he continue to trend towards Ryan Strome-esque 'filler' territory, or does he show that he is a viable top nine player on a playoff team in the 45-50 point range? Bailey is what he is at this point (which is useful but he has limitations).

Pulock and the basically the rest of the defense are the x-factors me next season...

- Dobson is coming off a 51 point season and without significant regression should hit 40+ points just based on the amount of times he shoots the puck and his PP time

- Pulock has already put together some nice seasons of 32, 35, and 37 points. If he stays healthy and is paired with Pelech, I expect him to be back in the 35 point range

- Pelech is in his prime right now, if he stays healthy and is paired with Pulock there's no reason he can't post 30-33 points next season

- Romanov has the potential to post 20-25 points just based on playing on a better team and natural growth in his development

- If Salo is the #6, he should be capable of putting up 20-25 points. Hell, Chara put up 14 points last season in a lost year and was a complete black hole puck moving wise.

- Mayfield is Mr. Reliable for me and put up 18 points in 61 games, again in a lost year. He's also in a contract year to boot so I expect him to raise his game.

Extracting as much offense from the defense for a team that is built from the net out is going to be paramount if Lambert wishes to have any success next season. He's a smart guy, I'd wager he is devising ways to systematically get the defense involved in offense more than what Trotz wanted.

I understand that I am basically saying every defensemen expect for Dobson should see progression from the previous season, but I truly think there is potential for that case.

 

[Throttle]

My gosh... If true, what huge overpayment in both cap hit and term.

Do you want to win now? or just play the 'future' and hope year-over-year for some premier UFA to never sign with NYI? The Isles cap situation, absent any trades, clears up in 2 seasons. The team is trying to win in the next 2 seasons.

The Isles have to pay a premium for UFAs to sign (if he did sign). That is going to be in cash and term. Isles fans can spend all day long believing Lou (or some other imaginary better GM) can reel in impact players via UFA or trade - remember, most impact and premium players have NMC/NTC that need to be waived. It has not happened since the Yashin and Peca trades, where both were 'difficult' players to their organizations and the Isles made the moves and the Isles overpaid them.

 

[impaaaaaact]

Haha. Love what you did there. You went "last six seasons" to make sure you included those (2) 32 goal seasons (the only ones of his career) and to make the comparison in scoring favor Kadri.

Truth is, even with both of their "career seasons", Brock has been the better goal scorer between the two.

Nelson has 205 goals in 676 career games (24.87 per 82) while Kadri comes up short with 219 goals in 739 games (24.3).

And it isn't necessarily the half goal difference that tells the real story either as Nazem has gotten almost a full minute more of ice time for his career and played with 2 of the more offensive gifted teams in the NHL while Brock has played over half of his in a defensive-first runned scheme on the Island.

And no, Brock would not have to sustain his 22% shooting percentage either. In the three MOST RECENT seasons before both of their career years of 2021-22, this is where they compare:

Nelson: 69 goals in 206 games (27.5 per82)
Kadri: 46 goals in 180 games (21.0 per 82)

Truth is, Brock is just the better shooter to boot (was a 14-15% shooter even BEFORE his career season last year, compared to Kadri's career mark of 11.2%).

Even the five (totally smashing your argument that Nelson would need to "sustain his 22% shooting percentage for the rest of his career then he has a chance to continue being half as effective as Kadri has been for the past 6 seasons" declaration) prior seasons doesn't hold much water...

Nelson: 108 goals in 369 games (24 per 82)
Kadri: 110 goals in 342 games (26.3 per 82)

24 is half of 26??? Huh?

And as I have already pointed out, Nelson has been better more recently...
And guess what??, Anders Lee is a better per82 scorer than both of them, no matter which multi-year standard you use.

No, truth is Kadri would just be another overpaid (especially if we sign him to 7/49) 50-60 point producer on our team, who ISN'T the scorer that either Lee or Nelson are.....

Even worse is no one on our team has a contract paying them past the age of 35 and if we end up giving Kadri seven years, his contract will pay him through his AGE 38 season....

Listen, we all know you have access to a calculator and you're not afraid to use it - the thing you're forgetting about winning hockey games is that no matter how many goals you score, it still has to be more than the other team for it to matter. Nelson's Expected Goals PCT% over that time is 52%ish. We can switch it to the Barry Trotz Era if you think I'm cherry picking here. That's when Brock has played his best hockey, right? +16, (+4 a year on average) and a 53%ish Expected Goals Percentage. A little better than the other guys!

So as for Kadri, what do these numbers look like? 60.6% EGP over that time period - that's with two teams. The reason for that? Kadri's Corsi numbers are through the roof - also about 60%. For those in the back still adding and dividing goals on a calculator that means that Kadri's line is getting shots on net at a 3/2 clip over the last 6 seasons. That's 3 seasons with TOR and 3 seasons with COL. Other team can't score if they don't have the puck! Nelson's Corsi coming in just below 50% for those wondering (and just over in the Trotz era).

But surely these numbers based off of 6 years of data on 2 different teams are due to the privilege of playing on Toronto and Colorado right? Wrong. Over that time, Kadri has outpaced his team in Relative Expected Goals % (which measures his on ice expected goals - when he's off the ice) by about 10% during that time. That's measuring his effectiveness against when Mackinnon or Auston Matthews or Cale Makar or Mitch Marner or John Tavares or whoever else on the team was on the ice. Brock tends to add about 2% per year.

So why bring all this up? Because, and I'll take a page out of your book here, YOU WIN HOCKEY GAMES BY OUTSCORING THE OTHER TEAM. Not by counting goals in a vacuum. Not by meausuring a player's shooting %. You win by outscoring the other team. Kadri is at least twice as good at outscoring the other team than Brock Nelson.

 

[Satan'sIsland81]

Listen, we all know you have access to a calculator and you're not afraid to use it - the thing you're forgetting about winning hockey games is that no matter how many goals you score, it still has to be more than the other team for it to matter. Nelson's Expected Goals PCT% over that time is 52%ish. We can switch it to the Barry Trotz Era if you think I'm cherry picking here. That's when Brock has played his best hockey, right? +16, (+4 a year on average) and a 53%ish Expected Goals Percentage. A little better than the other guys!

So as for Kadri, what do these numbers look like? 60.6% EGP over that time period - that's with two teams. The reason for that? Kadri's Corsi numbers are through the roof - also about 60%. For those in the back still adding and dividing goals on a calculator that means that Kadri's line is getting shots on net at a 3/2 clip over the last 6 seasons. That's 3 seasons with TOR and 3 seasons with COL. Other team can't score if they don't have the puck! Nelson's Corsi coming in just below 50% for those wondering (and just over in the Trotz era).

But surely these numbers based off of 6 years of data on 2 different teams are due to the privilege of playing on Toronto and Colorado right? Wrong. Over that time, Kadri has outpaced his team in Relative Expected Goals % (which measures his on ice expected goals - when he's off the ice) by about 10% during that time. That's measuring his effectiveness against when Mackinnon or Auston Matthews or Cale Makar or Mitch Marner or John Tavares or whoever else on the team was on the ice. Brock tends to add about 2% per year.

So why bring all this up? Because, and I'll take a page out of your book here, YOU WIN HOCKEY GAMES BY OUTSCORING THE OTHER TEAM. Not by counting goals in a vacuum. Not by meausuring a player's shooting %. You win by outscoring the other team. Kadri is at least twice as good at outscoring the other team than Brock Nelson.

After reading this post, and especially the bolded parts, I am officially excusing myself from this debate. It is not worth it and there is no way to move forward with a discussion after reading this nonsense. All I am going to say is I would bet a lot of money that if right now 32 GMs in the league had a chance to sign Nelson and Kadri at this exact moment for 7 years at 7 million. Probably 25 of the GMs choose Nelson, honestly maybe more.

 

[impaaaaaact]

My gosh... If true, what huge overpayment in both cap hit and term.

Doesn't this... doesn't this show how good he is?? Don't we want the good player??

After reading this post, and especially the bolded parts, I am officially excusing myself from this debate. It is not worth it and there is no way to move forward with a discussion after reading this nonsense. All I am going to say is I would bet a lot of money that if right now 32 GMs in the league had a chance to sign Nelson and Kadri at this exact moment for 7 years at 7 million. Probably 25 of the GMs choose Nelson, honestly maybe more.

To be clear, the bolded nonsense was "you win hockey games by outscoring the other team". will miss your carefully considered input

 

[Throttle]

Next season is a pivotal year for Beauvillier whether he's an Islander or not. Does he continue to trend towards Ryan Strome-esque 'filler' territory, or does he show that he is a viable top nine player on a playoff team in the 45-50 point range? Bailey is what he is at this point (which is useful but he has limitations).

Pulock and the basically the rest of the defense are the x-factors me next season...

- Dobson is coming off a 51 point season and without significant regression should hit 40+ points just based on the amount of times he shoots the puck and his PP time

- Pulock has already put together some nice seasons of 32, 35, and 37 points. If he stays healthy and is paired with Pelech, I expect him to be back in the 35 point range

- Pelech is in his prime right now, if he stays healthy and is paired with Pulock there's no reason he can't post 30-33 points next season

- Romanov has the potential to post 20-25 points just based on playing on a better team and natural growth in his development

- If Salo is the #6, he should be capable of putting up 20-25 points. Hell, Chara put up 14 points last season in a lost year and was a complete black hole puck moving wise.

- Mayfield is Mr. Reliable for me and put up 18 points in 61 games, again in a lost year. He's also in a contract year to boot so I expect him to raise his game.

Extracting as much offense from the defense for a team that is built from the net out is going to be paramount if Lambert wishes to have any success next season. He's a smart guy, I'd wager he is devising ways to systematically get the defense involved in offense more than what Trotz wanted.

I understand that I am basically saying every defensemen expect for Dobson should see progression from the previous season, but I truly think there is potential for that case.

The Isles just do not shoot enough on F and D, however, particularly on D. Hedmen, Makar, Letang, etc. are shooting over 200 shots per season. Dobson may get there this season, however, Pelech (possession guy), Pulock, and Mayfield are pretty low in that department.

Lee gets Gs when the goalie/D are scrambling for lose pucks. The rest of Nelson, Bailey, Barzal, Beau, etc. are all perimeter guys that need the puck outside that area. So, either they need to get in there or the puck needs to be flushed out to them. This is why the team plays fancy passes since 90% of the Fs do not go to or near the net. Having some of these guys is nice, but Isles have too many redundant-style forwards.

In the great Bailey debate, its not really about Bailey, its that he's one of the same of 6 other guys and somewhere someone needs to actually shot the darn puck at the net and someone somewhere needs to grab the rebound down low and go back to the net, not back to the circle or blue line, which is what they do all day long, then ice capades does his thing or pulock takes 6yrs to wind up to shoot and misses the net. Possession lost most of the time.

A kadri-style player will bridge that gap between a Lee and the perimeter guys, hopefully, getting in the muck, but also being able to play outside on the perimeter too.

 

[seafoam]

The going rate for Pageau who's a high end 3C was 5M per, Kadri was the 2C on a Cup team and is coming off a 100+ point season. He should fire hire agent if he gets an AAV less than high 6's.

Doesn't mean I agree with Lamoriello being the one to give it to him, that's just the price for someone like this.

 

[SI90]

Disclaimer- I love Bailey and want him to play 1,000 games in an isles uniform but if we need to trade him for cap purposes and it makes us a better team I’m ok with it.

That being said, I finally found the clip I reference all the time.

This is the Most Josh Bailey play of all time lol

 

[NYI365]

Hold me.

 

[seafoam]

Buckle up folks.

 

[teknics]

My birthday is in two days. I hope it doesn’t get spoiled.

 

[Hunn]

The tweet from IneffectiveMath has been deleted, exhale.

 

[doublechili]

Hold me.

I wonder if by "transactions" he would include signing RFAs, or if he means signing UFAs, trades, waivers, etc.? I'm thinking it's the latter.

 

[SI90]

It’s happening. Guess the moves?

1. We’ve add Susie Smith to our front office
2. We’ve signed Romanov to a contract
3. Sparky will be returning to full active duty
4. Dobson has signed an extension

 

[NYI365]

I wonder if by "transactions" he would include signing RFAs, or if he means trades, waivers, etc.? I'm thinking it's the latter.

Well the Dobson, Bellows, Romanov contracts would be 3 of those 4 moves. Kadri would be a 4th. Need even more than the 4 he's alluding to to make a Kadri happen.

 

[seafoam]

Lamoriello is on the phone with Bailey right now telling him he’s been traded.

We’ve got spies tapping into phone lines.

 

[Hunn]

Doesn't this... doesn't this show how good he is?? Don't we want the good player??

He is 32 years old forward with "intangibles" averaging 50-60 points per year (with an 87 points outlier playing for an offensive juggernaut in a contract year) – can we agree on that? If so, do you believe a player like that is worth over 7M? Even NOW, not to mention when he will be 37-39 years old?

 

[doublechili]

Here's my 2 cents on Kadri at the rumored 7x$7M. For a high end UFA, that's a pretty standard number - you could almost say it's a decent value. If you want to sign a guy like Kadri, that's what you have to pay. I assume people have issues with the term more than the AAV? But again, he's going to want term and if you don't give him that he probably would want an outlandish AAV. Yeah, obviously not ideal that he's turning 32 soon, but there are 2 ways out of that later. First, there's the chance that the next CBA in 4 years has a "free" buyout provision. Second, if they structure the deal with max money up front and less later on, and assuming the cap ceiling and FLOOR start increasing again, he might be relatively easier to move later in the contract. Actually, there's a 3rd way "out" of the deal, and that's not getting out of it because Kadri is still a valuable player at 38 (like Parise is now) - yeah he'd be overpaid if he's a 3C by then, but maybe we'll have a cheap forward or two on ELCs that balance that out (and we'll have a better chance of that happening if we get a forward via UFA now rather than trading picks for one!).

Lamoriello is on the phone with Bailey right now telling him he’s been traded.

We’ve got spies tapping into phone lines.

Either that or Lou is telling Bailey that he has a soft tissue strain that will require LTIR.

 

[JKP]

Why don’t we ever get UFAs?

Why would we ever pay so much for Kadri?!

Do we not see the dichotomy here…?

 

[seafoam]

Here's my 2 cents on Kadri at the rumored 7x$7M. For a high end UFA, that's a pretty standard number - you could almost say it's a decent value. If you want to sign a guy like Kadri, that's what you have to pay. I assume people have issues with the term more than the AAV? But again, he's going to want term and if you don't give him that he probably would want an outlandish AAV. Yeah, obviously not ideal that he's turning 32 soon, but there are 2 ways out of that later. First, there's the chance that the next CBA in 4 years has a "free" buyout provision. Second, if they structure the deal with max money up front and less later on, and assuming the cap ceiling and FLOOR start increasing again, he might be relatively easier to move later in the contract. Actually, there's a 3rd way "out" of the deal, and that's not getting out of it because Kadri is still a valuable player at 38 (like Parise is now) - yeah he'd be overpaid if he's a 3C by then, but maybe we'll have a cheap forward or two on ELCs that balance that out (and we'll have a better chance of that happening if we get a forward via UFA now rather than trading picks for one!).


Either that or Lou is telling Bailey that he has a soft tissue strain that will require LTIR.

Kadri at ~7M per centering the 3rd line in years 5/6/7 with an ELC player and another player at a low AAV (~2M per) is probably fine with you combine all of the AAVs.

It just comes down to whether you think that will actually happen or not.

 

[NYI365]

Here's my 2 cents on Kadri at the rumored 7x$7M. For a high end UFA, that's a pretty standard number - you could almost say it's a decent value. If you want to sign a guy like Kadri, that's what you have to pay. I assume people have issues with the term more than the AAV? But again, he's going to want term and if you don't give him that he probably would want an outlandish AAV. Yeah, obviously not ideal that he's turning 32 soon, but there are 2 ways out of that later. First, there's the chance that the next CBA in 4 years has a "free" buyout provision. Second, if they structure the deal with max money up front and less later on, and assuming the cap ceiling and FLOOR start increasing again, he might be relatively easier to move later in the contract. Actually, there's a 3rd way "out" of the deal, and that's not getting out of it because Kadri is still a valuable player at 38 (like Parise is now) - yeah he'd be overpaid if he's a 3C by then, but maybe we'll have a cheap forward or two on ELCs that balance that out (and we'll have a better chance of that happening if we get a forward via UFA now rather than trading picks for one!).


Either that or Lou is telling Bailey that he has a soft tissue strain that will require LTIR.

Option 4: A 37, 38, 39 etc. year old Kadri goes on LTIRetirement

 

[saintunspecified]

Why don’t we ever get UFAs?

Why would we ever pay so much for Kadri?!

Do we not see the dichotomy here…?

You're not from Long Island, are you. Par for the course.

 

[doublechili]

Kadri at ~7M per centering the 3rd line in years 5/6/7 with an ELC player and another player at a low AAV (~2M per) is probably fine with you combine all of the AAVs.

It just comes down to whether you think that will actually happen or not.

It's more likely that we'd have a cheap young player on an ELC in 4 years if we sign Kadri as a UFA rather than trading draft picks to acquire the forward that we need!