So... What Was With All The Hatred And Derision Toward The Tanev Signing?

[Ianturnedbull]

I remember the deal was basically universally panned on the main boards. It was criticized and mocked vehemently. I didn't get it then. I still don't get it.

He's been a good addition so far. It's definitely possible that things go south or he gets hurt and this thread is bumped mockingly. The point is that the signing was always about this season and the next two, not the last two or three.

I recall fans of other teams calling the Leafs a soft team during last year's playoffs. I commented saying they weren't soft in the sense that they had a bunch of midgets that were pushed around and dominated physically. They threw a lot of hits and some guys who were willing to get involved physically. Their softness was more between the ears.

Nonetheless, the prevailing notion was that the team was soft. Tanev was praised for his play in last year's playoffs. You would think his signing would be considered a sensible move and upgrade on a guy like Lyubushkin. Instead, there were all kinds of comments along the lines of, "OMG LULZ WUT A KLOWN ORGANIZATION! WHY SIGN AN OLD DEFENSEMEN TILL HE'S 40 LULZ WTF?!!!"

I didn't bother getting into lengthy, heated arguments. Here are comments I made at the time:

"Meh... obviously they gave him long term in exchange for a lower average per season. I think he can be solid for the next couple of years and then decent for the next one or two. After that, who cares?"

"Obviously he's not expected to be good for the duration of the contract. They gave him six years so he could get the money he wanted and they wouldn't have to pay more than an average of $5 mil per season. He probably won't be playing by the sixth year."

"Anyway, even if you do question the contract, he is still a good player. People were gushing about him in this year's playoffs."

"It's really a question of how good he'll be in the next three to four years. Defensemen who play his style can fall off a cliff quickly. He's good now and I'm sure he will be an upgrade next year. If he's good for two years and then decent for the next year two and then he sucks and/or..."

I know "sending players to Robidas Island" is frowned upon and considered unsportsmanlike, but it's entirely plausible he gets hurt and retires before the contract expires. At any rate, who knows what the cap will be and what options will be available for upgrades on defense three or four years down the road. The worst case scenario is they buy him out or scratch him regularly and keep him around as a mentor or shelter him on the bottom pairing. I maintain that this signing was and is about this season and the immediate future.


As an aside, I didn't have a strong opinion on the OEL signing, but he is an upgrade on Edmundsson and Booch as well and playing quite well.

I copy & pasted this. I'm using it against the main board and leaf board for criticism of the OEL signing.

 

[AvroArrow]

The issue was always the term not the cap hit. Same reason we hated the Hyman deal and let him walk, we knew he was gonna be great the first 3-4 years, the end of the deal is gonna be rough though.

 

[Ciao]

What a stupid and unintelligent question... Do I really need to reply to this?

Well, you just did.

 

[BraveCanadian]

You said it yourself when you said "so far"... this contract is going to age horribly.

On the other hand, the Leafs have been in win now mode for a bit and if they don't get there soon it will be time to blow it all up again.

 

[BobClarkesfrontteeth]

I'm absolutely supportive of the deal. But there's no denying those last couple years of the de are going to have to be dealt with by the team one way or the other

Agreed and to expand on them dealing with years 5 and 6. The cap will be 20 million higher minimum as we know the cap could have gone up to 8-9 million if the players union made some concessions. Now without the Arizona franchise sucking money out of HRR, Utah will be contributing to the cap. So at 4.5 million with a 110 million cap he can be the 6-7 th dman with out it damaging your overall cap structure. Because of the flat cap from Covid people over focus on what the cap is today.

 

[Maple Leaf]

You said it yourself when you said "so far"... this contract is going to age horribly.

On the other hand, the Leafs have been in win now mode for a bit and if they don't get there soon it will be time to blow it all up again.

leaf bet all their marbles on this core let's see if it works out for them....

 

[HockeyVirus]

Best case scenario Tanev is at least a #4 level until he is 37/38 which is not impossible as long as his skating doesn't fall apart. By then, the cap should be well over 100M and 4M will be bottom pair money.

So we will have a slightly overpaid bottom pair vet D who eventually will just either retire/go on ltir / go on waivers and we deal with a dead 1.5M cap for a year.

 

[Dekes For Days]

By then, the cap should be well over 100M and 4M will be bottom pair money.

4.5m won't be bottom pairing money until the cap is at least like 180m.

 

[HockeyVirus]

4.5m won't be bottom pairing money until the cap is at least like 180m.

Nonsense. 3M is bottom pairing money today. We literally saw a handful of bottom pairing guys sign for 3M this offseason including our own Liljegren. I'm talking about established bottom pairing D here not unproven kids coming into the league as their first contract (unless they are off an ELC).

 

[Dekes For Days]

3M is bottom pairing money today.

3m is too much to be paying a bottom pairing defenseman, and even that would require a 132m cap for 4.5m to be equivalent.

 

[hotpaws]

3m is too much to be paying a bottom pairing defenseman, and even that would require a 132m cap for 4.5m to be equivalent.

Edmundson 4yrs x 3.85m
Lybusshin 3 x 3.25m

hell your hero Dubas gave Graves 6yrs x 4.5m last off season , imagine how upset you'd be if Tre handed out that deal to a poor bottom pair D

 

[HockeyVirus]

3m is too much to be paying a bottom pairing defenseman, and even that would require a 132m cap for 4.5m to be equivalent.

Aside from eggregrious examples like Edmundson and Bush (as well as guys like Gudas or Gudbranson), other teams signed bottom pairing guys like the Canes with ChatField, us with Liljegren, and many other examples if I felt like digging into them again (had this debate before).

Pretty clear the market for vet bottom pairing D is 3M+

 

[Dekes For Days]

Edmundson 4yrs x 3.85m
Lybusshin 3 x 3.25m
hell your hero Dubas gave Graves 6yrs x 4.5m last off season

I haven't seen you do much praising of these contracts for these players that actually have played within their team's top 4. It doesn't seem like you want to pay that much for bottom pairing defensemen either. Also, to be clear, another team doing something (especially something you criticize) isn't valid justification for us to do it.

 

[hotpaws]

I haven't seen you do much praising of these contracts for these players that actually have played within their team's top 4. It doesn't seem like you want to pay that much for bottom pairing defensemen either. Also, to be clear, another team doing something (especially something you criticize) isn't valid justification for us to do it.

you said the current market for bottom pair D wasn't close to 3m , you were wrong and now are spewing your typical bs spin

another team ? that's your hero Dumbass who handed out that brutal deal to Graves who's playing 15 mins a night which makes him a bottom pair D

 

[tmlms13]

You lost me at "the main boards".

This

I stopped reading right there. Leafs could sign him for league min and main boards would find a way to insult the Leafs.

Tanev will probably goes live on robidais island for the last 2 or 3 years.

One of the few ways the Leafs can actually use their financial advantages

 

[Dekes For Days]

you said the current market for bottom pair D wasn't close to 3m , you were wrong and now are spewing your typical bs spin
another team ? that's your hero Dumbass who handed out that brutal deal to Graves who's playing 15 mins a night which makes him a bottom pair D

I didn't say anything about the UFA market. I said 3m is too much for a bottom pairing defenseman, and it is. Then you started naming random players that weren't signed for the bottom pairing, on contracts that you criticize, and suddenly pretended that they somehow justify us paying that much for bottom pairing defensemen. I don't have a hero and I don't care about Graves, but he was signed as a top 4, played top-4 last year, and has been the only Pittsburgh defender to not be a defensive tire fire this season. I imagine the defensive defenseman will get more minutes when his team's time trailing isn't so heavily skewed, but not sure what he has to do with anything in the first place. Unless you think Graves at 4.5m on the bottom pairing is good, you're countering your own argument.

 

[Maple Leaf]

This

I stopped reading right there. Leafs could sign him for league min and main boards would find a way to insult the Leafs.

Tanev will probably goes live on robidais island for the last 2 or 3 years.

One of the few ways the Leafs can actually use their financial advantages

they have a hatred for the leafs but there was some interesting opposing viewpoints without the leaf homerism that is on this side of the wall

 

[darrylsittler27]

I call this non sense. I saw none. The term was too long.

 

[hotpaws]

I didn't say anything about the UFA market. I said 3m is too much for a bottom pairing defenseman, and it is. Then you started naming random players that weren't signed for the bottom pairing, on contracts that you criticize, and suddenly pretended that they somehow justify us paying that much for bottom pairing defensemen. I don't have a hero and I don't care about Graves, but he was signed as a top 4, played top-4 last year, and has been the only Pittsburgh defender to not be a defensive tire fire this season. I imagine the defensive defenseman will get more minutes when his team's time trailing isn't so heavily skewed, but not sure what he has to do with anything in the first place. Unless you think Graves at 4.5m on the bottom pairing is good, you're countering your own argument.

3m is too much to pay based on what exactly , your desire to shit on every move Tre makes to try to make your hero Dubas light shine brighter ? covid suppressed players salaries and now with the rising cap the bottom end players are getting paid more , it's not really that hard to understand

- Graves was signed to play top 4 by a GM who doesn't have a f***ing clue what he's doing and after just his first season there he's been regulated to the bottom pairing and not playing well there either based on what there fans think of him

the other two players i mentioned are bottom pair D , if they're playing a few minutes more than a typical bottom pair D it's only because there teams don't have better options and not because there play suddenly improved

anyway i'm already bored of your constant shifting of the goal posts so i'll just put you back on ignore

 

[Tak7]

It wasn't just the term of the deal (which is nuts), but also the fact that the Leafs acquired his rights for exclusive negotiating, gave him term, and didn't really seem to get much of an AAV discount on the deal.

Many were expecting it to land in the $3.5m - $4m range, so when it was revealed that he came in at $4.5m, it seemed pretty Leafy

 

[hotpaws]

It wasn't just the term of the deal (which is nuts), but also the fact that the Leafs acquired his rights for exclusive negotiating, gave him term, and didn't really seem to get much of an AAV discount on the deal.

Many were expecting it to land in the $3.5m - $4m range, so when it was revealed that he came in at $4.5m, it seemed pretty Leafy

the market for D was expensive , so the options were to pay up or sit out the ufa season and go with what we had

take a look at what our D would look like without Tanev and OEL , we'd be f***ed so while no one likes the term it's not like Tre had options when you see what our 2 rentals we let walk got paid

 

[Dekes For Days]

3m is too much to pay based on what exactly

Based on their impact and the abundance of cheaper, effective options.

your desire to shit on every move Tre makes to try to make your hero Dubas light shine brighter?

The only one talking about GMs here is you, and trying to align your position with the GM you like has caused you to contradict your own argument. I wasn't even bashing the deal. I was just pointing out that spending 4.5m on a bottom pairing defenseman would not be an effective use of our cap space; now or in the near future.

covid suppressed players salaries and now with the rising cap the bottom end players are getting paid more it's not really that hard to understand

What the cap is, doesn't change the percentage of the cap players get.

Graves was signed to play top 4 by a GM who doesn't have a f***ing clue what he's doing and after just his first season there he's been regulated to the bottom pairing and not playing well there either based on what there fans think of him

Graves was signed by a GM that took the defensive tire fire the Leafs had in 2017-2018 and created a good defensive team, while setting franchise records. He was a top-4 before being signed, a top-4 after being signed, and was part of the reason Pittsburgh improved defensively last year. Through the early season this year, Pittsburgh has constantly been trailing, so their defensive defenseman hasn't gotten their normal minutes yet, but he's been the least of their problems. He's getting the toughest matchups and winning his minutes (54.47 xGF%). Has the lowest goals against and expected goals against of any defender. Allows the least scoring chances and high danger chances. Most fans have no clue what they're talking about. You're proof of that. They're just upset that they're losing, and blaming everyone.

the other two players i mentioned are bottom pair D

The players you named are playing the 3rd and 4th most minutes on their respective defenses, and you would criticize them if they were here playing bottom pairing at that cost.

 

[Tak7]

the market for D was expensive , so the options were to pay up or sit out the ufa season and go with what we had

take a look at what our D would look like without Tanev and OEL , we'd be f***ed so while no one likes the term it's not like Tre had options when you see what our 2 rentals we let walk got paid

I still think we are, even with those players on that blueline.

It's a slow, heavy blueline completely susceptible to any sort of speed in transition

 

[sunstersun]

I still think we are, even with those players on that blueline.

It's a slow, heavy blueline completely susceptible to any sort of speed in transition

Our inability to develop 1 young solid defenceman is going to bite us. 10 years since 2013 and zilch.

 

[Tak7]

Our inability to develop 1 young solid defenceman is going to bite us. 10 years since 2013 and zilch.

It's appalling.

You don't win cups like this.