Speculation: Summer 2018 Roster Discussion Part IV

[hockeyball]

Can we maybe... stop talking about Toronto.... maybe?

NO! This is a Toronto discussion board, the individual team forums are only for discussing those teams as it relates to Toronto.

 

[Pinkfloyd]

NO! This is a Toronto discussion board, the individual team forums are only for discussing those teams as it relates to Toronto.

It's not as if the Tavares portion of it didn't involve the Sharks but why do people feel the need to tell others what to discuss in what is always a dead summer? If you don't like the topic, you don't have to read it or you can say something to steer it the other way other than telling people not to talk about whatever.

 

[rangerssharks414]

Can we maybe... stop talking about Toronto.... maybe?

It's Toronto's world. We're just living in it.

 

[PacificOceanPotion]

Two potential bubble guys I could see suprising are Radil and Suomela.

 

[Fistfullofbeer]

Two potential bubble guys I could see suprising are Radil and Suomela.

I dont even know if we should consider Suomela a bubble guy. Mainly because we need a 4C and that would be his job to lose. I don't think the organization trusts Karlsson or Goodrow as a C.

 

[Maladroit]

Suomela's making the team unless he's flat out horrible in camp and preseason. He wouldn't have picked us over the dozen other teams courting him if there wasn't some sort of promise of a NHL job. Gambrell playing 4C minutes does nothing for his development compared to being the Cuda's 1C anyway.

 

[Herschel]

I dont even know if we should consider Suomela a bubble guy. Mainly because we need a 4C and that would be his job to lose. I don't think the organization trusts Karlsson or Goodrow as a C.

It will be interesting to see if Goodrow goes into camp as a centre or on the wing. I suspect that during exit interviews he was told which they would be looking at him to play and his offseason work should reflect that.

 

[WSS11]

I dont even know if we should consider Suomela a bubble guy. Mainly because we need a 4C and that would be his job to lose. I don't think the organization trusts Karlsson or Goodrow as a C.

I don’t even trust Karlsson as a reliable starting winger lol. Great shot blocker and that’s it

 

[Lebanezer]

Darkhorse candidate for the 4C is Chartier. As long as he can stay healthy that is.

 

[hohosaregood]

Darkhorse candidate for the 4C is Chartier. As long as he can stay healthy that is.

Letunov, Chartier, Gambrell, and Suomella are all potential options there.

 

[Jargon]

I really hope at some point we see a Balcers - Suomela - Sorenson line. Really fast and I think they'd play off one another really well. If they all play up to potential, it could be an amazing third line, even.

 

[Fistfullofbeer]

I really hope at some point we see a Balcers - Suomela - Sorenson line. Really fast and I think they'd play off one another really well. If they all play up to potential, it could be an amazing third line, even.

I would love to see Balcers on the team. Though I would like to see some input from @The Nemesis regarding where he could fit on the team. Would it be good for his development to be played in the bottom-6? Also, will his playstyle match what PDB looks for on the 3rd or 4th lines?

 

[Juxtaposer]

It's not as if the Tavares portion of it didn't involve the Sharks but why do people feel the need to tell others what to discuss in what is always a dead summer? If you don't like the topic, you don't have to read it or you can say something to steer it the other way other than telling people not to talk about whatever.

And since he didn’t come to the Sharks, he’s not relevant to this topic anymore. I’m no mod, but I’m pretty sure there’s a rule about off-topic threads on this forum.

 

[spintops]

And since he didn’t come to the Sharks, he’s not relevant to this topic anymore. I’m no mod, but I’m pretty sure there’s a rule about off-topic threads on this forum.

Let's not get carried away lol

 

[WTFetus]

Whatever. We're in the driest part of the off-season.
There's always more leniency in the off-season and this is as good of a thread as any to allow "OT" but still hockey-related stuff.

And no, that doesn't give you guys free reins to start talking about random hockey things. The Toronto talk at least came up naturally, and it probably would've died off by now if not for all the back-and-forth complaining.

 

[WSS11]

I really hope at some point we see a Balcers - Suomela - Sorenson line. Really fast and I think they'd play off one another really well. If they all play up to potential, it could be an amazing third line, even.

Suomela isn’t fast at all but I really like that line a lot.

 

[Mattb124]

Suomela isn’t fast at all but I really like that line a lot.

Question - what is that comment on his speed based on? From what I have seen and read, he has good speed. It is difficult to tell how him being really fast in his league compares to the NHL.

 

[WSS11]

Question - what is that comment on his speed based on? From what I have seen and read, he has good speed. It is difficult to tell how him being really fast in his league compares to the NHL.

Just the tape I watched on him. Seems like he has average speed but does everything else very well. Haven’t read any scouting report on him so if it says otherwise I hope it’s true and he transitions well into the NHL

 

[Jargon]

Just the tape I watched on him. Seems like he has average speed but does everything else very well. Haven’t read any scouting report on him so if it says otherwise I hope it’s true and he transitions well into the NHL

I believe much of what I’ve read of him is that he’s fast. I’m guessing he’s Donskoi fast. Donskoi isn’t a Nieto, but he’s quick and he’s a good skater, so his edge work makes him elusive. I think the same may be true of Suomela.

You know who id love to see given a chance this year? Halgebahzqjwachs.

 

[Alwalys]

holy god i thought last summer was long.... this one is interminable

 

[OrrNumber4]

I said this prior to Toronto signing Tavares, but the Sharks may have dodged a bullet. If you look at championship-caliber teams, they have the very best talent. Is that what Tavares is? Or is he more top-10 forward than top-5 forward?

Look at the high end forwards that have driven Cup-winning teams in recent years: Staal, Getzlaf, Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Crosby, Malkin, Toews, Kane, Bergeron, Kopitar, Ovechkin, and Kuznetsov. Other than Staal, who had a tremendous outlier season, those are players who were consistently great. How does Tavares compare? He's better than Kuznetsov, 2007 Getzlaf, and 2013 Toews; you could make a case for Bergeron that I wouldn't buy, but I can see the argument.

Even given Bergeron, those players played with other consistent world-class players. Pronger and Niedermayer were approximately the 2nd and 3rd best defenseman in the game; Giguere was a top-3 goaltender. Kane was probably the 2nd- or 3rd-best winger in the game and Keith a top-3 defenseman. Chara was a top-3 defenseman and Thomas perhaps the best goaltender at the time. Kuznetsov *only* played with the best winger in the game.

Maybe the Sharks could go with Washington's model, but I'm not sure if Tavares can really be that foundational superstar who can go up against the cream of the crop, or the ultimate, ultimate complementary player who can do damage once the top guns have knocked each other. "Settling" on Tavares as your #1 center would be a repeat of the Sharks going for Dan Boyle (or arguably, Joe Thornton) instead of waiting for the actual winning ingredient.

I don't know. Perhaps I'm being biased. Maybe if the Sharks had signed Tavares I'd be doing a spiel about how Tavares could be just as good as those players and have a preternatural playoff performance like Kuznetsov had this year or Staal had in 2006. Thoughts?

 

[Juxtaposer]

I said this prior to Toronto signing Tavares, but the Sharks may have dodged a bullet. If you look at championship-caliber teams, they have the very best talent. Is that what Tavares is? Or is he more top-10 forward than top-5 forward?

Look at the high end forwards that have driven Cup-winning teams in recent years: Staal, Getzlaf, Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Crosby, Malkin, Toews, Kane, Bergeron, Kopitar, Ovechkin, and Kuznetsov. Other than Staal, who had a tremendous outlier season, those are players who were consistently great. How does Tavares compare? He's better than Kuznetsov, 2007 Getzlaf, and 2013 Toews; you could make a case for Bergeron that I wouldn't buy, but I can see the argument.

Even given Bergeron, those players played with other consistent world-class players. Pronger and Niedermayer were approximately the 2nd and 3rd best defenseman in the game; Giguere was a top-3 goaltender. Kane was probably the 2nd- or 3rd-best winger in the game and Keith a top-3 defenseman. Chara was a top-3 defenseman and Thomas perhaps the best goaltender at the time. Kuznetsov *only* played with the best winger in the game.

Maybe the Sharks could go with Washington's model, but I'm not sure if Tavares can really be that foundational superstar who can go up against the cream of the crop, or the ultimate, ultimate complementary player who can do damage once the top guns have knocked each other. "Settling" on Tavares as your #1 center would be a repeat of the Sharks going for Dan Boyle (or arguably, Joe Thornton) instead of waiting for the actual winning ingredient.

I don't know. Perhaps I'm being biased. Maybe if the Sharks had signed Tavares I'd be doing a spiel about how Tavares could be just as good as those players and have a preternatural playoff performance like Kuznetsov had this year or Staal had in 2006. Thoughts?

My thought is this: it’s much, much, much better to “settle” on a star #1C who costs nothing but cap space than to never have a true #1C at all, which we will never have because we’ll never tank to actually get one. It’s my last thought on the matter and I’m personally done talking about Tavares.

 

[JoeThorntonsRooster]

I said this prior to Toronto signing Tavares, but the Sharks may have dodged a bullet. If you look at championship-caliber teams, they have the very best talent. Is that what Tavares is? Or is he more top-10 forward than top-5 forward?

Look at the high end forwards that have driven Cup-winning teams in recent years: Staal, Getzlaf, Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Crosby, Malkin, Toews, Kane, Bergeron, Kopitar, Ovechkin, and Kuznetsov. Other than Staal, who had a tremendous outlier season, those are players who were consistently great. How does Tavares compare? He's better than Kuznetsov, 2007 Getzlaf, and 2013 Toews; you could make a case for Bergeron that I wouldn't buy, but I can see the argument.

Even given Bergeron, those players played with other consistent world-class players. Pronger and Niedermayer were approximately the 2nd and 3rd best defenseman in the game; Giguere was a top-3 goaltender. Kane was probably the 2nd- or 3rd-best winger in the game and Keith a top-3 defenseman. Chara was a top-3 defenseman and Thomas perhaps the best goaltender at the time. Kuznetsov *only* played with the best winger in the game.

Maybe the Sharks could go with Washington's model, but I'm not sure if Tavares can really be that foundational superstar who can go up against the cream of the crop, or the ultimate, ultimate complementary player who can do damage once the top guns have knocked each other. "Settling" on Tavares as your #1 center would be a repeat of the Sharks going for Dan Boyle (or arguably, Joe Thornton) instead of waiting for the actual winning ingredient.

I don't know. Perhaps I'm being biased. Maybe if the Sharks had signed Tavares I'd be doing a spiel about how Tavares could be just as good as those players and have a preternatural playoff performance like Kuznetsov had this year or Staal had in 2006. Thoughts?

My line of thinking here is that Brent Burns is absolutely at that level. Tavares has not been for the majority of his career, but he was for two seasons where he was a Hart Trophy Finalist, and the idea would be that the Sharks could provide him with much more optimal linemates and he would consistently perform at that Hart Trophy Finalist level or even higher. He was better than Toews at their respective regular season peaks. If he performed at that level, while Burns performed at Ted Lindsay Finalist level, then I would say we would have the absolute cream of the crop, talent wise, at #1C and #1D combined.

In all likelihood, the Sharks probably did sort of dodge a bullet. Tavares’ age and underlying metrics over the past season show he very well may not be a Stanley Cup Caliber #1C for very much longer. But he is at that level right now and our current team is trying to win right now and we’ve got players like Thornton and Pavelski who may not be here for much longer but who still have a lot to give. He would have given this team a more than 0% chance at winning (which we don’t currently have) but the most likely scenario, is that we would have 2 good years with him - maybe even one where we get demolished in the SCF - and then he would decline around age 30, along with Burns who would then be 35 and Jones who would then be 30, Vlasic who would be 33, Couture who would be 31, etc. And we would be left with ~$50M tied up in Vlasic, Couture, Burns, Kane, Jones, and Tavares long term, with all of those players on the down swing of their careers and some of them being injury prone.

Objectively, the most likely scenario is that Tavares would not bring us out of purgatory. But for this team, who has no interest in even considering a re-build, there is no silver lining to missing out on Tavares when we will probably just end up using that cap space and then some on 2 more players like Vlasic and Kane who will be overpaid on day 1 of their contracts and whose contracts will look awful by the 5th, 6th, and 7th year.

For a team like the Islanders, who, intentionally or not, seem to be prepared to tank hard without Tavares; yes, missing out on him could very well be a blessing in disguise. If they get Jack Hughes out of this season, for example, that’s a major W and long term, it’s a major upgrade on Tavares.

Here’s an analogy: A group of people all want to buy a car. The car is a used BMW, which is very nice, but has some mechanical problems and will become a problem in some time. In this scenario, person A is fixated on a BMW; they are going to spend that money on a BMW no matter what and they only have enough money to buy a used one, while person B is likely to end up purchasing a used Honda and saving their money for a brand new BMW without mechanical problems. Person A is going to end up getting a worse quality BMW today, or, at best, a comparable quality BMW tomorrow (Seguin, Panarin, Karlsson), while person B might just buy a used Honda and save up their money for a brand new BMW without the mechanical problems.

Because of how they will react to the situation, person A really just took a loss; it was not a blessing in disguise. But person B will likely end up much better down the road, because they will buy their used Honda, and get themselves a brand new BMW when they can actually afford one. So, for person B, this was a blessing in disguise.

In a similar vain, I can totally see the argument that missing out on Tavares could have been a blessing in disguise for the Sharks or the Islanders. But because of how I expect those teams to react to missing out on him, I’m convinced that it will end up benefitting the Islanders, but only screwing over the Sharks. The Sharks, without Tavares, are still a mediocre team that is built around aging Burns, Kane, Vlasic, Couture, and Jones; the 5 of whom are an average age of 33 during their contracts. They aren’t going to suddenly do things right; they aren’t going to bite the bullet which is necessary to acquire homegrown super elite talent at forward. They are going to keep trying to win with a mostly mediocre group, which is the same exact thing they would have done with Tavares. The difference is, that group, with Tavares, could have conceivably had somewhat of a real chance at winning. This group, without him, is completely doomed to be stuck in purgatory.

TL;DR: We’re not acquiring a forward who is on a different level from Tavares without undergoing a tank. Tavares was our best opportunity to acquire a top forward and just because we missed out on Tavares, does not mean that we are going to acquire that franchise level forward anytime soon. We are going to go through the same exact process without him that we would have gone through with him and because of that, we would be significantly better with him on our team. Missing out on him sucks.

 

[FeedingFrenzy]

Id really like to see Miere develope chemistry with Hertl this year. I'd like to see them start building something together for the future. Each brings different skill sets to the table. Let Kane run with the Joe's. Drop Donskoi to the 3rd line..
kane,joe,joe
logan,hertl,miere
leBlanc, tierney,donskoi
rookie-Sorenson-rookie
Bottom 6 wouldn't be a liability. The 4th line would be very interesting.. A rotation of Radil, Gambrell, Suomela, Praplan with Sorenson would give them playing time and might be beneficial. maybe someone jumps leblanc on the 3rd line? Or Tierney.

 

[Lebanezer]

When do captain’s skates start?