Confirmed with Link: [TOR/CHI] G Petr Mrazek & 25th Overall Pick to CHI for 38th Overall Pick

[Auston Powers]

who cares honestly... winning teams pick gems in the later rounds

cause they NEVER have any dang picks

Are we a winning team or a losing team honestly?

We are THE team that matters

To all of us

And our team is pretty awesome!

I'll take this team every day and any day for that matter.

 

[Dave92]

What other options did the outgoing GM & the player leave him in the marleau situation? Lou completely mismanaged the contract structure and the player took his bag and went home and demanded a trade. Please enlighten the room.

Trading Kappanen or Johnsson when they were at the peak of their value, instead of trading a first to make room was the other option.

 

[Nylanderthal]

Trading Kappanen or Johnsson when they were at the peak of their value, instead of trading a first to make room for both was the other option.

You’d still have 6.25m in dead cap because Gud pro marleau demanded a trade to San jose or a team that promised to buy his bonus laden deal out in full so he could sign in SJ. That would’ve meant his 35+ contract would be on our books regardless.
That wasn’t an option.
How much more value did you expect out of kapanen than the 15th pick and a recent 2nd? Kevin fiala who’s a ppg player just got 19 and a former 2nd.
That was fine value.

 

[ER89]

I think long time Leafs fans living in the cap world get more enjoyment out of getting rid of "debt" than acquiring more haha.

Like for real I didn't even hear the whole trade (that we dropped to 38th pick) and I was already so freaking relieved to get rid of Mrazek/$3.8m cap. Like that actually came off my own personal debt.



Pre-covid, analysts projecting the cap to rise to $90m, the guy didn't have a crystal ball.

Look that's fine but you still can't let your young guys run wild. We handed out contracts like these players had delivered us a cup win and i stand by that. Dubas is smart, but he needs to be ruthless and I think you're seeing shades of that now with the sandin comment of well offersheet us asap and let's get this shit done with type of thing.

 

[bentharbs]

It sucks to keep putting in 1sts for theoretical minor upgrades (Foligno) or to fix mistakes (Marleau, Mrazek). It would be nice to pick in the 1st round every now and then.

That said, this particular deal in a vacuum was not bad.

 

[justashadowof]

Comparing this trade to the Marleau trade is ridiculous. Marleau was a full $6.25M buyout after the trade. He was never going to play for the team, it was agreed that he would be bought out.

Mrazek is an almost painless buyout if necessary. He may just be their starting goalie for their tank season(s).

 

[bentharbs]

Comparing this trade to the Marleau trade is ridiculous. Marleau was a full $6.25M buyout after the trade. He was never going to play for the team, it was agreed that he would be bought out.

Mrazek is an almost painless buyout if necessary. He may just be their starting goalie for their tank season(s).

I think the comp isn‘t isn’t between players or contracts. The comp is paying any asset to fix a mistake (regardless of who was GM at the time of the contract). It seems to happen too often on this team.

 

[deprw]

Now we have clean plate and basicly same situation as last summer with better goaltenders available. We have subtracted Mikheyev, Spezza and Campbell from last year. Have more experience and enough space to fill two most prominent holes in the roster and players to trade away if needed. Giordano and more experienced Liljegren + Bunting is pretty big add.

Most important thing now is to learn from that Mrazek mistake. We have now two year window where we are top3 contender in the league and we can keep our core intact. We have the space, now we have to pick the right option to fill our net. I'm not happy for losing value in Mrazek trade, but I'm happy that we have our options open.

I'm really sick of this worst GM in the league narrative here. Wild has 14mil dead cap space, Panthers has 7 million of dead cap and 10 million goalie playing like 4 million guy. Dubas isn't perfect, but no one is. Chicago has been tire fire for years and I don't really get where their going.

Thing could be way worse, way way worse. Dubas has fixed our most prominent problems that we always had defense and top talent. Now he has to find the way to get leagues top10 goalie and right mixture for our bottom six. We have space, window and core to go all the way if done right.

 

[conFABulator]

If it all works out perfectly, you re-allocate the 2.5 from Ritchie and 3.8 from Mraz and still end up with a Reimer backup option at 2.25 per. It gets you into the range Hyman wanted, makes us a better team this year and improves our goaltending.

Tough to hit on all of that though, and you still need to worry about Hyman on a long term deal.

But it would also soldify our top 6 and provide a 1B option so the goaltending need isnt as dire.

You would also need to fill in the roster spots for Bunting, Kampf and Kase (assuming Hyman takes one vacated by Ritchie) because you need to ice a full line up.

Hyman 5
Riemer 2.5
Bunting .9
Kase 1.2
Kampf 1.5

That's 12M bucks, what the Leafs actual did was about 10.5M...so you needed to have moved a contract out. Kerfoot? In hindsight that might have been better...but that Hyman number would have been for 8 years and that's hard to feel good about.

 

[CanHeDoIt99]

I believe he said a 7th but teams will pay a premium so it’s a 7th and/or 6th which means he indicating trade value does it not ?

Anyway whatever gibberish Earl whoever this random nobody blogger is wants to spew is meaningless since we’re discussing an actual trade and what it actually requires to move up from 38 to 25 .

I’ll put it this way , if there was no cap dump would you and the stats people on here be happy if Dubas moved from 25th and got the premium deal Earl was mentioning which was the 38th and 6th/7th rd pick for moving down ?

No of course not because we have seen other trade down attempts result in better draft capital obtained back than a 6th or 7th.

Do you think dumping Mrazek in a seperate deal from this would have costed a 6th/7th? They likely saved themselves a 2nd + 3rd (what EDM paid to dump Kassian on Zona) by moving down 13 spots, which is tidy business I think given

A) their lack of picks
And
B) I think if they traded down without mrazek attached here they get less than a 2nd and 3rd (maybe just a 2nd or just a 3rd).

So overall I think attaching Mrazek is >EV here for what they did - which is moving 13 spots down. The result outside of trade value/equivalency is they're going to draft someone who they probably would have picked at 25 anyway - so that's good too!

 

[TMLAM34]

The fact that we still have a shot at picking one of these players - Trikizov, Firkus, Chesley, Goyette, Del Bel Belluz, Beck, Leneau or Warren after trading down to unload Mrazek without any retention is unbelievable. Not sure how anyone can talk bad about that move.

 

[TMLegend]

That's 3/4 years with Dubie at the helm that he's traded his first round pick and 2/4 that he's traded it to offload a contract.

Embarrassment. That's all that needs to be said.

 

[conFABulator]

I think the comp isn‘t isn’t between players or contracts. The comp is paying any asset to fix a mistake (regardless of who was GM at the time of the contract). It seems to happen too often on this team.

Every team makes mistakes and every contending team has cap issues.

I am not saying the Leafs have done a better job than other teams in similar situations (though it is possible they have done a better job than most) but you post makes it seem like they are the only one.

The difference is that Dubas prefers to be quick and proactive to clean up the mistake, other teams may choose to eat the mistake and spend asset capital to compensate for the situation.

For example, TB is up against (over) the cap, so for this year's run they had little to no room to add a player unless the player had a low cap hit. They got Hagel at a low number for 3 years at the expense of two prospects and two firsts. If they had dumped a contract in the offseason with say a third round pick then maybe they wouldn't have had to overpay for Hagel...which they did.

In fact, the year before they did exactly that and dumped Tyler Johnson. The cost was a 2nd and taking on Seabrook at 6.8 (LTIR).

Another option is buy-outs...which many teams do. Dubas prefers to pay a price to keep the cap space available.

The Leafs are not the only team that pays for cap space with assets.

 

[justashadowof]

I think the comp isn‘t isn’t between players or contracts. The comp is paying any asset to fix a mistake (regardless of who was GM at the time of the contract). It seems to happen too often on this team.

Indeed but not that Toronto is alone in this place. I believe there's a bigger picture way of seeing things. A sign that a team is borrowing too much from the future to substitute for developing its own solutions is the draft pick list. When you keep dipping into your future assets to create a sound defense, find a starting goalie, fix cap management errors, get rid of bad signings, to rent role players, etc. it's a sign that you've got a slipping grip on the situation.

 

[francis246]

The fact that we still have a shot at picking one of these players - Trikizov, Firkus, Chesley, Goyette, Del Bel Belluz, Beck, Leneau or Warren after trading down to unload Mrazek without any retention is unbelievable. Not sure how anyone can talk bad about that move.

Short term it’s an excellent move, we get cap flexibility. However, there is a lot of potential for this to be a bad trade long term. If any of the guys picked from 25-32 become a stud, Dubas will never hear the end of it. If they overpay Campbell or Kuemper on the open market, it’s a bad deal.

I think to look back and really be happy with the deal, they gotta hit on 38 and they have to use the cap space to acquire a goalie at a reasonable price.

 

[conFABulator]

That's 3/4 years with Dubie at the helm that he's traded his first round pick and 2/4 that he's traded it to offload a contract.

Embarrassment. That's all that needs to be said.

How is that all the needs to be said?
What also needs to be said is that the biggest one of those was Marleau and that wasn't his mess.

Leave the Marleau one out and now it reads that he has traded one first for a rental and one first for a pick 13 picks later to free up almost $4M in cap space each of the next two years.

The rental hurt, but it is the cost being a contender. Look at the cost for Giroux or Lindholm. Those were much higher than the Foligno cost for sure.

 

[justashadowof]

The Leaf-iest outcome of this trade is that Mrazek posts up a .920 in Chicago then gets traded at the trade deadline for future assets.

 

[TMLAM34]

Short term it’s an excellent move, we get cap flexibility. However, there is a lot of potential for this to be a bad trade long term. If any of the guys picked from 25-32 become a stud, Dubas will never hear the end of it. If they overpay Campbell or Kuemper on the open market, it’s a bad deal.

I think to look back and really be happy with the deal, they gotta hit on 38 and they have to use the cap space to acquire a goalie at a reasonable price.

There’s always going to be players that exceed expectations and others that don’t live up to expectations. Overall the players available between pick #25 to 38 are all roughly in the same ball park. We’ll never know this but the player Dubas was going to select at 25 might be the one he still selects at 38. I’m thinking it’ll be Firkus.

 

[ACC1224]

The fact that we still have a shot at picking one of these players - Trikizov, Firkus, Chesley, Goyette, Del Bel Belluz, Beck, Leneau or Warren after trading down to unload Mrazek without any retention is unbelievable. Not sure how anyone can talk bad about that move.

The move itself is fine.

I think what most find puzzling is the celebrating going on for dumping yet another mistake, boasting that the team isn't as dysfunctional as Edmonton(who's GM gets crapped on all season). All of this while they're still glowing from Tampa's handshake line respect after yet another playoff loss.

I'd prefer the bar be set a little higher.

 

[francis246]

There’s always going to be players that exceed expectations and others that don’t live up to expectations. Overall the players available between pick #25 to 38 are all roughly in the same ball park. We’ll never know this but the player Dubas was going to select at 25 might be the one he still selects at 38. I’m thinking it’ll be Firkus.

I disagree. The player they wanted got picked. That’s why they were more willing to do the deal. But hey, I don’t think it’s a bad deal. But I don’t think we should be celebrating the fact that we have to continually move out of the first round for mistakes

 

[thewave]

The teams that make the best roster moves and draft selections are left with the best talent pools/assets for trade. If the GM is bleeding assets to cover mistakes, there is an issue with their operations fundamental function. This is further reinforced if there is not team success. In sport, success is winning Championships, with coming close as the barometer.

I'll just leave this here and step back. Bad contracts need to go and this was a bad contract.

 

[TMLAM34]

The move itself is fine.

I think what most find puzzling is the celebrating going on for dumping yet another mistake, boasting that the team isn't as dysfunctional as Edmonton(who's GM gets crapped on all season). All of this while they're still glowing from Tampa's handshake line respect after yet another playoff loss.

I'd prefer the bar be set a little higher.

Yes ideally you don’t have to move back any spots to unload an awful contract and yes Dubas has done it multiple times now whether it was his signing or not (Marleau). I get being upset if you’re looking at it that way.

 

[janesy12]

who cares honestly... winning teams pick gems in the later rounds

cause they NEVER have any dang picks

Are we a winning team or a losing team honestly?

We are THE team that matters

To all of us

And our team is pretty awesome!

I'll take this team every day and any day for that matter.

We've won nothing. Zero progress since Matthews has been drafted and he can walk in 2 seasons.
I get the move, we HAVE to be in a win-now mode, but 2/4 signings Dubas made last season he already had to undo. Kampf was a great signing, and everyone in the world knew Bunting wanted to be a Leaf.

Depending on what Dubas does with the goaltending, and remaining cap space, this all could sink him quickly.

 

[TMLAM34]

I disagree. The player they wanted got picked. That’s why they were more willing to do the deal. But hey, I don’t think it’s a bad deal. But I don’t think we should be celebrating the fact that we have to continually move out of the first round for mistakes

The player they wanted, assuming it was Ohgren, was just wishful thinking. Every mock draft had him going before our pick. McGroarty going so high was unfortunate but I guarantee you no one on this board would have been fine with moving up 11 spots to select him at 14th overall and giving up what it would probably cost in order to move up that high.

 

[AvroArrow]

The Mrazek signing was horrible

This was a good trade