Confirmed Trade: [TOR/TBL] Darren Raddysh (signs 8 years, $8.5M AAV) for 2026 5th round pick (MOD WARNING 253)

[CristianoRonaldo]

He knows it's a big risk.

 

[sd1976]

He knows it's a big risk.

He was told he was only interested in going somewhere else.

 

[PucksInTooDeep]

Whether or not this is true, there has never been any evidence presented that he wanted to stay in Tampa.

The only evidence is that Tampa made an initial offer. There is no evidence that his agent brought a counter offer. There is no evidence that Tampa made a subsequent offer.

Tampa making an initial offer doesn't infer anything about what Raddysh wanted. Last year Toronto made several offers to Marner. Does that mean that he wanted to stay but they couldn't come to a deal? Not at all, Marner's mind was made up not just that he was leaving, but where he was going to.

As for looking for alternatives, if he told them that his plan was to sign in Toronto, that makes the looking for alternatives pretty simple.

There were people like Kyprios, and at least one poster on this board who claims to know the family, who months ago said that Raddysh was coming to Toronto for family reasons. Not maybe coming. Definitely coming. Maybe they were making that up, but evidence far more supports their claims.

At the end of the day, I just don’t think Lightning GM Julien BriseBois bought into the sample size enough to spend large here. I do think Raddysh would have taken a bit less than his deal in Toronto to stay in Tampa, but BriseBois’ view, I’m sure, was that the commitment it would have taken to re-sign him would have taken away from other things Tampa Bay may want to do in the years to come.

 

[shortfuze]

I may be proven wrong, by Raddysh having a good/great season next season.

But the Tampa Bay Lightning facilitating a sign-and-trade with the Toronto Maple Leafs (a division rival) makes me suspect two things:

1) Tampa Bay doesn't think much of Raddysh or his abilities, or else they wouldn't be doing this with a division rival.

2) No other team thinks much of Raddysh or his abilities, or else they would have made the same offer that Toronto made and would have gotten him instead of Toronto due to Tampa Bay presumably preferring that a good player is out of their division.

Seems like Tampa Bay said: "Oh, an offer? Good. Here you go!".

I realize he’s going to a division rival but you can still respect the players wishes and help him get the best deal he can get.

Tampa probably new right from the get go that he was intending on going to Toronto and it would have been pointless to waste their time trying to trade him any where else.

 

[Warden of the North]

Any official announcement of the contract yet?

 

[Goldblum Hockey]

The AAV is meh, but the extra couple of years and the NMC are bad. Don't understand why Toronto gives out NMCs to everyone, like they're a standard contract clause. It's like they use a draft Microsoft Word document from the last contract and just change the player name and numbers, none of the other wording.

 

[Miles Stock]

Whole lot of nothing there. Same thing is always said by all the insiders. It makes it especially easy to say if you don't actually know anything - 'yes, of course the player wants to re-sign with the team, but maybe the player will want more than the team is willing to pay and will test free agency.'

The GM had re-signed 3 Ds in-season by January, but not this one because the player's agent now says he wants to wait until the offseason, although the player really wants to re-sign here, despite anyone in any way connected to the family already saying (correctly it turned out) that he would be signing in Toronto. How far were they apart? No clue. What did he want from Tampa? No clue. But he really wanted to re-sign.

Same crap was said by all the insiders about Marner who 'by all indications, he wants to stay and be a life-long Toronto Maple Leaf" No one believed a word of that including the insiders as they said it. But that is the game they all have to play.

 

[atlanticobserver]

Whole lot of nothing there. Same thing is always said by all the insiders. It makes it especially easy to say if you don't actually know anything - 'yes, of course the player wants to re-sign with the team, but maybe the player will want more than the team is willing to pay and will test free agency.'

The GM had re-signed 3 Ds in-season by January, but not this one because the player's agent now says he wants to wait until the offseason, although the player really wants to re-sign here, despite anyone in any way connected to the family already saying (correctly it turned out) that he would be signing in Toronto. How far were they apart? No clue. What did he want from Tampa? No clue. But he really wanted to re-sign.

Same crap was said by all the insiders about Marner who 'by all indications, he wants to stay and be a life-long Toronto Maple Leaf" No one believed a word of that including the insiders as they said it. But that is the game they all have to play.

I did get the vibe that Raddysh wanted to stay in Tampa, but I always got the sense that he knew he was not going to get the deal he wanted.

 

[Miles Stock]

I did get the vibe that Raddysh wanted to stay in Tampa, but I always got the sense that he knew he was not going to get the deal he wanted.

I don't get that all. But not because there was essentially zero chance that Raddysh would get the deal he wanted in Tampa.

Whether he signed in Toronto or elsewhere in the league, it made little sense to go back to Tampa. As he said about why he had a breakthrough season: 'Just getting the opportunity to play. I was in and out of the lineup. When I was playing, I was playing as the seventh defenseman. I was just getting the opportunity to play on the power play and get to show my stuff, to show what I can do. That is probably one of the biggest things this last year.'

That was not happening again - unless Hedman was injured all season again. Someone who spent so long getting to the show has no illusions about opportunity vs lack of opportunity.

Only an idiot, after finally having great success, would re-sign with a team that was not going to give them the opportunity to repeat that success. Going back to Tampa would have completely guaranteed that Raddysh would be in the history books as the D who 'came out of nowhere to star for a single season and then completely returned the nowhere for the rest of his career.

 

[atlanticobserver]

I don't get that all. But not because there was essentially zero chance that Raddysh would get the deal he wanted in Tampa.

Whether he signed in Toronto or elsewhere in the league, it made little sense to go back to Tampa. As he said about why he had a breakthrough season: 'Just getting the opportunity to play. I was in and out of the lineup. When I was playing, I was playing as the seventh defenseman. I was just getting the opportunity to play on the power play and get to show my stuff, to show what I can do. That is probably one of the biggest things this last year.'

That was not happening again - unless Hedman was injured all season again. Someone who spent so long getting to the show has no illusions about opportunity vs lack of opportunity.

Only an idiot, after finally having great success, would re-sign with a team that was not going to give them the opportunity to repeat that success. Going back to Tampa would have completely guaranteed that Raddysh would be in the history books as the D who 'came out of nowhere to star for a single season and then completely returned the nowhere for the rest of his career.

I sincerely doubt raddysh would be demoted. Even when Hedman came back to the lineup last year Raddysh had his usual role. Weird take

 

[Miles Stock]

I sincerely doubt raddysh would be demoted. Even when Hedman came back to the lineup last year Raddysh had his usual role. Weird take

Hedman was not anywhere close to healthy physically or mentally from late October onwards. Do you think he was just playing 16 minutes a game when he returned because he was lazy or forgot how to play?

We know what Raddysh's role is when Hedman is healthy - it is the 14 minutes a game, no PP1 time, no other high production ES time, and in and out of the lineup that he was still facing when Hedman was healthy at the start of the season.

 

[atlanticobserver]

Hedman was not anywhere close to healthy physically or mentally from late October onwards. Do you think he was just playing 16 minutes a game when he returned because he was lazy or forgot how to play?

We know what Raddysh's role is when Hedman is healthy - it is the 14 minutes a game, no PP1 time, no other high production ES time, and in and out of the lineup that he was still facing when Hedman was healthy at the start of the season.

I mean you’re ridiculous for even suggesting that lol. Hedman is 35 years old. They’re not running him 25 minutes a night. And at the start of the season Raddysh was horrible. Singlehandedly lost us the first and third games of the year and got scratched. You’re kidding yourself if you think Raddysh wouldn’t be the first pair RD if he stayed next year. Most bizarre take I’ve read on here in ages. Defenseman scores 70 points and is returned to 14 minutes of ice time. Be for real. Who do you think is coaching the team? Frank Seravalli? Biz?

 

[Action Jackson]

Hedman was not anywhere close to healthy physically or mentally from late October onwards. Do you think he was just playing 16 minutes a game when he returned because he was lazy or forgot how to play?

We know what Raddysh's role is when Hedman is healthy - it is the 14 minutes a game, no PP1 time, no other high production ES time, and in and out of the lineup that he was still facing when Hedman was healthy at the start of the season.

Even with a healthy Hedman, Raddysh is clearly the better PP threat. would be silly for TB to not give him PP1 time, give me a break.

 

[sd1976]

I did get the vibe that Raddysh wanted to stay in Tampa, but I always got the sense that he knew he was not going to get the deal he wanted.

Your vibes were off. Toronto was where he wanted to be. You could even see it in the way he talked during the news conference today. His dad was a huge Leaf fan and he said it was his dream to play for the Leafs. Sad his father couldn’t be alive to see this.

 

[atlanticobserver]

Your vibes were off. Toronto was where he wanted to be. You could even see it in the way he talked during the news conference today. His dad was a huge Leaf fan and he said it was his dream to play for the Leafs. Sad his father couldn’t be alive to see this.

No question he wanted to be a Leaf, but you don’t think he would have stayed for a similar deal? Ok

 

[sd1976]

I’ve been petty clear on that in all my posts.

 

[sd1976]

No question he wanted to be a Leaf, but you don’t think he would have stayed for a similar deal? Ok

This was always another Tavares situation.

 

[PucksInTooDeep]

Whole lot of nothing there. Same thing is always said by all the insiders. It makes it especially easy to say if you don't actually know anything - 'yes, of course the player wants to re-sign with the team, but maybe the player will want more than the team is willing to pay and will test free agency.'

The GM had re-signed 3 Ds in-season by January, but not this one because the player's agent now says he wants to wait until the offseason, although the player really wants to re-sign here, despite anyone in any way connected to the family already saying (correctly it turned out) that he would be signing in Toronto. How far were they apart? No clue. What did he want from Tampa? No clue. But he really wanted to re-sign.

Same crap was said by all the insiders about Marner who 'by all indications, he wants to stay and be a life-long Toronto Maple Leaf" No one believed a word of that including the insiders as they said it. But that is the game they all have to play.

This is not true, we hear a lot of times that a player wants to test free agency.

The GM was the one who wanted to wait until the offseason to sign Raddysh.

Every insider has said the reason this wasn't done was because JBB was very far off on term and dollar (there was a report by Dave McCarthy that the offer was 5.75x5).

This isn't the Marner situation at all, Tampa never gave Raddysh a fair offer, they did the same thing with Stamkos. Toronto gave Marner a real offer and he turned it down because he didn't want to re-sign there. Can a player's agent get the insiders to report that a player wants to stay when in reality he doesn't? Sure. But this article was posted after he signed in Toronto and went as far as to say he would have taken less in Tampa, don't think a player's agent would have spread that information for publicity.

 

[atlanticobserver]

This was always another Tavares situation.

You are very welcome to think whatever you like, but I sincerely doubt you followed this situation particularly closely more than a couple of weeks ago. Raddysh openly stated that he wanted to stay but business is business. It’s a convenient narrative to bring out the home movies of the Toronto boy, but reality is they were gonna pay him the most for the longest. I’m sure that was a factor, and I’m genuinely happy for him. But acting like Tampa wasn’t a consideration is not accurate.

 

[WetcoastOrca]

You are very welcome to think whatever you like, but I sincerely doubt you followed this situation particularly closely more than a couple of weeks ago. Raddysh openly stated that he wanted to stay but business is business. It’s a convenient narrative to bring out the home movies of the Toronto boy, but reality is they were gonna pay him the most for the longest. I’m sure that was a factor, and I’m genuinely happy for him. But acting like Tampa wasn’t a consideration is not accurate.

Agreed. This is mostly about the money and you can’t blame the guy as it’s his first big pay day. A good pick up for Toronto even if it’s a few years too long. They really need his skill set and were willing to pay for it.

 

[SmoggyTwinkles]

Leafs didn’t get him via UFA, you can look it up if you want to.

Knights did't get Marner via UFA, you can look it up if you want to.

 

[atlanticobserver]

Agreed. This is mostly about the money and you can’t blame the guy as it’s his first big pay day. A good pick up for Toronto even if it’s a few years too long. They really need his skill set and were willing to pay for it.

Totally agree, Raddysh is good and makes the leafs a lot better. But I just don’t think the narrative that this is some hallmark movie that was destined to happen is correct