GDT: Trade and Free Agency Thread - Let the games begin

[conFABulator]

Team leader in GF/60 just happens to be our friend Kerfoot.

3.1 GF/60 and a nice 1.6 GA/60 too.
Team leader in shooting % τοο.

His stats will look better when he is filling in in the top 6 for sure. However, do they? His CF% ranks 8th on the team, 5th among forwards, and 3rd best on his line so I am not sure this is him driving any results...which again are only 5th best forward. His FF% is 10th on the team, 7th among forwards and again 3rd best on his line.

Yes, he is leading in shooting percentage...In fact, he is leading the history of the NHL in shooting percentage because he is shooting 100%. He has ONE shot on goal this year and it went in. Did you really use shooting percentage for a guy who has ONE shot on goal in support of said player?

He has also won 12 face-offs, why not include that stat if we are sharing cherry-picked data points? No need to mention he has lost 14 FO and has a 46% in the do

Keefe made a point after game 2 of saying he needs more out of Kerfoot and Kerfoot agreed, but hey he got a goal and an assist against Ottawa so all is well.

[EDIT] Checking Fogelhund's stats. I was surprised Kerfoot could possibly be our team leader in GF/60. Am I missing something here, or do you have an error? He has 1 goal so far this year and so do Bunting, Spezza, Engvall and Simmonds. He has more time on ice than Spezza, Engvall and Simmonds...wouldn't that mean they all have a higher GF/60 than he does? Nylander would be ahead of all of them by the way.

At first, it seemed as though you had picked one stat Kerfoot was best in (GF/60) and made that the sole supporting data him being one of our best. I would have thought Corsi or Fenwick might have been better indicators of impact, or at least other indicators of impact...especially with such a small sample size...but you chose GF/60 for some reason? But I think you got it wrong also...again, unless I am missing something.

 

[LeafChief]

I'm no Kerfoot fanboy and 3.5M in extra cap space sounds nice but what are we going to spend it on?

We'd have cap room for days at the TDL but if we get injuries beforehand were in deep ****

I only trade him if an upgrade is available right now to replace him with

This is the perfect answer. Kerfoot is not untouchable but if you're going to trade him, there needs to be a replacement.

Brooks isn't and wasn't ever going to be the answer.

 

[Leafs1991]

Lmao the point right over your head Think about what I said Toronto can barely beat shit teams ever it will be the same old results you’re trying to make excuses like laughing at Detroit beating Tampa Who cares if we won was still a crappy game

Hard to take you seriously without proper punctuation man.

Secondly, you don't beat every team every night. It's also game 3 of the year. Settle down.

 

[conFABulator]

Bottom line is our best line in the playoffs and this year so far has been centered by Kerfoot.

"Centered by" sounds sort of passive and "best line" is subjective, though possibly true.

Kerfoot ranked 14th in CF% among Leafs in the playoffs last year with 10 forwards ahead of him (including Thornton), his FF% ranking was 13th.

Last year's regular-season CF% ranking was 28th on the team, 18th among regulars and his FF% was 26th, 17th among regulars.

Is there any data to support the claim that Kerfoot has a positive impact? One worth his cap hit?

 

[Cor]

I am confused on what else Kerfoot needs to do to prove himself to some of the people constantly trying to get rid of him.

 

[4thline]

I am confused on what else Kerfoot needs to do to prove himself to some of the people constantly trying to get rid of him.

Pay for them to be instructed on appreciating good hockey that isn't hitting or scoring plays.

 

[Cor]

Pay for them to be instructed on appreciating good hockey that isn't hitting or scoring plays.

Alex Kerfoot and William Nylander have been our best forwards since Game 1 of the playoffs last year.
Kerfoot 8 points in 10 games.
Nylander 12 points in 10 games.

The majority of those points coming at Even Strength as well. Some people need to get over the fact that Kerfoot replaced Kadri. He had a up and down first season with us, mainly because he had to play half the year with a broken jaw.

Kerfoot's also been over 50% in both xGF% and GF%, despite being ~10th in terms of OSZ% and OSF%.

He's been forced to be incredibly versatile in our lineup, constantly being the guy going from winger to center, center to winger, 3rd line to 2nd line, 2nd line to 3rd line, etc depending on injures and match ups - which is a tough thing to do.

 

[4thline]

Alex Kerfoot and William Nylander have been our best forwards since Game 1 of the playoffs last year.
Kerfoot 8 points in 10 games.
Nylander 12 points in 10 games.

The majority of those points coming at Even Strength as well. Some people need to get over the fact that Kerfoot replaced Kadri. He had a up and down first season with us, mainly because he had to play half the year with a broken jaw.

Kerfoot's also been over 50% in both xGF% and GF%, despite being ~10th in terms of OSZ% and OSF%.

He's been forced to be incredibly versatile in our lineup, constantly being the guy going from winger to center, center to winger, 3rd line to 2nd line, 2nd line to 3rd line, etc depending on injures and match ups - which is a tough thing to do.

I agree. I'm pretty much the original Kerfott defender. But the fact is that a lot of what he does well goes unappreciated by the average fan.

 

[Cor]

I agree. I'm pretty much the original Kerfott defender. But the fact is that a lot of what he does well goes unappreciated by the average fan.

I agree - it's just weird that he does well in the more visible aspects as well, especially over the last year, and there's still barely any credit.

I do think there's some that are still upset Kadri is gone, and hold it against Kerfoot for some reason.

 

[Duffman955]

I used to hate in Kerfoot.

But you can't look at his play and complain at this point. He's well worth the 3.5 mil

 

[4thline]

I agree - it's just weird that he does well in the more visible aspects as well, especially over the last year, and there's still barely any credit.

I'm going to have trouble articulating this, but I think Kerfoot get's penalized in some people's eyes for doing so much stuff right (that they aren't valuing) that they're left wanting more of the stuff they do value. And in a way it's fair point (once you adjust for valuing the good subtle stuff.

Between Kerfoot's speed, IQ, and work ethic he's always around the puck, always engaged.
Which translates into
-since he's not super physical, a player who gets noticed for not hitting as much as he "should" despite being effective on the forecheck
-since he's not the biggest, a player who gets noticed for losing battles in the d zone, despite being quite sound defensively overall
-since he's not the most skilled, a player who gets noticed for flubbing good looks, despite consistently pushing the play into the offensive zone

 

[hamzarocks]

I'm going to have trouble articulating this, but I think Kerfoot get's penalized in some people's eyes for doing so much stuff right (that they aren't valuing) that they're left wanting more of the stuff they do value. And in a way it's fair point (once you adjust for valuing the good subtle stuff.

Between Kerfoot's speed, IQ, and work ethic he's always around the puck, always engaged.
Which translates into
-since he's not super physical, a player who gets noticed for not hitting as much as he "should" despite being effective on the forecheck
-since he's not the biggest, a player who gets noticed for losing battles in the d zone, despite being quite sound defensively overall
-since he's not the most skilled, a player who gets noticed for flubbing good looks, despite consistently pushing the play into the offensive zone

It would help if his production wasn't so bad during the regular season

He's super inconsistent in production. He paced for about 30 points last year. The year before around 35. Both years he spent time on the wing and with JT and WN where he get a series of hot games and produced

If he's being used as a top 6 winger he needs to get around 50 points if as a 3C we need about 41 points

His offensive output hasn't been good enough the past 2 years but he's stepped it up in the playoffs which helps him. Well see how he does this year but we need more consistency from him

 

[4thline]

It would help if his production wasn't so bad during the regular season

He's super inconsistent in production. He paced for about 30 points last year. The year before around 35. Both years he spent time on the wing and with JT and WN where he get a series of hot games and produced

If he's being used as a top 6 winger he needs to get around 50 points if as a 3C we need about 41 points

His offensive output hasn't been good enough the past 2 years but he's stepped it up in the playoffs which helps him. Well see how he does this year but we need more consistency from him

Ah yes, Ye olde "pull numbers out of the air" technique.

Within +/- 3 points of Kerfoots even strength scoring, listed C's , atleast 105 games played, last two seasons

Kadri, Carter, J.Staal, Tierney, Copp, Pageau, E.Staal, Johnson, Coyle, Granlund

 

[Havoc]

Kerfoot is exactly what Nylander needed and I think Nylander is the sole reason Kerfoot has all those nice underlying stats.

It reminds me of Nylanders Twitter signature when we drafted him. "Just give me the puck". Kerfoot and Bunting are his soldiers and letting him do what he wants and adjusting for him. They'll get rewarded with high quality scoring chances.

Not every player can adjust for skill guys though. Kerfoot has the ability to do that so I've warmed up to him a lot. Hes the definition of versatile. I'm starting to think Nylander doesn't need one of the big 4 to go point per game. Just give him kerfoot and Bunting, PP1 and 18-22 minutes a game and he'll finish with 70-82 points. The 90+ ceiling will just be gone without matthews or JT.

My only concern is the face-off. Kerfoot can't be taking draws in the playoffs he's too much of a liability there.

 

[VanW27]

It would help if his production wasn't so bad during the regular season

He's super inconsistent in production. He paced for about 30 points last year. The year before around 35. Both years he spent time on the wing and with JT and WN where he get a series of hot games and produced

If he's being used as a top 6 winger he needs to get around 50 points if as a 3C we need about 41 points

His offensive output hasn't been good enough the past 2 years but he's stepped it up in the playoffs which helps him. Well see how he does this year but we need more consistency from him

Lack of PP usage really hurts his raw stats and makes the overall point totals look under whelming, but given his usage his point totals are ok.

He was 150th in ES points among forwards last year and 162nd the year before. Not amazing by any stretch but if you assume there are 6 "top 6" forward per team that's 186 top 6 forwards in a 31 team league and 279 'top 9' forwards. Not exactly how it works but it gives you an idea of what point expectation for a 3rd liner should be.

 

[zeke]

It would help if his production wasn't so bad during the regular season

He's super inconsistent in production. He paced for about 30 points last year. The year before around 35. Both years he spent time on the wing and with JT and WN where he get a series of hot games and produced

If he's being used as a top 6 winger he needs to get around 50 points if as a 3C we need about 41 points

His offensive output hasn't been good enough the past 2 years but he's stepped it up in the playoffs which helps him. Well see how he does this year but we need more consistency from him

His production has been very consistent, tho.

Even Strength

Yr1: 27pt pace
Yr2: 27pt pace
Yr3: 32pt pace
Yr4: 29pt pace

The only real differene is how much PP time he gets.

Overall, as a Leaf, (i.e. since 19-20): 31pt pace, in mostly 3rd line minutes with 3rd line linemates.

Other comparables over that time at Even Strength from other top teams:

2nd Line Cs:

TOR Tavares 52pts
NYI Nelson 47pts
BOS Krejci 42pts
COL Kadri 39pts
TBL Cirelli 38pts
VGK Stephenson 36pts
FLA Bennett 31pts

3rd Line Cs

TBL Gourde 33pts
TOR Kerfoot 31pts
NYI Pageau 29pts
BOS Coyle 29pts
COL Compher 29pts
FLA Acciari 25pts
VGK Nosek 24pts

 

[zeke]

I'm going to have trouble articulating this, but I think Kerfoot get's penalized in some people's eyes for doing so much stuff right (that they aren't valuing) that they're left wanting more of the stuff they do value. And in a way it's fair point (once you adjust for valuing the good subtle stuff.

Between Kerfoot's speed, IQ, and work ethic he's always around the puck, always engaged.
Which translates into
-since he's not super physical, a player who gets noticed for not hitting as much as he "should" despite being effective on the forecheck
-since he's not the biggest, a player who gets noticed for losing battles in the d zone, despite being quite sound defensively overall
-since he's not the most skilled, a player who gets noticed for flubbing good looks, despite consistently pushing the play into the offensive zone

yep.

He doesn't have great hands or offensive instincts.

But he has such great speed and puck recovery that he's always aroudn the puck and always carrying the point - which ends up making everyone only notice his poor hands and offensive instincts even more, making him even more frustrating.

but the very fact that he has the puck so much, and transitions it so well from dzone to ozone, is a very good thing, even if he is frustrating with the puck in the ozone.

 

[hamzarocks]

Ah yes, Ye olde "pull numbers out of the air" technique.

Within +/- 3 points of Kerfoots even strength scoring, listed C's , atleast 105 games played, last two seasons

Kadri, Carter, J.Staal, Tierney, Copp, Pageau, E.Staal, Johnson, Coyle, Granlund

2019-2020
12/31/2019 vs the Wild

Kerfoot plays wing and gets a goal assisted by JT and Tavares. Takes 1 faceoff the whole game

01/02/2020 vs the Jets

Kerfoot plays wing with Nylander and JT. Gets assists on Dermotts and Nylanders goals with Nylander having the secondary assist on the dermott goal. Takes 1 face off the whole game as he played wing

01/12/2020 vs the Panthers
Gets a secondary assist playing winger with JT and Nylander, on JT's goal. Takes 8 faceoffs the entire night. He was a center this game but got his point at wing with JT and WN

01/27/2020 vs the Preds
Gets the primary assist on Sandin's goal with Nylander having the secondary. Plays winger taking 0 faceoffs the whole night

01/29/2020 vs Dallas
Gets the secondary assist on Nylanders goal with Muzzin getting primary. Plays winger again with 0 faceoffs on the night

02/08/2020 vs the Habs
Gets a primary assist as a winger on the Jt goal. Has zero faceoffs on the night as he plays winger.

02/11/2020 vs Arizona

Gets a secondary assist with JT setting up Hyman. He takes 0 faceoffs for the night having been a winger.

In 2020 8 of his 28 points came from playing the wing and having WN or JT set him up/set up the finishing/scoring chance where he gets an assist on. ~29% of his points came in this manner and he was switched to wing as he had multiple lengthy game droughts with no points at center

That's only the 2020 season. You can go through the 2021 season and look at the North division results but they weren't great with Kerfoot having 20 in 56 despite plenty of opportunities in the year

Alexander Kerfoot 2019-20 Game Log | Hockey-Reference.com

Kerfoot is worse than every player on that list outside of probably E.Staal, and Coyle and T Johnson

 

[hamzarocks]

His production has been very consistent, tho.

Even Strength

Yr1: 27pt pace
Yr2: 27pt pace
Yr3: 32pt pace
Yr4: 29pt pace

The only real differene is how much PP time he gets.

Overall, as a Leaf, (i.e. since 19-20): 31pt pace, in mostly 3rd line minutes with 3rd line linemates.

Other comparables over that time at Even Strength from other top teams:

2nd Line Cs:

TOR Tavares 52pts
NYI Nelson 47pts
BOS Krejci 42pts
COL Kadri 39pts
TBL Cirelli 38pts
VGK Stephenson 36pts
FLA Bennett 31pts

3rd Line Cs

TBL Gourde 33pts
TOR Kerfoot 31pts
NYI Pageau 29pts
BOS Coyle 29pts
COL Compher 29pts
FLA Acciari 25pts
VGK Nosek 24pts

A fair chunk of those points come at wing with guys like Nylander and JT doing the heavy lifting. In 2020 I saw 8 of his 28 points (all EVS) came in this manner.

He benefits from Keefe using him at winger to help his offense as he isn't a strong 3C offensively who can produce on his own.

His chemistry with Nylander is his best asset right now as they seem to be clicking. He's had opportunities to drive his own line but he's not that good. He needs 1st line talent to produce with.

 

[zeke]

A fair chunk of those points come at wing with guys like Nylander and JT doing the heavy lifting. In 2020 I saw 8 of his 28 points (all EVS) came in this manner.

He benefits from Keefe using him at winger to help his offense as he isn't a strong 3C offensively who can produce on his own.

His chemistry with Nylander is his best asset right now as they seem to be clicking. He's had opportunities to drive his own line but he's not that good. He needs 1st line talent to produce with.

every 3rd liner in the league fills in on top lines when there's injuries. nothing special about kerfoot's case. and you ignore that he's been forced to play plenty of minutes with unproductive players like vesey, simmonds, mikheyev, etc.

In fact, last year, the Kerfoot-Tavares-Nylander combo was tremendously UNproductive offensively, thought they were beastly defensively and didn't concede a single goal against.

Over his leafs career, here's his p/60 by linemate (min 20min):

Bunting (33min) 3.66
Hyman (169min) 2.84
Tavares (404min) 2.53
Moore (97min) 2.47
Engvall (288min) 2.08
Spezza (174min) 2.07
Kapanen (268min) 1.79
Thornton (101min) 1.78
Mikheyev (553min) 1.73
Nylander (453min) 1.59
Marner (117min) 1.54
Matthews (68min) 0.88
Vesey (99min) 0.60
Simmonds (120min) 0.00
Johnsson (35min) 0.00
Barabanov (27min) 0.00
Petan (21min) 0.00

 

[Martin Skoula]

A fair chunk of those points come at wing with guys like Nylander and JT doing the heavy lifting. In 2020 I saw 8 of his 28 points (all EVS) came in this manner.

He benefits from Keefe using him at winger to help his offense as he isn't a strong 3C offensively who can produce on his own.

His chemistry with Nylander is his best asset right now as they seem to be clicking. He's had opportunities to drive his own line but he's not that good. He needs 1st line talent to produce with.

I don't see how that's different from Kadri, he has 3 more ES points in more minutes despite having better regular wingers and getting more time with Mac and Rantanen than Kerfoot gets with our top-6.

How many 3rd line centers are there that drive offense on their own with guys like Simmonds and Vesey as their main linemates? The ones that do, how much money are they making?

Spezza outscored most of that list at ES in about half the minutes with 4th liners, does that make them all overpaid?

 

[4thline]

2019-2020
12/31/2019 vs the Wild

Kerfoot plays wing and gets a goal assisted by JT and Tavares. Takes 1 faceoff the whole game

01/02/2020 vs the Jets

Kerfoot plays wing with Nylander and JT. Gets assists on Dermotts and Nylanders goals with Nylander having the secondary assist on the dermott goal. Takes 1 face off the whole game as he played wing

01/12/2020 vs the Panthers
Gets a secondary assist playing winger with JT and Nylander, on JT's goal. Takes 8 faceoffs the entire night. He was a center this game but got his point at wing with JT and WN

01/27/2020 vs the Preds
Gets the primary assist on Sandin's goal with Nylander having the secondary. Plays winger taking 0 faceoffs the whole night

01/29/2020 vs Dallas
Gets the secondary assist on Nylanders goal with Muzzin getting primary. Plays winger again with 0 faceoffs on the night

02/08/2020 vs the Habs
Gets a primary assist as a winger on the Jt goal. Has zero faceoffs on the night as he plays winger.

02/11/2020 vs Arizona

Gets a secondary assist with JT setting up Hyman. He takes 0 faceoffs for the night having been a winger.

In 2020 8 of his 28 points came from playing the wing and having WN or JT set him up/set up the finishing/scoring chance where he gets an assist on. ~29% of his points came in this manner and he was switched to wing as he had multiple lengthy game droughts with no points at center

That's only the 2020 season. You can go through the 2021 season and look at the North division results but they weren't great with Kerfoot having 20 in 56 despite plenty of opportunities in the year

Alexander Kerfoot 2019-20 Game Log | Hockey-Reference.com

Kerfoot is worse than every player on that list outside of probably E.Staal, and Coyle and T Johnson

Unless you're going to go through every point scored by every low end top -6, high end 3rd line player to discount their points that came from playing with someone better this post was an enormous waste of time.

I was mocking you for pulling 50 and 41 points out of a hat. Don't like comparing him against pure centres, fine. Among all forwards 154th in EVP over the two years. Wingers caught in the +/- 3 points
Kreider/Neidereiter/Foegele/Kunin/Pearson/Hornqvist/Nichuskin/Parise/Silfverberg/Fast/Palmieri.

He's a middle 6 guy providing middle 6 offense for middle 6 money. There's nothing "so bad" about it.

 

[hamzarocks]

Unless you're going to go through every point scored by every low end top -6, high end 3rd line player to discount their points that came from playing with someone better this post was an enormous waste of time.

I was mocking you for pulling 50 and 41 points out of a hat. Don't like comparing him against pure centres, fine. Among all forwards 154th in EVP over the two years. Wingers caught in the +/- 3 points
Kreider/Neidereiter/Foegele/Kunin/Pearson/Hornqvist/Nichuskin/Parise/Silfverberg/Fast/Palmieri.

He's a middle 6 guy providing middle 6 offense for middle 6 money. There's nothing "so bad" about it.

The list of players your listing are all underwhelming/declining or frustrating offensive players. They are all guys who rely on their linemates to do the line driving for them to get a chunk of their points similar to kerfoot.

Kerfoot is a decent player at 3C, but his offensive production lags behind the good/great 3Cs of the league. Him not getting PP points is due to his limited offensive creativity with guys he should be better than getting more minutes from the coach than him.

We need more consistency from him in the regular season. He should be giving those 29-30 EVS playing with Mikheyev and Engvall on the 3rd line. All three of those guys play/have played mostly together and haven't produced enough to give good secondary offense behind the top 6. This season when kerfoot drops to the third line and mikheyev returns, he's going to have good wingers in kase/engvall/mikheyev/ritchie. He shouldn't be put back to wing to get his offense going, he needs to give us 3C production playing that position for the majority of the year

 

[hamzarocks]

every 3rd liner in the league fills in on top lines when there's injuries. nothing special about kerfoot's case. and you ignore that he's been forced to play plenty of minutes with unproductive players like vesey, simmonds, mikheyev, etc.

In fact, last year, the Kerfoot-Tavares-Nylander combo was tremendously UNproductive offensively, thought they were beastly defensively and didn't concede a single goal against.

Over his leafs career, here's his p/60 by linemate (min 20min):

Bunting (33min) 3.66
Hyman (169min) 2.84
Tavares (404min) 2.53
Moore (97min) 2.47
Engvall (288min) 2.08
Spezza (174min) 2.07
Kapanen (268min) 1.79
Thornton (101min) 1.78
Mikheyev (553min) 1.73
Nylander (453min) 1.59
Marner (117min) 1.54
Matthews (68min) 0.88
Vesey (99min) 0.60
Simmonds (120min) 0.00
Johnsson (35min) 0.00
Barabanov (27min) 0.00
Petan (21min) 0.00

He didn't move to wing during the 2020 season due to injuries, he moved due to lack of offensive output. We had Matthews/Nylander/JT/Marner all healthy in the stretch of games he got his points as a winger.

He didn't play 2020 with Simmonds or Vesey who weren't on the team, but he did probably spend a fair chunk of that time with Mikheyev (though that was Mikheyev's best offensive season, with from what I recall a lot of his points coming on line 2 with JT and WN, though this very well could/is wrong since I don't remember Mikheyev 2020 season that well due to the hand injury)

Kerfoot needs to be capable of producing away from WN and JT over the season. 30-35 points is fine but if hes getting a fair chunk of them at the wing, its not fair to call him a great 3c

 

[zeke]

He didn't move to wing during the 2020 season due to injuries, he moved due to lack of offensive output. We had Matthews/Nylander/JT/Marner all healthy in the stretch of games he got his points as a winger.

He didn't play 2020 with Simmonds or Vesey who weren't on the team, but he did probably spend a fair chunk of that time with Mikheyev (though that was Mikheyev's best offensive season, with from what I recall a lot of his points coming on line 2 with JT and WN, though this very well could/is wrong since I don't remember Mikheyev 2020 season that well due to the hand injury)

Kerfoot needs to be capable of producing away from WN and JT over the season. 30-35 points is fine but if hes getting a fair chunk of them at the wing, its not fair to call him a great 3c

I gave you his production by linemate.