Trades and Free Agency Discussion - The Dog Days of Summer

[WTFMAN99]

These days I think it's more the TV guys bring the most scrutiny for players, especially the hot take stuff during intermissions. It then gets clipped and reposted everywhere to Twitter/TikTok/Instagram ect.

He only has 1 career season of 30+ goals and then his second best scoring season is only 23, after than all below 20 goals. And part of the deal is RFA years. I'd say this probably helps the Nylander camp, maybe not for the 10 mil ask, but more in the 9-9.5 range

Yeah, I don't know, seems simple to me, tune out media, play hockey, let results follow.

Terry did just eat up all his prime basically on this contract. He's a couple years younger than Nylander too and Zegras is fun and all but isn't Matthews...and heck, JT is boring etc but better still as well than Zegras at this point.

Terry at 7M...I think this could help the Leafs get Nylander to 8.8M...none of Terry's contract is in signing bonuses, all salary. I think Aho got something like 20%, if we give Nylander 80-90% signing bonuses, that should bring that 9M in all salary to 8.8M with majority signing bonuses.

 

[LeafSteel]

Kind of a weird/uncomfortable thing for Strickland to use as clickbait.

Hopefully they announce the suspensions soon so that everyone can move on and try to heal, especially the young woman and her family.

Well said.

Just a genuinely unfortunate situation, specifically for the alleged victim involve.

Hope for healing and for everyone to find their way…..

 

[Martin Skoula]

I mean he only became a full time NHLer the season before the 2 seasons posted. Also I think you gotta look at pace rather than raw numbers or a guy like Matthews only looks like a 40s goal scorer if you remove outliers (especially with the shorter covid seasons).To me his recent resume is that of around a 30 goal scorer 70 point player who plays on a horrible team. The 2 RFA years are a fair shout but 7x7 is a pretty good contract for a guy who put up 37 goals by like 24 years old.

Obviously Nylander is a better player and therefore will be paid more but I'd be happy as a Ducks fan

There’s different kinds of horrible teams, Eakins doesn’t require his players to even pretend to play defence and there’s plenty of offensive minutes to go around that they wouldn’t get on a competitive team. I get the argument if we’re talking about a player on a stripped down bottomfeeder with no first liners that needs to play a shot blocking defensive 1-0 OTL slog every night but Anaheim is not that.

It’s relatively easier to get in on a few PP points once you’re down 7-0, the other team has taken their foot of the gas, and the refs feel bad for you than it is on a contender’s second line in a tight game jockeying for home ice against a divisional opponent.

 

[LaPlante94]

Again, McCann was not exposed to protect Kerfoot. They were both exposed.

Would people stop lying? Is that so hard?

Oh my bad, we traded for him to expose him to protect Holl then. Y'all can keep telling yourselves whatever you want but the fact still remains we traded for this player knowing they'd take him over Kerfoot and to protect Holl.

 

[LeafEgo]

Oh my bad, we traded for him to expose him to protect Holl then. Y'all can keep telling yourselves whatever you want but the fact still remains we traded for this player knowing they'd take him over Kerfoot and to protect Holl.

This one was one of my favorites.

Dubies genius was in full swing when he decided to swindle a superior player from the Pens (kudos), and then offer that player up so that he could protect his roster as is, keeping inferior players in tact (Holl and Kerf specifically).

Seattle walked right into the trap. They selected the superior player. Didn't even know what hit em.

 

[Ziggdiezan]

There’s different kinds of horrible teams, Eakins doesn’t require his players to even pretend to play defence and there’s plenty of offensive minutes to go around that they wouldn’t get on a competitive team. I get the argument if we’re talking about a player on a stripped down bottomfeeder with no first liners that needs to play a shot blocking defensive 1-0 OTL slog every night but Anaheim is not that.

It’s relatively easier to get in on a few PP points once you’re down 7-0, the other team has taken their foot of the gas, and the refs feel bad for you than it is on a contender’s second line in a tight game jockeying for home ice against a divisional opponent.

While I understand what your saying and agree its not the same if a player is on a bottom feeder who play super aggressive offensively to get beaten 4-3 consistently. I do think you're underestimating how hard it is to be basically the best forward on your team without any true star players. In addition im not sure the PP argument really makes sense for Terry after looking into it:

Over the past 2 years, Terry 21% of his goals and assist on the PP.

Since everyone seems to be talking about/comparing Nylander, he scores about 30% of his goals and 40% of his assists on the PP over the same period

 

[LaPlante94]

You seem to be losing track of what we're talking about here.
I said that a 53 point center that's below average defensively and gets suspended a lot was not an ideal cup caliber 2C.
You disagreed and said that it was an ideal cup caliber 2C, and we should look at the 2Cs that cup winning teams had.
So we did, and it showed that every 2C in recent history was better than non-fluke-year Kadri in the year the team won.
Now you're talking about Kadri's abnormal fluke season, and Stephenson's pace in other years, which is irrelevant to the discussion.
We're comparing usual Kadri - what we made the decision on - to the 2C performances that win a cup, to see whether it was reasonable for us to seek an upgrade.
Without the knowledge that Kadri would abnormally double his pace of production in one random season, it was reasonable.

Hyman had faceoffs almost entirely from the penalty kill, and Stamkos in a below average year was taking 3-4 times more faceoffs than Hyman did at his peak.
Stamkos actually took among the most faceoffs on his team those years. He in fact took more faceoffs per game than Point those years. Not close to the same thing.

It's pretty similar production, but then you add in that Cirelli (and to a lesser extent Gourde) is much better defensively, doesn't have discipline issues, doesn't rely on the PP to get his production, and also PKs, and it's pretty easy to see who's the better choice.

What's funny is that you're trying to talk about Cirelli's 2020-2021 season while ignoring that Tampa had 3 other centers that year who were better than Kadri.

Yeah, because what Schenn did in other years isn't relevant to what St Louis won with - which is what we're discussing.

I looked at the rest of Kadri's career, where he produced at a pretty similar pace throughout. You're trying to argue that his 2021-2022 season, where he literally doubled his pace of production by 50 points, was in fact not a fluke, and just a result of Kadri's situation changing, but literally nothing about Kadri's situation meaningfully changed from previous or future years where he had his usual production.

That's actually their projection for the next year based on a 3 year weighted average, and issues with those player cards aside, that says he wasn't good defensively, like I said.

I'm not sure what you think McCann has to do with literally anything we're talking about, but for the record, we did not protect Kerfoot.

Ok, so you say Kadris a 53 point C because that's his career average and isn't a cup caliber 2C and that I disagreed and said lets look at recent cup winners 2C. So we did and you use their cup winning season and say those seasons are better than his career average of 53 points. So when I bring in their career averages because you want to say the year Kadri won the cup is a fluke it's off topic all of a sudden? So you have all these other cup winning 2C who have career averages worse or around the same as Kadris who are good enough to be cup caliber 2Cs but Kadri isn't because you say his 1 season is a fluke but all other 2Cs on cup winners weren't. We looked at 2Cs on cup winners and see that a lot of these players had their best seasons the season they won the cup and that career averages mostly points in Kadris favour but you choose to ignore all that to try and take away Kadris 1 season where the world went back to normal and fans were allowed back in arenas and Kadri got to step into the 1C spot when Mackinnon went down and went on a tear because anyone who has watched him knows he can produce when he plays with good players who can put the puck in the net. He did what a good 2C should do and that's step in when the 1C goes down and doesn't slow down the offence.

When he is their best faceoff man at that time percentage wise he's gonna take more faceoffs than usual and he was still 3rd and 4th those years in Faceoffs taken on the team behind Point and Cirelli and then Gourde the year after as well. He may have taken more faceoffs than Point per game but he wasn't that close to Cirelli who is the 2C we're talking about. Fair to say Stamkos is 1C then since he averaged more faceoffs on their line together?

You can't pick and choose what's more valuable to a team to try and take away what Kadri brings to the table by saying Kadri is better on the PP but Cirelli is better on the PK and defensively. Like great, both great players to have on a team and not wrong having 1 or the other. Pretty easy to find other good PKing centers to have in the bottom 6. Our top 2 centers in Matthews and Tavares don't play any PK and score quite a bit of points on the PP as well, should we use that against them? Kadri plays with passion and most players who play like him seem to just get penalties or slaps on the wrists compared to him, that's not his fault and it's what makes him an effective player.

Again, trying to use Stamkos as a C to try and make Kadri look worse when we all know he's not a C anymore. Point and Gourde had 4 more points so I wouldn't exactly say he was much better. We'll also ignore that 6% shooting percentage for Kadri that year.

You're acting like Schenn was putting up crazy numbers. If anything he finishes with what? Like 5 more points possibly than Kadris career average.

Uhmm yeah I'd say it did actually quite a bit. The year he got to play with Kessel way back when he put up almost a PPG pace during a shortened season, after that year for whatever reason Bozak started playing with Kessel more. Then the team started tanking and our top players were Kadri, Parenteau and Komarov. Then this new core came around and he started going up to that 55-60 point mark. Then Tavares came and he was moved to 3C and he went back to those career averages you said were 53 when he played with bad players. Goes to Colorado and Covid comes around. Not the easiest to get used to a new team when you play half a season and then the league shuts down. Then the following season it's the same but during the season many players would be out of the lineup all the time throughout the season because of covid protocols. Not exactly the ideal situation for a new player joining a new team. Nischuskin was the same when he joined Colorado, it took him until year 3 to breakout as well. Kerfoot was the same here.

Those cards say he's at the level Tavares is at defensively with that rating.

 

[Fogelhund]

Still yammering on about Kadri are we? The guy who's ongoing behaviour for years resulted in him being traded out... pretending that it wasn't necessary. Oh lord, never change Leafs fans. I loved Kadri's play.. but it was obvious the second of that last hit, that he wouldn't stay a Leaf. If Kadri was a player that could be trusted to not cause issues with management, with league DoPs, and was consistently a top tier 2C, he would have stayed here... but he caused issues within the team, with DoPs, and wasn't consistent. To go on about it years later is next level obsession with the past.

 

[LeafEgo]

Still yammering on about Kadri are we? The guy who's ongoing behaviour for years resulted in him being traded out... pretending that it was necessary. Oh lord, never change Leafs fans. I loved Kadri's play.. but it was obvious the second of that last hit, that he wouldn't stay a Leaf.

Crazy the Avs brought him on a second later, he wasn't even a cup capable 2C.

They also threw poor Dubie out the door in '18. They really did a lot of things differently.

 

[Fogelhund]

Crazy the Avs brought him on a second later, he wasn't even a cup capable 2C.

They also threw poor Dubie out the door in '18. They really did a lot of things differently.

Colorado President's Cup winners in 2020/21. Kadri get's suspended again after two games, for eight games... and Colorado ends up out of the playoffs without their #2C. Coincidence again? Probably not.

Note, I didn't say he wasn't cup capable, I said he wasn't a consistent top tier 2C, who has had many issues with management, and DoPs. Lightning in a bottle to win the cup with this guy. He's not a guy to be trusted to stay on the ice, nor put in a regular top effort/play.

Colorado felt he was so important, that they extended him to what contract? Anyway, feel free to argue away about this. It's summer, better things to do than be obsessed about someone who hasn't been a Leafer for years, and never will be again.

 

[meefer]

Still yammering on about Kadri are we? The guy who's ongoing behaviour for years resulted in him being traded out... pretending that it wasn't necessary. Oh lord, never change Leafs fans. I loved Kadri's play.. but it was obvious the second of that last hit, that he wouldn't stay a Leaf. If Kadri was a player that could be trusted to not cause issues with management, with league DoPs, and was consistently a top tier 2C, he would have stayed here... but he caused issues within the team, with DoPs, and wasn't consistent. To go on about it years later is next level obsession with the past.

I still haven't got over trading Lanny McDonald. I should start a thread.

 

[LeafEgo]

Colorado President's Cup winners in 2020/21. Kadri get's suspended again after two games, for eight games... and Colorado ends up out of the playoffs without their #2C. Coincidence again? Probably not.

Note, I didn't say he wasn't cup capable, I said he wasn't a consistent top tier 2C, who has had many issues with management, and DoPs. Lightning in a bottle to win the cup with this guy. He's not a guy to be trusted to stay on the ice, nor put in a regular top effort/play.

Colorado felt he was so important, that they extended him to what contract? Anyway, feel free to argue away about this. It's summer, better things to do than be obsessed about someone who hasn't been a Leafer for years, and never will be again.

Cup capable 2C but not consistently a top tier 2C. I can agree with that.

Kadri was suspended again (suspect) and they still kept him - doubled down. All that and they won. It's pretty obvious why they didn't extend him. Bolts didn't extend McD either.

A five year experiment of what not to do literally just ended. Now seems like a reasonable time to discuss lessons learned, but you don't have to.

 

[LaPlante94]

Still yammering on about Kadri are we? The guy who's ongoing behaviour for years resulted in him being traded out... pretending that it wasn't necessary. Oh lord, never change Leafs fans. I loved Kadri's play.. but it was obvious the second of that last hit, that he wouldn't stay a Leaf. If Kadri was a player that could be trusted to not cause issues with management, with league DoPs, and was consistently a top tier 2C, he would have stayed here... but he caused issues within the team, with DoPs, and wasn't consistent. To go on about it years later is next level obsession with the past.

It's not an obsession with a player. It's just pointing out how stupid it is to say players like Stephenson, Cirelli and Schenn are cup caliber 2Cs and Kadri isn't when they pretty much average around the same amount of production and then try and discredit Kadri because like the others he had a much better season offensively the year they won the cup.

 

[IPS]

Still yammering on about Kadri are we? The guy who's ongoing behaviour for years resulted in him being traded out... pretending that it wasn't necessary. Oh lord, never change Leafs fans. I loved Kadri's play.. but it was obvious the second of that last hit, that he wouldn't stay a Leaf. If Kadri was a player that could be trusted to not cause issues with management, with league DoPs, and was consistently a top tier 2C, he would have stayed here... but he caused issues within the team, with DoPs, and wasn't consistent. To go on about it years later is next level obsession with the past.

It's the people who are shitting on Kadri in the name of praising God King Dubas are the ones who brought him up initially. Take umbrage with them. Kadri already won the cup as #2C and proved the peanut gallery wrong, that's said and done.

 

[Martin Skoula]

Colorado President's Cup winners in 2020/21. Kadri get's suspended again after two games, for eight games... and Colorado ends up out of the playoffs without their #2C. Coincidence again? Probably not.

Note, I didn't say he wasn't cup capable, I said he wasn't a consistent top tier 2C, who has had many issues with management, and DoPs. Lightning in a bottle to win the cup with this guy. He's not a guy to be trusted to stay on the ice, nor put in a regular top effort/play.

Colorado felt he was so important, that they extended him to what contract? Anyway, feel free to argue away about this. It's summer, better things to do than be obsessed about someone who hasn't been a Leafer for years, and never will be again.

Him having a front row seat to a no-name rookie dropping a hat trick on him in game 7 against Dallas was worse than the suspension imo.

 

[Dekes For Days]

Ok, so you say Kadris a 53 point C because that's his career average and isn't a cup caliber 2C and that I disagreed and said lets look at recent cup winners 2C. So we did and you use their cup winning season and say those seasons are better than his career average of 53 points. So when I bring in their career averages because you want to say the year Kadri won the cup is a fluke it's off topic all of a sudden? So you have all these other cup winning 2C who have career averages worse or around the same as Kadris who are good enough to be cup caliber 2Cs but Kadri isn't because you say his 1 season is a fluke but all other 2Cs on cup winners weren't. We looked at 2Cs on cup winners and see that a lot of these players had their best seasons the season they won the cup and that career averages mostly points in Kadris favour but you choose to ignore all that to try and take away Kadris 1 season where the world went back to normal and fans were allowed back in arenas and Kadri got to step into the 1C spot when Mackinnon went down and went on a tear because anyone who has watched him knows he can produce when he plays with good players who can put the puck in the net. He did what a good 2C should do and that's step in when the 1C goes down and doesn't slow down the offence.

When he is their best faceoff man at that time percentage wise he's gonna take more faceoffs than usual and he was still 3rd and 4th those years in Faceoffs taken on the team behind Point and Cirelli and then Gourde the year after as well. He may have taken more faceoffs than Point per game but he wasn't that close to Cirelli who is the 2C we're talking about. Fair to say Stamkos is 1C then since he averaged more faceoffs on their line together?

You can't pick and choose what's more valuable to a team to try and take away what Kadri brings to the table by saying Kadri is better on the PP but Cirelli is better on the PK and defensively. Like great, both great players to have on a team and not wrong having 1 or the other. Pretty easy to find other good PKing centers to have in the bottom 6. Our top 2 centers in Matthews and Tavares don't play any PK and score quite a bit of points on the PP as well, should we use that against them? Kadri plays with passion and most players who play like him seem to just get penalties or slaps on the wrists compared to him, that's not his fault and it's what makes him an effective player.

Again, trying to use Stamkos as a C to try and make Kadri look worse when we all know he's not a C anymore. Point and Gourde had 4 more points so I wouldn't exactly say he was much better. We'll also ignore that 6% shooting percentage for Kadri that year.

You're acting like Schenn was putting up crazy numbers. If anything he finishes with what? Like 5 more points possibly than Kadris career average.

Uhmm yeah I'd say it did actually quite a bit. The year he got to play with Kessel way back when he put up almost a PPG pace during a shortened season, after that year for whatever reason Bozak started playing with Kessel more. Then the team started tanking and our top players were Kadri, Parenteau and Komarov. Then this new core came around and he started going up to that 55-60 point mark. Then Tavares came and he was moved to 3C and he went back to those career averages you said were 53 when he played with bad players. Goes to Colorado and Covid comes around. Not the easiest to get used to a new team when you play half a season and then the league shuts down. Then the following season it's the same but during the season many players would be out of the lineup all the time throughout the season because of covid protocols.

You can't just make excuses for 9 out of his last 10 seasons that all had a similar level of production and then claim, based on nothing, that his fluke outlier season where nothing about his situation changed but he doubled his pace of production by 50 points is actually his true self. First it was he didn't get to play with X, and then there's not enough good players on the team, and then there's too many good players on the team, and then his role changed, and then it's a new team, and then it's covid, and then some players missed a couple games one season so it doesn't count, and then I guess he just didn't feel like trying in Calgary this past year? Come on. I don't know why it's so hard to acknowledge that that's what he is.

And what he's provided in 9 out of the last 10 seasons is not an "ideal cup caliber 2C". That's why every cup winner's 2C in recent history was better than that in the year they won.
What these other players did in seasons they didn't win cups is irrelevant. They didn't win cups then. We're talking about what kind of performance from your 2C wins cups.
I wouldn't call all of them "ideal cup caliber 2Cs" either anyway. "Ideal cup caliber 2C" means that what your 2C consistently brings is cup caliber.
The reason we're talking about other years and the usual pace for Kadri is that that is what Toronto was making the decision on. Not what he could fluke into in a one in a million season, but what he could consistently bring. And when what you can rely on your second best center to consistently bring is ~55 points, below average defense, and suddenly disappearing at critical moments due to a suspension, that's not an "ideal cup caliber 2C", and it's reasonable to seek an upgrade.

As for Stamkos, he took 0.2 less faceoffs per game than Cirelli. Quite frankly, I don't care how you classify each one. The point is they had multiple centers better than the usual Kadri in each of the years. Nobody is trying to take away what Kadri brings to the table, though you seem to be trying to dismiss things like defensive play.
The point that was being made was that when you're evaluating them by points, one special teams adds a lot to that and one doesn't. So if you have Y player that hits X points and PPs, and you have Z player that hits X points and PKs, they're both bringing a special teams but that means Z player is bringing more at 5v5.

 

[LaPlante94]

You can't just make excuses for 9 out of his last 10 seasons that all had a similar level of production and then claim, based on nothing, that his fluke outlier season where nothing about his situation changed but he doubled his pace of production by 50 points is actually his true self. First it was he didn't get to play with X, and then there's not enough good players on the team, and then there's too many good players on the team, and then his role changed, and then it's a new team, and then it's covid, and then some players missed a couple games one season so it doesn't count, and then I guess he just didn't feel like trying in Calgary this past year? Come on. I don't know why it's so hard to acknowledge that that's what he is.

And what he's provided in 9 out of the last 10 seasons is not an "ideal cup caliber 2C". That's why every cup winner's 2C in recent history was better than that in the year they won.
What these other players did in seasons they didn't win cups is irrelevant. They didn't win cups then. We're talking about what kind of performance from your 2C wins cups.
I wouldn't call all of them "ideal cup caliber 2Cs" either anyway. "Ideal cup caliber 2C" means that what your 2C consistently brings is cup caliber.
The reason we're talking about other years and the usual pace for Kadri is that that is what Toronto was making the decision on. Not what he could fluke into in a one in a million season, but what he could consistently bring. And when what you can rely on your second best center to consistently bring is ~55 points, below average defense, and suddenly disappearing at critical moments due to a suspension, that's not an "ideal cup caliber 2C", and it's reasonable to seek an upgrade.

As for Stamkos, he took 0.2 less faceoffs per game than Cirelli. Quite frankly, I don't care how you classify each one. The point is they had multiple centers better than the usual Kadri in each of the years. Nobody is trying to take away what Kadri brings to the table, though you seem to be trying to dismiss things like defensive play.
The point that was being made was that when you're evaluating them by points, one special teams adds a lot to that and one doesn't. So if you have Y player that hits X points and PPs, and you have Z player that hits X points and PKs, they're both bringing a special teams but that means Z player is bringing more at 5v5.

It's not excuses. It's pretty simple to understand if you looked at the Leafs rosters until Matthews, Marner and Nylander were on the Leafs full time. Never said there's too many good players on the team just that he got moved to 3C after Tavares signed here. Look at Stephensons numbers when he was on Washington and then look at them when he goes to Vegas. Situations/systems can easily change a players production on the ice. If I wanted to make excuses I could easily say his entire career he's played for coaches that don't focus on offence like Carlyle, Babcock and now Sutter. Again you just seem to fail to understand any basic kind of context about anything. To try and act like covid wasn't a problem for many players/teams is just laughable. He tried more than Cirelli apparently.

What? What Kadri provided in 9 out the last 10 seasons is not an ideal cup caliber 2C but the others get a pass. What now? A guy who can consistently bring you around 30 goals and 50-60 points at his cap hit then is everyone's ideal 2C on a cup caliber team and that's what he was with our new core. We keep Kadri at that cap hit instead of paying 11 mil to Tavares (which I'm not against) that gives us 6.5 mil to spend on depth scoring for those years left on Kadris contract. In our teams situation I think cap and depth scoring was the 2 things holding us back so how is that not the ideal 2C for us when Dubas came in and had to make a decision on him? He made the decision to move on from Kadri for Tavares and it wasn't a bad move, but it has also failed and Kadri went on to win as a 2C and we're still stuck in cap hell until the cap raises because now we're paying 2 other players 11 mil. It's another thing you thing you fail to realize I guess. He was 27 with 3 years left at 4.5 mil. Nobody cares what he's doing now in Calgary because he won a cup and he took the biggest offer he could get in his 30s and most likely his last NHL contract ever in a place that was probably not the best for him. He can show up and coast around the rink now for all I care, but he earned it though.

I'm not trying to dismiss defensive play, I just don't think it's important when you have a player who provides something and you try and take away what they've done because they focus on their strengths but when it comes to our current core people will ignore if our higher paid players aren't great defensively because they are great offensively and on the PP. Defensive players are important, but you don't need a team of 12 forwards like that and it doesn't make them more valuable or less valuable.

 

[Lauro]

Sommerloch

 

[Dekes For Days]

It's not excuses. It's pretty simple to understand if you looked at the Leafs rosters until Matthews, Marner and Nylander were on the Leafs full time. Never said there's too many good players on the team just that he got moved to 3C after Tavares signed here. Look at Stephensons numbers when he was on Washington and then look at them when he goes to Vegas. Situations/systems can easily change a players production on the ice. If I wanted to make excuses I could easily say his entire career he's played for coaches that don't focus on offence like Carlyle, Babcock and now Sutter. Again you just seem to fail to understand any basic kind of context about anything. To try and act like covid wasn't a problem for many players/teams is just laughable. He tried more than Cirelli apparently.

What? What Kadri provided in 9 out the last 10 seasons is not an ideal cup caliber 2C but the others get a pass. What now? A guy who can consistently bring you around 30 goals and 50-60 points at his cap hit then is everyone's ideal 2C on a cup caliber team and that's what he was with our new core. We keep Kadri at that cap hit instead of paying 11 mil to Tavares (which I'm not against) that gives us 6.5 mil to spend on depth scoring for those years left on Kadris contract. In our teams situation I think cap and depth scoring was the 2 things holding us back so how is that not the ideal 2C for us when Dubas came in and had to make a decision on him? He made the decision to move on from Kadri for Tavares and it wasn't a bad move, but it has also failed and Kadri went on to win as a 2C and we're still stuck in cap hell until the cap raises because now we're paying 2 other players 11 mil. It's another thing you thing you fail to realize I guess. He was 27 with 3 years left at 4.5 mil. Nobody cares what he's doing now in Calgary because he won a cup and he took the biggest offer he could get in his 30s and most likely his last NHL contract ever in a place that was probably not the best for him. He can show up and coast around the rink now for all I care, but he earned it though.

I'm not trying to dismiss defensive play, I just don't think it's important when you have a player who provides something and you try and take away what they've done because they focus on their strengths but when it comes to our current core people will ignore if our higher paid players aren't great defensively because they are great offensively and on the PP. Defensive players are important, but you don't need a team of 12 forwards like that and it doesn't make them more valuable or less valuable.

It is pretty simple. If you perform one way for 9 out of the past 10 seasons, that is a better representation of what you are than the one outlier season where you inexplicably double your pace of production by 50 points.

If you actually look at who Kadri played with through that whole time, you would see that his quality of linemates did not significantly change throughout, and is not bad for a player of his caliber. You talk about the likes of Parenteau, who he spent 47 minutes with in his entire career. Lupul, Kessel, JVR are among his most played with 2013-2016. Over the next 3 years, he played a bunch with Marner, Nylander, and Marleau when he didn't suck yet. And then in Colorado, it was the likes of Burakovsky and Nichuskin, and he played with similar players a similar amount in all 3 years. This past year, he played with Huberdeau. There's nothing about 2021-2022 that can be tied to linemate quality. Situations can change production (and somebody like Stephenson did see a meaningful change, and personal growth), but there's absolutely nothing about Kadri's situation that meaningfully changed, and there's certainly no situation difference that could explain away his +50 point explosion. There is no indication that any of this is a result of covid (which everybody went through), or coaches, and none of Carlyle, Babcock, or Bednar are even defensively-oriented.

What do you mean others get a pass? Nobody is talking about others, and I even said I wouldn't classify all of the other as "ideal cup caliber 2Cs". The only relevance of the other players is what they did in their cup-winning season, to compare the kind of performance that winning teams get from their 2C to what Toronto was looking at from their second best center when they made their decision to upgrade on that ~55 point player that was below average defensively, mediocre at faceoffs, and constantly suspended. You can like that he's cheap if you want, but that doesn't change what he brings, which is the discussion.

The defensive ability of players is important and influences their overall impact, and that's true for all players. Nobody is taking away what Kadri has done. We're just also not going to dismiss and take away things that other players are better at than Kadri, or dismiss the difference in their overall impacts. Kadri was not an "ideal cup caliber 2C", and it was reasonable for Toronto to seek an upgrade on him for their 2nd best center.

 

[TMLAM34]

I definitely think Kadri can be your second line center on a contending team. Thing is, you’ll definitely need some strong wingers to play with him, he’s not someone who can carry your line.

 

[Dekes For Days]

I definitely think Kadri can be your second line center on a contending team. Thing is, you’ll definitely need some strong wingers to play with him, he’s not someone who can carry your line.

It was certainly possible to win with him there. Teams have done it with worse, when it's made up for in other areas. But what you described would inherently make him not "ideal" as a 2C on a cup-winning team, so an available upgrade that would make that role a comparative strength would be reasonable to pursue.

 

[29Potvin]

This one was one of my favorites.

Dubies genius was in full swing when he decided to swindle a superior player from the Pens (kudos), and then offer that player up so that he could protect his roster as is, keeping inferior players in tact (Holl and Kerf specifically).

Seattle walked right into the trap. They selected the superior player. Didn't even know what hit em.

KD didnt swindle the Pens! They were in a situation where they would have to trade him or left him exposed.
Kasperi Kapanen, Teddy Blueger and Bryan Rust were protected over McCann.
So the Pens organization felt that those three players fit better than McCann and with new hindsight im sure they would rather have McCann,Brandon Tanev over the three they protected

 

[Dekes For Days]

Dubies genius was in full swing when he decided to swindle a superior player from the Pens (kudos), and then offer that player up so that he could protect his roster as is, keeping inferior players in tact (Holl and Kerf specifically).

It's crazy that McCann was sooo good, and yet Pittsburgh valued him less than Blueger, Kapanen, and mid-30s Carter, and both Pittsburgh and 29 other teams valued him less than a middling prospect and a 7th. Maybe, just maybe, he wasn't as good as you think, and maybe, just maybe, keeping together our well-performing shutdown pairing that couldn't be easily replaced and a defense that was great for the first time in decades was more important than grabbing another middle-tier winger.
Protect your top tier team from the expansion draft for Hallander + 7th? Job well done.

Crazy the Avs brought him on a second later, he wasn't even a cup capable 2C.

Colorado brought him in because they were desperate for centers.

Kadri was suspended again (suspect) and they still kept him - doubled down.

They didn't really double down. Doubling down would have been extending him. They just didn't really have any other choice but to let the last year of the contract play out. Kadri's value had tanked, and they still had no viable replacement for 2C. Also, that was the 1st suspension they'd experienced with him. Even in an alternate universe where we didn't trade him in 2019, there's zero chance we could have justified keeping him after we lost him in the playoffs 3 times in 4 years, which means we would have been forced to trade him when his value was at his lowest, and we wouldn't have benefitted from his fluke 2021-2022 anyway.

 

[LeafEgo]

It's crazy that McCann was sooo good, and yet Pittsburgh valued him less than Blueger, Kapanen, and mid-30s Carter, and both Pittsburgh and 29 other teams valued him less than a middling prospect and a 7th. Maybe, just maybe, he wasn't as good as you think, and maybe, just maybe, keeping together our well-performing shutdown pairing that couldn't be easily replaced and a defense that was great for the first time in decades was more important than grabbing another middle-tier winger.
Protect your top tier team from the expansion draft for Hallander + 7th? Job well done.

Colorado brought him in because they were desperate for centers.

They didn't really double down. Doubling down would have been extending him. They just didn't really have any other choice but to let the last year of the contract play out. Kadri's value had tanked, and they still had no viable replacement for 2C. Also, that was the 1st suspension they'd experienced with him. Even in an alternate universe where we didn't trade him in 2019, there's zero chance we could have justified keeping him after we lost him in the playoffs 3 times in 4 years, which means we would have been forced to trade him when his value was at his lowest, and we wouldn't have benefitted from his fluke 2021-2022 anyway.

McCann was actually much better than I thought. His being a superior player to Holl was quickly confirmed, in alignment with what seemed like consensus at the expansion draft. Don't you remember that?

The Avs, like the Bolts, got too good for the cap and had to shed an important but too costly player. They obviously didn't want to lose him, and both teams suffered from the cap casualties.

What value do you think Kadri had for the Avs as a terrible 2C, for it to 'tank' to the tune of a 50M contract? Somethings not adding up here.

KD didnt swindle the Pens! They were in a situation where they would have to trade him or left him exposed.
Kasperi Kapanen, Teddy Blueger and Bryan Rust were protected over McCann.
So the Pens organization felt that those three players fit better than McCann and with new hindsight im sure they would rather have McCann,Brandon Tanev over the three they protected

Sure but Dubie still overwhelmingly won the transaction itself dollar for dollar.

 

[29Potvin]

McCann was actually much better than I thought. His being a superior player to Holl was quickly confirmed, in alignment with what seemed like consensus at the expansion draft. Don't you remember that?

The Avs, like the Bolts, got too good for the cap and had to shed an important but too costly player. They obviously didn't want to lose him, and both teams suffered from the cap casualties.

What value do you think Kadri had for the Avs as a terrible 2C, for it to 'tank' to the tune of a 50M contract? Somethings not adding up here.


Sure but Dubie still overwhelmingly won the transaction itself dollar for dollar.

Pitt knew they were never going to be able to afford McMann as he had arb rights as did Toronto.
McCann for the one season on the Leafs would have had a similar impact and stats and salary ask meaning we would have lost Holl/Kerfoot and McCann for nothing. Holl/Kerfoots impacts as a group would out weigh that of McCann who at that point had fair less playoff impact