Trades and Free Agency Discussion - The Dog Days of Summer

[SprDaVE]

Mirtle is guessing (operating under the assumption that the Nylander situation doesn't end with him being traded) that the Leafs will become cap compliant by trading Lafferty, trading/waiving Timmins and replacing him with a cheaper 7D to run a 21-man roster instead of the minimum 20.

Assuming Philly is still listening on most of their roster, Nick Seeler would be a great target for that role. Only makes league minimum, has standout defensive metrics in a 3rd pair role, can play both sides and can push Gio down the depth chart. 3rd pair LHD like him usually never cost more than a 3rd rounder at most.

Bertuzzi-Matthews-Nylander
Knies-Tavares-Marner
McMann-Domi-Jarnkrok
Gambrell-Kampf-Reaves

Rielly-Brodie
McCabe-Klingberg
Seeler-Liljegren
Giordano

Would be so much easier to dump Jarn and keep both Laff and Timmins imo.

Unless Treliving pulls something out in the next few weeks, I really don't see the vision. I fully expected some sort of Nylander trade by now to get cap relief and bolster the depth in some way. But nope.

Seems like they'll go into camp and waive a couple players to get under the cap. Really weird stuff right now. I'd be shocked if they could get any value for Jarnkrok at this point of the off-season. He's way too good to give up for nothing. And yes, better than Domi.

Lafferty and Timmins are whatever, but they are also very much getting claimed if waived. Lafferty is much much better than Reaves and anything else the Leafs have in depth.

I liked the short term signings and bolstering some depth, but it lead to a stalemate of nothing.

 

[TMLAM34]

I thought he would do more with the defence. There’s still time I guess…

 

[Nylanderthal]

You said it.



Maybe, maybe not. Will Sullivan allow him to roam free and leave Jarry up to dry, or will he expect some sort of D from Karlsson?

Not suggesting that EK is a defensive stalwart, but his numbers last year are skewed by an absolute metric eff-ton of empty net goals, and frankly a really bad team overall.
I think on a good team with the right partner who can cover his flaws & deployment that shelters some of the heavy lifting defensively is off his pairs you can probably count on adequate D from him, considering the absolute terror he is in transition and in the O zone.

 

[Nylanderthal]

Seems like they'll go into camp and waive a couple players to get under the cap. Really weird stuff right now. I'd be shocked if they could get any value for Jarnkrok at this point of the off-season. He's way too good to give up for nothing. And yes, better than Domi.

Lafferty and Timmins are whatever, but they are also very much getting claimed if waived. Lafferty is much much better than Reaves and anything else the Leafs have in depth.

I liked the short term signings and bolstering some depth, but it lead to a stalemate of nothing.

If you send down all the waiver exemption guys and get Gio to go down on a conditioning stint or just pull the “I’ll retire if claimed” spezza maneuver there’s 1.102m in cap space for a camp invite 3/4C (think toews or Bailey, Bailey definitely 4C) while protecting Lafferty and Timmins on a 20 man roster.
If you think you can sneak lafferty and or timmins through along with gio down I was able to get 22 on the roster with about $217 in cap by juggling various waiver/2way contracts. That way they can maximize LTIR space throughout the whole season. None of it is straightforward, but that’s Gerry’s NHL for ya.

 

[Menzinger]

We don't really know how Tre is going to view a guy like Timmins. Could be a guy on his way out

 

[Fogelhund]

As of now, there are only 12 teams with enough cap space to make a waiver claim… that being said, there could be more that have players that are waiver exempt…. This might be a year with less waiver claims than most, due to cap space.

 

[Dekes For Days]

Imagine thinking a 4th 10+ million dollar player is what this team needs. Bullet dodged.

We jumped from vague interest and discussions about a player to we would have definitely got him to we would have definitely got him at 10m real fast.
Even putting our team's needs aside, considering what he returned, San Jose would have needed to retain 50% just to get literally any value out of him in a non cap dump trade.

 

[weems]

Unless Treliving pulls something out in the next few weeks, I really don't see the vision. I fully expected some sort of Nylander trade by now to get cap relief and bolster the depth in some way. But nope.

Seems like they'll go into camp and waive a couple players to get under the cap. Really weird stuff right now. I'd be shocked if they could get any value for Jarnkrok at this point of the off-season. He's way too good to give up for nothing. And yes, better than Domi.

Lafferty and Timmins are whatever, but they are also very much getting claimed if waived. Lafferty is much much better than Reaves and anything else the Leafs have in depth.

I liked the short term signings and bolstering some depth, but it lead to a stalemate of nothing.

It has been a somewhat surprising offseason in the sense that we've basically just replaced the UFA's with similar tiered players and the talk about making the defence bigger/meaner or just different hasn't materialized. Maybe there's still one big move to happen that somewhat changes team dynamics or even opens up more salary but I wouldn't have guessed the roster to look so similarly to last season when we made the GM change. I guess we won't really know forsure until the Matthews/Nylander situations play out and we get a more clear picture.

 

[conFABulator]

It has been a somewhat surprising offseason in the sense that we've basically just replaced the UFA's with similar tiered players and the talk about making the defence bigger/meaner or just different hasn't materialized. Maybe there's still one big move to happen that somewhat changes team dynamics or even opens up more salary but I wouldn't have guessed the roster to look so similarly to last season when we made the GM change. I guess we won't really know forsure until the Matthews/Nylander situations play out and we get a more clear picture.

I agree. I was expecting and hoping for an off-season with a lot change and with the core four (seemingly, for now) coming back it doesn't feel like enough was done.

However, when you actually compare this team to the one that started last season (we can compare post TDL teams after this year's TDL) you will see there was a tremendous amount of turnover. I think most of it was positive or an improvement also.

Obviously, the biggest change is Dubas out and Treliving in. We also have two new faces with Keefe behind the bench. These moves could have a bit impact on style and culture. Let's see. On the ice.

OUT --> IN

Bunting --> Bertuzzi
Kerfoot --> Domi
Engvall --> Knies
Aston-Reece --> Lafferty
Aube-Kubel --> Reaves
Malgin --> McMann
Holl --> McCabe
Sandin --> Klingberg
Muzzin --> Timmins
Murray --> Woll

Isn't the only obvious downgrade the loss of Muzzin? Having said this, I put him against Timmins because none of us were expecting to get much form Muzzin last year.

Does anyone see any of this any differently? Can any of the other contenders in the Atlantic say a similar thing about their off-season?

 

[weems]

i agree. I was expecting and hoping an off-season with a lot change and with the core four (seemingly, for now) coming back it doesn't feel like enough was done.

However, when you actually compare this team to the one that started last season (we can compare post TDL teams after this year's TDL) you will see there was a tremendous amount of turnover. I think most of it was positive or an improvement also.

Obviously, the biggest change is Dubas out and Treliving in. We also have two new faces with Keefe behind the bench. These moves could have a bit impact on style and culture. Let's see. On the ice.

OUT --> IN

Bunting --> Bertuzzi
Kerfoot --> Domi
Engvall --> Knies
Aston-Reece --> Lafferty
Aube-Kubel --> Reaves
Malgin --> McMann
Holl --> McCabe
Sandin --> Klingberg
Muzzin --> Timmins
Murray --> Woll

Isn't the only obvious downgrade the loss of Muzzin? Having said this, I put him against Timmins because none of us were expecting to get much form Muzzin last year.

Does anyone see any of this any differently?

Yes that is also true.

Another thing we will need is some real internal growth and strong production from Liljegren, Knies and Woll.

Those three players all have very high upside but the range of outcomes for next season with them is quite uncertain.

 

[conFABulator]

Yes that is also true.

Another thing we will need is some real internal growth and strong production from Liljegren, Knies and Woll.

Those three players all have very high upside but the range of outcomes for next season with them is quite uncertain.

Great point. Add Robertson, Holmberg, and Timmins as the next tier to that list. If we can get young depth that improves all year that would be another big plus.

I think Matthews, Marner, Nylander and Samsonov are all young enough that improvement is possible there too.

I am not saying all of this will happen, but I guess you can see a path where if enough things go the right way this is a dramatically improved team. Maybe this is where the front office and bench changes could have the biggest impact.

 

[Captain Crunch]

I'll just end this with this since it's not really going anywhere. You keep saying his career average is what he is and that other 2Cs offer more but their career averages aren't that much better or are worse and you just neglect from that and say that means nothing. So if that means nothing then whatever. To think Dubas time here wasn't a failure is just brown nosing to the next level tbh because 1st round exits with this core isn't acceptable this many times in a row and then that 1 time we do win a round we only win 1 game in round 2. Every team had to deal with the covid situation and the cap stuff, Dubas thought he could start a new trend of signing 3 guys over 11 million that's never been done before just because he thought/knew the cap was gonna go up. Everything you listed about why our depth scoring sucked and it not being because of the Tavares signing is bad GMing. All that stuff is his job and responsibility and Knies is pretty much the only 1 he drafted that has stepped in to the lineup and made an impact and it was his final season here and he only played in 3 games and then the rest playoff games. We're a cup contending team so we're gonna be drafting late and we traded them all away, 1 of them was because of an awful FA signing 1 year before. We're not gonna get into the Dubas tenure here and how that was a failure because that'll probably go on just as long as this did which was a waste of time.

Agree 100%! I am ecstatic that Dubas is gone! And you’re right about that someone who brown noses. He is the best at it!
My only concern is that it seems that Shanahan is the real culprit behind what has happened here with the cap situation and this core who cannot deliver!

 

[TMLAM34]

I’d be really surprised if we started the season without contract extensions for both Matthews and Nylander.

 

[Captain Crunch]

Yep. If we didn't sign Tavares, we still had to replace that impact we were losing in the 2018 offseason in other ways, and get more than 2 NHL caliber centers in the organization. Which probably would have cost us more than Tavares, considering that even just re-signing a departing Bozak and JVR would have cost 12. People seem to forget that Tavares wasn't as much about adding on to our offense so much as it was about a more efficient way to replace and improve on the offense we were losing.

We're not just going to sit on an unused 10m for 2 or 3 years while our team gets worse waiting for an extremely unlikely scenario of players nobody expected to be available not only being available but willing to sign here at a price that worked for us.

The idea seems to be that we needed to not sign Tavares, so we could improve our defense. But signing Tavares didn't stop us from adding big defensive pieces like Muzzin and Brodie, and massively improving our defense as fast as we realistically could have, Tavares or not. So it's a weird argument.

Just curious, how would our team have gotten worse with two “generational” players on the team? And even if it did, would that not have meant having higher draft picks, which in turn would continue to add more “cost-controlled” talent?

 

[Captain Crunch]

We had made the playoffs 2 years in a row, had a bit of a mirage of an improvement in 2017-2018, and people were expecting big things.
Stepping back into a phase of maybe not making the playoffs, and not being any significant cup threat if we did, would not have gone over well with the fans or ownership.
Lou set us full steam ahead. We were not stopping and turning back with a top tier core stepping into their primes.

It made sense to pay 11m to an elite 1C, fill big holes, and elevate our team. And it didn't stop us from strengthening up defensively.

Besides Pittsburgh, who also had better goaltending and a legit #1 dman, name me another team who has had success in the postseason by paying two #1 centers and a winger basically $33 million?

 

[Kurtz]

Besides Pittsburgh, who also had better goaltending and a legit #1 dman, name me another team who has had success in the postseason by paying two #1 centers and a winger basically $33 million?

Correlation does not imply causation. It would be folly (and impossible) to emulate the spending patterns of each cup winner.

What spending patterns have you observed between all of the Stanley Cup finalists over the last decade or so that you feel should guide us?

 

[Kurtz]

Unless Treliving pulls something out in the next few weeks, I really don't see the vision. I fully expected some sort of Nylander trade by now to get cap relief and bolster the depth in some way. But nope.

Seems like they'll go into camp and waive a couple players to get under the cap. Really weird stuff right now. I'd be shocked if they could get any value for Jarnkrok at this point of the off-season. He's way too good to give up for nothing. And yes, better than Domi.

Lafferty and Timmins are whatever, but they are also very much getting claimed if waived. Lafferty is much much better than Reaves and anything else the Leafs have in depth.

I liked the short term signings and bolstering some depth, but it lead to a stalemate of nothing.

I think you're going to be shocked at how much better a motivated Domi is than Jarn (at least offensively and being a greaseball).

 

[Captain Crunch]

Correlation does not imply causation. It would be folly (and impossible) to emulate the spending patterns of each cup winner.

What spending patterns have you observed between all of the Stanley Cup finalists over the last decade or so that you feel should guide us?

It doesn’t take a genius to know that paying 3 forwards $33 million will not leave enough cap room to build a legitimate Cup contender.
Maybe you could enlighten me on those spending patterns of all the Stanley Cup finalists over the last decade.

 

[Kurtz]

It doesn’t take a genius to know that paying 3 forwards $33 million will not leave enough cap room to build a legitimate Cup contender.
Maybe you could enlighten me on those spending patterns of all the Stanley Cup finalists over the last decade.

If you categorically deny that it can be done, then the onus should be on you to prove your thesis.

 

[Dekes For Days]

Just curious, how would our team have gotten worse with two “generational” players on the team?

I don't know what this question is trying to ask. Having two players doesn't prevent the other 18 from getting worse...

And even if it did, would that not have meant having higher draft picks, which in turn would continue to add more “cost-controlled” talent?

We would have been stuck in limbo - not good enough for a realistic shot at the cup, but not bad enough to get top draft picks to move us out of that position.

Besides Pittsburgh, who also had better goaltending and a legit #1 dman, name me another team who has had success in the postseason by paying two #1 centers and a winger basically $33 million?

I'll tell Vegas their cup didn't count because no team had won with a 10m center previously. Just because [insert extremely specific allocation scenario] hasn't been represented yet in [insert extremely rare and sample limited outcome], that doesn't invalidate the viability of that allocation.
Many teams have won getting less impact from that percentage of the cap. How exactly a team is configured isn't really relevant. Teams win with all sorts of configurations.

 

[Martin Skoula]

It doesn’t take a genius to know that paying 3 forwards $33 million will not leave enough cap room to build a legitimate Cup contender.
Maybe you could enlighten me on those spending patterns of all the Stanley Cup finalists over the last decade.

Would you agree that the total overpayment is under 6 mil? Tavares at 9, Marner at 8.6, Matthews at 9.3 would be considered fair deals to steals right?

Would you also agree that Florida just went to the finals with 6+ mil worth of cap penalties on the books? It’s the same as if they had Barkov at 10.5, Tkachuk at 9.5 and Rienhart st 12.5. Seemed pretty viable even with a 10mil goalie + 7.5 mil pylon on D.

 

[LeafEgo]

Would you agree that the total overpayment is under 6 mil? Tavares at 9, Marner at 8.6, Matthews at 9.3 would be considered fair deals to steals right?

Would you also agree that Florida just went to the finals with 6+ mil worth of cap penalties on the books? It’s the same as if they had Barkov at 10.5, Tkachuk at 9.5 and Rienhart st 12.5. Seemed pretty viable even with a 10mil goalie + 7.5 mil pylon on D.

The crux of the issue is balance. Florida, while admirable, cruised deep through grit, but never had great prospects to hoist the cup. I think they knew this themselves and they were borderline paraplegics by the time they got to the finals.

Vegas is a better example, they collected a 1C and a 1D and won. Allocation for the 1G is being pressure tested in recent years as that position evolves, but we have seen high priced top caliber performance from Vasy, Price, and Bobs recently work.

Probably it's possible to win a cup with our allocation of 50% in the top right corner of the forwards group, but it doesn't seem like the path of least resistance. We continually come up short in areas we can't afford to address, and our overwhelming force in one box of the roster seems to get neutralized when it counts anyway.

 

[hockeywiz542]

 

[Namikaze Minato]

 

[Tufted Titmouse]

I agree. I was expecting and hoping for an off-season with a lot change and with the core four (seemingly, for now) coming back it doesn't feel like enough was done.

However, when you actually compare this team to the one that started last season (we can compare post TDL teams after this year's TDL) you will see there was a tremendous amount of turnover. I think most of it was positive or an improvement also.

Obviously, the biggest change is Dubas out and Treliving in. We also have two new faces with Keefe behind the bench. These moves could have a bit impact on style and culture. Let's see. On the ice.

OUT --> IN

Bunting --> Bertuzzi
Kerfoot --> Domi
Engvall --> Knies
Aston-Reece --> Lafferty
Aube-Kubel --> Reaves
Malgin --> McMann
Holl --> McCabe
Sandin --> Klingberg
Muzzin --> Timmins
Murray --> Woll

Isn't the only obvious downgrade the loss of Muzzin? Having said this, I put him against Timmins because none of us were expecting to get much form Muzzin last year.

Does anyone see any of this any differently? Can any of the other contenders in the Atlantic say a similar thing about their off-season?

Preach.

I love how much speed we added. It was truly gross watching a ROR, Acciari, Holl, Aston-Reece try to keep up with good players.

Young legs will really help this team.