Trades and UFA’s - Trade Deadline Edition

[ULF_55]

The reality is until that anchor of a Tavares contract is off the books its going to be difficult and with Keefe at the helm we will never see our kids get long stretches early on

Treliving can control that.

Don't give Keefe players like Bertuzzi to lean on.

However, I could see this year being a write off, as far as Treliving controlling the landscape, however it's all on him next year.

Bertuzzi, Domi, McMann are UFA.

McMann I could see signing a contract that can be 90% buried, and I think he could be a player who is useful as a standby.

However, Cowan, Minten, Grebenkin, Steeves, Hirvonen, Bellows (1st. dibs), Abruzzese, UnknownPlayer have to be intermixed with the veterans on the team. Looking like Holmberg is useful enough in the NHL, but is it growth or is it getting up to speed, or is it opportunity.

Robertson has to be a fulltime player next year, or part of a package for a more needed asset. If I were another team, he wouldn't be a target, he'd be a throw in.

Tavares isn't going anywhere, and hopefully remains useful for another 16 months.
Actually, Tavares is going to be an interesting story end of this season.
If they tell him he isn't be extended, could he read that as an exit card?

 

[WTFMAN99]

Two reasons he shouldn’t be playing, NHL needs some kind of compassion leave that doesn’t effect the cap…….

I believe the player assistant program would cover mental health, if he's going through depression/anxiety or something along those lines and the cap hit does not count while they're in the program.

If Brodie were to believe he's not coming back this year, he could advise the team so they know they can go out and spend $5M in cap space, plus he still does get paid his salary.

 

[Legion34]

He was just talking about his confidence in his game and the reporter asked him what do upu do in those times and he said there is more to life than hockey , which is true it probably wasn't as bad as it sounded

Again the guys father died and his wife is suffering from ms.

He’s in a rough mental spot. Hopefully for the leafs it’s mental rather than physical decline and he can process it and go back to what ha was.

But march 2023 Brodie to today is brutal

 

[Stephen]

So what is projected Cap Hit there?

I don't see either coming in under 7.5mm.

Think the reality is we can grab one big ticket defenseman with the Brodie money and maybe another one after the JT contract expires.

 

[rumman]

I believe the player assistant program would cover mental health, if he's going through depression/anxiety or something along those lines and the cap hit does not count while they're in the program.

If Brodie were to believe he's not coming back this year, he could advise the team so they know they can go out and spend $5M in cap space, plus he still does get paid his salary.

Well if I was grief stricken by the loss of my father and my wife was suffering from a MS I wouldn’t be playing and traveling around North America when I should be home taking care of my wife. Do they have kids? If so all the more reason to look after the one’s you love………

 

[WTFMAN99]

Well if I was grief stricken by the loss of my father and my wife was suffering from a MS I wouldn’t be playing and traveling around North America when I should be home taking care of my wife. Do they have kids? If so all the more reason to look after the one’s you love………

I agree

I actually wouldn't be surprised at all if this was his last year.

 

[ULF_55]

Think the reality is we can grab one big ticket defenseman with the Brodie money and maybe another one after the JT contract expires.

In 2 years yep.

Not next year though.

That's why I'd gamble on Benoit and Liljegren this summer.

I think you could easily double their contracts on a multi-year deal (Liljegren's agent might disagree).

But if you could tie them up for less than 6mm combined for 3-4 years, you could probably have enough for a 1st. pairing defender in the budget.

 

[Stephen]

In 2 years yep.

Not next year though.

That's why I'd gamble on Benoit and Liljegren this summer.

I think you could easily double their contracts on a multi-year deal (Liljegren's agent might disagree).

But if you could tie them up for less than 6mm combined for 3-4 years, you could probably have enough for a 1st. pairing defender in the budget.

Yeah the only pieces I'd purge are Brodie and Giordano. Turning over 1/3 of your blueline should make a difference if retooling. So absolutely keep Lily and Benoit.

Then the following year, get the other big ticket guy, and I wouldn't mind moving on from McCabe then since his artificially cheap contract expires.

 

[Stephen]

I believe the player assistant program would cover mental health, if he's going through depression/anxiety or something along those lines and the cap hit does not count while they're in the program.

If Brodie were to believe he's not coming back this year, he could advise the team so they know they can go out and spend $5M in cap space, plus he still does get paid his salary.

I couldn't see hockey being the focus.

 

[ULF_55]

Well if I was grief stricken by the loss of my father and my wife was suffering from a MS I wouldn’t be playing and traveling around North America when I should be home taking care of my wife. Do they have kids? If so all the more reason to look after the one’s you love………

The mental/emotional thing would be real, but providing support can be done with various home-care providers.

If someone was just making $100k a year, home-care is likely out of the budget.

For someone making millions, home-care isn't an issue.

Personally, I'd say hiring home-care would be preferrable to providing it yourself.

 

[WTFMAN99]

Yeah the only pieces I'd purge are Brodie and Giordano. Turning over 1/3 of your blueline should make a difference if retooling. So absolutely keep Lily and Benoit.

Then the following year, get the other big ticket guy, and I wouldn't mind moving on from McCabe then since his artificially cheap contract expires.

There are so many different scenarios you can run.

Like what if they traded Marner?

What if they got JT to waive?

 

[Stephen]

There are so many different scenarios you can run.

Like what if they traded Marner?

What if they got JT to waive?

JT waiving would be a real breath of fresh air, trading Marner seems like fan fiction though, I'm fairly certain we're locking in 8 years of him.

 

[ULF_55]

Yeah the only pieces I'd purge are Brodie and Giordano. Turning over 1/3 of your blueline should make a difference if retooling. So absolutely keep Lily and Benoit.

Then the following year, get the other big ticket guy, and I wouldn't mind moving on from McCabe then since his artificially cheap contract expires.

McCabe is likely worth $4mm today if UFA, just because of the demand.
However, if you could get a better defender for $5, as UFA, it would be my preference.
At 30, I'm not sure McCabe will get any better, and his next contract would start at age 32.
Would you get him 3 years $10mm?

 

[All Mod Cons]

Comtois Matthews Nylander
Comtois Tavares Marner
Comtois Comtois Comtois
Comtois Comtois Reeves

Rielly Peeke
Peeke Peeked
Peekaboo Holl

Comtois
Peeke

 

[Stephen]

McCabe is likely worth $4mm today if UFA, just because of the demand.
However, if you could get a better defender for $5, as UFA, it would be my preference.
At 30, I'm not sure McCabe will get any better, and his next contract would start at age 32.
Would you get him 3 years $10mm?

He's great at $2 million and you take his crazy at that price, but you can tell he's kind of got a bad team pedigree and lots of habits like chasing after a play, hit. I wouldn't give him a raise and start paying him $4.25 million on the next deal, whatever.

 

[Skullz]

Yeah the only pieces I'd purge are Brodie and Giordano. Turning over 1/3 of your blueline should make a difference if retooling. So absolutely keep Lily and Benoit.

Then the following year, get the other big ticket guy, and I wouldn't mind moving on from McCabe then since his artificially cheap contract expires.

I concur. I love McCabe at 2 million, but he is also aging and will want a substantial raise. Would love for us to get younger.

I really think we have something in Benoit and Lily though. Both young guys who should be productive for a long time. Lily much more so than Benoit obviously, but given Benoit is an RFA, would like a low cost, higher term extension for Benoit. He's the physical 5/6 D we get every trade deadline.

 

[ULF_55]

He's great at $2 million and you take his crazy at that price, but you can tell he's kind of got a bad team pedigree and lots of habits like chasing after a play, hit. I wouldn't give him a raise and start paying him $4.25 million on the next deal, whatever.

He's UFA for the 2025-2026 season, and much can happen by then.

Rielly - ?
Benoit-Liljegren
Timmins
Niemela
Villeneuve
Kokkonen
Chadwick
TradedForPlayerX

 

[Stephen]

He's UFA for the 2025-2026 season, and much can happen by then.

Rielly - ?
Benoit-Liljegren
Timmins
Niemela
Villeneuve
Kokkonen
Chadwick
TradedForPlayerX

Hedman, Ekblad, Orlov, Theodore, Chychrun, Slavin and Pionk could hit free agency the year Tavares goes UFA. Long way out but if you only need one...

 

[WTFMAN99]

JT waiving would be a real breath of fresh air, trading Marner seems like fan fiction though, I'm fairly certain we're locking in 8 years of him.

80% re-signed and get bent over
15% he walks
5% trade

 

[ULF_55]

80% re-signed and get bent over
15% he walks
5% trade

He's the Leafs Nick Backstrom, he's staying stapled to Ovechkin err Matthews.

 

[rumman]

The mental/emotional thing would be real, but providing support can be done with various home-care providers.

If someone was just making $100k a year, home-care is likely out of the budget.

For someone making millions, home-care isn't an issue.

Personally, I'd say hiring home-care would be preferrable to providing it yourself.

Best to do both, healthcare professionals aren’t family, and family aren’t healthcare professionals………

 

[Stephen]

Nothing happened. In what context are you attempting to apply sample size concerns? About what? We have a massive multi-year sample that shows you to be wrong about our defense in past years.

What does the length of their respective tenures have to do with anything? It would be more accurate to say that our previous GM was already adding a top pairing defenseman 40 games in. Shed defensive cap anchors, consistently and effectively replaced departing pieces, and added new pieces on defense and forward to turn us from a bad defensive team to a top defensive team within 2 years. He never oversaw a defensive drop off like this, despite more difficult circumstances.

45 games into Treliving's tenure, and he hasn't done anything except make our defensive play significantly worse. He failed to replace our big defenseman loss from last year, and while it admittedly isn't always easy to bring in an equal quality player in this time frame, it's not hard to mitigate those impacts like our previous GM did. Instead, he didn't replace that defensive hole at all with even something lesser, he got rid of players that were brought in to support defensively last year after we lost Muzzin, got rid of players that were already supporting defensively prior to losing Muzzin, and replaced them all with rookies and a collection of the worst defensive players in the league. While doing nothing about potential age-related decline that you claim was obvious.

This wasn't some big surprise. This was widely predicted and expected based on his moves. This was an active choice to sacrifice our defensive results in the pursuit of extra offense that we haven't gotten and didn't need, and our defensive drop off should be concerning for every Leaf fan.

Again, we didn't just let Holl and Schenn go. We lost Muzzin to injury in-season, and then we lost Holl, Schenn, Sandin, Gustafsson, Benn, O'Rielly, Kerfoot, Engvall, Acciari, Lafferty, and ZAR. And again, defensive play is not just about the defensemen, and you're ignoring both Treliving's choice to go with this setup, and the impacts of increasing the role and responsibilities of remaining players by leaving a big hole in the defense and taking away all surrounding support.

Jake Muzzin should have been replaced by Kyle Dubas in the summer of 2022, while it was clear he was either going to be an LTIR case and barely healthy. You want your GM to be proactive and solve team needs and not ride depreciating assets into the ground. Muzzin wasn't healthy day one of fitness testing and was a career ender a week into the season.

Putting the name "Muzzin" and "Treliving" together in one paragraph is a suspect concept, like it was Treliving who failed to patch the hole the previous GM had let fester for 12 months. But same train of thought that blames the Marleau for Jarvis pick trade on Lou Lamoriello.

I'm so glad Dubas is not GM anymore, so we don't have new items he botched to debate over.

 

[ULF_55]

Best to do both, healthcare professionals aren’t family, and family aren’t healthcare professionals………

I'm not saying abandon your loved one, just that sometimes a professional is going to have more patience and knowledge about what is best.

 

[Kiwi]

In 2 years yep.

Not next year though.

That's why I'd gamble on Benoit and Liljegren this summer.

I think you could easily double their contracts on a multi-year deal (Liljegren's agent might disagree).

But if you could tie them up for less than 6mm combined for 3-4 years, you could probably have enough for a 1st. pairing defender in the budget.

I'd also be looking to bring in a cost controlled or cheapish resign candidate to play on the top pair with Rielly

I think that guy is Fabbro, he's youngish seems to be on the outs in Nashville, doesn't score a lot so won't cost much to resign to term and played his best when he was paired with an offense first partner on the top pair

Do that then wait just in case somebody else shakes free we can grab for cheap or somebody gets left out in UFA and will take a cheap one year deal

 

[MarMarSab3]

I'd also be looking to bring in a cost controlled or cheapish resign candidate to play on the top pair with Rielly

I think that guy is Fabbro, he's youngish seems to be on the outs in Nashville, doesn't score a lot so won't cost much to resign to term and played his best when he was paired with an offense first partner on the top pair

Do that then wait just in case somebody else shakes free we can grab for cheap or somebody gets left out in UFA and will take a cheap one year deal.

Agreed, I think grabbing Fabbro and Peeke this year and then splurging on the 2024/25 UFA class for another dman.
Reilly Fabbro
McCabe Peeke
Benoit Liljegren