Trades & Free Agency Thread: 2024-2025 - Trade Deadline Approaches

[Fogelhund]

You take these with a grain of salt... but they are accurate in this case on his D game.

 

[Dekes For Days]

100 points is not that high of a bar in this era. Between 2020 and 2024 these guys have all produced 100 point seasons, surpassing 100 points 26x times. So Marner's 99 point high would be tied for at least the 27th best individual point season over the past 5 years. I know Jack Hughes hit 99 points the same year Marner did. Hitting 99 points and being in the 90s is great company but not elite, elite company. Also keep in mind a bunch of these guys have hit the 110s, 120s, 130s, 140s and even 150s.

McDavid (4x)
Kucherov (2x)
Mackinnon (2x)
Matthews (2x)
Panarin (1x)
Pastrnak (2x)
Rantanen (2x)
M. Tkachuk (2x)
Miller (1x)
Pettersson (1x)
J. Robertson (1x)
Nugent-Hopkins (1x)
E. Karlsson! (1x)
Huberdeau (1x)
Stamkos (1x)
Gaudreau (1x)
Kaprizov (1x)

Of course, this is horribly misleading. Not only is 100 points an arbitrary, meaningless bar, but the reasons Marner hasn't hit it has nothing to do with his quality.

In fact, between 2020 and 2024, there are only 5 players in the league that paced 100+ points every year. McDavid, Draisaitl, Mackinnon, Rantanen, and Marner. That's certainly some "elite company", and he's doing it again this year.

 

[Stephen]

Of course, this is horribly misleading. Not only is 100 points an arbitrary, meaningless bar, but the reasons Marner hasn't hit it has nothing to do with his quality.

In fact, between 2020 and 2024, there are only 5 players in the league that paced 100+ points every year. McDavid, Draisaitl, Mackinnon, Rantanen, and Marner. That's certainly some "elite company", and he's doing it again this year.

Why is 100 points misleading? It’s not that high of a bar if so many peasants are hitting it year after year.

 

[nuck]

I think Gourde is pretty good and would be an upgrade if/when healthy. Consdering what's left out there, I think he makes some sense. But he just got surgery here... Seattle can do him a favour to go for a cup but I certainly don't think the Leafs need to go all in on him. The risk is all on the Leafs, and he's not cheap either.

Put Pacioretty on the Gourde and Jarnkrok line --- the IR line.

He is on an expiring deal so I think the Kraken have limited leverage with him coming off the injury, unless they were absolutely commited to resigning him. He isn't young and wasn't tearing it up before he got hurt. IF he comes back in time to be traded he could be low cost. Taylor Hall cost a 3rd and retention was attached right? Potentially cheap enough they could still do bigger deals in addition.

 

[BallardEra]

I'm not feeling Gourde or Hall.

 

[Dekes For Days]

Why is 100 points misleading?

You're ignoring the actual quality and contributions of players over that time frame to try and define them solely by whether or not they hit some meaningless point total in an individual season. No consideration for why players hit that point total. No consideration for why players didn't hit that point total. No consideration for what players were doing when they weren't hitting that point total. Drawing lines based on a difference of as little as 1 improperly recorded point.

You then tried to use this to suggest that Marner wasn't in elite company, when he is one of only 5 players in the league to pace that total every season.

 

[Martin Skoula]

Of course, this is horribly misleading. Not only is 100 points an arbitrary, meaningless bar, but the reasons Marner hasn't hit it has nothing to do with his quality.

In fact, between 2020 and 2024, there are only 5 players in the league that paced 100+ points every year. McDavid, Draisaitl, Mackinnon, Rantanen, and Marner. That's certainly some "elite company", and he's doing it again this year.

Those guys all have 50+ goal seasons, some multiple, and other than Rantanen they have scoring peaks 20-60% higher than Marner lol. If he can be considered in their company, he’s the runt of the litter by an enormous margin.

 

[ULF_55]

This goes back 4 seasons. He shifted to the wing partway through last season. Ask anyone who watches the Flyers if Laughton is a C or a W.

Thanks for the infor.

So that means they acquired/developed a better center so that he'd slide to the wing.

Last year he had 2nd. most face-offs.

This year Couturier, Poehling, Frost and Cates have more, but Frost was moved to Calgary.

I'd say he wouldn't be unfamiliar with the position if he had to go back to it being only 1 year removed from that position.

Who would be his competition in Toronto?
Domi - 3 goals 19 points
Kampf - 3 goals 7 points
Holmberg - 2 goals 8 points

Laughton - 10 goals 25 points

My position is, get a 2nd. line center and pay market rate. Laughton is not a 2nd. line center, but might be better than the options Leafs have at 3rd. line.

 

[Dekes For Days]

Those guys all have 50+ goal seasons, some multiple, and other than Rantanen they have scoring peaks 20-60% higher than Marner lol. If he can be considered in their company, he’s the runt of the litter by an enormous margin.

He's not even the worst of the 5. Rantanen is.
Though congratulations; you're realizing how ridiculous comparing players like this is.

 

[Rare Jewel]

Creating better depth and the ability to have cap space to allocate to other areas" . Just like I said - vague. Not an actual plan. Just pretend that cap space fixes all.

You missed a pretty darn important part of that sentence. It's not "creating better depth and the ability to have cap space to allocate to other areas". It's 'creating the potential to acquire more expensive depth, which may or may not be better than depth we've had and could have otherwise, and allocate to other areas, by purging one of the best players in the league that brings positive and high end offensive and defensive impacts to every game state'. Suddenly, It's pretty obvious how that makes us worse.

Yeah, because I'm not the GM.... even if I suggest something, what weight does it have? Even if I do, you won't entertain the idea anyway.

I mean, It's nearly as vague as you saying, "we have to stick with this model"

Deadline players were excluded, so that is a comparison of 5 years of Dubas to 2 years of Treliving. That doesn't make anything better. That's still a horrible track record of contributions from Treliving, and a complete 180 from the effective and efficient depth we used to find. That successful teams find. That is our real issue right now, not cap space.

You don't need "Dubas bias" to see that. The only "cultish attitude" that's ever existed around Dubas was people pretending he's the devil. He was just a good GM, after a long line of bad ones, and some people valued not going back to this garbage. Was he perfect? No. Did he make mistakes and have things that didn't work out as planned? Of course. No GM is going to get everything right, and I'm sure you have your gripes. But he did enough right to put out the fires, add to the core, fix holes, have good depth, navigate really difficult situations, and build one of the best teams in the league. And when things didn't go as planned, he did something about it. Treliving is just sitting here watching the house he set on fire burn to the ground.

The team may not have gotten the ultimate achievement that you want, but as a GM, he achieved quite a bit through some of the most difficult situations. You would think that our current state would open some eyes, but it looks like some are still too clouded to see that.

You put too much emphasis on nitpicking the irrelevant differences between us and other teams at our core's peak cap hit allocation, while ignoring the relative quality of our players, that this general model is how most successful teams are built, and that that allocation is going to plummet really fast. You need to focus more on what's happening with the other half of the cap, not the cap allocated to the parts that actually earn it.

Dubas isn't our GM. These are Treliving's failures.

I don't care about Dubas, as I said before, I've got very little interest in talking about him and dealing with your hurt pride over the guy. If you think he's perfect, then great.

There are more than two prospects with value. You're not even including Danford - our 1st round pick last year. As for picks, the 1st from this year is already assisting the current team with McCabe at a spectacular price, but we still have 2 first round picks, 2 second round picks, and 3 third round picks over the next 3 years. Add in all the cap space, and Treliving has had more than enough to do stuff.

Danford is not a very good pick. As for the future picks, we'll see what becomes of them. If they get traded for guys we keep for more than one spring or actually get used, then that's fine. But if they continue to use high picks to plug holes in the team, only for them not to stay, then it's just more of this Folingo/O'Reilly nonsense.

Even if the cap increase brings contract inflation, it's still massively more beneficial than no cap increase. It's only the new players that you need to sign at the new prices. And if all other contracts are going to be going up soon, sounds like a great time to lock in a superstar before all that happens, right?

It's not "pay the stars whatever". It's "pay the stars what they've earned". There are results. You just won't acknowledge them. Any flexibility limitations were a direct result of the cap stagnating for half a decade at the worst possible time, but limited flexibility is still better than limited quality, and we're not operating in a flat cap world anymore. In fact, we're about to experience the exact opposite.

Not for $14m for 8 years, sorry. Go look at Stephen's post with some comparative numbers.

Post in thread 'Trades & Free Agency Thread: 2024-2025 - Trade Deadline Approaches'

Yesterday at 8:41 PM

Sure seems like he's a 90-point scorer to me. And if I'm signing Mitch into his mid-30s where his offensive numbers will likely decline, I'd like the contract to represent 94, 97, 99 points, not the projected/paced numbers.

And also, let's be real; only agents would care about something like that, and I'm tired of getting bullied by agents in negotiations for these guys.

It feels inevitable that any eventual contract renewal with Marner will bake in the historic overpayment in as the foundation, but you bring up an interesting sore spot around the question of being a 90+ point...

• Stephen

• 

If he'll do something like 12x3, then maybe. But I see no reason to go that heavy and hard for a guy and group that really hasn't won. So, I seriously dispute that he's earned the kind of contract you would give.

We had depth and a strong defence core. We don't have it now because of Treliving, not cap space. Those teams won on the backs of their best players and efficiencies in their depth. Well.. that and cap circumvention.

Yeah, It's all Treliving fault. There is no blame for the previous guy at all, who held the job for 6 years.

Yes, Mackinnon taking a long time to break out helped them, but you can't pick and choose that. But what also helped that contract be so good is the cap rising over time, and that's something we could similarly benefit from by signing Marner before the cap skyrockets.

I mean KD didn't have to get bent over in negotiations. Perhaps then we would've already had the benefit of the rising cap, but now it's still likely to be an overpayment, with the likelihood of having to wait a few years for cap space to open, and by then, how old is the core going to be and what actually been accomplished?

This is the question that you seemingly have no answer to, they haven't done anything. Why persist with it especially if they fall again this year?

It's telling, but it's not telling what you want it to tell. What happened to "May need some time to pass before we can properly judge"?

What? Aren't you the one already judging it to be a loss for Colorado? Necas has had a pretty good start in Denver, so let's wait a bit.

36 games is tiny, especially with the massively disparate situations teams experience in the playoffs. I don't care how many more goals a goal scorer scored during X than a playmaker scored during Y. The only thing that matters is their overall impacts.

36 games, In the playoffs? Just stop...

The overall impact is not much for him or the team. and it's not more impact than the other stars we've come up against, such as Pasternak, Tkachuk, Barkov, or Kucherov, so I don't know why we should be in such a hurry to pay him more than them.

It's actually incredibly easy to ignore context in the playoffs. You're doing it right now. There's so much more critical context to consider, because everybody is experiencing different things in ways that they don't in the regular season, and it skews all outputs across teams. There's a lot more to playoff performance than how many points/goals you get.

Yes, I'd agree with some of that; however, let's not overcomplicate it or make it too abstract. Marner is already paid a lot of money to produce, as are his core teammates, and generally, they've been disappointing. Would you not agree?

How can you not? 1 round they've won in the 9 years of the Matthews era.

Somebody who both paces and finishes with more than 90 points is not a 90 point scorer. You can't just change the standard of how all NHL contracts work because you want a deal. There shouldn't be too much decline through the ages Marner would be signing, and if anything, Marner is probably the least likely to decline of any of our core, as his impact isn't as reliant on physical attributes that deteriorate with age.

I'm not changing anything; the numbers that he's actually put on the board throughout what is likely his offensive prime is somewhere between 90-99 points. That's what you're banking on.

As I said before, only an agent views it in such terms. Any GM worth their salt should be cutting through that BS. But if that is how some GMs work, then I guess it's easy to see how our guys got paid too much too soon.

 

[Americanadian]

Thanks for the infor.

So that means they acquired/developed a better center so that he'd slide to the wing.

I think Laughton set the bar extremely low with his defensive play that they wanted any other available C to play C - think Domi but he only scored 40 points once. For reference - they currently play him at LW with Rodrigo Abols at C. If he was still a C you'd think they'd play him over Rodrigo Abols.

 

[Rare Jewel]

Why is 100 points misleading? It’s not that high of a bar if so many peasants are hitting it year after year.

It's misleading because it's Marner.

The points Marner gets are better, and he gets them in a much more complex context than anyone. As far as he's concerned, most of the others are just shooting at empty nets.

 

[Fogelhund]

Laughton also has 4 points in the last 14 games, after a hot start. The main reason people want him, is "he plays right"... playoff style hockey. He's got a brand name, and he'll be expensive to pick up.

I'd still rather go for a guy like Krebs... just as physical, good on the boards, better defensively, and I think has more offensive upside, once he's out of Buffalo... He's a RFA, so you've got control...kids just 24, and if you look at his Juniors, he should be doing better... but then, doesn't everyone do much better after they leave Buffalo... Cheaper to obtain, cheaper cap hit, control, more upside.

I think we go after big brand names here too often, and don't look for the value pick up enough.

 

[WTFMAN99]

I'm not feeling Gourde or Hall.

Hall already got traded

Gourde is having/had surgery for hernia

Neither is happening, rest easy.

 

[ULF_55]

I think Laughton set the bar extremely low with his defensive play that they wanted any other available C to play C - think Domi but he only scored 40 points once. For reference - they currently play him at LW with Rodrigo Abols at C. If he was still a C you'd think they'd play him over Rodrigo Abols.

Again, look at the competition on the Leafs.
Are any of them working out at center, and are any of them actually producing anything?

 

[Rare Jewel]

You take these with a grain of salt... but they are accurate in this case on his D game.

View attachment 971849

Wow, I thought he was better than that.

Tre will probably go for that then and maybe get Ristolainen as well.

 

[Fogelhund]

Wow, I thought he was better than that.

Tre will probably go for that then and maybe get Ristolainen as well.

Shoot me now.

 

[notdoneyet]

An upgrade on any of the following would be a win for us
Kampf
Jarnkrok
Dewar
Reaves
Holmberg
Timmins

 

[nuck]

For those that had interest in Granlund...maybe Novak is a lower priced target?

With what they spent on underperforming vets I can't see them being anxious to start moving their cheap guys. I think Trotz would like a do over on his big signings and will probably end up tearing things down but probably not until they have another year to see if they can reset.

 

[Americanadian]

Again, look at the competition on the Leafs.
Are any of them working out at center, and are any of them actually producing anything?

Is Laughton a better C than Domi? Not definitively.

Does he fit the criteria laid out into the post I quoted originally? No.

 

[Rare Jewel]

With what they spent on underperforming vets I can't see them being anxious to start moving their cheap guys. I think Trotz would like a do over on his big signings and will probably end up tearing things down but probably not until they have another year to see if they can reset.

They should try to get Marchessault in a "soft" deal, as they say.

 

[Kiwi]

With the now economic war between Canada and the States. I could see US born players even less likely to want to come to, and play for Canadian teams than ever before. Good thing we’ve got our key US born players locked up for a few years.

I seriously doubt it's going to make a difference either way

Toronto is a major Metropolitan international city and the team makes an absolute crap ton of money it showers on its players

It may make a difference in smaller markets but the Leafs and Habs are going to be absolutely fine

 

[Skullz]

Laughton also has 4 points in the last 14 games, after a hot start. The main reason people want him, is "he plays right"... playoff style hockey. He's got a brand name, and he'll be expensive to pick up.

I'd still rather go for a guy like Krebs... just as physical, good on the boards, better defensively, and I think has more offensive upside, once he's out of Buffalo... He's a RFA, so you've got control...kids just 24, and if you look at his Juniors, he should be doing better... but then, doesn't everyone do much better after they leave Buffalo... Cheaper to obtain, cheaper cap hit, control, more upside.

I think we go after big brand names here too often, and don't look for the value pick up enough.

I would love to add Krebs. We need to bet on skill and upside. Have quietly become one of the oldest teams in the league with nothing to show for it.

 

[ULF_55]

Is Laughton a better C than Domi? Not definitively.

Does he fit the criteria laid out into the post I quoted originally? No.

Who, that isn't a broken down, is available?

 

[SprDaVE]

An upgrade on any of the following would be a win for us
Kampf
Jarnkrok
Dewar
Reaves
Holmberg
Timmins

Kampf and Reaves -- for sure. The rest are all minimal salary and decent depth but obviously very unspectacular. Every team has some of those. Jarnkrok is gone for the season.