Trades & Free Agency Thread: Off-season Edition

[Budz]

If LA is a bit desperate to replace Doughty’s minutes on the right side…. Perhaps a Liljegren and Kampf for Danault swap could tempt them. If Byfield makes the move to C, it makes sense to reduce Danault’s ice time, which is a bit of a waste.

Danault would give us a super-elite 3c to go behind Tavares and Matthews, and he would also be able to take all of the responsibilities vacated by Kampf.

Downside is we wouldn’t be able to carry more than 1 spare.


Knies-Matthews-Nylander
Domi-Tavares-Marner
McMann-Danault-Jarnkrok
Robertson-Dewar-Grebenkin
Reaves

Rielly-Tanev
Larsson-McCabe
Benoit-Hakenpaa

I suggested the exact same move in another thread.

Makes a lot of sense.

 

[Gallagbi]

30 point pace for Lundell and Compher, which they may or may it have continued if they played 82 games.

Karlsson didn’t play a 3C role any more than O’Rielly did when he was here.


It is nice, but it’s a different situation. You aren’t just getting more ice time, you’re taking it away from someone else.

Correct. The 3C saw additional time for a variety of reasons on some teams. You could argue they're capable of being 2Cs on most teams, or even higher, but on those teams they were the 3C.

And when talking about quality of players, it would make sense to use the full sample and not assume they'd be pointless the rest of the way. I projected, you could use per game instead - either way you see a production gap in Kampf with those players. Some are strong (Karlsson, even Lundell had a solid playoff) and some were weak winners like Compher

Keefe did a really bad job, what can I say?

Guess I'm looking forward for mid 30 pt season from Kampf then, when we stack his 30 ESP with a handful of PK points this year. I'll happily eat crow if we can get his defensive play with that production.

¹
There’s a difference between thinking he’s a good 3c and thinking he better than Holmberg. Those are completely different issues. I don’t think I’ve ever said Kampf is a great 3c… but that’s not the same as thinking he’s the best option available right now. I think Kampf is a below average 3c AND he’s way better than Holmberg.

You never said "great" but you have implied he's comparable to cup winning 3C (and I'm sure there's a few odd examples that we haven't really found yet which may support it, but I'd say there's a clear gap in his play and most cup winning 3C) and fine as a 3C overall despite his minutes rolling into 4C territory and the teams constant need to upgrade our 3C spot for the past few years. Thats the claim I personally disagree with.

I'd definitely agree there's a drop off from Kampf to Holmberg. Given what their paid and how they'll be deployed, I think the value, and overall upside, is better with Holmberg and we should have taken that savings to try and upgrade our 3C since Kampf can't fill the role adequately.

Here's youd quote for reference re fine as a 3C

Kampf was fine as the 3c. Scoring was a tad below average for that spot, but not by a lot.

 

[All Mod Cons]

All free agents or prospects drafted from a different boss. Nothing via trade unless you count Tanev as a trade. The main core is still very much here.

And that was always going to be the problem. It's something I've pointed out many times over the last number of years.

Not only do/did we lack prospects (depth) but we also lacked picks. Like proper picks, not 3rd round or after.

But more importantly than that, because we employed the stars and scrubs strategy to build our team under Dubas, there becomes an actual lack of tradeable roster players.

You either have guys making nothing who are outperforming their contract (you have to keep for cap structure purposes) or you have dime a dozen players, the same as every other team.

That leaves you with trying to improve your roster by moving a guy(s) who are all in the top 10ish or so cap hits in the entire league. That is a very very hard trade to facilitate. We need the players to want to go to a team (contender) while said team have the cap space, or the want to completely change their own cap structure.

One of Kyle's many, many, many f***-ups was not having a middle ground group of players that you can move for something we might need.

That has basically left Brad with the option of improving the squad through the draft (he's tried) or Free Agency which is fraught with dangers (he's tried). You either have to overpay on cap hit or term (or both).

Kyle really didn't leave his successor a hell of a lot to work with other than 3 extremely highly paid guys, amd a smattering of everything else.

 

[Dreakmur]

Correct. The 3C saw additional time for a variety of reasons on some teams. You could argue they're capable of being 2Cs on most teams, or even higher, but on those teams they were the 3C.

Being the 3rd best center is different than being in the 3c role.

And when talking about quality of players, it would make sense to use the full sample and not assume they'd be pointless the rest of the way. I projected, you could use per game instead - either way you see a production gap in Kampf with those players. Some are strong (Karlsson, even Lundell had a solid playoff) and some were weak winners like Compher

Ok, so 30 points vs 24?

Guess I'm looking forward for mid 30 pt season from Kampf then, when we stack his 30 ESP with a handful of PK points this year. I'll happily eat crow if we can get his defensive play with that production.

I'd expect a mid-20 ES points from Kampf. Add in some points on the PK and he can push 30.

You never said "great" but you have implied he's comparable to cup winning 3C (and I'm sure there's a few odd examples that we haven't really found yet which may support it, but I'd say there's a clear gap in his play and most cup winning 3C) and fine as a 3C overall despite his minutes rolling into 4C territory and the teams constant need to upgrade our 3C spot for the past few years. Thats the claim I personally disagree with.

I've implied that 3Cs don't score as much as people think.... and that fact that you're going all in on a couple of 30 point guys proves my point.

I'd definitely agree there's a drop off from Kampf to Holmberg. Given what their paid and how they'll be deployed, I think the value, and overall upside, is better with Holmberg and we should have taken that savings to try and upgrade our 3C since Kampf can't fill the role adequately.

And that's my point.... you're not upgrading Kampf for less money. Holmberg is a clear downgrade, and that's if he can even stick at centre, which he hasn't proven yet.

Alex Wennberg just got like 4 million for scoring 23, 29, and 30 ES points as a 2nd liner. Scott Laughton is probably a bit better, but he's paid 3 million, and in a 3rd line role doesn't likely crack 30 ES points.

Who's the cheaper upgrade we all think will be easy to bring in?

Here's youd quote for reference re fine as a 3C

He is fine. Below average offensively and quite good defensively.