2020-2021 Toronto Maple Leafs General Discussion

[ZBBM]

Saying "it's going to be remembered as one of the worst trades in Leafs history" and then saying "But pre-cap trades are different" is basically just saying it's going to be remembered as one of the worst trades in the last 15 years which...ok?

Personally, in terms of bad cap era trades it's still got a mountain to climb. You've got Rask/Raycroft, Steen/Stempniak, Kessel/Seguin, Toskala...

I'm not having any of that.  Toskala was an extremely stylish dresser.

 

[Phileas Fogg]

Nope, I stand by it. All of the examples refuting go back to the pre-cap era, where you could buy your way out of stupidity.

We gave away a future Vezina winner for nothing in the cap era.

Hence my weaselesque "one of the worst" not "the worst"

 

[Kin]

Dubas had the right idea with the CGY trade he lined up; why he went 180 from that is just hard to understand.

Not really. The obvious reason is that good top 4 defensemen who were available and had teams willing to eat money on to get a deal done were, are, and always will be in short supply. Especially when Kerfoot represented an also kind of essential piece for a team without much forward depth.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

Nope, I stand by it. All of the examples refuting go back to the pre-cap era, where you could buy your way out of stupidity.

We gave away a future Vezina winner for nothing in the cap era.

Hence my weaselesque "one of the worst" not "the worst"

Sure but there's still other cap era trades that I think can be described as worse. Giving up a 1st and a 2nd rounder for Toskala (one of the worst starting goalies in the cap era), the massive whiff of trading up to get Tyler Biggs, the Steen trade. I mean I'd be willing to call it Dubas' worst trade sure, but I just don't think it's the kind of trade that really sets a franchise back a number of years. Even if you go league wide there's been a TON of other deals in the last 5-10 years that blow past this one in terms of terrible-ness.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

Dubas had the right idea with the CGY trade he lined up; why he went 180 from that is just hard to understand.

Not really. The obvious reason is that good top 4 defensemen who were available and had teams willing to eat money on to get a deal done were, are, and always will be in short supply. Especially when Kerfoot represented an also kind of essential piece for a team without much forward depth.

And who knows, say Brodie walks as a UFA just like Barrie will (I think that's less likely but still)... if all we're left with is Mark Jankowski we're probably talking about this trade looking even worse than we are now.

 

[herman]

Dubas had the right idea with the CGY trade he lined up; why he went 180 from that is just hard to understand.

Not really. The obvious reason is that good top 4 defensemen who were available and had teams willing to eat money on to get a deal done were, are, and always will be in short supply. Especially when Kerfoot represented an also kind of essential piece for a team without much forward depth.

And who knows, say Brodie walks as a UFA just like Barrie will (I think that's less likely but still)... if all we're left with is Mark Jankowski we're probably talking about this trade looking even worse than we are now.

It was a reasonable bet to make at the time. The burger patty of the trade (Kerfoot) has good potential for lower cost; the lettuce came wilted, but after the coaching change Barrie was quite productive (on top of being frustrating, as all lettuce is). Barrie was only ever meant to tide over the handoff to Liljegren, and if he worked out really well, then a re-signing option would be a nice bonus.

To Nik's point, top-4 capable defensemen that teams are willing to trade (and retain salary on) are rare. Not only rare, but usually available for a reason. The bet from Toronto's perspective is that our expected playstyle would match Barrie's skill set as a puckmoving rover would outweigh his deficiencies. Babcock immediately tried to get Barrie to play outside of his skill set in a shutdown role (lol) and play safe kind of the same way he'd been trying to get Nylander and Marner to play safer. Not wrong in and of itself, but also not really the right way to use this particular tool.

 

[Bullfrog]

I don't think it was a necessary trade, but I also don't think it's really all that bad. Everybody knows Barrie doesn't do defense, but he had the potential to put up big offensive numbers and make up for the loss of Gardiner. Kerfoot's turned out to be a pretty solid player.

Ultimately, Kadri was on a great contract and was the best player in the deal, so I'd say Col "won" the deal.

 

[herman]

I don't think it was a necessary trade, but I also don't think it's really all that bad. Everybody knows Barrie doesn't do defense, but he had the potential to put up big offensive numbers and make up for the loss of Gardiner. Kerfoot's turned out to be a pretty solid player.

Ultimately, Kadri was on a great contract and was the best player in the deal, so I'd say Col "won" the deal.

I don't think it was immediately necessary either, but Kadri was a depreciating asset whose diminishing ice time behind Tavares and an emerging Matthews meant selling it's reasonable to sell while he was still pretty hot (i.e. what probably should've been done with Bozak/JvR/Komarov) if you could get a returning player on the rise.

Also, seeing them all in different contexts now, how much of that hilariously good PP was actually Kadri and JvR as elite bumper/net-front players? I'd say pretty much 90% of it.

 

[Bender]

Dubas had the right idea with the CGY trade he lined up; why he went 180 from that is just hard to understand.

Not really. The obvious reason is that good top 4 defensemen who were available and had teams willing to eat money on to get a deal done were, are, and always will be in short supply. Especially when Kerfoot represented an also kind of essential piece for a team without much forward depth.

And who knows, say Brodie walks as a UFA just like Barrie will (I think that's less likely but still)... if all we're left with is Mark Jankowski we're probably talking about this trade looking even worse than we are now.

It was a reasonable bet to make at the time. The burger patty of the trade (Kerfoot) has good potential for lower cost; the lettuce came wilted, but after the coaching change Barrie was quite productive (on top of being frustrating, as all lettuce is). Barrie was only ever meant to tide over the handoff to Liljegren, and if he worked out really well, then a re-signing option would be a nice bonus.

To Nik's point, top-4 capable defensemen that teams are willing to trade (and retain salary on) are rare. Not only rare, but usually available for a reason. The bet from Toronto's perspective is that our expected playstyle would match Barrie's skill set as a puckmoving rover would outweigh his deficiencies. Babcock immediately tried to get Barrie to play outside of his skill set in a shutdown role (lol) and play safe kind of the same way he'd been trying to get Nylander and Marner to play safer. Not wrong in and of itself, but also not really the right way to use this particular tool.

I guess we would be screwed in the 3C role if we didn't get Kerfoot but why not figure out the 3C role later and get a very good Dman for Kadri straight up with term? 3Cs shouldn't be THAT hard to find on the open market?

 

[Bender]

Dubas had the right idea with the CGY trade he lined up; why he went 180 from that is just hard to understand.

Not really. The obvious reason is that good top 4 defensemen who were available and had teams willing to eat money on to get a deal done were, are, and always will be in short supply. Especially when Kerfoot represented an also kind of essential piece for a team without much forward depth.

And who knows, say Brodie walks as a UFA just like Barrie will (I think that's less likely but still)... if all we're left with is Mark Jankowski we're probably talking about this trade looking even worse than we are now.

It was a reasonable bet to make at the time. The burger patty of the trade (Kerfoot) has good potential for lower cost; the lettuce came wilted, but after the coaching change Barrie was quite productive (on top of being frustrating, as all lettuce is). Barrie was only ever meant to tide over the handoff to Liljegren, and if he worked out really well, then a re-signing option would be a nice bonus.

To Nik's point, top-4 capable defensemen that teams are willing to trade (and retain salary on) are rare. Not only rare, but usually available for a reason. The bet from Toronto's perspective is that our expected playstyle would match Barrie's skill set as a puckmoving rover would outweigh his deficiencies. Babcock immediately tried to get Barrie to play outside of his skill set in a shutdown role (lol) and play safe kind of the same way he'd been trying to get Nylander and Marner to play safer. Not wrong in and of itself, but also not really the right way to use this particular tool.

I guess we would be screwed in the 3C role if we didn't get Kerfoot but why not figure out the 3C role later and get a very good Dman for Kadri straight up with term? 3Cs shouldn't be THAT hard to find on the open market?

Also I've been watching a lot of trade trees lately and one thing I've noticed is that really good teams don't just let expiring contracts walk. At some point we need to recoup assets on some of these. They really should've tried to flip Ceci for something, same goes for JVR and Bozak amongst many others. The cupboards are already bare and if you don't keep rolling assets you're basically stagnating the prospect pool and not maintaining competitiveness on value contracts.

 

[herman]

Also after seeing some additional context here:

The last Boston series and the Columbus series made the Leafs fandom throw hissy fits. Some of it is pretty fair: stubborn usage, wasted opportunities. But Carolina, which many would agree is a better team defensively than Toronto, is struggling against Boston (and the refereeing that follows them), even when they're down their top goal scorer. Toronto took a full powered Boston team to the brink and just faltered at the finish line due to consistency issues. Tampa is a significantly better team-defense squad than Toronto with a top-tier offense and Vezina-caliber goalie, and they're just squeaking in over Columbus on the scoresheet despite dominating play.

Toronto has flaws, but I don't see them as insurmountable even with just internal growth and some strategic adjustments. The playoffs are micro-analyzed for good reason (because people actually watch), but they're largely just crapshoots of who can get away with cheating the most while their goalie gets hot for a 1.5 month stretch (see Matt Murray and Jordan Binnington). It sucks, but it's a bit stupid to evaluate a season solely by playoff achievement because hockey is disproportionately luck-driven and salary cap hockey steers into that chaos.

 

[herman]

Also I've been watching a lot of trade trees lately and one thing I've noticed is that really good teams don't just let expiring contracts walk. At some point we need to recoup assets on some of these. They really should've tried to flip Ceci for something, same goes for JVR and Bozak amongst many others. The cupboards are already bare and if you don't keep rolling assets you're basically stagnating the prospect pool and not maintaining competitiveness on value contracts.

Ceci was injured just before the deadline kicked up in earnest.

 

[Bullfrog]

....
Toronto has flaws, but I don't see them as insurmountable even with just internal growth and some strategic adjustments. The playoffs are micro-analyzed for good reason (because people actually watch), but they're largely just crapshoots of who can get away with cheating the most while their goalie gets hot for a 1.5 month stretch (see Matt Murray and Jordan Binnington). It sucks, but it's a bit stupid to evaluate a season solely by playoff achievement because hockey is disproportionately luck-driven and salary cap hockey steers into that chaos.

Despite their lack of success, each of the three previous playoff series they've been in has gone the distance: two 7th games with Boston and a 5th with Columbus. Frustrating as hell, but not like they've totally flamed out.

 

[Frank E]

I was reading on PPP about the rumours of Boudreau being interested in an assistant job with the Leafs.  I wonder how Keefe would even feel about something like that? 

 

[ZBBM]

Dubas had the right idea with the CGY trade he lined up; why he went 180 from that is just hard to understand.

Not really. The obvious reason is that good top 4 defensemen who were available and had teams willing to eat money on to get a deal done were, are, and always will be in short supply. Especially when Kerfoot represented an also kind of essential piece for a team without much forward depth.

Of course, but there was always the patience option.  Or trade him for a better forward if that truly was the only alternative.

 

[ZBBM]

And just to add, you can spin Kadri as a depreciating asset etc. but this was a deal where we gave up a pretty darned good player for a much lesser version + a main piece coming back that was spectacularly what the team didn't need.  It was an awful trade.

 

[ZBBM]

....
Toronto has flaws, but I don't see them as insurmountable even with just internal growth and some strategic adjustments. The playoffs are micro-analyzed for good reason (because people actually watch), but they're largely just crapshoots of who can get away with cheating the most while their goalie gets hot for a 1.5 month stretch (see Matt Murray and Jordan Binnington). It sucks, but it's a bit stupid to evaluate a season solely by playoff achievement because hockey is disproportionately luck-driven and salary cap hockey steers into that chaos.

Despite their lack of success, each of the three previous playoff series they've been in has gone the distance: two 7th games with Boston and a 5th with Columbus. Frustrating as hell, but not like they've totally flamed out.

The point in time where we should take solace from this was 2 seasons ago, I'm afraid.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

Also I've been watching a lot of trade trees lately and one thing I've noticed is that really good teams don't just let expiring contracts walk. At some point we need to recoup assets on some of these. They really should've tried to flip Ceci for something, same goes for JVR and Bozak amongst many others. The cupboards are already bare and if you don't keep rolling assets you're basically stagnating the prospect pool and not maintaining competitiveness on value contracts.

Ceci was injured just before the deadline kicked up in earnest.

They weren't trading Ceci.

 

[herman]

Also I've been watching a lot of trade trees lately and one thing I've noticed is that really good teams don't just let expiring contracts walk. At some point we need to recoup assets on some of these. They really should've tried to flip Ceci for something, same goes for JVR and Bozak amongst many others. The cupboards are already bare and if you don't keep rolling assets you're basically stagnating the prospect pool and not maintaining competitiveness on value contracts.

Ceci was injured just before the deadline kicked up in earnest.

They weren't trading Ceci.

They would've if it was one-for-one for Nate Schmidt or Colton Parayko.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

And just to add, you can spin Kadri as a depreciating asset etc. but this was a deal where we gave up a pretty darned good player for a much lesser version + a main piece coming back that was spectacularly what the team didn't need.  It was an awful trade.

I'm gonna take some issue here with the idea that Barrie wasn't something that the team needed. For years our right side defence didn't have a defenceman capable of moving the puck. Hainsey, Zaitsev, Polak, Ozhiganov all handled the pucks like grenades. It was a giant weakness that Boston specifically was able to exploit in our playoff series' with them.

A top-4, puck moving right-handed defenceman was honestly a bigger need than a 3rd line centre for the team.