Armchair GM 2018-2019

[Kin]

I agree in principle, but that's kind of the situation we've been put into with the lottery win and Lamoriello's build philosophy. Internal expectations are also part of that picture. Are we not nearly at critical mass for high end talent?

Setting all of that aside, what moves could Dubas be making to funnel more high end talent into the fold? Even stripping out all of our spare parts, this core is, at its baseline of play, pretty comfortably at the edge or in the playoffs.

Sure and if you want to say that they should go with the best or least-bad option I don't necessarily disagree. I wouldn't even argue that it's doomed or anything. A good trade or two, some real development from Dermott and Liljegren(or others within the system) and Freddy getting hot at the right time and who knows? They won't be the Blackhawks or Penguins but they can probably be the 2011 Bruins or 2006 Canes. They absolutely can build a team with a puncher's chance.

 

[rdowdall]

I agree in principle, but that's kind of the situation we've been put into with the lottery win and Lamoriello's build philosophy. Internal expectations are also part of that picture. Are we not nearly at critical mass for high end talent?

Setting all of that aside, what moves could Dubas be making to funnel more high end talent into the fold? Even stripping out all of our spare parts, this core is, at its baseline of play, pretty comfortably at the edge or in the playoffs.

Sure and if you want to say that they should go with the best or least-bad option I don't necessarily disagree. I wouldn't even argue that it's doomed or anything. A good trade or two, some real development from Dermott and Liljegren(or others within the system) and Freddy getting hot at the right time and who knows? They won't be the Blackhawks or Penguins but they can probably be the 2011 Bruins or 2006 Canes. They absolutely can build a team with a puncher's chance.

Which is what some of us wanted to avoid.  I would argue that trading for Freddy is when the writing was on the wall that the plan had been accelerated.  Maybe though they didn't think they would be this good this soon.  Hard to say, but if you look at the moves after that, I think they went in to a win now mode, and that it was a bit too soon to do so.

 

[Coco-puffs]

I agree in principle, but that's kind of the situation we've been put into with the lottery win and Lamoriello's build philosophy. Internal expectations are also part of that picture. Are we not nearly at critical mass for high end talent?

Setting all of that aside, what moves could Dubas be making to funnel more high end talent into the fold? Even stripping out all of our spare parts, this core is, at its baseline of play, pretty comfortably at the edge or in the playoffs.

Sure and if you want to say that they should go with the best or least-bad option I don't necessarily disagree. I wouldn't even argue that it's doomed or anything. A good trade or two, some real development from Dermott and Liljegren(or others within the system) and Freddy getting hot at the right time and who knows? They won't be the Blackhawks or Penguins but they can probably be the 2011 Bruins or 2006 Canes. They absolutely can build a team with a puncher's chance.

Which is what some of us wanted to avoid.  I would argue that trading for Freddy is when the writing was on the wall that the plan had been accelerated.  Maybe though they didn't think they would be this good this soon.  Hard to say, but if you look at the moves after that, I think they went in to a win now mode, and that it was a bit too soon to do so.

My opinion regarding the Freddie trade was that they saw an opportunity to get a reliable starter and they took it for two reasons:
1.  You never know when you'll be able to acquire one. 
2.  You don't want your very young team to play without trusting their goalie

I don't think they were in a win now mode when that trade happened.  They were in a "we can't have a sieve back there while trying to develop so many young guys" mode.

Then the team showed they were better than expected a couple of months into 2016-2017 and that's when they moved into win now mode. 

I think going into 2016-2017, their plan was probably to trade JvR and Bozak at some point in the next 12 months.  Team was better than expected so they figured lets keep them and push.

Was it a bit too soon?  Probably.  They could have acquired more assets for their UFA's which would help down the line- but I don't think those would be high-end players coming back either. 

(JvR would have brought back the best return- and even there, you're probably looking at a late 1st round pick.  You can get a good middle roster player there as long as you don't draft for size (see Biggs, Gauthier), but have to get really lucky to get high-end talent.)

 

[herman]

I agree in principle, but that's kind of the situation we've been put into with the lottery win and Lamoriello's build philosophy. Internal expectations are also part of that picture. Are we not nearly at critical mass for high end talent?

Setting all of that aside, what moves could Dubas be making to funnel more high end talent into the fold? Even stripping out all of our spare parts, this core is, at its baseline of play, pretty comfortably at the edge or in the playoffs.

Sure and if you want to say that they should go with the best or least-bad option I don't necessarily disagree. I wouldn't even argue that it's doomed or anything. A good trade or two, some real development from Dermott and Liljegren(or others within the system) and Freddy getting hot at the right time and who knows? They won't be the Blackhawks or Penguins but they can probably be the 2011 Bruins or 2006 Canes. They absolutely can build a team with a puncher's chance.

Which is what some of us wanted to avoid.  I would argue that trading for Freddy is when the writing was on the wall that the plan had been accelerated.  Maybe though they didn't think they would be this good this soon.  Hard to say, but if you look at the moves after that, I think they went in to a win now mode, and that it was a bit too soon to do so.

I would characterize it more as, let's see how far this group goes (i.e. JvR), rather than an outright win-now. Win-now would've been spinning Nylander off for Tanev or something equally stupid. They really only made short-term gambles of generally doing not much other than delaying the rise of the (other) children.

Anyway, my question is less what we should've have done, and more what can we do now.

I don't think we're up the creek without Tavares, but I also don't think getting him would significantly derail our future either.

 

[Kin]

Which is what some of us wanted to avoid.  I would argue that trading for Freddy is when the writing was on the wall that the plan had been accelerated.  Maybe though they didn't think they would be this good this soon.  Hard to say, but if you look at the moves after that, I think they went in to a win now mode, and that it was a bit too soon to do so.

I more or less agree although I think "win now'' is a bit confusing as it mixes it up with short term moves made in the service of actually winning something. I think they did, however, want to make an immediate push for, if not winning, then at least respectability and it effectively jump started the process.

C'est la vie and everything and, who knows, as the league continues to enforce parity above all else it may be that the best a team can hope for is a fair roll of the dice but just like it was with previous administrations I think it's worth while to keep a running tab of where things got fudged up.

 

[AvroArrow]

This guy has a computer model to predict deals this offseason:
https://twitter.com/Cane_Matt/status/998562331717234688
No idea what kind of accuracy there might be, but thought it might bring about some discussion.

Some highlights:

Tavares 8yrs @ 10.734M <-- would stretch there for the Leafs
Carlson 8yrs @ 8.6M <-- that's really pushing it, I think... would be fine at <= 7.5
Nylander 5yrs @ 7M <-- for 7M, it should be 7yrs, not 5
Stastny 3yrs @ 5.41M <-- yes please - I'd turn around and trade Kadri for a Dman
Green 5yrs @ 5.639M <-- no thanks
JvR 3yrs @ 5.35M <-- still no
Maroon 4yrs @ 5.288M <-- maybe.. don't know enough about him
Rick Nash 1yr @ 4.6M <-- maybe... he's not what he used to be...
Bozak 3yrs @ 4.378M <-- nope
James Neal 1yr @ 4.3M <-- yes
Grabner 4yrs @ 3.825M <-- not with that term
Komarov 3yrs @ 2.85M <-- no thanks
Jack Johnson 1yr @ 2.59M <-- maybe...
Plekanec 3yrs @ 2.5M <-- nah
Riley Nash 3yrs @ 2.277M <-- I'd take that for 3rd line C

 

[Bill_Berg]

He's got Jagr signing a contract worth more money than de Haan. Both one-year deals. Not sold on his projections.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

He's got Jagr signing a contract worth more money than de Haan. Both one-year deals. Not sold on his projections.

There's always going to be some weird ones, but IIRC he got pretty close to a lot of deals last offseason. His projections also show that if de Haan signs a 4+ year deal it'd be for a $3.5mil-ish AAV which I think is probably about right.

On a related note though I think Calvin de Haan is going to be a very smart signing for somebody this offseason. Too bad he's a lefty.

 

[princedpw]

A lot of these numbers look lower than I'd expect (as opposed to lower than I'd want if I were signing the guy to my team).  My rule of thumb on UFA contracts is to ask what the upper limit on "good" contract is and then add 50% or a couple of million, whichever is more. 

Also, why would people pay Maroon more than JVR?  Maroon has 42 and 43 points the 2 years, some of it playing with McDavid?

 

[AvroArrow]

On a related note though I think Calvin de Haan is going to be a very smart signing for somebody this offseason. Too bad he's a lefty.

Trade Gardiner for a comparable righty and sign De Hann to take his spot on the left.  As long as the righty is good enough, we might come out ahead in that scenario.

 

[Kin]

Trade Gardiner for a comparable righty and sign De Hann to take his spot on the left.  As long as the righty is good enough, we might come out ahead in that scenario.

Given the way that RHD are valued I'm going to guess that a deal of that nature would be harder than we might think. I don't think it'd be enough that Gardiner would be a marginal upgrade talent wise but rather it'd have to be someone whose team wasn't very happy with them for whatever reason. 

 

[CarltonTheBear]

Trade Gardiner for a comparable righty and sign De Hann to take his spot on the left.  As long as the righty is good enough, we might come out ahead in that scenario.

Given the way that RHD are valued I'm going to guess that a deal of that nature would be harder than we might think. I don't think it'd be enough that Gardiner would be a marginal upgrade talent wise but rather it'd have to be someone whose team wasn't very happy with them for whatever reason. 

I was looking at some names for this. Faulk was one that I thought of, but with Slavin and Hanifin already on the left side that probably doesn't work. The other one was Damon Severson, which I think could actually make a little sense. Severson seems to have fallen out of favour a little bit in New Jersey, and they could use an upgrade on the left side especially with Andy Greene not getting any younger.

Gardiner is, quite frankly, a better player: Severson will never score 50 points, and defensively-speaking I think they get flak for similar reasons. But, Severson is 4 years younger and signed to a long-term deal at an affordable rate, while Gardiner is a year away from being an UFA where he could command $6mil+ if he gets to 50 points again.

As a big Jake fan it's tough for me to say, but if the Leafs don't feel like they can afford to bring Gardiner back in 2019 this would definitely be an appealing trade. Or at least the basis of one.

 

[herman]

I?ve been wanting to see us try this, especially now sans JvR and larger forwards in general but most with good shots.

https://thecoachessite.com/2018/05/20/behind-net-powerplay-formation-driven-analytics/

 

[CarltonTheBear]

Also, why would people pay Maroon more than JVR?  Maroon has 42 and 43 points the 2 years, some of it playing with McDavid?

A bit of an explanation on why JVR's contract numbers are a little low:

https://twitter.com/Cane_Matt/status/998679036997066752

 

[herman]

I think people in general struggle with evaluating these sorts of hockey models because it's really easy to fixate on the outliers.

 

[herman]

Thank you as well for noticing that I'm absolutely crazy bananas. I think Zaitsev is at his best when he's the go option, rather than the stop option. This season, the entire right side was assigned the 'stop' role. I know Zaitsev prides himself for defensive acumen, but he's really a good deal more effective when he's not playing as 'safe', whereas Marincin is the exact opposite and is very effective at denying zone entries (which is what Zaitsev gives away like Halloween candy 2 weeks after). This group has 5 PK options (MM, NZ, MR, TD) and 5 PP options (MR, JG, TD, CC, NZ).

This is coming from somebody who used to be probably his biggest fan here... stop trying to make Marincin happen.

It has been about a month and the landscape has changed significantly. I think it?s time to revive the Martin Marincin (the only Martin I?d like to be on this team next year) appreciation pipe dream.

https://twitter.com/jeffveillette/status/1000195616880971777
https://twitter.com/jeffveillette/status/1000214459841941504

 

[ZBBM]

If Marincin were a righty there'd be some compellingness here.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

If Marincin were a righty there'd be some compellingness here.

Yeah, I think he'd have a solid chance if that were the case. But for lefties we already have Rielly-Gardiner-Dermott locked in. So Marincin is battling for the #7 spot with Borgman, Rosen, and any righty who doesn't make the cut (Carrick, Holl, Russian guy whose name I haven't learned to spell yet).

 

[herman]

It wouldn?t bother me in the least to see

Rielly - Dermott
Gardiner - Zaitsev
Marincin - Holl

 

[AvroArrow]

It wouldn?t bother me in the least to see

Rielly - Dermott
Gardiner - Zaitsev
Marincin - Holl

It would bother me.  I don't think that's good enough.