Kin
New member
So something has been on my mind the last couple of days. Like most people I think this is a big off-season for the Leafs. One where they have a ton of opportunity to take advantage of other teams cap situations and have a bunch of their own intriguing assets who are sort of edging their way into superfluousness. As a result I've been brainstorming some pretty lofty trade proposals(Vatanen, the #3 pick). Usually these involve including some of the team's lesser prospect talent. However whenever I propose throwing someone like Hyman or Soshnikov or Leipsic into a deal someone says "I don't know, I kind of like Hyman/Leipsic/Soshnikov. Do you suppose they'd be inclined to take a couple of rusty cans and a garbage bag full of leaves* instead"
*Or Josh Leivo
And instead of going on about how, if you're making a good trade you're probably going to have to part with assets you like, it's got me thinking about just how many interesting second tier forward prospects the Leafs have and how that's a good problem to have but it does sort of present a question. Aside from just the sheer number of contracts, the reality is that the Leafs have a ton of picks in the next few drafts so they'll almost certainly be adding more guys like that to the mix. Throw in the 2035 and 2036 second round picks we got from San Jose in the Polak deal and the possibility of signing Jimmy Vesey and the Leafs figure to be bursting at the seams with intriguing pretty good prospects for a while now.
So if we can group the Leafs forward prospects into three categories, where A's are the blue chippers, B's are the guys with promise and C's are the guys who are barely prospects/might not get contracts I think it looks something like this:
A's:
Marner
Nylander
Johnny Numberonepick
B:
Kapanen
Leipsic
Hyman
Soshnikov
Gauthier
Bracco
Timashov
Dzierkals
Brown
Johnson
Piccinich?
Group C:
Everyone not yet mentioned(although I may have forgotten someone)
Like I said, this isn't a problem. If you figure everyone from group A is going to make the Leafs next year and a handful of guys from group B will as well, then once you subtract the guys who are probably going back to junior you just have a pretty good group for the Marlies.
But it does, I think, raise an interesting opportunity. Of the 11 guys there in group B, you have to figure that some of them are interesting pieces to work into deals to maybe look for some A graders on defense(where all we have are B pieces) or in net(where we might not even have that).
So I guess the point of this post is to raise the question of how you rank the guys in Group B. Who are the guys you really want to see stick around, who do you think are relatively expendable at this point and how should the Leafs deal with this interesting glut?
*Or Josh Leivo
And instead of going on about how, if you're making a good trade you're probably going to have to part with assets you like, it's got me thinking about just how many interesting second tier forward prospects the Leafs have and how that's a good problem to have but it does sort of present a question. Aside from just the sheer number of contracts, the reality is that the Leafs have a ton of picks in the next few drafts so they'll almost certainly be adding more guys like that to the mix. Throw in the 2035 and 2036 second round picks we got from San Jose in the Polak deal and the possibility of signing Jimmy Vesey and the Leafs figure to be bursting at the seams with intriguing pretty good prospects for a while now.
So if we can group the Leafs forward prospects into three categories, where A's are the blue chippers, B's are the guys with promise and C's are the guys who are barely prospects/might not get contracts I think it looks something like this:
A's:
Marner
Nylander
Johnny Numberonepick
B:
Kapanen
Leipsic
Hyman
Soshnikov
Gauthier
Bracco
Timashov
Dzierkals
Brown
Johnson
Piccinich?
Group C:
Everyone not yet mentioned(although I may have forgotten someone)
Like I said, this isn't a problem. If you figure everyone from group A is going to make the Leafs next year and a handful of guys from group B will as well, then once you subtract the guys who are probably going back to junior you just have a pretty good group for the Marlies.
But it does, I think, raise an interesting opportunity. Of the 11 guys there in group B, you have to figure that some of them are interesting pieces to work into deals to maybe look for some A graders on defense(where all we have are B pieces) or in net(where we might not even have that).
So I guess the point of this post is to raise the question of how you rank the guys in Group B. Who are the guys you really want to see stick around, who do you think are relatively expendable at this point and how should the Leafs deal with this interesting glut?
