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Gleason traded to Toronto for Liles

Britishbulldog said:
He is the 2nd highest dman on the Leafs only behind Phaneuf but I expect people think he is a 6th dman to replace the lowly Fraser and the $1 MIL Ranger experiment.  That is a pathetic amount of money to pay for a 6th dman. Add to that...this contract isn't up this summer but drags out (I prefer to say 'vomits over') the next 2 years. 
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I don't understand your point at all. If 4 million is a pathetic amount of money to pay a 6th defenseman, isn't 3.875 million a ridiculous amount of money to pay a 7th defenseman?

It honestly seems like the entirety of what you don't like about this trade is the difference in salary between Liles and Gleason which, while I understand, will realistically have no impact on the Leafs' cap situation.
 
Nik the Trik said:
Britishbulldog said:
He is the 2nd highest dman on the Leafs only behind Phaneuf but I expect people think he is a 6th dman to replace the lowly Fraser and the $1 MIL Ranger experiment.  That is a pathetic amount of money to pay for a 6th dman. Add to that...this contract isn't up this summer but drags out (I prefer to say 'vomits over') the next 2 years. 
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I don't understand your point at all. If 4 million is a pathetic amount of money to pay a 6th defenseman, isn't 3.875 million a ridiculous amount of money to pay a 7th defenseman?

It honestly seems like the entirety of what you don't like about this trade is the difference in salary between Liles and Gleason which, while I understand, will realistically have no impact on the Leafs' cap situation.
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I guess my point is that the Leafs didn't need a 6th or 7th dman.  They need a top 3 dman and if one isn't available then Nonis should have stood pat.

Do you feel that Gleason is better than Phaneuf, Gunnarsson, Gardiner, Franson, Rielly, Ranger or even Liles?  I don't.

It isn't the difference between Liles and Gleason's salaries that bothers me. It's that if it wasn't for the Leaf player's LITR then neither of those players would fit on the Leafs roster.  So after Nonis not having enough room to fit Liles on the roster because of the way that Nonis handled the contracts, buyouts, etc this summer, he traded for a worst contract.

Hey maybe Gleason is as good as all the other dmen in the NHL who are making around $4 MIL this season.....
 
Britishbulldog said:
I guess my point is that the Leafs didn't need a 6th or 7th dman.  They need a top 3 dman and if one isn't available then Nonis should have stood pat.
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Well, but again, they already had Liles under contract. There's nothing they could do about that. So considering that Liles couldn't work his way into the line-up the team had to either A)just go about paying him his money and dealing with his cap hit or B) trade him for another bad contract but, hopefully, someone who could potentially find his way into the lineup. They went with B. I respect not liking the decision but even if Gleason stinks and they send him to the AHL it's such a minimal difference than what they had with Liles that it's nothing worth getting worked up over.

Britishbulldog said:
Do you feel that Gleason is better than Phaneuf, Gunnarsson, Gardiner, Franson, Rielly, Ranger or even Liles?  I don't.
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I don't know him well enough to say definitively. I have my doubts but considering that Liles wasn't playing anyway then rolling the dice with Gleason seems to be relatively low risk.

Britishbulldog said:
It isn't the difference between Liles and Gleason's salaries that bothers me. It's that if it wasn't for the Leaf player's LITR then neither of those players would fit on the Leafs roster.  So after Nonis not having enough room to fit Liles on the roster because of the way that Nonis handled the contracts, buyouts, etc this summer, he traded for a worst contract.
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I think it's unfair to say Liles wasn't on the roster because Nonis made mistakes this summer. Liles wasn't on the roster because he was 8th on their depth chart. He earned his way to the AHL on merit.

And saying that Gleason's contract is "worse" than Liles is technically true, I suppose, but it's like fretting about team size because they traded a player for another who's two pounds lighter.

These are two virtually identical contracts but the Leafs hope that Gleason can do what Liles couldn't and contribute in the bottom pairing.
 
Nik the Trik said:
I think it's unfair to say Liles wasn't on the roster because Nonis made mistakes this summer. Liles wasn't on the roster because he was 8th on their depth chart. He earned his way to the AHL on merit.
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I don't think that's entirely fair to Liles. I thought most thought he had a better camp than Ranger and Fraser, but they better fit the mold that Carlyle wanted. It's not a meritocracy blind to roles. And I recall the 900k cap savings were pretty important at the beginning of season to getting the team cap compliant, though I don't remember whether they could've squeezed him in.
 
Liles played some 108 games for the Leafs and had 38 points.
Gleason was in 141 games in that same time period... had 28 points.

So Leafs are giving up .15 points per game. 




 
It dosn't matter it seems, no matter who or what happens with this team..... it's never good enough for most. unreal.
Maybe we should give the guy a chance to fit in.
 
Britishbulldog said:
...
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Wow...

It's not like Nonis just up and signed this guy out of the blue, or something... we sent 96.875% of his salary back the other way.  Meanwhile, we might get someone useful, whereas it's obvious that Liles wasn't useful to Carlyle...

Shame on Nonis for trying to improve the team in a virtually harmless way.
 
Classy guy! Good luck in Carolina JM L...

Bc76vqdCAAAg3M9_zpsee5fa2df.jpg


Posted on his Twitter.
John-Michael LilesVerified account ‏@hoosierjm26

Excited for a new chapter in Carolina...and even in warmups, today was an amazing experience. #thankyoufans #toNC pic.twitter.com/zqopRz18Cl
 
CarltonTheBear said:
Neat story about Kessel there that I haven't heard before too.
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I remember it somewhere, I think Burke told it around the time he acquired Kessel or shortly there after. I think this version was a bit longer and more detailed.
 
Solid trade giving a fresh start to two players, Toronto needed a defensive d-man, Carolina needed an offensive D-man, perfect fit.
 
Ultimately, JM Liles is not a big loss to the team.  I think he probably deserved a roster spot rather than Ranger/Fraser, maybe even Rielly at the start of the year (using the argument that his defensive game could still use a lot of work and he still could use some seasoning to be a more complete offensive player - ie. when to pinch appropriately) but that wasn't the case.

I'm not a huge fan of just compounding the cap troubles of the team though to add a 4M bottom pairing defenseman.  Honestly, I would rather they have just found a way to trade an asset and unload a cap hit to be honest.  Gleason MIGHT make the team a little better though, and he does deserve a chance in a new environment before I write him off.  I'm not impressed with his body of work in the last two seasons + the start of this year.  He went from a very good top 4 defenseman to a guy who is barely good enough to be in the NHL for a terrible Carolina team. 

He does provide a physical element but I feel like he is going to frustrate a lot of people because he isn't fast enough to recover from attempts to hit guys along the boards.  It's going to be like watching Mark Fraser/Mike Komisarek who would hit people but get horribly out of position because of it and become a liability because they took themselves out of the play and can't get back into it.

But again, he deserves a chance because maybe he just didn't fit with the Carolina model anymore. 

I do think that a lineup of: Phaneuf-Gunnarsson
                                      Franson - Gardiner
                                      Rielly - Gleason
                                      Ranger
is better than having Ranger in the lineup every day.  Having Ranger as a 7th defenseman isn't a terrible option, and depending on the situation, letting Fraser rest for a long time, maybe he becomes healthy enough to be a reasonable 7th defenseman down the road again.  Or more likely we let him walk next year because he's redundant now. 
 
L K said:
Ultimately, JM Liles is not a big loss to the team.  I think he probably deserved a roster spot rather than Ranger/Fraser, maybe even Rielly at the start of the year (using the argument that his defensive game could still use a lot of work and he still could use some seasoning to be a more complete offensive player - ie. when to pinch appropriately) but that wasn't the case.

I'm not a huge fan of just compounding the cap troubles of the team though to add a 4M bottom pairing defenseman.  Honestly, I would rather they have just found a way to trade an asset and unload a cap hit to be honest.  Gleason MIGHT make the team a little better though, and he does deserve a chance in a new environment before I write him off.  I'm not impressed with his body of work in the last two seasons + the start of this year.  He went from a very good top 4 defenseman to a guy who is barely good enough to be in the NHL for a terrible Carolina team. 

He does provide a physical element but I feel like he is going to frustrate a lot of people because he isn't fast enough to recover from attempts to hit guys along the boards.  It's going to be like watching Mark Fraser/Mike Komisarek who would hit people but get horribly out of position because of it and become a liability because they took themselves out of the play and can't get back into it.

But again, he deserves a chance because maybe he just didn't fit with the Carolina model anymore. 

I do think that a lineup of: Phaneuf-Gunnarsson
                                      Franson - Gardiner
                                      Rielly - Gleason
                                      Ranger
is better than having Ranger in the lineup every day.  Having Ranger as a 7th defenseman isn't a terrible option, and depending on the situation, letting Fraser rest for a long time, maybe he becomes healthy enough to be a reasonable 7th defenseman down the road again.  Or more likely we let him walk next year because he's redundant now.
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You nailed it.

Worst case- Gleason struggles and goes to the Marlies

Best case- Gleason flourishes and becomes the stay at home guy this team desperately needs.

Gamble? I suppose, but the best case scenario trumps the worst case, and the cap hits are a wash.
 
From the depth chart, Gleason pushes Ranger out of the top six and Fraser likely off the team.  All in all, those are good things, right?

Yes he's expensive as a 3rd pairing guy but considering what the Leafs are paying for Franson, Gardiner and Rielly, it balances things out overall.

All in all, he should provide at least as much as what Fraser did last year but could not this year.  This defense IMO was in desperate need of some more snarl, and Gleason can take a lot of heat off Phaneuf in that area.  If his wheels can keep up he might even take some of the go-to shutdown role that Phaneuf has had to carry all year long.
 
I'm really not one to dwell on the past or point out things that could have or should have been done, but in this case this move just seems mentally challenged. Seems like the Leafs should have just bought out Liles and kept Komisarek for one more season instead of having to also give up a prospect for what is essentially the same player for another 3 years.
 
I'm OK with this trade..to see if Gleason can help the defensive part of the team.They were not going to use Liles ,so there's no gamble,a bad contract for a bad contract.
And there's a chance that Gleason shines and his contract down the road might get easier to move than Liles was.
 
mr grieves said:
Nik the Trik said:
I think it's unfair to say Liles wasn't on the roster because Nonis made mistakes this summer. Liles wasn't on the roster because he was 8th on their depth chart. He earned his way to the AHL on merit.
Click to expand...

I don't think that's entirely fair to Liles. I thought most thought he had a better camp than Ranger and Fraser, but they better fit the mold that Carlyle wanted. It's not a meritocracy blind to roles. And I recall the 900k cap savings were pretty important at the beginning of season to getting the team cap compliant, though I don't remember whether they could've squeezed him in.
Click to expand...

I'm basing that on his declining play the last few years though, not on his camp. And the 900K savings were important because the team had signed Ranger to essentially take his place.
 
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