Of Nonis, Babcock & who the heck is going to be running this asylum on draft day

[freer]

or Babcock?

It's not going to be Babcock. Let it go.

Always so negative. Let them dream until he resigns.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

My rough guess right now is that "par" is around "eat $2 mil/yr" and they can get something of value in terms of a mid-to-decent prospect/pick back. They're not going to get anything for him straight up.

Even if that was the return, they'd be "getting something" because in a cap world, cap space has value.

 

[Heroic Shrimp]

So, Phaneuf for Clarkson?

 

[Bullfrog]

Several reports yesterday suggested Weiss' deal was being pitched in a similar fashion as was the alternative of taking a $2mil/yr haircut on Phaneuf's deal - in order to get anything back.

Phaneuf is not worth $7 mil / yr for six years period. Nobody in the league will give the Leafs anything for that straight up beyond a 7th rounder or "future considerations" (and I doubt any NHL team would). I suspect they could waive him (if his contract allowed it) and nobody would touch him.

I don't hate the guy. He's not awful or a slug. His contract is simply significantly too much for what he provides on the ice relative to the other dmen in the league. When that happens, GMs won't give you much or anything for any player in that situation with that much money involved. That's all.
...

I won't argue that he's not playing like a no.1 defenseman, but I think you're off base with your assessment. In particular, I can't wrap my head around how you think a team would offer a 7th round pick for Phaneuf. While he's probably overpaid, his contract isn't remotely bad enough to warrant being given away for nothing.

The Leafs would be insane to give him away like that.

 

[cw]

Several reports yesterday suggested Weiss' deal was being pitched in a similar fashion as was the alternative of taking a $2mil/yr haircut on Phaneuf's deal - in order to get anything back.

Phaneuf is not worth $7 mil / yr for six years period. Nobody in the league will give the Leafs anything for that straight up beyond a 7th rounder or "future considerations" (and I doubt any NHL team would). I suspect they could waive him (if his contract allowed it) and nobody would touch him.

I don't hate the guy. He's not awful or a slug. His contract is simply significantly too much for what he provides on the ice relative to the other dmen in the league. When that happens, GMs won't give you much or anything for any player in that situation with that much money involved. That's all.
...

I won't argue that he's not playing like a no.1 defenseman, but I think you're off base with your assessment. In particular, I can't wrap my head around how you think a team would offer a 7th round pick for Phaneuf. While he's probably overpaid, his contract isn't remotely bad enough to warrant being given away for nothing.

The Leafs would be insane to give him away like that.

That's my guess. I could be off some but I doubt a lot. I really followed it pretty closely lately. He's not a true top $7 mil/yr dman - I think there's a wide consensus on that via:
- Calgary shipping him out
- inability to improve and become more reliable defensively
- few all star representations since early years
- omissions from Team Canada selection
- drop off from a 50 pt/yr dman to a 30 pt/yr dman
- few man of the match selections here
- Sports Illustrated NHL players poll naming him most overrated
- he didn't pick up a single vote for any NHL Award  or Media All Star team in 2014, 2012 & 2011 and he won't pick up any votes for 2015. In 2013, the one year in the last five seasons he got any notice, he was 11th in Norris voting. That's it.
- the media on his case in Toronto
etc

A lot of folks either haven't noticed his good play or noticed something wrong with his play over the last five years.

The other $7 mil/yr dmen? They're in the hunt for awards/accolades and getting noticed positively and are not getting labeled as being overrated by their peers - kind of thing.

So if you want to trade someone you're overpaying $7 mil/yr, you either have to pay part of his salary to get a return or reduce what your expectations are for what you're going to take back because he isn't worth $7 mil/yr.

Different from the classic Kaberle/Campbell puck mover, Phaneuf's game relies some on him being physical. But he's starting to get a little long in the tooth for that and he's got 6 years to go on his deal. It's very unlikely he'll be able to do that effectively towards the end of this deal and he's going to decline while he gets there.

So there's no sense sugar coating it. Phaneuf straight up at $7 mil per year for six years is not worth much talent return because the team that takes him on will be overpaying from day 1 and the asset is arguably in decline for the next six years at close to a current top rate of $7 mil/yr. Would a 5th round pick make you feel better? It's something like that. In fact, I bet the vast majority of the NHL wouldn't touch him on waivers - more because of his lengthy contract - not so much because of how he plays now.

You have to look past the current playing ability of the player and factor in how much he's going to cost your cap over time.

I'm not trying to be mean to the guy. I do not hate him. He's their best dman. I wish him the best. But I do not think they can get much for him on the trade market unless they take some contract back.

 

[moon111]

I think Phaneuf's contract makes his trade value about equal to what I'd want for Matt Stajan.

 

[Bullfrog]

I hear you, cw, and understand your point of view, I just don't share it. In particular the part about him being worth a 7th rounder.

I really don't feel he's that overpaid for what he brings to the team; and that takes into account the length of his deal.

 

[cw]

I hear you, cw, and understand your point of view, I just don't share it. In particular the part about him being worth a 7th rounder.

I really don't feel he's that overpaid for what he brings to the team; and that takes into account the length of his deal.

I'd take a 1st, 2nd, 3rd rounder and a top prospect - as much as we could get for him. I'm a Leafs fan.

Again, he's not a bad dman.

One other limiting factor: about 2/3rds of the league is out of the "sweepstakes" because of his limited no trade clause (8-10 teams). That chops their negotiating position down along with their poor position - folks know the Leafs are trying to jettison players.

I just think it's really hard to expect much without eating some of his contract.

 

[freer]

Whether we want to believe it or not Phaneuf salary is average for a defensemen of his caliber. He will be traded in summer and we will get a good return. Comparing him to Matt Stajan is a mis-justice. (I like Stajan when he played here)

 

[Bullfrog]

I hear you, cw, and understand your point of view, I just don't share it. In particular the part about him being worth a 7th rounder.

I really don't feel he's that overpaid for what he brings to the team; and that takes into account the length of his deal.

I'd take a 1st, 2nd, 3rd rounder and a top prospect - as much as we could get for him. I'm a Leafs fan.

Again, he's not a bad dman.

One other limiting factor: about 2/3rds of the league is out of the "sweepstakes" because of his limited no trade clause (8-10 teams). That chops their negotiating position down along with their poor position - folks know the Leafs are trying to jettison players.

I just think it's really hard to expect much without eating some of his contract.

Well that's a bit more reasonable than a 7th rounder. 

It makes more sense to me to take a bad contract back then retain salary/cap hit. At least with a bad contract, you can bury it in the minors and get a $925K(?) savings off the cap hit or possibly be able to trade it. Depends on the actual value of course.

 

[Bullfrog]

Whether we want to believe it or not Phaneuf salary is average for a defensemen of his caliber. He will be traded in summer and we will get a good return. Comparing him to Matt Stajan is a mis-justice. (I like Stajan when he played here)

I've been a big defender of Phaneuf, but I would say he's on the upper end of the salary range for players of his caliber. As the contract progresses and more deals are signed, he'll start to come down to the average level, but there's the possibility his play starts to drop off too.

 

[Boston Leaf]

I actually like Dion and think he is blamed for way too much. But if someone offered a 2nd rd pick and a decent prospect with out us retining salary I would jump on it

 

[freer]

I actually like Dion and think he is blamed for way too much. But if someone offered a 2nd rd pick and a decent prospect with out us retining salary I would jump on it

agreed.

 

[Al14]

I actually like Dion and think he is blamed for way too much. But if someone offered a 2nd rd pick and a decent prospect with out us retining salary I would jump on it

I tend to agree.  However, if we got a 2015 2nd, and, a decent roster player, I'd feel more comfortable.  I just don't want to give Phaneuf away.  If we have to take an expiring salary dump to get this, and, retain nothing on Phaneuf, I do it!

 

 

[CarltonTheBear]

It makes more sense to me to take a bad contract back then retain salary/cap hit. At least with a bad contract, you can bury it in the minors and get a $925K(?) savings off the cap hit or possibly be able to trade it. Depends on the actual value of course.

I'm terrified of 6 years of dead cap space. I'd rather take as many bad 2-3 year contracts a team can throw at us than that. Like you said, it wouldn't be impossible to move those contracts at a later date. It would be impossible though to get out of the retained salary.

 

[Kessel Run]

It makes more sense to me to take a bad contract back then retain salary/cap hit. At least with a bad contract, you can bury it in the minors and get a $925K(?) savings off the cap hit or possibly be able to trade it. Depends on the actual value of course.

I'm terrified of 6 years of dead cap space. I'd rather take as many bad 2-3 year contracts a team can throw at us than that. Like you said, it wouldn't be impossible to move those contracts at a later date. It would be impossible though to get out of the retained salary.

For sure, for example take the salary from Detroit instead of retaining salary. Weiss, Mantha and a 2nd?

 

[cw]

Whether we want to believe it or not Phaneuf salary is average for a defensemen of his caliber. He will be traded in summer and we will get a good return. Comparing him to Matt Stajan is a mis-justice. (I like Stajan when he played here)

Phaneuf's $7 mil/yr cap hit is tied with Doughty for 6th in the league for defensemen.

($7 mil/yr is the cap average for the top 12 dmen in the league. A lot of the top 30 paid dmen are signed for several years -many of them 5+).

Offence is a forte of his or was. Since his first full season in Toronto, 2010-11, he's averaged a ranking of 33rd among NHL dmen.

He's only got Norris votes in one season while in Toronto and he's unlikely to get any for this season. So he's probably going to be around 30th in Norris voting for his time in Toronto .. so far and arguably trending downward.

His ranking for all star votes looks similar to Norris results (he got no all star votes since become a Leaf because the media didn't appear vote for All Stars in 2013 due to lockout).

30th is around $5 mil/yr - which (as has been reported more than once) was roughly what the Wings were haggling for in terms of how much the Leafs would eat of his contract.

In my defense, the exercise of looking at this elevated my impression of how Phaneuf stacked up. Before looking, I had him as a 2/3 dman. After looking, all things considered for his salary, I'd say more fairly/accurately, I'd put him as a low #1 or top #2 dman (between 25th and 40th roughly)  and that would put him in the $5 to $5.5 mil/yr range of what dmen of that ranking are currently earning with multi year deals now.

I doubt many would bicker that he's overpaid some. $1.5 to $2 mil/yr would be my guess as to how much right now.

 

[ZBBM]

I don't hate Phaneuf as much as some people on here think I do.  He has had stretches of play where he's a capable 3/4 guy and he's durable.  But I think I'm coming around to cw's POV.  If somebody wanted him for any kind of pick and was willing to take on his full salary, I'd do it.

Now, Nonis or (I hope) his successor may be able to do better this summer.  But this is definitely the summer to get rid of him.

 

[Kin]

I hear you, cw, and understand your point of view, I just don't share it. In particular the part about him being worth a 7th rounder.

I really don't feel he's that overpaid for what he brings to the team; and that takes into account the length of his deal.

I think though that at some point it really becomes a question of how much he actually is overpaid by and what that realistically means.

So let's say he's not really a 7 million a year defenseman. Let's say he's really more of a 5.5-6 million a year defenseman. Well, alright but then you have to sell a team on him being valuable enough that trading significant assets for him is worth it vs. what they could go out and get by signing another defenseman of that calibre. The thing about being a 7 million dollar defenseman is that those guys tend not to be available on the market. But 5.5 million defensemen? That you can sign. So if I'm Detroit and my choice is Phaneuf with a couple million of salary being retained by the Leafs vs. going out and signing someone at that price and getting to keep what the Leafs would ask for in picks prospects?

That's why it's going to be tough to trade Phaneuf. It's not just about his price, it's about how he stacks up to options that would be cheaper in terms of salary and assets.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

For me it's not about how much he's overpaid right now, it's about how much he'll be overpaid in the 2nd half of the deal. I just don't see his 30s being kind to him.