WhatIfGodWasALeaf
Active member
Al14 said:
So it begins.
So, about Phil Kessel...
- Thread starter CarltonTheBear
- Start date
So it begins.
B
brothert
Guest
if trotz is the potter and ovechkin the clay, i guess babcock can drink booze out of his chipped tea cup.Michael said:
GhostofPotvin29
New member
Michael said:
Have him continue to play the way he played for his previous coach?
LuncheonMeat
New member
Potvin29 said:
Totally off base here, i think... kind of. But speaking of Trotz and Ovechkin, I thought this was really interesting from Friedman's 30 Thoughts this week:
That brings us to Ovechkin. He?s now played nine Game 7s in his career, and his ice-time is trending in the wrong direction. Here they are in order (with overtime totals removed from occasions there were extra periods) ? 21:46, 21:24, 22:29, 23:35, 20:23, 20:54, 19:08, 16:52 and 18:30. The last two are from this season.
So Trotz played arguably the best player on the planet right now, a total of 16:52 and 18:30 in game 7 contests this year. Call me crazy, but I would have had him out there 30 minutes/game. Does anyone think the outcome would have been different with him on the ice for more shifts?
As you were...
GhostofPotvin29
New member
Michael said:
What did Ovechkin do differently this season? What did Trotz do for Ovechkin? I can't help but feel that all the praise Trotz/Ovechkin got this season for 'changing' started at his +/- column.
GhostofPotvin29
New member
Michael said:
I don't know that either of us watched him enough over the course of the season to really say for sure. Personally, I'd wager a guess the more likely explanation is that the team simply improved (whether due to Trotz or not) overall. In each of the last 2 seasons, for example, his offensive numbers are nearly identical and in both seasons his possession numbers relative to the rest of the team were better. But that's just one area and I didn't watch enough Capitals games to really say for sure one way or another - but at least based on his stats his past 2 seasons don't seem wildly different other than the +/- column.
L K
Active member
Potvin29 said:
Ovechkin seems to get treated an awful lot like Ilya Kovalchuk. His +/- looks bad and therefore he's labelled as a guy who doesn't give any effort. I'm not trying to extol the virtues of AO the defensive wizard but he's not a train wreck defensively and he really didn't change his approach. He scores a lot from pretty much he same spot on the ice with the same shot because it's so bloody good. He's not a complete 200-foot player and his +/- has a lot to do with how good their goaltending was.
LuncheonMeat
New member
freer said:
Yeah, Babcock mentioned a number of times how much respect he has for Hunter, and that they need to get him draft picks. On the flip side, Babcock has his hands in player acquisition and the Wings tried to trade for Phaneuf this season. So... I guess we'll find out.
mr grieves
New member
LuncheonMeat said:
Not sure if this has been discussed in the Draft thread, but that's getting out of hand -- lots of picks and potential ones to worry about -- so thought I'd post this here... Since the Leafs are likely to move Kessel, what are the comparable deals we've seen over the last few years? What would be worthwhile return? What are screw ups to be avoided? Grabbed a few that came to mind...
6/23/2011
To CBJ: Jeff Carter
To PHL: Voracek, 2011 1st round pick (S. Couturier), and 2011 3rd round pick (Nick Cousins)
6/23/2011
To LAK: Mike Richards, Rob Bordson
To PHL: Wayne Simmonds, Brayden Schenn, 2012 2nd round pick
02/23/2012
To LAK: Jeff Carter
To CBJ: Jack Johnson, conditional 1st round pick
07/23/2012
To NYR: Rick Nash, Steven Delisle, conditional 2013 3rd rnd pick
To CBJ: Artem Anisimov, Brandon Dubinsky, Tim Erixon, 2013 1st round pick
04/03/2013
To CBJ: Marion Gaborik, Blake Parlett, Steven Delisle
To NYR: Derick Brassard, Derek Dorsett, John Moore, 6th rnd pick
07/04/2013
To DAL: Tyler Seguin, Rich Peverley, Ryan Button
To BOS: Loui Eriksson, Reilly Smith, Matt Fraser, Joe Morrow
03/05/2014
To LAK: Marion Gaborik
To CBJ: Matt Frattin, 2014 2nd, conditional 2014 3rd
Kin
New member
Someone mentioned the Nash comparison as being a decent one.
Probably the high end of returns there is Carter to Columbus but that's a tricky comparison because he was coming off a better year, was younger and was locked up in a contract that, at the time, seemed like an unmistakable plus.
Probably the high end of returns there is Carter to Columbus but that's a tricky comparison because he was coming off a better year, was younger and was locked up in a contract that, at the time, seemed like an unmistakable plus.
mr grieves
New member
Nik the Trik said:
Thanks, updated.
And, yeah, the Carter return is about what I'd hope for, but the comparison's tricky, for your reasons and another: Kessel's on a fair contract, but the cap situation around the league means the Leafs are certainly going to have to take a crap contract back to make the trade work. I wonder whether that's accepted as a cost of doing business or whether it merits some additional consideration, perhaps pushing the return closer to Carter's -- where neither Philly nor Columbus really had to fix another team's mistake. Kessel for a sure-fire, emerging top-six player and a good prospect + cap relief (the junk the Leafs take) for a late first, or something like that.
Kin
New member
I don't know, I mean, I think there's a bit of a gap between them as players or at least how they were perceived as players too. Carter, you know, was a guy we'd heard a ton about and was this big center who played a good two-way game and had scored as many as 46 goals pretty recently.
Compare that to a 28 year old winger without a two-way game and who's never had as eye-popping a season as Carter did in 08-09. The Nash deal really looks like the one there where even though I think there's also a gap between Nash and Kessel as players, Nash's demands were such that it killed his market a little. A good prospect/roster player and a not great first round pick...that's my high expectation for a Kessel deal right now.
Compare that to a 28 year old winger without a two-way game and who's never had as eye-popping a season as Carter did in 08-09. The Nash deal really looks like the one there where even though I think there's also a gap between Nash and Kessel as players, Nash's demands were such that it killed his market a little. A good prospect/roster player and a not great first round pick...that's my high expectation for a Kessel deal right now.
mr grieves
New member
Nik the Trik said:
Well, that's why I'd hope they'll wait on dealing him until he recovers a bit of his value -- so they're not shopping a guy who had a terrible 2/3rds of a season last year, but instead a guy who's in the top 10 or whatever in scoring over the last 5 seasons.
A 'good prospect/player' and a low first round pick is likely the sort of deal that would leave the Leafs with a net loss in talent in 3-4 years when they're back competing (if, that is, that's the likely timeframe). I mean, if they can't get a return that can outscore a 32-year-old Kessel, then there's little point in moving him -- unless his cap hit is going to screw up holding on to Kadri, Rielly, Nylander, this year's #4 pick.
Kin
New member
mr grieves said:
I've explained elsewhere why I think Kessel being with the team for another year is unlikely to increase his value but I understand what you're saying. I still don't think they should keep him as I'll explain below.
mr grieves said:
I disagree. I think you're tremendously underselling what trading Kessel gets the club regardless of the return. Because unless you think that Kadri, Rielly, Nylander and this year's #4 pick are going to be this team's answer to Toews, Kane, Hossa and Keith...there's a lot of work to be done.
You think the equation is 32 year old Kessel vs. Good Prospect and Low First Rounder. But it's not, this is the equation:
32 year old Kessel vs. Good Prospect, Low First rounder, the positive effect on the team's draft position not having Kessel will bring, 8 million dollars in salary cap space that can be used in the mean time to absorb contracts and take back other picks and eventually build the club further, ice time that can be used elsewhere on other players in the hopes of increasing their value and so on.
The team needs to get worse. 4th worst probably won't do it. Yes it means you might have to deal some guys at sub-optimal times but Kessel's getting older and as that list shows us...you're not going to get a huge deal for him no matter what.
Andy007
Active member
I'm not sure the Nash deal is really a great example of what Kessel's value is. Nash had one stellar year (40 G 79 P) in his career with Columbus and that was the only time he ever reached 70 points. Kessel is coming off of three consecutive over a point per game seasons and, unlike Nash, isn't requesting a trade. And this down season that apparently has Kessel's value plummeting is around the same point-rate that Nash averaged in his whole tenure in Columbus. I'll take a better deal than the Nash one, thank you very much.
mr grieves
New member
Nik the Trik said:
Well, I don't think that's entirely the equation. I just don't see much room for 'improvement' from present levels of terrible if we drop Kessel, because the floor's not much lower and, with the coming lottery set up, the advantages of scraping the bottom aren't really there... But I think you're overvaluing the other benefits of trading Kessel before next season.
Nik the Trik said:
1. "Positive effect on team's draft position" is, I think, minimal. This is team that'll draft well with Kessel in the lineup and will continue to draft well until the 19-22 year-olds are developed and the new high-end talent comes in. I think the benefits of trading Phaneuf, Lupul, maybe Bozak now are greater, and, if they're all gone next season, the Leafs will be plenty bad.
2. "8 million... to absorb [bad] contracts and take back other picks" is just cap space. They can get that by moving the guys that we know won't be of any use in 3-4 years (Bozak, Phaneuf, Lupul) -- even if they retain salary on some of those, that's around $10m. And they've got $15m in space right now. The only contracts likely to take much of bite are Kadri's and Bernier's. There should be plenty of room to take bad contracts in order to acquire picks/prospects.
3. "Ice time that can used... on other players in the hopes of increasing their value" is, to my mind, a strange reason to rush moving on Kessel. He's the asset they've got that has the most potential value, and, if he's not going to return much of significance, they should probably use available ice time to increase his value. The ceiling on the "increased value" of whoever might slot in at 1RW is so much lower than Kessel's that this seems like selling short on your Lexus (which needs some work) because you want the garage space to really fix up that Corolla. Whether the extra year is likely to substantially increase his value, I don't know (and don't recall seeing your explanation of why it wouldn't), but, as an elite scorer in his prime, he's the only piece they've got that is likely to return anything worthwhile, so...