Steve Stamkos?
- Thread starter sickbeast
- Start date
- Status
Kin
New member
TBLeafer said:
You're confusing an argument with a rejoinder. I made my actual argument regarding the captaincy already, that was just a point directed at your "Marner and Matthews will be good as Kane and Toews! No need to wait and see!" position. It's just as reasonable to declare that Marner will definitely be a good Captain as it is to say he'll definitely be a NHL superstar at this point. Seeing as I don't think either is necessarily true, you're the one with a consistency problem here.
Kin
New member
TBLeafer said:
I'm not suggesting anyone necessarily be made captain next season(including Stamkos. Remember Greatest Leader of All-Time Mark Messier being handed the Captaincy in Vancouver?). What I'd say to that is that having a captain next year isn't a requirement. That you can get by on having a bunch of guys wear A's until one of the young guys is ready to be named Captain or even name someone as a placeholder captain. You can go with a respected vet like Laich or Komarov and then, because nobody will shed too many tears when they go, readress things later.
You're drastically overrating the importance of the captaincy in general. It's certainly not an urgent need for the club and teams like Chicago/Pittsburgh had a lot of success naming Captains very early in their careers. So just like it's fair to say we have some very talented young players who can eventually be the kind of players we need we also have some good prospects for the captaincy who can eventually be good choices to wear the C.
Because, again, if Stamkos chooses to sign elsewhere they're still "without a captain". So what do you do in that event? You either go with a bunch of guy's wearing A's or choose someone in the short-term. It's certainly not a justification for making a bad free agency decision.
Nik the Trik said:
If Stamkos signs elsewhere I'm almost positive a bunch of A's and no C for now will be the route taken.
I believe Babcock himself said something like "As it stands right now, we will have no captain on this team next season."
Or something like that around season's end.
bustaheims
Active member
TBLeafer said:
But, that's really not a position of need. Having someone with a C on their chest does not really impact a team's success. The impact of a team captain is vastly over-rated. The only real functions they have are to take ceremonial face-offs and communicate with the refs. Having a C on your chest doesn't make you a leader. Leadership group develop naturally as teams develop and the dynamic in the dressing room establishes itself. The team will have a new captain when one presents itself among the core players - that player will be the real leader in the dressing room, rather than simply a high profile player who wore the C for another team.
mr grieves
New member
Nik the Trik said:
One of the more compelling theories about what hindered the development of Edmonton's high picks is that they were rushed into positions of responsibility before being adequately developed to thrive in them. The captaincy doesn't matter as much as having players good enough to insulate the young players. Ference wasn't. Stamkos is.
Kin
New member
Another pretty compelling theory is that Edmonton did a bad job of team building. That they had the #1 pick in some bad years to have #1 picks and compounded that by making poor decisions with them.
Someone invested in your theory would have to explain why the most exposed players Edmonton drafted, Hall and Eberle especially, have developed fine. Only slightly less ridiculous than ascribing Edmonton's struggles to who their Captain was would be to say that it's on those guys.
Someone invested in your theory would have to explain why the most exposed players Edmonton drafted, Hall and Eberle especially, have developed fine. Only slightly less ridiculous than ascribing Edmonton's struggles to who their Captain was would be to say that it's on those guys.
mr grieves
New member
Tigger said:
For Stamkos? Not higher than $10.5m.
If higher, Kadri and JvR and the spare parts can play hard minutes for the next couple seasons.
mr grieves
New member
Nik the Trik said:
Sure to team building, especially insofar as that requires actually drafting NHL talent somewhere beyond the first round. But I thought this was a discussion about the team's core. My general proposition: a young core with a developed elite talent stands a better chance of turning out well than a young core with no such talent to play ahead of the young core.
Nik the Trik said:
I suppose you're allowed to accuse others of ridiculous arguments now that your equating Stamkos with Clarkson has slid onto another page. But what if it wasn't so much an argument as a rejoinder?
bustaheims
Active member
mr grieves said:
I don't think it's that compelling at all, since, other than Yakupov and, to a lesser extent, Paajarvi, the Oilers' high picks have developed pretty well and have either come pretty close to meeting their full potential as NHL players or haven't been in the league long enough to say that their development has been hindered in any meaningful way. It's their later picks that have struggled to develop, and I'd have trouble buying an argument that any of them were rushed into positions of responsibility, since only a handful of them have had significant NHL playing time - and, even less experienced that time in an Oiler uniform.
Kin
New member
mr grieves said:
But building a core is the most fundamental aspect of building a team. It's not just hitting on all of your high draft picks to the extent that they become good players. If Yakupov were a good player right now Edmonton would have drafted nothing but good players with their high first round picks but is a good Yakupov vs. what Yakupov is right now the difference between Edmonton being a good team or a bad team? Or would they still be a dreadfully unbalanced team that still probably should have looked to address their blueline with one of those picks? Was Hall the right choice over Seguin? RNH over Landeskog? McDavid right now is their only pick you can look at and say without question was the right one and that's because it was one of the easiest picks in NHL history. Considering the picks they had to work with they didn't do a very good job of building a core that works well together even though Hall, RNH and Eberle are pretty good players.
As to the specifics of your proposition, I'd be pretty comfortable in stacking the resumes of elite young players who joined teams without elite players vs. the other scenario. As a general rule you don't find elite players on terrible teams but those are the teams most high draft picks join. Sure, every now and then Crosby will join a team with Lemieux hanging around or Stamkos joining St. Louis but Tavares, Kane/Toews, Ovechkin, Kovalchuk...typically players like that join a team and are almost immediately the best players there.
Like all bad sports arguments you're falling back on poorly defined intangibles like the captaincy or "insulation" when there aren't facts in your corner. Which sort of reminds me of a big deal Free Agent the Leafs signed a few years back and everyone was big on because of intangible benefits...I forget his name but I remember saying he was exactly as good as Steven Stamkos.
Kin
New member
There's also the conflating of two different things here. There's the idea that teams shouldn't put players in roles they're not ready for and then there's the idea that a player's development is best served if there's an elite player on the team already.
In terms of on-ice stuff the former doesn't apply to the Leafs. The Leafs have shown a lot of caution in developing their top prospects in terms of the team's depth chart. Nylander, of course, spent most of the year in the AHL despite probably being NHL ready and Rielly has been eased into his top pairing role, going from 17 to 20 to 23 minutes a night over his three seasons.
With regards to Matthews/Marner, there's absolutely no reason to think this won't continue. Even without Stamkos between JVR, Komarov, Kadri, Sosh, Hyman and Nylander there's absolutely no need to put either Matthews or Marner in a top line or even top 6 role unless the team thinks they're ready. In fact, some combo like this is very likely to start the year provided JVR isn't dealt:
JVR-Kadri-Sosh
Komarov-Nylander-Hyman
Holland(?)-Matthews-Marner
So the idea that absent Stamkos the Leafs will be "rushing" the development of anyone is entirely unfounded.
In terms of off-ice stuff, again, the Leafs don't have to expose anyone to anything. There are going to be Veterans in the room, the coach is in the most important leadership role and with Nylander, Matthews and Marner likely playing their first full seasons next year there's not going to be an abundance of pressure on any one of them to be any one thing.
Sign Stamkos or don't, there's going to be a ton of interest in Matthews and how he lives up to the hype and it's just as likely that signing Stamkos increases the pressure on the young kids by raising the expectation that they're good right away.
In terms of on-ice stuff the former doesn't apply to the Leafs. The Leafs have shown a lot of caution in developing their top prospects in terms of the team's depth chart. Nylander, of course, spent most of the year in the AHL despite probably being NHL ready and Rielly has been eased into his top pairing role, going from 17 to 20 to 23 minutes a night over his three seasons.
With regards to Matthews/Marner, there's absolutely no reason to think this won't continue. Even without Stamkos between JVR, Komarov, Kadri, Sosh, Hyman and Nylander there's absolutely no need to put either Matthews or Marner in a top line or even top 6 role unless the team thinks they're ready. In fact, some combo like this is very likely to start the year provided JVR isn't dealt:
JVR-Kadri-Sosh
Komarov-Nylander-Hyman
Holland(?)-Matthews-Marner
So the idea that absent Stamkos the Leafs will be "rushing" the development of anyone is entirely unfounded.
In terms of off-ice stuff, again, the Leafs don't have to expose anyone to anything. There are going to be Veterans in the room, the coach is in the most important leadership role and with Nylander, Matthews and Marner likely playing their first full seasons next year there's not going to be an abundance of pressure on any one of them to be any one thing.
Sign Stamkos or don't, there's going to be a ton of interest in Matthews and how he lives up to the hype and it's just as likely that signing Stamkos increases the pressure on the young kids by raising the expectation that they're good right away.
- Status