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Unofficial 2013-2014 Armchair GM Thread

nutman said:
Looks like we done much better then NYR did playing Boston. maybe we nont need any more then some very fine tweaking.

Maybe a team that decided it needed a fairly significant overhaul midseason is not the best bar to gauge the Leafs by.
 
It's sad that the Leafs will loose Dallas Eakins to an NHL team. He did so much for so many Marlies players.

I think Vancouver will hire him. I like Carlyle but it would have been great if the Leafs would hire Eakins as an assistant rather than let him make his glorious start somewhere else.

http://sports.nationalpost.com/2013/05/23/marlies-coach-dallas-eakins-hoping-to-get-his-chance-in-the-nhl/
 
oakl0008 said:
It's sad that the Leafs will loose Dallas Eakins to an NHL team. He did so much for so many Marlies players.

I think Vancouver will hire him. I like Carlyle but it would have been great if the Leafs would hire Eakins as an assistant rather than let him make his glorious start somewhere else.

http://sports.nationalpost.com/2013/05/23/marlies-coach-dallas-eakins-hoping-to-get-his-chance-in-the-nhl/

Man, this reminds me of the Marc Crawford situation.  :(
 
TML fan said:
hockeyfan1 said:
Elliotte Friedman @FriedgeHNIC
Hotstove notes: VAN has asked TOR for permission to interview Dallas Eakins.

Say no! Just for fun :)
Seriously!  After all the BS, Gillis has flung T.O's way. Tell them they can talk to Dallas after they fire their GM. :P

Furthermore, you know it's going to be frustrating  if/when Carlyle gets fired next year (if the leafs miss the playoffs) and we are looking for a quality coach and all we have to pick from are other team's expensive cast offs.  We all know how hard it is to find good gm's and coaches.... we go and grow some but then we give them away.
 
Exactly "when opportunity comes knocking at the front door, most people are in the back yard looking for four Leaf clovers" and so it with the Leafs, when Carlyle is gone, Eakins won't be there and to be honest I think he is the one who should have stepped in last year when Wilson took Burkes golden package to early retirement.
Eakins is the one that has groomed most of the players whom will be on the squad in the next two years and leads with Fitness by example not by paunch.
 
princedpw said:
moon111 said:
I wouldn't complain to see Bozak resigned, MacArthur and Komarov out, Weiss and Colborne in.

One wouldn't sign both Weiss and Bozak -- one or the other.  I'd probably pay a little more for Weiss than Bozak.
I wouldn't hesitate to use Bozak, Grabovski, Weiss, McClement as the centers.  Kadri and Colborne can play the wing.  Or at least not take the face-offs.  Thought with Connolly, MacArthur, and Bozak's contracts gone, that would free up $9.5 million to sign Bozak and Weiss.  I'm definitely no cap-lawyer.
 
moon111 said:
I wouldn't hesitate to use Bozak, Grabovski, Weiss, McClement as the centers.  Kadri and Colborne can play the wing.  Or at least not take the face-offs.  Thought with Connolly, MacArthur, and Bozak's contracts gone, that would free up $9.5 million to sign Bozak and Weiss.  I'm definitely no cap-lawyer.

I'd be inclined to work things similarly. The team needs more depth down the middle and more guys who they can count on to take important faceoffs. I also feel like centres have an easier time adapting to playing on the wing than doing things the other way around. Colborne's faceoff skills at the NHL level are still an unknown right now, but, for Kadri, it's an area where he's shown he needs significant improvement. My hope is that he'll work on it over the summer and come into camp being able to at least approach 50% on the draw, but, I'd still bring in some depth at the position just in case he hasn't improved to that point.
 
Not sure about the guesstimates, however with the centre position notion in mind...

There's a hole at 6d but enough flex to address that and fix other things too if needs be, capwise, with Liles contract ( buyout ). I'm a bit intrigued by the cap situation for the following year too, what with Kessel and Phaneuf's contracts, a cap increase ( likely substantial ) and a drop of 2m in buyout costs.

FORWARDS
Joffrey Lupul ($5.250m) / Stephen Weiss ($5.500m) / Phil Kessel ($5.400m)
James Van Riemsdyk ($4.250m) / Mikhail Grabovski ($5.500m) / Nazem Kadri ($2.551m)
Nikolai Kulemin ($2.800m) / Tyler Bozak ($3.500m) / Matt Frattin ($0.925m)
Leo Komarov ($1.003m) / Jay McClement ($1.500m) / Joe Colborne ($0.827m)
Colton Orr ($1.000m)
DEFENSEMEN
Carl Gunnarsson ($2.850m) / Dion Phaneuf ($6.500m)
Jake Gardiner ($1.117m) / Cody Franson ($2.500m)
John-Michael Liles ($3.875m) /
Mark Fraser ($0.960m) /
GOALTENDERS
James Reimer ($1.800m)
Ben Scrivens ($0.613m)
OTHER
Buyout: Darcy Tucker ($1.000m)
Buyout: Colby Armstrong ($1.000m)
------
CAPGEEK.COM TOTALS (follow @capgeek on Twitter)
(these totals are compiled with the bonus cushion)
SALARY CAP: $64,300,000; CAP PAYROLL: $62,219,792; BONUSES: $300,000
CAP SPACE (21-man roster): $2,380,208
 
moon111 said:
princedpw said:
moon111 said:
I wouldn't complain to see Bozak resigned, MacArthur and Komarov out, Weiss and Colborne in.

One wouldn't sign both Weiss and Bozak -- one or the other.  I'd probably pay a little more for Weiss than Bozak.
I wouldn't hesitate to use Bozak, Grabovski, Weiss, McClement as the centers.  Kadri and Colborne can play the wing.  Or at least not take the face-offs.  Thought with Connolly, MacArthur, and Bozak's contracts gone, that would free up $9.5 million to sign Bozak and Weiss.  I'm definitely no cap-lawyer.

My calculation suggests that you'd need to sign them for 8.5 million or less, unless you buy out or trade Liles (as well as Komi), which would give you about 12.3 for Bozak, Weiss and a defenseman.
 
bustaheims said:
moon111 said:
I wouldn't hesitate to use Bozak, Grabovski, Weiss, McClement as the centers.  Kadri and Colborne can play the wing.  Or at least not take the face-offs.  Thought with Connolly, MacArthur, and Bozak's contracts gone, that would free up $9.5 million to sign Bozak and Weiss.  I'm definitely no cap-lawyer.

I'd be inclined to work things similarly. The team needs more depth down the middle and more guys who they can count on to take important faceoffs. I also feel like centres have an easier time adapting to playing on the wing than doing things the other way around. Colborne's faceoff skills at the NHL level are still an unknown right now, but, for Kadri, it's an area where he's shown he needs significant improvement. My hope is that he'll work on it over the summer and come into camp being able to at least approach 50% on the draw, but, I'd still bring in some depth at the position just in case he hasn't improved to that point.

Not that I wouldn't love more center depth but I think people are overestimating the value of face offs -- perhaps in part because they are just so easy to measure.  They make a difference but the difference is minor compared in the context of a player's overall skill set.  Again, I'd rather optimize first for other factors, like overall puck possession, which seems to have a bigger impact than just face offs.  Having said that, I'll take face offs as a bonus.

If we signed Weiss, I would rather try to find a way to put the perhaps 4+ million that would be allocated to Bozak in to a defenseman -- a Dan Hamhuis or something like that.  Though, of course, that is a bit of an empty proposal because the UFA market is so dire... May be some kind of trade ... But I have no real ideas.
 
princedpw said:
Not that I wouldn't love more center depth but I think people are overestimating the value of face offs -- perhaps in part because they are just so easy to measure.  They make a difference but the difference is minor compared in the context of a player's overall skill set.  Again, I'd rather optimize first for other factors, like overall puck possession, which seems to have a bigger impact than just face offs.  Having said that, I'll take face offs as a bonus.

Well, the thing is, faceoffs have a pretty significant impact on puck possession. The more faceoffs you win, the more you start out the play with the puck. I'm not saying they're the end all and be all, but, they are important. One key win late in game 7, and the Leafs would have been playing in the 2nd round. With Bozak out, the team only had one guy they felt confident in on the draw, and that's a problem. I agree that puck possession is an area of concern, but being more proficient at the draw is one way to help address that issue.
 
A couple of notes from Bob McKenzie:

The window for compliance buyouts opens 48 hours after the cup final is finished and closes when free agency opens on the 5th of July. Free agency opening on July 5th is only for this season.

The draft is scheduled for Sunday, June 30th. All 7 rounds will be held on this day.
 
bustaheims said:
princedpw said:
Not that I wouldn't love more center depth but I think people are overestimating the value of face offs -- perhaps in part because they are just so easy to measure.  They make a difference but the difference is minor compared in the context of a player's overall skill set.  Again, I'd rather optimize first for other factors, like overall puck possession, which seems to have a bigger impact than just face offs.  Having said that, I'll take face offs as a bonus.

Well, the thing is, faceoffs have a pretty significant impact on puck possession. The more faceoffs you win, the more you start out the play with the puck. I'm not saying they're the end all and be all, but, they are important. One key win late in game 7, and the Leafs would have been playing in the 2nd round. With Bozak out, the team only had one guy they felt confident in on the draw, and that's a problem. I agree that puck possession is an area of concern, but being more proficient at the draw is one way to help address that issue.

Winning faceoffs would be great, but I don't see why, except that it's an easily quantifiable stat and a moment in the game where the outcome is clear (did it or didn't), faceoffs are worth a premium over other measures of possession. In Bozak's case, many seem comfortable with a $4m/yr contract which is about $1.5-2m more than any other measure suggests he's worth.

But what then to make of Bozak's terrible Corsi numbers? I look at those next to, say, MacArthur's and wonder whether it really means much to win a faceoff only to to follow that with defensively irresponsible and offensively lacksidasical play. 
 
mr grieves said:
But what then to make of Bozak's terrible Corsi numbers?

Are they terrible though? His CORSI relative is a positive and has been in the past. He's got better numbers than guys like Lupul or Phaneuf. He's certainly not terrible in a team context.

I think that sort of highlights the problem that absent something like face-offs we don't really have good quantitative measurements for "possession".
 
Nik the Trik said:
mr grieves said:
But what then to make of Bozak's terrible Corsi numbers?

Are they terrible though? His CORSI relative is a positive and has been in the past. He's got better numbers than guys like Lupul or Phaneuf. He's certainly not terrible in a team context.

I think that sort of highlights the problem that absent something like face-offs we don't really have good quantitative measurements for "possession".

Except faceoffs aren't really adequate either.
 
mr grieves said:
Except faceoffs aren't really adequate either.

No and I didn't mean to imply that it was a good measurement of possession as a whole but rather that it's a very good statistic and it's  an element of puck possession. So the reason it gets a lot of play is that while it may not be comprehensive it's at the very least accurate and accepted about what it purports to measure.
 

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