Confirmed with Link: Kane re-signed. 7 years x $7m AAV

[Sharksrule04]

Oh come on, playing with Thornton? That’s your argument? Prime Marleau is just flat out better than Kane. Don’t try to twist things.

Marleau had 33 goals and 37 assists in the 2013-2014 season; the final year of his $6.9M contract. Of those points, only 29 came while he was on the ice with Joe Thornton. So, he would literally have 41 points that season if you just completely removed the 400 minutes he played with the team’s best center. 41 points is, coincidentally, roughly Kane’s average output per season!

In 2010-2011, 51 of Marleau’s 73 points did come while Thornton was on the ice, but Marleau also had more points than Thornton! So, of 4 seasons of his contract, Marleau out-scored Thornton once, and scored 59% of his points while Thornton was not on the ice once. Marleau was also selected to Team Canada in 2013-2014 while Thornton was not. Kane is, straight up, not the same level of player as prime Marleau and any comparisons between their contracts are moot.

Another reason that their contracts simply cannot be compared is that Marleau and Thornton always signed together and always made the same amount of money. Thornton was a franchise player who was at a higher level than Tavares is right now and Tavares is about to get between 13% and 15% of the cap. Thornton could have commanded at least that much in his prime as a UFA and probably could have gotten more but we consistently got him at the ~11% of the cap that Marleau always signed at because they always signed together.

I definitely would agree Marleau at his best was better than Kane at his best but that 2.2M is a big difference in salary.

where is the twist? i dont see it

He's just reading my post as he wants to see it. I know Marleau is the better player and I said as much in my post. I simply said Kane could produce similarly with Prime Jumbo. If you don't think playing with prime Jumbo could turn 25-30 goal scoring Kane into 40 goal scoring Kane than I don't think you watched enough prime Jumbo. He turned Cheechoo into a 56 goal scorer! Marleau as good as he was, never scored over 28 goals before Jumbo came here. Thornton could turn pretty much any NHLer into a 20 goal scorer, do you really think he wouldn't add 10 goals to Kane's production. Wake up.

 

[Pinkfloyd]

He's just reading my post as he wants to see it. I know Marleau is the better player and I said as much in my post. I simply said Kane could produce similarly with Prime Jumbo. If you don't think playing with prime Jumbo could turn 25-30 goal scoring Kane into 40 goal scoring Kane than I don't think you watched enough prime Jumbo. He turned Cheechoo into a 56 goal scorer! Marleau as good as he was, never scored over 28 goals before Jumbo came here. Thornton could turn pretty much any NHLer into a 20 goal scorer, do you really think he wouldn't add 10 goals to Kane's production. Wake up.

You're wrong. Marleau's production picked up with Thornton because of his increase in power play goals. For a player like Kane to get another 10 goals, he'd have to be a producer on the power play to which he is not. This idea that he can turn anyone into a 20 goal scorer is such malarkey.

 

[Sharksrule04]

You're wrong. Marleau's production picked up with Thornton because of his increase in power play goals. For a player like Kane to get another 10 goals, he'd have to be a producer on the power play to which he is not. This idea that he can turn anyone into a 20 goal scorer is such malarkey.

It's obviously slight sarcasm the statement about 20 goals (he isn't making your average 4th liner a 20 goal scorer), but do you not remember Melker when he first came up to SJ? He even scored 13 goals in 53 games, much of which was with Thornton when he was forced onto that line. Thornton makes every player around him score more. I'd bet with the exception of a couple rare cases all other players who has skated on the same line with Jumbo had their best season playing with him. Can you honestly say Kane would be the exception and see no production increase playing a full season with Prime Jumbo? I think even Jumbo of now would boost his totals by 5 goals, with very little PP production. This is purely hypothetical obviously but I don't see how Kane doesn't get near 35-40 goals playing with Thornton in his prime. If you disagree then I think you underestimate how good Jumbo actually was and the impact he had on the players around him.

 

[Pinkfloyd]

It's obviously slight sarcasm the statement about 20 goals (he isn't making your average 4th liner a 20 goal scorer), but do you not remember Melker when he first came up to SJ? He even scored 13 goals in 53 games, much of which was with Thornton when he was forced onto that line. Thornton makes every player around him score more. I'd bet with the exception of a couple rare cases all other players who has skated on the same line with Jumbo had their best season playing with him. Can you honestly say Kane would be the exception and see no production increase playing a full season with Prime Jumbo? I think even Jumbo of now would boost his totals by 5 goals, with very little PP production. This is purely hypothetical obviously but I don't see how Kane doesn't get near 35-40 goals playing with Thornton in his prime. If you disagree then I think you underestimate how good Jumbo actually was and the impact he had on the players around him.

Yes, I can honestly say that because I'm not putting blinders on with Evander Kane. People who end up scoring more than 30 goals do so because they also score on the power play. That is something that Kane does not do. Marleau in his prime didn't get more than 30 even strength goals so why would we think Kane would when Marleau is without a shadow of a doubt the better offensive player?

You know that guy Cheechoo who had 56 with Thornton only scored 30 even strength goals during one of the most offensive seasons of this era. I think you vastly overestimate how difficult it is to rack up even strength goals and there are only really at most a handful of guys who put that number up in a season. You have to be able to produce on the power play to reach the 35-40 goal mark and Kane doesn't do that.

 

[Sharksrule04]

Yes, I can honestly say that because I'm not putting blinders on with Evander Kane. People who end up scoring more than 30 goals do so because they also score on the power play. That is something that Kane does not do. Marleau in his prime didn't get more than 30 even strength goals so why would we think Kane would when Marleau is without a shadow of a doubt the better offensive player?

Yes Marleau's increases with Jumbo were mostly on the PP side but his 5v5 goals also increased with Jumbo on the team and I'd expect the same for any above average goal scorer. This isn't about blinders with Evander Kane. It's about acknowledging that the best passer of this generation makes players around him better pretty simple. An increase of 5-6 goals really isn't much.

 

[Herschel]

Given the PP that Shark's deploy the only way Kane has a significant uptick in PP scoring is if becomes a net-front presence. This would effectively mean taking Hertl spot on the top unit (assuming Thornton is back)

 

[TomasHertlsRooster]

Given the PP that Shark's deploy the only way Kane has a significant uptick in PP scoring is if becomes a net-front presence. This would effectively mean taking Hertl spot on the top unit (assuming Thornton is back)

Thornton already is taking that spot in personnel. My guess is that if we don’t add Tavares or another offensive superstar, we will go with the same PP lineup that was scoring at will earlier in the season.

Thornton-Pavelski-LaBanc
Couture-Burns

 

[Herschel]

Thornton already is taking that spot in personnel. My guess is that if we don’t add Tavares or another offensive superstar, we will go with the same PP lineup that was scoring at will earlier in the season.

Thornton-Pavelski-LaBanc
Couture-Burns

I think the best results came when they moved Thornton to the left side so the umbrella is Thornton - Burns - Couture, which bumps Labanc to the second unit. I would then run Pavelski and Kane as the net front guys for 1st unit.

 

[Barrie22]

Given the PP that Shark's deploy the only way Kane has a significant uptick in PP scoring is if becomes a net-front presence. This would effectively mean taking Hertl spot on the top unit (assuming Thornton is back)

Kane would be taking pavs or couture's spot on the power play if thornton is back.

To be honest i would like that to be couture. Keep couture and hertl together on the 2nd unit. Atleast then the team would not rely so heavily on the top unit for the power plays sucess or failures.

Thornton, pavs, kane, burns, lebanc.
Hertl, couture, ryan (heed preferably lol), donskoi, meier.

 

[Maladroit]

Weakening your top power play unit for the purpose of having a better second unit is so stupid. I don't know why fans always get so worked up about the second unit, it literally does not matter. Every successful power play in the league gets there on the strength of their top unit which is always loaded up and plays the bulk of every power play. I couldn't even tell you who's on Washington's second PP unit and they dominated with the man advantage all playoffs long.

 

[Barrie22]

Weakening your top power play unit for the purpose of having a better second unit is so stupid. I don't know why fans always get so worked up about the second unit, it literally does not matter. Every successful power play in the league gets there on the strength of their top unit which is always loaded up and plays the bulk of every power play. I couldn't even tell you who's on Washington's second PP unit and they dominated with the man advantage all playoffs long.

How are you truely weakening the power play unit by swapping couture and kane?

 

[Maladroit]

How are you truely weakening the power play unit by swapping couture and kane?

Couture led the Sharks in power play goals this year and Kane is one of the worst power play scorers in the league.

 

[Pinkfloyd]

Yes Marleau's increases with Jumbo were mostly on the PP side but his 5v5 goals also increased with Jumbo on the team and I'd expect the same for any above average goal scorer. This isn't about blinders with Evander Kane. It's about acknowledging that the best passer of this generation makes players around him better pretty simple. An increase of 5-6 goals really isn't much.

Yes but it's not exactly fair to attribute that marginal increase solely to Thornton. Getting extra time that comes with being on the top line kind of helps that. That first year in 2008-09 that he did play with Thornton, Thornton didn't assist on 12 of his 22 even strength goals. And the reason that you shouldn't expect that from any other above average goal scorer is that we've been through this before with Dany Heatley. Every bit as good at scoring goals as Kane is and his goal production dropped at even strength with Thornton. You have to acknowledge that Kane's production almost exclusively comes from even strength. The other thing to acknowledge with that is that Thornton has only ever once assisted a scorer that had 30 or more even strength goals in a season and that was Cheechoo in 2005-06. He's only done it two other times with someone getting 25 or more once with Marleau and once with Pavelski. Just because Thornton is the best passer of his generation and makes others around him better doesn't mean that you can just mindlessly say that anyone who scores this much elsewhere will score this much more here. It simply doesn't work that way and history shows that. So maybe it's not blinders with Kane as much as it is with Thornton. There's no way he would've made Kane score equal to or more than Marleau in his prime.

 

[Sharksrule04]

Yes but it's not exactly fair to attribute that marginal increase solely to Thornton. Getting extra time that comes with being on the top line kind of helps that. That first year in 2008-09 that he did play with Thornton, Thornton didn't assist on 12 of his 22 even strength goals. And the reason that you shouldn't expect that from any other above average goal scorer is that we've been through this before with Dany Heatley. Every bit as good at scoring goals as Kane is and his goal production dropped at even strength with Thornton. You have to acknowledge that Kane's production almost exclusively comes from even strength. The other thing to acknowledge with that is that Thornton has only ever once assisted a scorer that had 30 or more even strength goals in a season and that was Cheechoo in 2005-06. He's only done it two other times with someone getting 25 or more once with Marleau and once with Pavelski. Just because Thornton is the best passer of his generation and makes others around him better doesn't mean that you can just mindlessly say that anyone who scores this much elsewhere will score this much more here. It simply doesn't work that way and history shows that. So maybe it's not blinders with Kane as much as it is with Thornton. There's no way he would've made Kane score equal to or more than Marleau in his prime.

I don't think you can definitively say it wouldn't have made Kane a 35-40 goal scorer. Maybe you'd be right in this hypothetical world but I believe otherwise. I look at a healthy Kane (75 games or more) as a 30 goal scorer already and quite possibly more on the Sharks. Being paired with prime Thornton I think a player like him who loves to shoot and has a good shot would see an uptick of 5 or so goals. I do agree his lack of PP production hurts his chances of hitting 40, but 35 goals isn't out of the question which is basically in Marleau territory except for the one career year where he scored 44. Kane would never be the full talent that Marleau was because I can't see him topping 30-35 assists or contributing on the PP like Patty but purely as a goal scorer I could see him producing similar to Marleau.

Side question, why do we think Kane is bad on the PP? It doesn't really make sense to me because he has a solid shot and a big body. You'd think he'd either be able to snipe a few or bang home some rebounds in front. Is it purely a hockey IQ thing or something more? Can he not change his shoot shoot shoot mentality to a wait for the right shot on the PP?

 

[Pinkfloyd]

I don't think you can definitively say it wouldn't have made Kane a 35-40 goal scorer. Maybe you'd be right in this hypothetical world but I believe otherwise. I look at a healthy Kane (75 games or more) as a 30 goal scorer already and quite possibly more on the Sharks. Being paired with prime Thornton I think a player like him who loves to shoot and has a good shot would see an uptick of 5 or so goals. I do agree his lack of PP production hurts his chances of hitting 40, but 35 goals isn't out of the question which is basically in Marleau territory except for the one career year where he scored 44. Kane would never be the full talent that Marleau was because I can't see him topping 30-35 assists or contributing on the PP like Patty but purely as a goal scorer I could see him producing similar to Marleau.

Side question, why do we think Kane is bad on the PP? It doesn't really make sense to me because he has a solid shot and a big body. You'd think he'd either be able to snipe a few or bang home some rebounds in front. Is it purely a hockey IQ thing or something more? Can he not change his shoot shoot shoot mentality to a wait for the right shot on the PP?

I don't need to definitively say anything because any reasonable person is going to look at the evidence and come to their own conclusions. The amount of 30+ even strength goal scorers in the last 12 seasons average out to 3 guys. Thornton has only assisted on someone having a 30+ even strength goal campaign once. Kane's career high power play goal number is 6. With the high likelihood that Kane doesn't see power play time with Thornton, you're believing that he will get 35 to 40 goals by having at the very least 30 even strength goals. What evidence is there then that justifies your belief that he would hit that mark? Kane has played 75 games in a season once in his career and that was this season. Thornton has almost always preferred right-hand options to pass to and has generally succeeded more with that arrangement and not with the lefty arrangement. And if he's playing with Pavelski and Burns, those two will still see the large majority of his passes, imo. I agree with the general idea that Kane and Marleau are similar as goal scorers. That's exactly why Kane won't hit that mark. Marleau needed power play time and top line even strength time to get to those marks. Kane will not get to those marks on even strength alone.

Kane doesn't have the patience and intelligence to play on the power play. The power play is a balance of putting pucks to the net but being able to enter the zone cleanly, retrieve pucks and rebounds, and in the Sharks' case, trying to extract the higher percentage passing/shooting plays to create goals. Kane's not really proficient at those things. If he were better at zone entries and winning board battles and moving the puck around I think he could be a good option but he flings pucks too erratically to be reliable there.

 

[Herschel]

Kane would be taking pavs or couture's spot on the power play if thornton is back.

To be honest i would like that to be couture. Keep couture and hertl together on the 2nd unit. Atleast then the team would not rely so heavily on the top unit for the power plays sucess or failures.

Thornton, pavs, kane, burns, lebanc.
Hertl, couture, ryan (heed preferably lol), donskoi, meier.

Why not run lebanc on the second unit so they have a legitimate setup guy? With your second unit I have a tough time seeing them moving the puck around effectively. I guess the top of the umbrella would be Couture - Heed - Donskoi, with Meier and Hertl down low. Seems to me that Labanc - Heed - Donskoi would be more effective.

 

[Herschel]

Kane doesn't have the patience and intelligence to play on the power play. The power play is a balance of putting pucks to the net but being able to enter the zone cleanly, retrieve pucks and rebounds, and in the Sharks' case, trying to extract the higher percentage passing/shooting plays to create goals. Kane's not really proficient at those things. If he were better at zone entries and winning board battles and moving the puck around I think he could be a good option but he flings pucks too erratically to be reliable there.

I think some of Kane's PP struggles stem from using him as a shooter, which leads to the issues you mention. I can understand that since he has a very good shot. I think PDB needs to deploy him down low around the net and score the greasy ones.

Really, Kane's skill set should work within the Shark's system. While he isn't as good as Hertl winning board battles he is a much better finisher. Also, a big part of puck retrieval is rimming for either the half wall or the point since most of the puck movement comes up top in the umbrella.

 

[Pinkfloyd]

I think some of Kane's PP struggles stem from using him as a shooter, which leads to the issues you mention. I can understand that since he has a very good shot. I think PDB needs to deploy him down low around the net and score the greasy ones.

Really, Kane's skill set should work within the Shark's system. While he isn't as good as Hertl winning board battles he is a much better finisher. Also, a big part of puck retrieval is rimming for either the half wall or the point since most of the puck movement comes up top in the umbrella.

I don't think the Sharks have enough of the right talent on the top unit to be able to keep Kane there and still succeed. Kane's not good for zone entries and not good for board battles for that situation. He'd be good for winning races and in and around the net but he's not much of a setup guy towards that end. The other four guys would by and large be too slow for dump and chase entries which means they have to be very, very precise with their carry-ins, their bumping, and getting themselves set up because a PK group will stand up at the blue line a lot more. On the PP, Kane is a one-trick pony. You have him float around the scoring areas and look for passes and rebounds but pretty much everything leading up to that would be on the other guys.

 

[Hinterland]

I think some of Kane's PP struggles stem from using him as a shooter, which leads to the issues you mention. I can understand that since he has a very good shot. I think PDB needs to deploy him down low around the net and score the greasy ones.

Really, Kane's skill set should work within the Shark's system. While he isn't as good as Hertl winning board battles he is a much better finisher. Also, a big part of puck retrieval is rimming for either the half wall or the point since most of the puck movement comes up top in the umbrella.

I disagree. Kane is a pretty bad finisher. He scores lots of goals and has good corsi stats for one reason only...he's a volume shooter. Don't let that fool you. Hertl is the much better finisher...especially in terms of breakaways or garbage goals around the net. Kane has to crack it as a shooter or he probably won't because there are better options.