Miscellaneous NHL Talk, 2018 edition

[Rebels57]

There isn’t a single player who was taken who couldn’t have been protected if they were vital to their team. Every player exposed was judged to be more expendable than his peers on that team by their GM. Clearly the teams didn’t think the player was indispensable, otherwise someone else would have been exposed.

In other words, every skater exposed was judged to not be one of the three best defensemen or 7 best forwards (unless there was a NMC complication).

You don’t have to be happy a player was picked to judge him advance expendable... it just means that the player wasn’t vital to the team.

For example, if for some odd reason we somehow had to lose one of Couturier, Patrick, or Laughton, I’d choose Laughton but I wouldn’t be happy about it. I just judge him to be expendable compared to the other options.

We are having a semantics argument and those are a waste of time so im out lol

 

[Striiker]

We are having a semantics argument and those are a waste of time so im out lol

It really isn't. I was originally making a point about the quality of the players and why it isn't a shock other GM's didn't jump on them... I don't care about the specific word used in this instance. You took issue with the word I used, but that specific word never important to my point.

My point was that Vegas picked leftovers (use whatever other word you want), not established highly desirable players. Leftovers shouldn't have been this good and they very likely won't be this good again. Doesn't mean every single player will regress, some really did just need a bigger role to be able to flourish, but some will and as a whole I expect the team to.

So them working out in Vegas doesn't reflect poorly on other GMs because they only knew as much as we knew prior to the season. You could hope/guess some players would look better in bigger roles, but it's not as if it was clear this was going to happen and it was merely negligence on any other GM's part that they didn't swoop in and steal a bunch of them. Even if someone like Hextall did steal a guy like that, who says they do the same thing here? They probably don't get as large of a role (for good reason, they were unproven) and wouldn't have had the same results. We just end up with another low risk low reward guy that so many people on here are so furious that we've added.

And actually Hextall has gone after the type of guys you'd have possibly seen exposed/taken in expansion drafts if it was in a different year. Guys who have potential but weren't really playing like it. Del Zotto, Gagner, Mrazek... but since they didn't pan out for us they're ignored. The difference is Vegas got extremely lucky and most of their lottery tickets were winners.

 

[Rebels57]

It really isn't. I was originally making a point about the quality of the players and why it isn't a shock other GM's didn't jump on them... I don't care about the specific word used in this instance. You took issue with the word I used, but that specific word never important to my point.

My point was that Vegas picked leftovers (use whatever other word you want), not established highly desirable players. Leftovers shouldn't have been this good and they very likely won't be this good again. Doesn't mean every single player will regress, some really did just need a bigger role to be able to flourish, but some will and as a whole I expect the team to.

So them working out in Vegas doesn't reflect poorly on other GMs because they only knew as much as we knew prior to the season. You could hope/guess some players would look better in bigger roles, but it's not as if it was clear this was going to happen and it was merely negligence on any other GM's part that they didn't swoop in and steal a bunch of them. Even if someone like Hextall did steal a guy like that, who says they do the same thing here? They probably don't get as large of a role (for good reason, they were unproven) and wouldn't have had the same results. We just end up with another low risk low reward guy that so many people on here are so furious that we've added.

And actually Hextall has gone after the type of guys you'd have possibly seen exposed/taken in expansion drafts if it was in a different year. Guys who have potential but weren't really playing like it. Del Zotto, Gagner, Mrazek... but since they didn't pan out for us they're ignored. The difference is Vegas got extremely lucky and most of their lottery tickets were winners.

And again, not everyone fits this description. They were just on loaded teams that were forced to lose a really good player. Or they played on teams with idiot GMs like Dale Tallon.

 

[Striiker]

And again, not everyone fits this description. They were just on loaded teams that were forced to lose a really good player. Or they played on teams with idiot GMs like Dale Tallon.

Which player on Vegas doesn't fit that description?

Almost every single one of them was left off (hence being called "leftovers") the protection list because they were deemed to not be one of the top 8/3 players at their position on whatever team they came from. The ones that weren't were actively traded to Vegas in an effort to protect someone else, so clearly they were seen as expendable.

And who was an established highly desirable player? There isn't a single forward or defensemen on that team that was considered a star prior to this season. They were all either established mediocre players or they were unproven. Probably the closest on that team was MAF, but I'm talking about forwards or defensemen.

 

[JojoTheWhale]

And who was an established highly desirable player? There isn't a single forward or defensemen on that team that was considered a star prior to this season. They were all either established mediocre players or they were unproven. Probably the closest on that team was MAF, but I'm talking about forwards or defensemen.

Neal. Reilly Smith was an established very good player if you cared enough to look at Shot Percentage metrics, which is a reasonable threshold for the executive arm of a 9 figure corporation. Now in the case of a Minnesota or an Anaheim, it was almost impossible for another team to leverage off of Vegas because they offered multiple excellent ED options, so I can't blame the rest of the league there. Likewise Pittsburgh because from all accounts Fleury only agreed to waive for Vegas.

This is missing the point, though. Instead of looking at what Vegas has done and thinking about whose fault it is, teams should be looking at their own assets to see who fits the various profiles to give them opportunities over the veteran and/or safe chaff.

 

[Striiker]

Neal. Reilly Smith was an established very good player if you cared enough to look at Shot Percentage metrics, which is a reasonable threshold for the executive arm of a 9 figure corporation. Now in the case of a Minnesota or an Anaheim, it was almost impossible for another team to leverage off of Vegas because they offered multiple excellent ED options, so I can't blame the rest of the league there. Likewise Pittsburgh because from all accounts Fleury only agreed to waive for Vegas.

This is missing the point, though. Instead of looking at what Vegas has done and thinking about whose fault it is, teams should be looking at their own assets to see who fits the various profiles to give them opportunities over the veteran and/or safe chaff.

I thought about Neal, but he was already kinda declining before being exposed and was already 30 when last season started, so it wouldn't be unreasonable to think that would continue and hurt his value (which would, in my mind, disqualify him from being "highly desirable").
He just wasn't the same type of scorer in Nashville as he was in Pitt, which is understandable since he had less talent around him (and he isn't really a catalyst for offense, but instead a finisher)... but in Vegas he was expected to be surrounded by even less scoring talent than that, so it's not like he was someone you could expect to put up great numbers (and he didn't, despite being on the 4th highest scoring team in the league).

And I'm not sure what you mean in the second paragraph... "Instead of looking at what Vegas has done and thinking whose fault it is"? I never assigned blame to anyone, so not sure what you're referring to here. But I agree with the rest, teams should always be looking at who they have and what those players could do if given an opportunity.

 

[Scotty Pucks]

Go Caps. This is Ovi’s year.

 

[JojoTheWhale]

And I'm not sure what you mean in the second paragraph... "Instead of looking at what Vegas has done and thinking whose fault it is"? I never assigned blame to anyone, so not sure what you're referring to here. But I agree with the rest, teams should always be looking at who they have and what those players could do if given an opportunity.

Poor phrasing on my part. The discussion gets framed as "GMs allowed it to happen," as if it was a simple toggle switch for ED protection that is the meaningful takeaway here. It was complete organizational failure for these teams from GMs to Owners to Coaching Staffs that got them into the situation to make that decision.

 

[Striiker]

Poor phrasing on my part. The discussion gets framed as "GMs allowed it to happen," as if it was a simple toggle switch for ED protection that is the meaningful takeaway here. It was complete organizational failure for these teams from GMs to Owners to Coaching Staffs that got them into the situation to make that decision.

Ahh, OK, I see what you meant. Thanks.

 

[Rebels57]

Which player on Vegas doesn't fit that description?

Almost every single one of them was left off (hence being called "leftovers") the protection list because they were deemed to not be one of the top 8/3 players at their position on whatever team they came from. The ones that weren't were actively traded to Vegas in an effort to protect someone else, so clearly they were seen as expendable.

And who was an established highly desirable player? There isn't a single forward or defensemen on that team that was considered a star prior to this season. They were all either established mediocre players or they were unproven. Probably the closest on that team was MAF, but I'm talking about forwards or defensemen.

Marchessault scored 30 goals last year on a sweetheart contract. No GM in their right mind should have left him exposed. He was Floridas 2nd or 3rd best forward. Tallon is just dumb and the owners in Florida are cheap and wanted to move Smiths contract, which was also a mistake.

James Neal has been an established top 6 goal scorer for years, but Nashville was deep and had to protect 4 defensemen so they could only protect 4 forwards.

Washington DID NOT want to lose Nate Schmidt. After his strong playoff run, they were ready to pencil him into their top 4 and tried to work out a deal with Vegas so theyd not select him.

Capitals lose defenseman Nate Schmidt in Las Vegas expansion draft

Again, some teams didnt want to lose some of these players and considered them important players, but had no choice or made mistakes. Some were expendable. Not that complicated.

 

[deadhead]

And teams were forced to protect some players due to NMCs.
So they had to let better players be exposed and keep worse players.

The other thing was that McPhee had the advantage of numbers, if you trade for an "underachiever" you're giving up real assets to take a gamble on a rebound. If you make a few of those deals, and even if you hit on one, you've given up a lot of cumulative assets.

For Vegas, they had to take 30 players, they were going to have to waive 8, so it was reasonable for them to take chances on a dozen players who had upside, and hope to hit on a third of them. Due that in trades, and you probably go nowhere, do that in the ED and you find a Karlsson.

 

[Striiker]

Marchessault scored 30 goals last year on a sweetheart contract. No GM in their right mind should have left him exposed. He was Floridas 2nd or 3rd best forward. Tallon is just dumb and the owners in Florida are cheap and wanted to move Smiths contract, which was also a mistake.

James Neal has been an established top 6 goal scorer for years, but Nashville was deep and had to protect 4 defensemen so they could only protect 4 forwards.

Washington DID NOT want to lose Nate Schmidt. After his strong playoff run, they were ready to pencil him into their top 4 and tried to work out a deal with Vegas so theyd not select him.

Capitals lose defenseman Nate Schmidt in Las Vegas expansion draft

Again, some teams didnt want to lose some of these players and considered them important players, but had no choice or made mistakes. Some were expendable. Not that complicated.

It's also not complicated that I'm very clearly saying that these players were indisputably leftover extra players that were deemed to be lesser than other players on their team by their GM's. I really have no idea how this is a controversial label to give them. I didn't say teams didn't want to keep them or that they're all bad players. I said teams, clearly and indisputably, decided that they would be exposed by picking to keep others over them. That gives them the label of "unwanted" (relative to teammates) or "expendable" or "leftover" because that's literally what they were. It doesn't mean I agree with it, it means that's simply what they were in their GM's eyes.

It was stupid for some of these players to be unprotected, but they were. I wasn't the one who made the decision.

As for your examples..
-A guy like Marchessault shouldn't have been exposed, but he was unproven. He had one good year and obviously the GM didn't think it was sustainable, like many others didn't.
-As I just said to Jojo, Neal was a proven player but no longer highly desirable because of age and declining production.
-Washington didn't want to lose Schmidt, but they obviously decided they were more comfortable losing him exposed than others on the team.

 

[JojoTheWhale]

And teams were forced to protect some players due to NMCs.
So they had to let better players be exposed and keep worse players.

Someone gave those NMCs out. I know I'm preaching to the choir a bit here, but it's all connected. This is why I say boiling it down to just a protect/expose decision is missing the forest for the trees.

 

[Magua]

Who else were we going to protect?

Here's who we left exposed...

Forwards
Bellemare, Greg Carey, Chris Connor, Boyd Gordon, Taylor Leier, Colin McDonald, Andy Miele, Raffl, Matt Read, Chris VandeVelde, Jordan Weal, Dale Weise, and Eric Wellwood.

Defensemen
T.J. Brennan, Michael Del Zotto, Andrew MacDonald, Will O’Neill, Jesper Petterson, Nick Schultz.

Not within the organization. Outside the organization.

I mean you could say they did it with Flip and his NTC, but then that’s opening up another can of worms.

 

[Striiker]

Not within the organization. Outside the organization.

I mean you could say they did it with Flip and his NTC, but then that’s opening up another can of worms.

You mean add people through a trade and then protect them? We have no idea what was or wasn't possible, so I'm not sure how it's bad to protect those two guys (who I've made clear that I hate) when it might have actually been the best realistic option.

I'm also like 90% sure I remember reading an article after the expansion draft that had some GM quoted as saying how he was asking around to make a trade but all the asking prices were crazy.
Even if I'm remembering that wrong, so many fanbases had theories about possible trades they could make to take advantage of a team who was going to lose someone in the expansion... but almost nothing actually happened.

 

[Magua]

You mean add people through a trade and then protect them? We have no idea what was or wasn't possible, so I'm not sure how it's bad to protect those two guys (who I've made clear that I hate) when it might have actually been the best realistic option.

I'm also like 90% sure I remember reading an article after the expansion draft that had some GM quoted as saying how he was asking around to make a trade but all the asking prices were crazy.
Even if I'm remembering that wrong, so many fanbases had theories about possible trades they could make to take advantage of a team who was going to lose someone in the expansion... but almost nothing actually happened.

It's purely speculative who they inquired or did not inquire about or their cost. Also, GMs erring conservative/comatose and doing nothing doesn't preclude the possibility of something existing with more forcefulness. And as was already mentioned, Reilly Smith went for a 4th round pick. There's one certainty. We mercifully took Flip's NMC away from Tampa, so that was another, although he couldn't have even been exposed. The Flyers actually did do a trade and then protect someone. It just was a horrible player who then played a horrid amount of minutes.

I already said it's not the end of the world, but I'm well past the point of assumptions and trust in this team properly evaluating NHL talent and reaching sound conclusions.

 

[Striiker]

It's purely speculative who they inquired or did not inquire about or their cost. Also, GMs erring conservative/comatose and doing nothing doesn't preclude the possibility of something existing with more forcefulness. And as was already mentioned, Reilly Smith went for a 4th round pick. There's one certainty. We mercifully took Flip's NMC away from Tampa, so that was another, although he couldn't have even been exposed. The Flyers actually did do a trade and then protect someone. It just was a horrible player who then played a horrid amount of minutes.

I already said it's not the end of the world, but I'm well past the point of assumptions and trust in this team properly evaluating NHL talent and reaching sound conclusions.

Sure, I get what you’re saying.

I’m just saying why protecting those two didn’t bother me.

Maybe Hextall did a great job by avoiding a bad trade, maybe he did a horrible job by not making a possible trade. Maybe there were horrible options, maybe there were great options. Maybe he made a great effort, maybe he was completely negligent. Either way, I don’t have a clue so I’m not too worried about it. In the end, based on who we had on the roster at the time, I’m happy with who was protected and exposed. It was pretty much a no-brainer, but some GMs don’t appear to be able to even get the no-brainers right.

I’m not worried about the NHL talent evaluations yet. If they sign Filppula, it’s a bad sign, but outside of that possibility nothing has been worrisome.

 

[deadhead]

You mean like not trading Hartnell and then have to protect him?

Flyers lost nothing of value in the ED, PEB was a 32 year old center blocking Laughton, and last summer we didn't know Filppula would regress this much.
I'm glad PEB made it to the SC finals, but he wasn't in our future plans.

I see every Hextall move through the prism of 2019-20, how does it effect the timetable for competitiveness at that point of the rebuild.
I can't think of a Hextall move so far that has reduced the competitiveness of that team, other than trading for Mrazek (which was forced on him).

This summer and next summer will be tricky, because the Flyers are on the verge of being competitive (i.e. a shot at the CF finals, making the "final four" means you're in the hunt every year) in 2019-20, but following that season you have the ED, so how to improve the team without losing better talent the following summer?

As far as 2018-19, I expect them to be improved, 100+ points and a playoff spot, but the development of the young players should take precedence over winning now. TK, Patrick, Lindblom, Laughton, NAK, Provorov, Sanheim and Myers - if they continue to improve, so will the team. So I don't feel the urgency to make big moves this offseason, 2-3 solid tweaks (a patch at 3C, a PK bottom six forward, an upgrade veteran RHD) would be fine in my book.

 

[JojoTheWhale]

Flyers lost nothing of value in the ED, PEB was a 32 year old center blocking Laughton, and last summer we didn't know Filppula would regress this much.
I'm glad PEB made it to the SC finals, but he wasn't in our future plans.

 

[Striiker]

Yeah... if Hextall didn't want Bellemare around he could have just let him go in FA...

He signed him before losing him in the expansion draft.

 

[Jray42]

I haven't been paying attention to this conversation, so you just scared the hell out of me

 

[deadhead]

He signed him to a two year deal at $1.45M a year that expired in 2018-19.
Like I said, 2019-20 has always been the target season.
He then protected Laughton, and exposed PEB and Neuvirth after getting a 5th for Cousins.
Exactly what was wrong with that move?

 

[JojoTheWhale]

He signed him to a two year deal at $1.45M a year that expired in 2018-19.
Like I said, 2019-20 has always been the target season.
He then protected Laughton, and exposed PEB and Neuvirth after getting a 5th for Cousins.
Exactly what was wrong with that move?

Either Hextall valued his contributions or he didn't. Can't have it both ways because you don't think anything matters until we cross the International Date Line.

His contract was up. Giving him a raise and a multi-year deal suggests that he was more than satisfied. He doesn't have to be part of the long-term core to be evaluated on the ice.

 

[Sam Spade]

Let's go caps but I like allot of players in Vegas. Lots of guts on both these teams. Gonna be a hard hitting tight checking affair. Love it. Wilson better watch out for Reaves also. Vegas has a cure for Wilson lol. Great hockey coming up.

If the Reaves line is on the ice when the Wilson line is on the ice I think the Caps will take that every day.

I just came in here to say that I don't dislike the Flyers at all and love that we have the same common enemy. It is cool to see so many of you guys rooting for Ovechkin to get that Cup. I would be doing the same for Giroux if the roles were reversed.

Get a goaltender next season and they very easily could be.

 

[Rebels57]

If the Reaves line is on the ice when the Wilson line is on the ice I think the Caps will take that every day.

I just came in here to say that I don't dislike the Flyers at all and love that we have the same common enemy. It is cool to see so many of you guys rooting for Ovechkin to get that Cup. I would be doing the same for Giroux if the roles were reversed.

Get a goaltender next season and they very easily could be.