Confirmed Signing with Link: [TOR] Travis Dermott signs extension with the Maple Leafs (1 year, $874,125)

[The90]

As I wrote yesterday:

Sounds like a daily update is requested. Duly noted

 

[Petrus]

By "cap hell" they mean that the leafs won't have the depth to be competitive and will be a playoff bubble team. So far the leaf critics are 100% correct in their "cap hell" prediction.

The narrative to some in the past is that the Leafs would not be able to sign all 3 young players with arrival of Tavares. That has proven to be incorrect.

While, I would agree that Leaf’s remain top heavy in terms of the allocation of their overall team cap, I disagree that the current situation to be “cap hell”.

The current situation is an organizational decision (a poor decision I might add). Because it is an organizational decision, it can be fixed by trading 1 of Marner and Nylander and reallocate the freed up resources to a positional need (such as the RD position).

To some extent, the Leafs addressed their RD weakness by signing Brodie and trading from a
positional strength (through the Johnsson and Kapanen deals) but remain “soft”.

If by next year, the Leafs cannot make it beyond the 2nd round the Leafs will need to rethink their roster composition and trade from their forward position again.

A team’s ability to correct and reallocate cap resources to other team needs is not a sign of being in “cap hell” but it is part of the reality of being in a cap league to adjust if the current state is not working.

“Cap hell“, for me is a situation that requires trading a significant asset (without gaining any new significant asset) to free up cap space to retain the core of your team. Trading a core player or letting a core player walk out all together because you have no cap space to sign that same core player is another example of being in cap hell.

For example, the Marleau signing put the Leafs in cap hell but it has since been corrected by giving away a significant asset (the 1st rounder to Carolina).

In the end, if Leafs want more depth and balance, it can be achieved through a trade. I honestly felt the Leafs missed a huge opportunity when they traded Kadri away and when they resigned Nylander. That was a missed opportunity to rebalance the team.

That being said, I do not think it is too late. I think Dubas is not the type of GM that is unwilling to make drastic changes to correct the team as needed.

For now my brown paper bag leaf mask can stay in the garage for at least one more season.

 

[Michel Beauchamp]

ES =/= 5v5

P/60 5v5
Spezza - 2.24
Kapanen - 1.84

The good old P/60 rears its ugly head.

Nice... ?

 

[LeafChief]

The good old P/60 rears its ugly head.

Nice... ?

Beauchie my brother. Just come join us in the Leafs forum already. We know you wanna!

 

[Michel Beauchamp]

Beauchie my brother. Just come join us in the Leafs forum already. We know you wanna!

View attachment 374665

View attachment 374666

I used to post there regularly.

Apparently some people complained after I wrote that I was a Canadiens fan.

I can't understand why.

You'll notice that I very rarely post in the Montréal forum.

I want to keep my illusion that all Canadiens fans are rational and adult...

 

[LeafChief]

I used to post there regularly.

Apparently some people complained after I wrote that I was a Canadiens fan.

I can't understand why.

You'll notice that I very rarely post in the Montréal forum.

I want to keep my illusion that all Canadiens fans are rational and adult...

We accept you.

One of us!

 

[Michel Beauchamp]

We accept you.

One of us!

Tell that to one of your mod...

 

[Henkka]

Dermott. The fan favourite, easy competition, good corsi, fast looking legs, short reach guy. 2-dmensional analytics favourite, average in reality, in deeper hockey analysis.

7th D in a condenter (like Toronto will be)
3rd pair D in middle class of NHL team (like Toronto was)
2nd pair D in crap team like Detroit.

Rielly - Brodie
Muzzin - Holl
Lehtonen - Bogosian
(Dermott)

That a nice defence, better than last year. Getting Brodie is a nice upgrade and Lehtonen is money. Best player at Europe currently.

 

[FerrisRox]

The narrative to some in the past is that the Leafs would not be able to sign all 3 young players with arrival of Tavares. That has proven to be incorrect.

I have seen this claim made on a few occasions and it's hilariously wrong.

Nobody - not a soul - thought that they couldn't sign those players.

Nobody *ever* said that.

What was said was, in order to pay them all, how are you going to ice a full roster? You will have to gut your team to pay those guys.

The Maple Leafs third and fourth lines are not good and it's a direct result of signing those players.

The Maple Leafs have allowed a lot of NHL calibre players to simply walk away because they couldn't afford to keep them.

Gone are Tyler Bozak, James Van Riemsdyk, Jake Gardiner, Leo Komarov, Tyson Barrie and Nazem Kadri was traded for what essentially amounts to Alex Kerfoot.

This off-season we saw Kasperi Kapanen and Andreas Johnsson dealt away as well too.

That is what everyone was predicting and it's exactly what happened.

To suggest that people though they "couldn't be signed" is absurd. Are you suggesting that everyone thought they were going to demand $21 million a season each and the team would be unable to put them under the cap?

 

[Albus Dumbledore]

I have seen this claim made on a few occasions and it's hilariously wrong.

Nobody - not a soul - thought that they couldn't sign those players.

Nobody *ever* said that.

What was said was, in order to pay them all, how are you going to ice a full roster? You will have to gut your team to pay those guys.

The Maple Leafs third and fourth lines are not good and it's a direct result of signing those players.

The Maple Leafs have allowed a lot of NHL calibre players to simply walk away because they couldn't afford to keep them.

Gone are Tyler Bozak, James Van Riemsdyk, Jake Gardiner, Leo Komarov, Tyson Barrie and Nazem Kadri was traded for what essentially amounts to Alex Kerfoot.

This off-season we saw Kasperi Kapanen and Andreas Johnsson dealt away as well too.

That is what everyone was predicting and it's exactly what happened.

To suggest that people though they "couldn't be signed" is absurd. Are you suggesting that everyone thought they were going to demand $21 million a season each and the team would be unable to put them under the cap?

The leafs added players too tho. In an ever exchanging list of players look at what went out and what came in the last couple of years. In terms of impact players.

Are
bozak/jvr/kadri/gardiner/kapanen/johnson
Better then
Tavares/muzzin/brodie/mikheyev/kerfoot/Robertson.

You could argue a player maybe 2. The leafs certainly let go of players to get better ones. Kadri being the main exception But it did ultimately via not trade get us a dman that we wanted. So I dont really see the difference on that front. Taking cap into consideration they make about the same money too, 27.45 million to the bottoms 27.42. Might be off by a hundred thousand but the point remains. Robertson is on an elc and mikheyev will need a new contract as well next year but I doubt they combined make more then kadris new contract so that would be a wash as well.

 

[Discoverer]

The good old P/60 rears its ugly head.

Nice... ?

In the post I quoted, you were talking about goals/assists/points adjusted for ice time. That literally tells you the same thing as P/60.

 

[Martin Skoula]

I have seen this claim made on a few occasions and it's hilariously wrong.

Nobody - not a soul - thought that they couldn't sign those players.

Nobody *ever* said that.

What was said was, in order to pay them all, how are you going to ice a full roster? You will have to gut your team to pay those guys.

The Maple Leafs third and fourth lines are not good and it's a direct result of signing those players.

The Maple Leafs have allowed a lot of NHL calibre players to simply walk away because they couldn't afford to keep them.

Gone are Tyler Bozak, James Van Riemsdyk, Jake Gardiner, Leo Komarov, Tyson Barrie and Nazem Kadri was traded for what essentially amounts to Alex Kerfoot.

This off-season we saw Kasperi Kapanen and Andreas Johnsson dealt away as well too.

That is what everyone was predicting and it's exactly what happened.

To suggest that people though they "couldn't be signed" is absurd. Are you suggesting that everyone thought they were going to demand $21 million a season each and the team would be unable to put them under the cap?

Oh no, we lost the luxury of paying JVR and Bozak 12 mil to play on the 4th line and all we got for it was a 47 goal #1C. If only we had Komarov at 3 mil so we could healthy scratch him again!

We literally don't have space for Johnsson in the lineup now that Robertson is ready and Kapanen brought back the biggest trade return this offseason lol.

I really love that Bozak, JVR and Gardiner go from soft floaters you'll never win with in Toronto to being these super important pieces that we'll never recover from "losing" (read: upgrading with cheaper younger and better players).

 

[FerrisRox]

I really love that Bozak, JVR and Gardiner go from soft floaters you'll never win with in Toronto to being these super important pieces that we'll never recover from "losing" (read: upgrading with cheaper younger and better players).

I was one of the more vocal critics of both JVR and Jake Gardiner and I am not suggesting they should have been retained.

The issue is letting so many guys leave for nothing.

The Maple Leafs have bled a lot of assets in the last few years, and they continue to do so, and that's in large part because of the salary cap situation that was created the moment John Tavares was signed which set up a chain reaction for the contracts to come.

 

[Petrus]

I have seen this claim made on a few occasions and it's hilariously wrong.

Nobody - not a soul - thought that they couldn't sign those players.

Nobody *ever* said that.

What was said was, in order to pay them all, how are you going to ice a full roster? You will have to gut your team to pay those guys.

The Maple Leafs third and fourth lines are not good and it's a direct result of signing those players.

The Maple Leafs have allowed a lot of NHL calibre players to simply walk away because they couldn't afford to keep them.

Gone are Tyler Bozak, James Van Riemsdyk, Jake Gardiner, Leo Komarov, Tyson Barrie and Nazem Kadri was traded for what essentially amounts to Alex Kerfoot.

This off-season we saw Kasperi Kapanen and Andreas Johnsson dealt away as well too.

That is what everyone was predicting and it's exactly what happened.

To suggest that people though they "couldn't be signed" is absurd. Are you suggesting that everyone thought they were going to demand $21 million a season each and the team would be unable to put them under the cap?

Go back to the Tavares signing thread. There were plenty.

 

[FerrisRox]

Go back to the Tavares signing thread. There were plenty.

I was very active in those threads.

Nobody said that.

What they said was that they Leafs would have to do what they are doing now, fill out their roster with AHLers, rookies, retreads and guys on minimum salaries.

 

[Martin Skoula]

I was very active in those threads.

Nobody said that.

What they said was that they Leafs would have to do what they are doing now, fill out their roster with AHLers, rookies, retreads and guys on minimum salaries.

If they can make it work without losing production in the bottom-6, is it not a good thing that the bottom-6 is on minimum salaries? I'm certainly glad we have our current choices at 900k instead of Komarov at 3 million. Why is spending big money on your bottom-6 more more normal than graduating deserving AHLers who already know your system? We should be doing that even if we had 11 mil in cap space instead of Tavares, expensive bottom-6 contracts almost NEVER work out. I mean look at Tampa, Cirelli, Gourde, Paquette were "AHLers/rookies" a season or two ago, Maroon was a cheap vet signing like Simmonds, and then they paid a premium to rent Goodrow/Coleman at minimum cap hits. Their bottom-6 is within a few 100k of ours. There's nothing stopping us from doing a Coleman type rental, we have draft capital and accrued cap space to play with at the deadline.

I was one of the more vocal critics of both JVR and Jake Gardiner and I am not suggesting they should have been retained.

The issue is letting so many guys leave for nothing.

The Maple Leafs have bled a lot of assets in the last few years, and they continue to do so, and that's in large part because of the salary cap situation that was created the moment John Tavares was signed which set up a chain reaction for the contracts to come.

Every team bleeds assets every single year without exception. Draft picks bust, players go to UFA. The thing that matters is whether or not we are accruing overall value or not, and I really don't see how you can argue we have less value on the roster than we did when we had Bozak. If you have a firesale and move every player we have for draft picks, we'd certainly get a lot more today than we would have in 2018. Our prospect base is much stronger and our roster is stronger at quite literally every position.

Also how exactly are we bleeding assets because of Tavares? We got value back for the wingers, Barrie and Clifford were both rentals. Who else of note has left for free under Dubas? Bozak and JVR were only tradeable under Lou, he should have been smart for once and traded them. Gardiner wasn't re-signed because of his back issues that developed a few months before UFA. Is Hainsey the asset that we bled for free? Maybe Ennis?

 

[Petrus]

I was very active in those threads.

Nobody said that.

What they said was that they Leafs would have to do what they are doing now, fill out their roster with AHLers, rookies, retreads and guys on minimum salaries.

Disagree. You are incorrect.

 

[MattMartin]

Dubas winning GM of the year with all these moves, I'm sorry I doubted him.

 

[Michel Beauchamp]

In the post I quoted, you were talking about goals/assists/points adjusted for ice time. That literally tells you the same thing as P/60.

Your stat was about 5 vs 5.

Mine was about ES.

 

[nbwingsfan]

The narrative to some in the past is that the Leafs would not be able to sign all 3 young players with arrival of Tavares. That has proven to be incorrect.

While, I would agree that Leaf’s remain top heavy in terms of the allocation of their overall team cap, I disagree that the current situation to be “cap hell”.

The current situation is an organizational decision (a poor decision I might add). Because it is an organizational decision, it can be fixed by trading 1 of Marner and Nylander and reallocate the freed up resources to a positional need (such as the RD position).

To some extent, the Leafs addressed their RD weakness by signing Brodie and trading from a
positional strength (through the Johnsson and Kapanen deals) but remain “soft”.

If by next year, the Leafs cannot make it beyond the 2nd round the Leafs will need to rethink their roster composition and trade from their forward position again.

A team’s ability to correct and reallocate cap resources to other team needs is not a sign of being in “cap hell” but it is part of the reality of being in a cap league to adjust if the current state is not working.

“Cap hell“, for me is a situation that requires trading a significant asset (without gaining any new significant asset) to free up cap space to retain the core of your team. Trading a core player or letting a core player walk out all together because you have no cap space to sign that same core player is another example of being in cap hell.

For example, the Marleau signing put the Leafs in cap hell but it has since been corrected by giving away a significant asset (the 1st rounder to Carolina).

In the end, if Leafs want more depth and balance, it can be achieved through a trade. I honestly felt the Leafs missed a huge opportunity when they traded Kadri away and when they resigned Nylander. That was a missed opportunity to rebalance the team.

That being said, I do not think it is too late. I think Dubas is not the type of GM that is unwilling to make drastic changes to correct the team as needed.

For now my brown paper bag leaf mask can stay in the garage for at least one more season.

vast majority thought they could sign all 3 young guys, just that they shouldn't if they want to stay competitive

Thats proven to be true so far

 

[My3Sons]

How does a minor depth signing like this turn into a 15 page referendum on the Leafs bigger picture issues? As others have noted the Leafs have probably improved the defense enough that Dermott is maybe a third pair guy. As a neutral fan I’m not sure this goes much beyond the obvious.

 

[Petrus]

vast majority thought they could sign all 3 young guys, just that they shouldn't if they want to stay competitive

Thats proven to be true so far

You are preaching to the choir.

 

[andora]

That bottom 6 is going to surprise you

i bet we can find this quote every year for the past 6 years.. regardless of where he ends up in the lineup, i will leave Mikheyev, Ilya out of it because he is going to be a very damn good player in my opinion (play him with tavares dummy) but,

what players are going to surprise, players we don't already know what they are? if you're speaking about barabanov or korshkov - fine, they are a coin flip - but any of the others?

 

[Nothingbutglass]

Dubas winning GM of the year with all these moves, I'm sorry I doubted him.

Pretty much a Dubas picked roster now...No excuses left

 

[Discoverer]

Your stat was about 5 vs 5.

Mine was about ES.

Right. And, considering you were using the stat to refute a claim about 5v5 production, I thought it was strange that you used ES production. So I fixed it for you. You're welcome.