GDT: Trades & Free Agency Thread - Off-Season Early Edition
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ottomaddox
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Many speculate that KD will make trades instead of diving into the UFA Market (the big names).
Do any of you agree?
Do any of you agree?
Mess
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Who or what does he have to trade?
I'm still holding out hope for a Morgan Rielly for Seth Jones principles trade as both players enter the last years of their current deals.
Mickey Marner
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I expect mostly low-cost UFA signings. Dubas doesn't seem very receptive to the idea of moving the core players that occupy most of our cap space. Unless he changes his stance on that, trades will be very limited.
WTFMAN99
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nuck
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He has little cap to work with so any FAs have to be from the bargain basement again. The big question marks of Rielly, Hyman and Kerfoot have to be resolved as there is a chance the three along with Freddy are all gone resulting in a nice chunk of cap but also a couple of massive holes to fill. Saad is the FA I am most interested in but he has mentioned how he wants to return to Colorado so probably not doable even if he was reasonable in his contract demands. Maybe a Bozak or a Foligno if Nick is willing to take a big enough haircut.
Trades are much more intriguing right now as the X draft will have players exposed that are not past their prime and would maybe not be obtainable in a normal year. This is probably where KD goes mining, but for protection-list driven trades you normally have to give up an asset that doesn't need to be protected or the other team doesn't benefit (Arvidsson for picks). That maybe puts Amirov, Robertson, Sandin, Lily and more high picks on the table and the big Leaf win comes if another club sees a particular Leafs asset as more valuable than the Dubas does (ie: Durzi).
Everybody is attached to their prospects but you have to give in order to get and potentially getting a cost controlled younger player who isn't still a "maybe" is more important to next years success than a player who isn't ready for prime time. The time to anticipate for Leaf fans should be before the expansion draft as deals made after that won't be driven by protected list pressure. If the Vegas draft is any indication there will be a few hockey trades by the Kraken right after the draft but nobody who is close to moving the needle.
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Ya not sure how leafs could possibly add that expensive of a goalie without trading Marner... leafs will likely spend like 4 million total on both goalies combine lol
Dreakmur
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WTFMAN99
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ShaneFalco
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Mickey Marner
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Driedger is the UFA I'm most interested in. Gives us a relatively cheap tandem and we can let him and Campbell battle it out for supremacy, no more de facto starters. Plenty of interesting options though.
WTFMAN99
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Driedger was someone I saw a lot of this season, caught a lot of Florida games, I would love to add him.
I also wouldn't mind Ullmark either despite lack of high danger save %, it's Buffalo.
Mess
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Here is how that situation will look when Leafs return to the Atlantic Div against their competition netminding next season.
5 X Highest AAV goalies
1. Carey Price - Montreal
2. Sergei Bobrovsky - Florida
3. Andrei Vasilevskiy - Tampa Bay
4. Marc-André Fleury - Vegas
5. Tuuka Rask - Boston
4 of the teams the Leafs will competing for a playoff spot against including the 2 X SCF teams all have invested heavily in goaltending, and Leafs are going to attempt to match that with Jack Campbell and another goalie likely spending $4 mil combined.
If Kerfoot (expansion/trade), Holl (expansion/trade) and Engvall (trade) were off the roster, the leafs could technically fit in the cap hit.
You essentially just sacrifice your ability to add a key forward up front, and need to rely on Galchenyuk coming back to play with Tavares and Nylander which looked good, as well as Foligno being willing to come back on the cheap to play with Matthews and Marner, which again, looked fine in the small sample we saw it before Foligno got hurt, and then placed with Tavares and Nylander.
You still have room to add a couple third liners to revamp the bottom 6, at 2-2.25M each. (Names are just placeholders).
Overall I do think it's highly unlikely. A roster could look something like this however;
Mrazek would be so good. Not sure why Nedjekovic was on The Athletic's list lmao. Zero chance Carolina trades him. He's their starter next year. I can see them bringing back Reimer to back him up.
Mrazek and Campbell would be a terrific tandem. Just worried about Mrazek's cost.
WTFMAN99
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If Kerfoot (expansion/trade), Holl (expansion/trade) and Engvall (trade) were off the roster, the leafs could technically fit in the cap hit.
You essentially just sacrifice your ability to add a key forward up front, and need to rely on Galchenyuk coming back to play with Tavares and Nylander which looked good, as well as Foligno being willing to come back on the cheap to play with Matthews and Marner, which again, looked fine in the small sample we saw it before Foligno got hurt, and then placed with Tavares and Nylander.
You still have room to add a couple third liners to revamp the bottom 6, at 2-2.25M each. (Names are just placeholders).
Overall I do think it's highly unlikely. A roster could look something like this however;
I think someone posted quite a few of Haula's defensive metrics and they were...not good.
Plus I dunno, I didn't mind Campbell at all, definitely not the reason we came up short. Feel like it's a bit of a slight towards him if we go big goalie hunting. Maybe we should discuss what his extension looks like?
Stephen
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Well $5 million Andersen dollars are coming off the books so that takes you most of the way there for a big upgrade.
Like I said, names were just placeholders. Whether it be Goodrow, Haula or others. I love Campbell also. I would rather just get a tandem goalie, and offer Campbell something like 3x3 for an extension. However, I guess this years playoffs more than ever, showed the value of elite goaltending.
Warden of the North
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Torontonian
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They need to go goalie hunting, perhaps not the extent of trading for someone like Gibson who for sure becomes our starter, but they need a goalie that will be able to take over the net incase Campbell struggles. Having bad goaltending is one of the easiest way for the season to get derailed, we saw it with Enroth and Sparks where our backup goalie couldn't get a win and we were forced to play Andersen 65 games.
I agree though, goaltending and defense were not the reason why we lost to MTL. Although I am in favor of moving Holl or Dermott and plugging Lilly and Sandin into those open slots and signing a depth D. Leafs need to start inserting our top prospects into our lineup. The only way I am comfortable moving Holl is if Dermott can play in the top 4 with Muzzin and then running Sandin and Lilly as our 3rd pair.
Had 3 chances to close out Montréal series Gallagher 5 hole was a killer wont win any Cups with him as number WON
SeaOfBlue
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A lot of teams win/make it far with cheap goalies:
Dallas made the finals last year with Khudobin making 3.33 mill.
PIT won twice with an ELC Murray playing the whole time the first time and half the time the second time.
STL won with a waiver wire league minimum Binnington.
San Jose made the Cup Finals with Martin Jones making 3 mill.
Quick was cheap the first time LA won.
Niemi was on an ELC the first time Chicago won, and Crawford was cheap the second time.
Rask was cheap the first time he took Boston to the Cup Finals.
Of course you also have guys like Vasilevsky, Lundqvist, Holtby, Fleury, Rinne, etc. in that mix as well. So it is not like having an expensive goalie prevents success either.
The Leafs paid Andersen 5 mill for the past 5 years and he took us absolutely nowhere. In fact, he was one of the main reasons we never made it anywhere. Bobrovsky has one of the worst contracts in the league, considering Driedger (and most other starting goalies in the league) have been outperforming him. The Habs have been paying Price 10.5 mill for who knows how long now and it took a really fluky run to finally make the Cup Finals. There are a ton of other high paid goalies who never win anything, and considering the number of low paid goalies who have also made it far, I am not sure there really is a strong correlation between the goalie's cap hit and team success.
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