Speculation: Armchair GM Thread - 2020-2021 II

[DFF]

Gaudreau + 2nd for Lundell or like Kyrou+
Tkachuk for Byram
Monahan for late first
Tanev for first and prospect
Markström for anything
pick a FWD

take some salary dumps back as well.

Time for a rebuild. We need legit building blocks coming back if we are going to be good by 2023/24. That’s only two years with minimal revenues and honestly more fans might show up to watch the rebuild than the sad excuse for a team we put together this year.

All reasonable except Tanev

he is fine but nobody is going to give that much for him

 

[InfinityIggy]

I think a team would absolutely consider giving up their late 1st 2021 for Tanev. I don't think we should do that.

 

[super6646]

I think a team would absolutely consider giving up their late 1st 2021 for Tanev. I don't think we should do that.

Devon Toews got 2 second round picks and is a younger, and mind you superior, dman.

Not a chance. If some team offers a late first I'd take it and run.

 

[InfinityIggy]

Devon Toews got 2 second round picks and is a younger, and mind you superior, dman.

Not a chance. If some team offers a late first I'd take it and run.

Not really comparable. He was traded primarily because of his pending arbitration and a fear by NYI that they wouldn't be able to sign him. Lou said so himself.

That return is also arguably better than a late 1st in a weak draft.

 

[Mobiandi]

If we're going the way of a rebuild, then Tanev, Backlund, Monahan, Giordano should all be traded. Tanev would definitely be an attractive option for any playoff team and I think we'd easily get a 1st for him

 

[DFF]

If we're going the way of a rebuild, then Tanev, Backlund, Monahan, Giordano should all be traded. Tanev would definitely be an attractive option for any playoff team and I think we'd easily get a 1st for him

yes for playoffs run but it’s not like his contract is expiring

I am not saying he is no good or even overpaid at this point but under current cap, not too many teams can afford it.

also when was the last time somebody signed a UFA long term and turned around and get a haul for him?

 

[DFF]

Not really comparable. He was traded primarily because of his pending arbitration and a fear by NYI that they wouldn't be able to sign him. Lou said so himself.

That return is also arguably better than a late 1st in a weak draft.

Difference but not much better

somebody has to give up a 1st, give up a spot to protect him and pay him 3 more yrs

not likely at all

 

[InfinityIggy]

Difference but not much better

somebody has to give up a 1st, give up a spot to protect him and pay him 3 more yrs

not likely at all

Despite having an M-NTC, I don't belive Tanev has to be protected. Late 1st for a high-end 'rental' is a tale as old as time.

 

[DFF]

Despite having an M-NTC, I don't belive Tanev has to be protected. Late 1st for a high-end rental is a tale as old as time.

Yes but he is not a rental?

 

[InfinityIggy]

Yes but he is not a rental?

If Seattle claims him he is.

 

[RasmusAndersson]

Going back to your 0.001% comment which I weirdly latched on, one thing I've always wondered is why NHL fans seemingly have an absurdly low hit rate on trade proposals. HF alone probably churns something like 1000 proposals a year, right? Getting a concept within 80% accuracy of a real trade has got to be close to that super low percentage, right? There's that saying that a thousand monkeys smacking typewriters at random for thousands of years should in theory randomly type Shakespeare or something, right? But HF has quite a few attempts at trade concepts that aren't pure random slapping at a keyboard. There's significant attempts to find ideas that work for both sides and the vast majority of those do not come to fruition. Even when a player wants out, it seems to me that the accuracy of the vast majority of fans getting the 1 of 30 teams correct is embarrassingly low. Then obviously even lower for those getting remotely close to the right combo of assets (if the value of those individuals are basically zero).

But, why is it so low? We've gotta be talking like less than 1% of educated guesses are even close to being the real trades with real explanations that many fans could kinda agree upon. Furthermore, in instances where fans get close, it's like the tip of the iceberg slamming onto the deck of the Titanic once it has already run into the iceberg.

That's what I've been poking around lately big picture wise. Fundamentally, somehow hockey fans are seemingly reading everything about trades incorrectly. Yes, you look at your team roster, where you want to go with it and then positions required and then you try and acquire some of those types of players. Beyond that, somehow the vast majority of hockey fans have it completely wrong at a fundamental level. That's seemingly why we're always blown away and surprised by the details of the vast majority of these deals. Everyone thinks we should just consummate Virtanen for Bennett already. But will it actually come true? I bet the vast majority of Albertans thought that the Lucic/Neal trade was impossible months prior to it actually happening.

I've been poking at some of the interconference trades with covid quarantine and expansion draft implications. Treliving is not scared of trading interconference and thus I wondered if he'd take that easy route to sop up the premium plus also sop up extra due to less quarantine. I've also been poking at Treliving's MO for loving RFA and buying at a discount so he can add his own value via negotiation which is why the Laine/Petterson names popped up more for me. We also seem to know that Treliving doesn't often over pay. I know someone will point out that we overpaid for Hamonic. But there was an article I read that said Treliving was working that deal for over a year. He only pulled the trigger because it was a price he was comfortable at at that time. Beyond that, I'm not even sure if I'm on the right path in terms of trying to get into Treliving's head and think like he would/predict what he would do.

Fantasy: Potential restricted free agents in 2021

Reinhart and Kyrou feels like others that might be high on Treliving's list to try and see if he can loosen these guys to see if he can attempt to pry them free vs sit around thinking that those guys are straight up unavailable. We know Treliving is always asking around and in the middle of everything. If all GMs were ranked on their rejection game, Treliving likely has a high score. While some of you guys may consider that as evidence that he is a failure because he should be measured by the deals he wins, not the ones he was ins on... IMO, I think it's an indication that with Tre, anything can happen. None of Treliving's moves have ever looked to be anything less than an attempt at a step forward to me. There's occasionally questions whether we're stepping in the right direction, but it's never seemingly in doubt that it's a bigger step away from our origin and a step closer to our destination. The problem is that with some of the pieces he acquired, we ended up flying to Anmore, BC in the same ish duration of time vs driving to Canmore, AB.

Tre has tried consistently to insulate this core. But if this core is proving this year to not be one worth insulating, I have no doubt that he will again consider overhauling literally close to half our roster (ie: 10+ roster players) by the time the Seattle expansion draft is over. When Treliving is pure business, he's pure business. IMO, that's the exciting stuff. From the Flames perspective, we basically know that no one is safe. Flames are completely open for business depending on price. I would not be surprised to see several big moves at the TDL and several bigger moves prior to ED. Treliving is in an all or nothing situation. I doubt he stands pat.

Totally agreed with this analysis and I completely agree that the success rates for trades have gotta be around that .001%. It's so tough because it's hard enough to reach an agreement with our own fans about which direction to proceed and which assets should be moved and what their values are, and that's not even taking into consideration that you need another team willing to trade with you and agrees with your valuations of your (and their) assets. So many moving pieces, which is why I always find myself with new ideas and new proposals every day which many people do and don't agree with. I swear the key to being a good GM is to have an amazing grasp over the market, what players are available, and correctly identifying opportunities to sell high and buy low. I can make 100 proposals in a week and 98 of them may be terrible that I would never suggest if I were Brad and had actual knowledge of the market and trade block and what teams are looking for. But the reality is we will never know that and we should always be open-minded and creative on the off-chance that we identify a unique opportunity that fits both teams, similar to Dubois-Laine.

My main concern is that we have proven to be terrible with 2 things: the buy low sell high part and the timing aspect. Monahan's value is all but tanked while so many fans have defended him over the past year. That's exactly what we need to avoid. Good management can identify when things are about to take a turn for the worse (i.e. this entire season) and make moves before its too late. Now we have Giordano who's perceived value has dropped tremendously, Gaudreau who has been played with terrible linemates so long that he can't bring back an equivalent elite piece. This is a guy that could easily be a top-15 scorer / top-5 LW in the league and we've probably tanked his value to that of an average 1st line winger. Backlund is still killing it right now but we NEED to realize we won't be competitive until he starts to regress. He's 32, gonna meaning at least 34-35 by the time we're good. Not saying ship him at all costs but definitely see if there's a way to get a good prospect or 1st. Or we avoid going full sell-mode and try 'shuffling the deck chairs' and making hockey trades, which imo has way less upside but is probably more realistic given our situation with expensive veterans on long-term contracts. Whichever way we go we just need to maximize value, and then the other issue is timing. We literally never fully committed to a window to compete and its coming back to bite us in the ass MASSIVELY. If we were gonna go all in we HAD to go for that Valimaki+pick for Mark Stone or give those pieces up for an elite player. But since that was probably too risky we shouldn't have signed freaking James Neal as the plan-B, giving us average (at best) scoring depth and not committing to a short-term window or long-term window. We literally are now stuck with a very very meh prospect pool and still a bad current roster lol. 0/2. We literally just need to pick a direction and pursue it so aggressively, whether that's re-tooling with hockey trades and trying to still win now or committing to the rebuild. I say rebuild cause the upside is higher (we don't have the value to acquire elite players that would make us a contender in the short-term), but either way lets just commit to a window and make sure we can identify buy-low and sell-high opportunities so we don't end up in LITERALLY the worst position imaginable. Bad short-term and long-term outlook and very little flexibility. I honestly don't even know if I'd rather be us or the Wings or Ducks right now. Probably Buffalo and maybe SJ are the only teams with a worse outlook than we have lol