Can the Leafs afford to wait for Liljegren and Sandin?

[Luminiferous]

10 year contracts aren't allowed in the CBA.

So you dont buy the idea that the Leafs best chance of winning is in the next 8 years with Tavares and Matthews ?

By signing Tavares, to me, Management is in full win now mode.

Nice post, agree 100%. Once people get stuck on a narrative though, it's almost impossible to move them off it no matter how many facts you show them. There are people who have an irrational dislike of Gardiner and I doubt that'll ever change.



I wouldn't complain too much about "consistency from the roster", it's October FFS.

Tied for 6th overall last season suggests some degree of consistency.

Who's talking about purging the future?

This team is a lot better than some people realize.

For what it is worth, there have been zero consistency issues thus far( as you said, too early). It is just a gut feeling is all. Knowing quite a few main players on that back end. Regardless, we shall see.

As for purging the future, I don't mean to put any words in anyones mouth. Just the idea of potentially giving up on Liljegren and Sandin is outrageous. The Leafs have no choice but to wait, in my eyes. I guess I do not see this team as being capable of the end goal, yet. Not good enough.

I have no room to comaplain tho. This is the most entertaining Leafs squad in soooo long.

 

[jfc64]

SO FREAKIN' UNTOUCHABLE!

UN - Tou - chabble!

Every Stanley Cup aspirant are looking for some 0.925 in the books!

 

[New Liskeard]

With the Leafs current core of players can management afford to wait for Tim Liljegren and Rasmus Sandin to develop and come into the lineup or should they be looking to make a move for a proven player?

Of course there is the chance that one or both of them don't develop into NHL players. Also, Jake Gardiner's contract is up at the end of this year and a decision needs to be made about him.

What do the Leafs do regarding their defense?

This makes no sense. The Leafs cant afford NOT to wait for these players and let them overripe. The Leafs are only going to be a successful team by having young players come in contribute significantly at low costs contracts. That is what will make or break this team. Just ask Chicago fans. Not to mention the Leafs dont like to rush players and there is another expansion draft coming, Complete lunacy to rush them or any prospects. Just ask Kapanen.

 

[Daisy Jane]

Ok, so you are unable to look passed Gardiners obvious defensive brain farts. You are however able to overlook the fact that Jake Gardiner over the last 3 seasons has the 2nd best Corsi against in the entire NHL amongst active defenseman. Meaning his goalie faces less shots with him on the ice, then any other player on his team. If you are using stats as your metric (rather then eye test) Jake Gardiner is our best defenseman.

With that said, what exactly is your plan moving forward to fix the defense? Simply remove our best defensman from a statistics perspective because the fans arent happy with him when he makes a mistake. Replace him with arguably our worst defensman right now (dermott) and elevate a rookie into the lineup? Its funny because the Oilers had their Jake Gardiner, and chose to exile him for the same reasons you are with Jake. Now out of a Canadian market and away from an idiot of a general manager, Justin Schultz has become a top defenseman in the league. Lets learn from mistakes that have been made by other teams, not duplicate them.

listen. you asked me for my opinion.
I personally feel that as we have a lot of high event defenseman who focus on offense, as well as a lot of high event offense who are not the most defensive minded that I personally would make moves to improve the roster to put in some skating defensive minded players into said roster - even acknowledging the fact that Jake does in fact have a lot of positives and i appreciate what he brings. That's just my preference.

Therefore. my plan would be to try to get some fluid skating defensemen, who aren't as high event, but are capable of putting up some points (but as my team as a whole) can score a whole awful lot, I would be fine with removing say several points from one defenseman, if it means I have a defenseman (or two). who are more defensive minded in nature, ie: not going for the pinch, or being capable of reading the ice and making the decision to come back or covering the man, vs. going for the point or being capable of clearing the puck out of their end quickly and efficiently. I am pretty sure there would also be some advanced stats i could use to find said defenseman. A big part of the issue is that I personally feel a lot of people here think that those types of players aren't "sexy" or "fun" or "not worthy" of getting. I don't agree with it, but hey opinions differe

I also know that type of defenseman that I'd like to have.

A: is not on this team (as of yet) - or if he is, he's not high end/top four and
B: is not Jake Gardiner.

if you want Jake on this team (and it's very clear that you do). and want to ignore the issues that Jake has or feel that his Corsi erases everything else - that's fine. That's your prerogative. I personally don't think it's wise to invest 6-7m into Jake because i personally do not think his gains out weighs his negatives on top of what this team overall needs.

 

[Judas Tavares]

There are some things that we should be patient with and there are also times when we need to act decisively or miss opportunities. We need to be patient with Liljegren and Sandin, letting them develop (and keeping them in the org) will be huge for the long term health of our team. Rushing them is a recipe for long term disaster and trading them for a quick fix now would need to be an absolute slam-dunk to make any sense.

But this year is also one of the biggest opportunities that the Leafs will ever have with this core. We have Matthews and Marner on ELC's which gives us the cap space to really load up and try to go deep this year. Patience is important, but we cannot just let opportunities like this pass by. This isn't poker where we can wait for the perfect hand, there will always be other strong teams in the league. We need to take advantage of every edge that we can and ice the best team we can every year. Going all-in would be a mistake, but sitting on our hands and waiting for Liljegren and Sandin is also a mistake.

IMO, we trade our first and some prospects to pick up a high quality D rental for this year. Unless we can find a hockey trade for Gardiner, we keep him as well. That's a significant investment in the team this year, but it's also not raiding the cupboards. Keep Liljegren and Sandin developing, but moves to win today are important.

John Tavares took a discount here because he wants to win. If Matthews, Marner, and Nylander are going to take discounts they want to win. Liljegren and Sandin could be very important pieces for us in the future, but they are not going to help us win today.

I also agree that we should be aiming to win now (as well as later). With our biggest need being a competent all around top 4 Right Dman who can be trusted to take on matchups, kill penalties, etc.

Fans of this team are far afraid to go for it because of years of the team being bad. Signing Tavares was a clear move to starting winning now though.

We are a top end team right now. Some fans will say we lack X but every single team in the league has flaws.

Rielly + Kadri are also in their primes right now on great deals for 4 seasons (including this season). Good luck getting high end players at their level for those prices down the road. There contract period is the prime window to win. We will be waiting till at least 20-21 for either Lilj and Sanhiem to be 20+ a night guys with a possibility they actually never become that.

We really should be trying to get a 2 or 3 year stop gap Dman who we could squeeze into our cap situation to bridge the gap to Sanhiem and Lilj. Looking at the standing think names like Martinez (3 years @ 4M), Hjalmarsson (3 years @ 5M), Demers (3 years @ 4M). Solid vets who'd bump Hainsey out of the top 4 role.

However, there is a lot of considerations and deals don't typically happen till the deadline. By that point Dubas will have a much clearer view on Nylander, Matthews, Marner, Kapanen and Marleau.

So the question is, should be be willing to part with one of Sandin/Liljegren if that's what it takes to get someone like Martinez, Hjalmarsson or Demers?

This is the toughest part. I know there were many last year who were upset we weren't the ones making the trade for McDonagh. And now we are another year into it + Tavares. What do we do?

Personally, it would be tough to trade Liljegren and Sandin. I feel like for the first time in a while, we've really stocked up on D prospects having used all 4 of our last 1st and 2nd rounders on them. Its basically the first time since.... Well let's say 2012. Where we were excited about Rielly, Finn, Percy, Blacker and Nilsson. And how did that turn out? The obvious one is a stud, while the rest are nothing.

I'd like to try to hold on to Liljegren, Sandin and Grundstrom, unless we are getting a quality player with term. Any other prospect, I don't care, deal away.

As for their year's 1st. Looking at teams who won in the last decade, the Blackhawks and the Capitals rarely traded their 1sts, while the Penguins and Kings did it more often.

Penguins got: Hossa/Dupuis, Iginla, Perron/Klinkhammer, Kessel, Reaves and Brassard.
Kings got: Richards, Penner, Carter, Lucic, Sekera
Caps got: Brouwer, Shattenkirk
Hawks got: Vermette, Ladd

I'd be ok with trading the 1st as long as it didn't involve one of the 3 prospects I mentioned above. Or if we do deal one of those prospects, I'd rather hang on to the 1st. But this also depends on where we are at the deadline. If we are near tops in the league with a team who has tightened up and looks like a force, I'd be willing to deal more. If we are good but not great and still struggling defensively and its just not looking like our year, I'm fine to step back, keep assets and try again next year. You don't want to wait forever, but if its not our year, don't force it, we have a long way to go until the window closes.

 

[Trapper]

Of course we can afford to wait. We have to.
But we also need help now. We seriously lack a top 4 D that these players can join along with Rielly and hopefully Dermott.

You want to bring these kids up in a position of safety. Not have anyone forced to play higher in the lineup than they should. It can lead to struggles and even injuries by doing that. Skill alone isn’t the end all when you’re young. You need to learn the league, what vet players are doing, how not to get caught in a dangerous situation etc.
That’s why we need a top 4 D today. Still.

 

[Gary Nylund]

I'd be ok with trading the 1st as long as it didn't involve one of the 3 prospects I mentioned above. Or if we do deal one of those prospects, I'd rather hang on to the 1st. But this also depends on where we are at the deadline. If we are near tops in the league with a team who has tightened up and looks like a force, I'd be willing to deal more. If we are good but not great and still struggling defensively and its just not looking like our year, I'm fine to step back, keep assets and try again next year. You don't want to wait forever, but if its not our year, don't force it, we have a long way to go until the window closes.

Well put IMO. Ideally I don't want to trade our top D prospects but ... if at the TDL we're looking like we could win it all but we had to include one of those guys in a deal to get the guy we need, IMO it would be idiotic to be dogmatic about not trading any futures at all. I wouldn't do it for a rental but for a guy who can help us in the next 3-4 years, yes I would be open to that.

Now of course there seem to be many people saying we're not winning anything with these guys and so on, maybe they'll think differently as the TDL approaches, I'm still very optimistic about how good we can be.

 

[Hunter368]

Wait....don’t make any panic moves unless a very fair deal comes along

 

[Mr Hockey]

Ok, so you are unable to look passed Gardiners obvious defensive brain farts. You are however able to overlook the fact that Jake Gardiner over the last 3 seasons has the 2nd best Corsi against in the entire NHL amongst active defenseman. Meaning his goalie faces less shots with him on the ice, then any other player on his team. If you are using stats as your metric (rather then eye test) Jake Gardiner is our best defenseman.

With that said, what exactly is your plan moving forward to fix the defense? Simply remove our best defensman from a statistics perspective because the fans arent happy with him when he makes a mistake. Replace him with arguably our worst defensman right now (dermott) and elevate a rookie into the lineup? Its funny because the Oilers had their Jake Gardiner, and chose to exile him for the same reasons you are with Jake. Now out of a Canadian market and away from an idiot of a general manager, Justin Schultz has become a top defenseman in the league. Lets learn from mistakes that have been made by other teams, not duplicate them.

can you link to to the stat that has

"Jake over the last 3 seasons has the 2nd best Corsi against in the entire NHL amongst active defenseman"

im thinking you maybe miss read or something, but I could be wrong

 

[Matthews34]

Nice post, agree 100%. Once people get stuck on a narrative though, it's almost impossible to move them off it no matter how many facts you show them. There are people who have an irrational dislike of Gardiner and I doubt that'll ever change.



I wouldn't complain too much about "consistency from the roster", it's October FFS.

Tied for 6th overall last season suggests some degree of consistency.

Who's talking about purging the future?

This team is a lot better than some people realize.

I don't care how spectacular is corsi stats are. The bottom line is his glaring mistakes cost the Leafs game 7 verse Boston last year. You can't win in playoffs with players like him because it's where the littlest mistakes are magnified and the big ones knock you out. It's that's simple.

 

[Gary Nylund]

I don't care how spectacular is corsi stats are. The bottom line is his glaring mistakes cost the Leafs game 7 verse Boston last year. You can't win in playoffs with players like him because it's where the littlest mistakes are magnified and the big ones knock you out. It's that's simple.

If he wasn't as good as he was in the first 6 games, there probably wouldn't have even been a game 7.

 

[Gary Nylund]

A big part of the issue is that I personally feel a lot of people here think that those types of players aren't "sexy" or "fun" or "not worthy" of getting. I don't agree with it, but hey opinions differe

I also know that type of defenseman that I'd like to have.

A: is not on this team (as of yet) - or if he is, he's not high end/top four and
B: is not Jake Gardiner.

It has nothing to do with "sexy" or "fun" or "not worthy", not sure why you would even think that as there have been zillions of posts where people have said how much they would like a big, stay at home physical Dman. The problem is that we simply don't have that guy and until we do, the idea of discarding Jake who despite his flaws, is un-disputably one of the two legit, experienced qualilty Dmen we have seems suicidal.

A: the type of Dman you would like
B: Jake

I'd prefer A and B myself but as long as we don't have A as an option, I'll take B over neither any day. Mostly I just want guys that are really good, right now we have two of those and 2>1.

Resign Jake. If and when we find the Dman of your dreams we can trade him but until then, having two quality Dmen instead of one seems like no-brainer. And if we never find the Dman of your dreams, we'll be really glad we hung on to Gardiner, the guy's really good.

 

[Matthews34]

If he wasn't as good as he was in the first 6 games, there probably wouldn't have even been a game 7.

I disagree.

 

[Gary Nylund]

I disagree.

Well, maybe there would be, maybe not, no way to tell for sure. He was really good those first 6 games though, is that fair?

 

[Trapper]

If he wasn't as good as he was in the first 6 games, there probably wouldn't have even been a game 7.

The trouble with that Gary is how far you can use that as a defense.
If a player in a prime position is always breaking down (through inconsistency) at key moments (or pivotal make/break game), what do you do with that?

 

[Gary Nylund]

The trouble with that Gary is how far you can use that as a defense.
If a player in a prime position is always breaking down (through inconsistency) at key moments (or pivotal make/break game), what do you do with that?

I dispute the bolded part, I don't think it's nearly as bad as all that. Not even sure how many pivotal games we've had during Jake's time here, the Boston game was awful but not sure what else?

 

[Trapper]

I dispute the bolded part, I don't think it's nearly as bad as all that. Not even sure how many pivotal games we've had during Jake's time here, the Boston game was awful but not sure what else?

We haven’t had that many playoff appearances to mark a trend. You’re right there. But we are aware of Jake’s inconsistencies. Solid top 4 for stretches, WTF for others. I’m just saying if it were to happen again would your thoughts change?

 

[Gary Nylund]

We haven’t had that many playoff appearances to mark a trend. You’re right there. But we are aware of Jake’s inconsistencies. Solid top 4 for stretches, WTF for others. I’m just saying if it were to happen again would your thoughts change?

Yeah on more game 7 like that and I'd be done with him.

What would it take for your thoughts to change?

 

[Trapper]

Yeah on more game 7 like that and I'd be done with him.

What would it take for your thoughts to change?

Pretty much the same boat as you.
Especially if he is someone you are signing for 6 million. I don’t want to lose the asset for nothing (he is a top 4 D and that is valuable) but you also can’t waste limited cap on liabilities. Those taking up a good portion of the cap dollars must not be weak links.

 

[ITM]

We have already replaced Nylander with Kapanen. We do not have any insight as to whether Liljegren or Sandin will be good enough to replace Gardiner. We cannot just assume that these guys will be ready to play 22-25 minutes a night and produce 50+ points next season or the following season.

I don't see Nylander being replaced by Kapanen's development. KK seems like the appropriate upgrade to Hyman that Matthews skill deserves. And I don't think we have anything comparable to as a replacement to Nylander in the system. Another possibility (if not KK) seemed to be Johnsson. Clearly not the case now and it's certainly not Bracoo, Timashov or Engvall.

Dermott, Liljegren and Sandin might not attain the offensive stature of Gardiner, but by committee they could represent an overall upgrade in depth if it was deemed necessary to move on from Gardiner.

 

[Mr Hockey]

In my opinion Kappy is not a primary winger on a #1 line yet, Nylander and Marner are. I dunno if its better to have Kappy as secondary winger on a #1 line or a primary winger on the 3rd line.

 

[HockeyGuruPitka]

listen. you asked me for my opinion.
I personally feel that as we have a lot of high event defenseman who focus on offense, as well as a lot of high event offense who are not the most defensive minded that I personally would make moves to improve the roster to put in some skating defensive minded players into said roster - even acknowledging the fact that Jake does in fact have a lot of positives and i appreciate what he brings. That's just my preference.

Therefore. my plan would be to try to get some fluid skating defensemen, who aren't as high event, but are capable of putting up some points (but as my team as a whole) can score a whole awful lot, I would be fine with removing say several points from one defenseman, if it means I have a defenseman (or two). who are more defensive minded in nature, ie: not going for the pinch, or being capable of reading the ice and making the decision to come back or covering the man, vs. going for the point or being capable of clearing the puck out of their end quickly and efficiently. I am pretty sure there would also be some advanced stats i could use to find said defenseman. A big part of the issue is that I personally feel a lot of people here think that those types of players aren't "sexy" or "fun" or "not worthy" of getting. I don't agree with it, but hey opinions differe

I also know that type of defenseman that I'd like to have.

A: is not on this team (as of yet) - or if he is, he's not high end/top four and
B: is not Jake Gardiner.

if you want Jake on this team (and it's very clear that you do). and want to ignore the issues that Jake has or feel that his Corsi erases everything else - that's fine. That's your prerogative. I personally don't think it's wise to invest 6-7m into Jake because i personally do not think his gains out weighs his negatives on top of what this team overall needs.

I can see what you are trying to say, and i'll just conclude my portion of this debate with the old adage that has been around for decades "the best defence is a good offence". The great defensman in this league play hockey in the oppositions zone. Because if you are in the oppositions zone, your team is a threat to score and your opponent isnt. Stay at home defenseman do exactly that, play good in your own zone when needed. Great defensman are paired with stay at home defenseman. Removing Jake Gardiner and replacing him with the stay at home guy you are describing doesnt make the team better. Improving the players that play the stay at home roles WILL.

 

[gravyface]

Have you watched the last 7 games? Kapanen has been playing wing with Matthews and has 8 points in those games

Surely you don't think Kapanen is on the same level as Nylander, do you? I mean it's pretty obvious, despite the hot start.