Nithoniniel
Registered User
A few comments on this:- Bozak is 14th overall for penalty-killing time among all-time Leaf forwards. People forget how he's been used in the past.
- How many times have you seen fans crying to put JVR on the 1st line? That Kadri would be so much better off with JVR? Really, it rarely
happened. It's always been a case of what to do with JVR? Power-play? Great, but as the league seems to get faster and faster, he's a boat
anchor 5-on-5. The fact is, a coaching decision has to be entirely wrapped around exploiting JVR's strengths while minimizing his weaknesses.
The whole question of why Matthews was getting 2nd line PP time? JVR. Offensive zone face-offs? JVR. And Bozak? Try and get him
the puck so he can score and maybe at the end of the day we can just hope to break even.
- Very reasonable contracts. It's amazing how many times Bozak's performance has been put up against players making massively more.
If anything, Bozak's contract level has allowed the Leafs to go out and add real A-grade players. It's the Leaf's management that has failed
Bozak his entire career. While Bozak has stood in front of the hippo fart that the Leafs media and fan circus is, Joffery Lupul has been
earning more then $1,000,000 per season. A seasoned labourer on a construction site making $25/hr tackling jobs that are usually reserved for
$38/hr trades-person is an asset.
2009-2011: $875,000
2011-2013: $1,500,000
2014-2018: $4,200,000
Going forward? I think Bozak is a smart hockey player. Unshackled from his make-do role with JVR, I think what is expected of him could
be changed. In 2014-2015, he was hitting twice as much and at the time put up the most Takeaways a Leaf had ever done. (Only recently being
passed by Marner and Matthews, tied with Nylander) Personally, I think it would be a huge mistake for Bozak to resign with the Leafs. On the
open market he can get more money. Hockey-wise, the Leafs need to rebuild at least half their blue-line and need to diversify how they produce
offense so they can't be shut-down. However, if Bozak wanted to come back at the right price, think he could come in more of a two-way player
then a lot of fans would expect. Think he could play a defensive game while making some plays to wingers like Connor Brown. However, usually
when an older player changes their game in such a fashion, fans jump all over them. If you're not scoring, you're useless in many fan's eyes.
1) Bozak has been used on the PK, but if you look back his actual performances shorthanded were not very good. Hence why they stopped using him there.
2) I don't think it's necessarily fair to put the even strength woes on only JvR when him and Bozak have been joined at the hip.
3) JvR have nothing to do with Matthews PP usage. They are not competing for the same roles.
He has been a good player on a good contract for us though. But I don't understand why this discussion seem to be one side tearing down his strengths and the others excusing away his weaknesses. Like most players in the league, he's got a bit of both. He's really smart, a decent skater, and a superb passer with good vision. He's also, in my opinion, a rather lousy transition player with spotty defensive work. I think individual analytics are not kind to him when it comes to defensive work, if you look at micro stats and heat maps and such.
Ultimately, I don't think the discussion on retaining him or not will matter. He's got a good enough resume to get a contract as a scoring line center somewhere, and I think we'll be outbid even if we want to keep him.
I will say that I believe he can redefine his game though. That's a good point. I'm just not sure if that really changes all that much for us.