Sportsnet: Kris Versteeg says "Toronto needs to trade for a third line Center" (Said it 3 times!)

[PromisedLand]

They should move Kerfoot and that contract, the guy is unnoticeable and wont be missed

Kadri trade just keeps getting worse and worse lol

 

[Mr Hockey]

We do not have cap space to make any "significant" move. Dubas has seen to that.

With Keefe refusing to swap marner and nylander to spread out offense and get JT going

just hope JT-Nylander duo all of a sudden turn into solid offensive threat even strength and by that I mean getting goals NOT corsi or high danger BS

I think JT is on the decline, I dont think playing with marner will help

 

[PromisedLand]

I think JT is on the decline, I dont think playing with marner will help

I dont know man. Marner is a pretty good player. He knows how to slow the game down; that only benefits JT. Nylander is a good player but he plays with only one pace i.e. speed; he cannot slow the game down. Also, JT had a career year with Marner. I am really frustrated with Keefe trying to force JT-Nylander duo when it is not producing. You gotta put players in a position to succeed

Also, Matthews' line needs someone who can rip it until Matthews is 100%; Marner as good as he is cannot rip it like Nylander.

When we have top 2 lines going offensively; opposition will focus on them more leaving bottom 6 to feast even more

 

[Mr Hockey]

Kadri trade just keeps getting worse and worse lol

Yea it was bad ... If Naz wasnt scoring he was hitting, agitating the other team, shutting down a #1 center, winning face offs or something, I dont even know what number Kerfoot is lol

 

[PromisedLand]

Yea it was bad ... If Naz wasnt scoring he was hitting, agitating the other team, shutting down a #1 center, winning face offs or something, I dont even know what number Kerfoot is lol

Kadri is a heart and soul player; you don't trade players like that especially when they produce or let other players produce while taking tough match ups.

We probably had the best center depth in the entire league with Matthews, Tavares, Kadri. And here we are.....

People are gonna talk high; but Canadian division is a JOKE IMO; if it was regular season as usual I think Leafs would have struggled.

Oh well....

 

[Antropovsky]

I agree with him, it'll help overall scoring depth and most importantly pk. Someone like McCann comes to mind

I know everyone wants to say Kadri including me, but Imagine Verhaghe on this team now

Willing to bet Dubas wasn't in favor of trading a handful of prospects for Grabner. Even though Verhaeghe was the only quality player of the bunch. Seems like a Babcock and lou move

 

[Super Mega]

Ugh, the guys on Leafs Hour are brutal. I do agree though Kerfoot is being forced into the center for whatever reason and it doesn't work.

It's been such a long and awful experiment you have to think it is due to trying to manufacture value for him. It's back-fired though, just move him to the wing and get a 3C, Staal would have worked.

 

[TopChedder]

I think JT is on the decline, I dont think playing with marner will help

He is 30? Literally turned 5 months ago. I just don't get why he would decline that hard so young. It's not like he plays a super heavy game or relies only on speed.

 

[TopChedder]

Kadri is a heart and soul player; you don't trade players like that especially when they produce or let other players produce while taking tough match ups.

We probably had the best center depth in the entire league with Matthews, Tavares, Kadri. And here we are.....

People are gonna talk high; but Canadian division is a JOKE IMO; if it was regular season as usual I think Leafs would have struggled.

Oh well....

Yeah. The Kadri deal still leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. We NEVER should have dealt him and the excuse of suspensions were not enough to diminish his full value.

Just a REALLLLLLY bad move.

 

[Martin Skoula]

Yea it was bad ... If Naz wasnt scoring he was hitting, agitating the other team, shutting down a #1 center, winning face offs or something, I dont even know what number Kerfoot is lol

They have the same amount of hits this year and Kadri gets scored on more often at ES. Kerfoot can also actually kill penalties unlike Kadri with his 4 seconds of PK time this year.

Kadri's better at faceoffs and brings way more value on the PP, but as far as doing the 3C job Kadri isn't better by an amount worth caring about. His defense isn't much better if at all, and his offense dried up when he got 3rd line usage. Throwing a big hit every 5-10 games isn't enough on its own.

Now, at 2LW with top PP time he would have been more useful than Kerfoot. He just doesn't do what you need from a 3C. Neither does Kerfoot maybe, but he's closer since he can PK and play solid ES defense.

 

[LeafsOHLRangers98]

They have the same amount of hits this year and Kadri gets scored on more often at ES. Kerfoot can also actually kill penalties unlike Kadri with his 4 seconds of PK time this year.

Kadri's better at faceoffs and brings way more value on the PP, but as far as doing the 3C job Kadri isn't better by an amount worth caring about. His defense isn't much better if at all, and his offense dried up when he got 3rd line usage. Throwing a big hit every 5-10 games isn't enough on its own.

Now, at 2LW with top PP time he would have been more useful than Kerfoot. He just doesn't do what you need from a 3C. Neither does Kerfoot maybe, but he's closer since he can PK and play solid ES defense.

Good points, and we also wound up with both of the best pieces in the Kadri trade offers anyways in Brodie and Kerfoot. The ability to upgrade the defense was the whole point of the move and we've been able to do it.

Way too many people are looking at it as a 1 for 1 in Kerfoot for Kadri. The team is better today partially because of the cap space we freed up.

 

[RealisticLeaf55]

Getzlaf or Pavelski retained would be the perfect fit.

Give me Pavelski and Ekholm, our team becomes a pretty big powerhouse.

 

[BrainyBomber]

Yea it was bad ... If Naz wasnt scoring he was hitting, agitating the other team, shutting down a #1 center, winning face offs or something, I dont even know what number Kerfoot is lol

Difficult to do all that when you are always suspended for the big games though.

Too many people are evaluating trades in isolation and ignoring cause and effect.

Yes the Kadri trade was bad and partly ruined last season but in the end it worked out as we got Brodie who voided the original trade by telling us to take a hike. Dube's persistence paid off as we've essentially swapped Barrie with Brodie. Brodie a 1RD is far far more valuable than Kadri and Kerfoot is not a dead asset he's a good middle of the lineup guy on a fair cap hit.

Kadri for Kerfoot and Brodie is an absolute steal just like the Muzzin trade. Without those 2 trades we are nowhere and back to our usual crap defence that we had for over 2 decades.

 

[Fogelhund]

Can someone please explain to me, why people are [Mod] obsessed enough with Kadri to not understand that nearly a decade of Run ins with management and being called immature by management don’t get you shipped out for whatever return is possible?

 

[The90]

He was making 4.5 with 3 years left , cap reasons my hairy white behind . We sent him with ELC Rosen for Barrie @5.5 and Kerplunk @ 3.5 so we not only lost the skill side of the deal we lost about 3 million on the money side .,and now we are left with just Kerplunk . Cap reasons riiiight can I interest you in some land in the Florida Keys ?

Just because you can’t get your head around it doesn’t mean it didn’t make sense. They had to get out of his contract long term, got a shorter Term in kerfoot, and barrie on a 1 year as a RD. It didn’t work. But it’s not near as bad of an idea as you’re trying to make it seem.

 

[dubplatepressure]

He plays mostly wing now as far as I know. Guys like Engvall need to be pushed down to the 4th line.

You accomplish that by upgrading your top6 LW.

 

[Rants Mulliniks]

Yea it was bad ... If Naz wasnt scoring he was hitting, agitating the other team, shutting down a #1 center, winning face offs or something, I dont even know what number Kerfoot is lol

Unfortunately he was only excelling periodically. If he showed up playing his game every night, that's a whole different player.

 

[Rants Mulliniks]

Can someone please explain to me, why people are [Mod] obsessed enough with Kadri to not understand that nearly a decade of Run ins with management and being called immature by management don’t get you shipped out for whatever return is possible?

Had he not vetoed the original trade, you'd hear very little about it as we've all seen how much more important that piece is to team results.

 

[ottomaddox]

Yea it was bad ... If Naz wasnt scoring he was hitting, agitating the other team, shutting down a #1 center, winning face offs or something, I dont even know what number Kerfoot is lol

So funny. I actually had to look it up.

It's 15.

 

[ShaneFalco]

Can someone please explain to me, why people are [Mod] obsessed enough with Kadri to not understand that nearly a decade of Run ins with management and being called immature by management don’t get you shipped out for whatever return is possible?

Wisers clap

 

[Stand Witness]

A cup winning team basically needs an elite 1st line, a 2nd line that people think most/all of the line could be 1st liners on other teams and then repeat for the rest of the line up.

Basically this is where our #3 center falls off.

 

[justashadowof]

They can do better than Kerfoot. But they can't force it. Eric Staal might have been forcing it (even though I thought at the beginning of the season he would be an upgrade to Kerfoot). And yes, Kerfoot is gone in the off-season, one way or another. And I guess the team could win their way out of this division with Kerfoot as its 3rd line center.

 

[justashadowof]

Somebody must have written "3rd line center" in the soot on KV's Lambo.

 

[On-the-Fly]

They can do better than Kerfoot. But they can't force it. Eric Staal might have been forcing it (even though I thought at the beginning of the season he would be an upgrade to Kerfoot). And yes, Kerfoot is gone in the off-season, one way or another. And I guess the team could win their way out of this division with Kerfoot as its 3rd line center.

An important missing part of this is that the 3rd line center has to defensively compliment Nylander. In Versteegs world, 91 plays with 11 and 65, 29 drops to drive his own line and this new center is the defensive anchor that 15 isnt.

 

[DarkKnight]

The fact a winger took Kerfoot’s third line center gig tells you all you need to know.