Rumor: Phaneuf About to Sign 7 Year/$50 Million Deal

[The Apologist]

I do wonder If Dion has truly gotten better defensively or has he been lucky with his unsustainable on-ice SV%.

He has the highest 5 on 5 SV% on the team sitting at 96.2%. This number will inevitably regress at some point obviously. I just wonder if his +/- will plummet along with it when it does. Since this is what the majority of posters seem to correlate his improved +/- with improved defensive play I thought it would be interesting discussion.

http://www.extraskater.com/team/toronto-maple-leafs/2013#performance-charts

Edit: Looks like it's already been brought up...

How much of Suter/Weber is the systems they play in?
How much of Chara is goaltending/ system?
How much of Phaneuf not being considered a top ten defenseman previously can be attributed to poor goaltending?

I could say the same for his offence as well. Based on his career, it will inevitably pick up, and boom, we still have one of the best defensemen in the NHL.

 

[Faltorvo]

ding ding ding!

If a person cant understand WHY Dion gets 7 mil (and more in an open market) then theres no point entering a discussion with them. They either dont understand NHL and the contracts work or theyre way too biased against the man to see reason...

I can understand people not wanting him around and using stats as an argument (or even just not liking his face!)...but not understanding how he gets 7 million and using RFA's as an argument is crazy talk.

Ok ,recent UFAs that have just inked , here is a list of players that I feel are better then Dion.

Datsyuk . 7.5m

H Sedin. 7m

D Sedin 7m

Letang 7.25

One player I would put on par with Dion for skill and value is JBO he inked for 5.4m x 5.

 

[notdoneyet]

I don't disagree with a word posted here but at 7m cap hit, I'm still displeased.

We are competing with the rest of the league for bang for your cap hit.

Right now we are losing that battle, we are a cap maxed team with at best a middling team.

Dion with the 5th highest D cap hit and Kessel with the 9th highest in the entire league is not helping us one bit competing against the other top teams who's stars are cap managing better.

The Sedin twins just inked for 7m per. Player wise those two at 14m cap or Dion/Kess at 15m cap? It's not a stretch to consider the twins better players then Dion and just as good as Kessel.

again you make these crazy statements. What part of the hockey business do you now get. UFA's and RFA's are completely different animals. You cannot just make a blanket statement that this guys is 5th highest paid and this guy is 9th highest. You have to look at all the comparibles. When other players for example get to sign new contracts when the cap is at 95M - our two guys will then be the 25th and 40th highest paid so this arguement makes no sense. The same as cap circumventing contracts and RFA's make no sense to compare..

The sedins inked a 7M so they both can play on the same team, and by the way fi you would rather have those two than dion and phil I would suggest you
should join the canucks board. Seeing that these two have for the last 5 or 6 years played on a team that should have won a stanley cup with all their talent but
didnt because they didint have the balls to pay the price.

I dont worry about the cap as much as you. we dont know how much the cap is
going up each year but you can be certain with all the revenue coming in in the next five years it will be going through the roof.

The only reason we are struggling this year with the cap is it went down by 6M.
BUT most of the other teams are in the same boat.

 

[Cap'n Flavour]

Could he not be influencing the quality of shot as well?

That stat doesn't seem as open and shut as you're suggesting.

5-on-5 on-ice sv%:

3 Dion Phaneuf D 96.2%
36 Carl Gunnarsson D 95.0%
51 Jake Gardiner D 94.6%
4 Cody Franson D 93.3%
15 Paul Ranger D 92.7%
26 John-Michael Liles D 92.2%
2 Mark Fraser D 90.7%
44 Morgan Rielly D 90.6%

If you attribute this to shot quality, you're telling me that the shooting % for a shot when Phaneuf is on the twice (3.8%) is pretty much half of that of most other defensemen on the team (6.7% Franson, 7.3% Ranger, 7.8% Liles). While I believe that Phaneuf is better than all of those players defensively, I don't think he alone is making 5-on-5 scoring chances more than half as likely to go in.

Last season Gunnar was at 93% and Phaneuf at 92.4%, for reference. Is Phaneuf playing better defensively this season? Sure. Is he literally twice as good at limiting shot quality? I don't think so.

 

[Bravid Nonahan]

You would think that a Dmen being paid as a top 5-10 overall NHL Dman should be a automatic for the Olympics.

So perhaps value to the Leafs is >>> than his value comparatively among his peers on performance.

Best Leaf DMan but not best NHL Dmen but paid as one none the less.

Within 5 years lots of Dmen will be be paid more than Dion Phaneuf.

He does pay the toughest minutes in the league, and still has by far the best +/- on the team even though the Leafs are awful 5v5.

He has had several stretches in his career where he hasn't put up a ton of points...he's only played half the season! In '10-11 Gardiner had like 3 points in the first half and then got almost all his points in the second half.

I think Dion Phaneuf might be a tad overpaid at 7M per season. But, by maybe 1M dollars. IS IT WORTH LOSING OUR BEST DMAN OVER 1/70th of the team's CAP HIT????

Think about it folks, even if you think Dion is only worth 5M, would you be willing to lose him over 2/70 of the team's cap space? 2.8% of the cap?? This is the same team that paid Komisarek 4.5 million to not do ANYTHING, and we are getting pissed about signing PHaneuf?

 

[The Apologist]

Ok ,recent UFAs that have just inked , here is a list of players that I feel are better then Dion.

Datsyuk . 7.5m

H Sedin. 7m

D Sedin 7m

Letang 7.25

One player I would put on par with Dion for skill and value is JBO he inked for 5.4m x 5.

What makes Letang better? Hes another one I would put on the 'If he were in Toronto, we'd be calling for his head'

As for Dats and the Sedins, are you seriously comparing forwards to defensemen?

 

[Gallagbi]

He does pay the toughest minutes in the league, and still has by far the best +/- on the team even though the Leafs are awful 5v5.

The Leafs are tied for 13th in 5-5 F/A. It's not great, but it's not awful

 

[notdoneyet]

You would think that a Dmen being paid as a top 5-10 overall NHL Dman should be a automatic for the Olympics.

So perhaps value to the Leafs is >>> than his value comparatively among his peers on performance.

Best Leaf DMan but not best NHL Dmen but paid as one none the less.

Cmon Mess I really respect your posting but this is over the top even for you.
there is so mcuh wrong with this post that I'm shocked it comes from someone like you who I highly regard in your posts.

Paid like top 5-10 dman. you are right but again look at whats coming - who else will be signing ie. subban - and of course the old RFA/UFA arguement.

not being on the olympic team - again I'm disappointed - there are a lot of
very good players not going to suit up for canada. In fact i'm sure
we could send a second team and be just as competitive.

please dont let the haters hook you too.

 

[Hounsy]

Seth Jones? The team makes the playoffs last year, is in a playoff spot now, and is currently young to boot and people are talking about drafting low enough for Seth Jones types?

This place sure can keep the HF in HFboards at times.

 

[notdoneyet]

How much of Suter/Weber is the systems they play in?
How much of Chara is goaltending/ system?
How much of Phaneuf not being considered a top ten defenseman previously can be attributed to poor goaltending?

I could say the same for his offence as well. Based on his career, it will inevitably pick up, and boom, we still have one of the best defensemen in the NHL.

look the dion haters cherry pick his stats.

when he has a minus plus/minus its all his fault(not gustaffsson or reimer letting in softies)

when he has a plus plus/minus its the goaltending that s making his stats better

when he scores points he is not good defensively
when he is good defensively he is poor on offense

these stupid cherry picking stats are just the haters hating

 

[Faltorvo]

Could he not be influencing the quality of shot as well?

That stat doesn't seem as open and shut as you're suggesting.

OK, so only say 15 ESG against when he has been on the ice. His +10 indicates only 25 goals have been score by us when he is on the ice. That's 1 EST advantage every 4th game.

I don't know the advanced break downs but 25 ESG over 38 games when your on for 40 % of the teams EST , sound awful low.

 

[likeabosski]

He is also having one of the greatest defensive seasons of his career.
The question remains: Can the Leafs replace Dion Phaneuf for 7M or less on the open market?

I don't care if we can replace Dion Phaneuf this summer. The question to ask yourself is: would a cup contender ever sign Dion Phaneuf for 50m+/7yrs? Don't sign players to bloated, lengthy contracts out of desperation. The Leafs management are obsessively short-term focused. They never think about the long-term goal of winning a Stanley Cup. Do you see Dion Phaneuf as captain of a Stanley Cup team? Let Dion Phaneuf go to Edmonton. Let Edmonton miss the playoffs for the bazillionth time.

 

[Bravid Nonahan]

OK, so only say 15 ESG against when he has been on the ice. His +10 indicates only 25 goals have been score by us when he is on the ice. That's 1 EST advantage every 4th game.

I don't know the advanced break downs but 25 ESG over 38 games when your on for 40 % of the teams EST , sound awful low.

He is a DEFENCEMAN.

It's mindboggling that you're taking stats that are totally in Dion Phaneuf's favour, and trying to use it against him

 

[Mess]

How much of Suter/Weber is the systems they play in?
How much of Chara is goaltending/ system?
How much of Phaneuf not being considered a top ten defenseman previously can be attributed to poor goaltending?

I could say the same for his offence as well. Based on his career, it will inevitably pick up, and boom, we still have one of the best defensemen in the NHL.

Okay take Leafs goaltending out of the equation.

I guarantee you Suter, Weber and Chara will all be in the Olympics as the Best dmen in the World and automatics to represent their countries.

Will Phaneuf ? If not why not?

Phaneuf is not even considered among the best Canadian born Dmen let alone against the best that you mentioned. But getting paid among the best in the World seems like an easy decision for some.

 

[Faltorvo]

I don't think you can look at the contracts like that though. With the cap system and Rfas it's not quite the same. You almost have to completely separate the ufa and RFA contracted dmen, because of the impact it has on negotiations.

All the dmen Dion is ranked among are Keith, Suter, Letang, Boyle, Chara, Campbell, Bouwmeester etc.

There are names out there like Pietrangelo, Subban etc. who will be getting similar money once they receive contracts that buy our UFA years. Contracts like Doughty, Karlsson, OEL are less money than Phaneuf, because they were signed during RFA status. It's not fair to rank the contracts similarly.

So if you rank contracts separately, 7 mill cap hit for Phaneuf isn't bad at all, especially with the cap going up. Charas 6.5 cap hit looked insane at the time, and now it's a bargain.

It does reinforce your point too though Mess, internally developed players on RFA deals are certainly more cost effective and this team needs to draft, acquire and develop these players to offset the high price of keeping your older stars. All the best teams do it.

IIRC, Peitro just sold 4 UFA years at a rough hit 0f 7.2m

Datsyuk 7.5m

Both Sedins at 7m

just to name a few of the leagues top players.

 

[Gallagbi]

I don't care if we can replace Dion Phaneuf this summer. The question to ask yourself is: would a cup contender ever sign Dion Phaneuf for 50m+/7yrs? Don't sign players to bloated, lengthy contracts out of desperation. The Leafs management are obsessively short-term focused. They never think about the long-term goal of winning a Stanley Cup. Do you see Dion Phaneuf as captain of a Stanley Cup team?

Chicago won a Cup with Campbell making 7+ million.

 

[The Apologist]

Okay take Leafs goaltending out of the equation.

I guarantee you Suter, Weber and Chara will all be in the Olympics as the Best dmen in the World and automatics to represent their countries.

Will Phaneuf ? If not why not?

Phaneuf is not even considered among the best Canadian born Dmen let alone against the best that you mentioned. But getting paid among the best in the World seems like an easy decision for some.

Bryan McCabe and Curtis Joseph were both Olympians. It means exactly zero in the grand scheme of NHL play.

 

[Bravid Nonahan]

Okay take Leafs goaltending out of the equation.

I guarantee you Suter, Weber and Chara will all be in the Olympics as the Best dmen in the World and automatics to represent their countries.

Will Phaneuf ? If not why not?

Phaneuf is not even considered among the best Canadian born Dmen let alone against the best that you mentioned. But getting paid among the best in the World seems like an easy decision for some.

So why was he invited to the orientation camp, but Cody Franson wasn't??

 

[The Apologist]

Chicago won a Cup with Campbell making 7+ million.

Lets not forget Duncan Keith, and the monstrosity Corey Crawford just signed as well.

 

[Faltorvo]

Within 5 years lots of Dmen will be be paid more than Dion Phaneuf.

He does pay the toughest minutes in the league, and still has by far the best +/- on the team even though the Leafs are awful 5v5.

He has had several stretches in his career where he hasn't put up a ton of points...he's only played half the season! In '10-11 Gardiner had like 3 points in the first half and then got almost all his points in the second half.

I think Dion Phaneuf might be a tad overpaid at 7M per season. But, by maybe 1M dollars. IS IT WORTH LOSING OUR BEST DMAN OVER 1/70th of the team's CAP HIT????

Think about it folks, even if you think Dion is only worth 5M, would you be willing to lose him over 2/70 of the team's cap space? 2.8% of the cap?? This is the same team that paid Komisarek 4.5 million to not do ANYTHING, and we are getting pissed about signing PHaneuf?

5 years into the deal Dion will be what? 34 ish?

I sure hope he has been passed by many D because I don't believe Dion will be in any conversation as a top 5-10 D by that time.

As for your opinion of maybe 1m over and the fear of losing him, well.

I argue it this way, do you really want to keep this kind of Captain, supposed team leader , one that would extort an extra 1m cap from a team that is already in a bad cap position compared to the other top teams in the league?

Look at some of my previous posts and see what other stars and team leaders have just inked for as they strive to win a cup.

 

[yubbers]

^ The fact that the owners want this to be the face / leader of this franchise for 7 years is scary to say the least

 

[Bravid Nonahan]

5 years into the deal Dion will be what? 34 ish?

I sure hope he has been passed by many D because I don't believe Dion will be in any conversation as a top 5-10 D by that time.

As for your opinion of maybe 1m over and the fear of losing him, well.

I argue it this way, do you really want to keep this kind of Captain, supposed team leader , one that would extort an extra 1m cap from a team that is already is a bad cap position compared to the other top teams in the league?

Look at some of my previous posts and see what other stars and team leaders have just inked for as they strive to win a cup.

Dion is "Extorting" money from the Leafs? Wow, that's a bit harsh. Sure, he's using his position to his advantage, is he not allowed to do that? What is he supposed to do, take the first offer no matter what it is? Both sides are AGREEING to this cap hit. Don't you think that Nonis, Loiselle, and the other PROFESSIONALS who manage salaries as part of their JOB would let him go if he was truly "extorting" the team? Are you trying to say that he wouldn't get 7M on the open market? 7+??

 

[Faltorvo]

He is a DEFENCEMAN.

It's mindboggling that you're taking stats that are totally in Dion Phaneuf's favour, and trying to use it against him

Sorry?

Everytime I turn around I see folks pointing to the only 15 ESG against and attribute it solely to him being on the ice.

It's fair game to point out how little we have scored when he has been on the ice.

I mean common now, Dion is pushing for the 5th highest cap hit among all D, that's not defencive D money, that's two way All star D money.

 

[The Apologist]

5 years into the deal Dion will be what? 34 ish?

I sure hope he has been passed by many D because I don't believe Dion will be in any conversation as a top 5-10 D by that time.

As for your opinion of maybe 1m over and the fear of losing him, well.

I argue it this way, do you really want to keep this kind of Captain, supposed team leader , one that would extort an extra 1m cap from a team that is already is a bad cap position compared to the other top teams in the league?

Look at some of my previous posts and see what other stars and team leaders have just inked for as they strive to win a cup.

Well, I personally believe he could get much more on the open market, so I believe he is taking a discount to stay here. Exactly the kind of guy I want here.

As for the part about being among the top defensemen at 34, who knows? Many defensemen improve with age. Phaneuf seems to be improving as well. It can easily be argued that the best defenseman in the NHL right now is one of the oldest (its actually pretty telling how often this is actually the case).

 

[A1LeafNation]

^ The fact that the owners want this to be the face / leader of this franchise for 7 years is scary to say the least

Dion is going to grow into the role. Sundin wasn't the best captain early on, he grew into the role.

Captains roles are overrated anyways. Its the GM's job to acquire the talent, coaches job to get the team going. Players job to do their jobs.