News Article: Thinning the Leafs roster will be a challenge over the summer

[Stephen]

I'd look into re-signing Parenteau and dealing him at the next deadline. Maybe Holland or Carrick. That's about it.

 

[SeaOfBlue]

I doubt it's that much of a challenge. We got rid of the difficult players to move in Kessel, Clarkson and Phaneuf.

The rest are easy sells, and should fetch us a very nice haul of assets.

 

[BodaciousBeefBazooka]

'Who' to trim off won't be a challenge but rather then 'how' those will be trimmed is the question.

 

[showtime8]

I doubt it's that much of a challenge. We got rid of the difficult players to move in Kessel, Clarkson and Phaneuf.

The rest are easy sells, and should fetch us a very nice haul of assets.

I don't think it's as easy as just saying the challenging part is done.

The easy part is trading off those guys. They had value despite what fans thought of them.

The difficult part is deciding from the group of prospects that are in their system. They have to determine if Bibeau is going to be better than Sparks or if Leivo is going to be a legit NHL player or if Leipsic is going to be better than Brown. That sort of thing.

Those decisions are the tough ones to make.

 

[Steve]

In a worst case scenario... the Leafs could quite easily simply not qualify Sam Carrick, Colin Smith, or Scott Harrington.

Has Harrington been THAT bad?

 

[Confucius]

I don't think it's as easy as just saying the challenging part is done.

The easy part is trading off those guys. They had value despite what fans thought of them.

The difficult part is deciding from the group of prospects that are in their system. They have to determine if Bibeau is going to be better than Sparks or if Leivo is going to be a legit NHL player or if Leipsic is going to be better than Brown. That sort of thing.

Those decisions are the tough ones to make.

Another thing to consider is, a player may become a good top 6 player but he may be 6 years away and then only have a couple of good years anyway. Do you really want to wait?

 

[showtime8]

Another thing to consider is, a player may become a good top 6 player but he may be 6 years away and then only have a couple of good years anyway. Do you really want to wait?

Another solid point.

It may take a player the 4-6 years to become a really good player. But how long do they keep him around for because they're going to have 4 drafts within that time and getting 7 players per draft (28 players-give or take with trades) and that pushes players up and down the depth chart.

It's not easy.

Like, they thought that Percy could be a top pairing guy in the NHL and they invested a ton of time and development into him, and it looks like it's all for naught. And it seems like a guy that was drafted 5 years after him in Dermott has surpassed him on the depth chart.

 

[keon]

We take on someone else's headache in trade for 1 contract and make them take 2 of our own in exchange.

The Leafs wanted to get rid of Dion and his contract at any cost but received Jared Cowen, forwards Colin Greening, Milan Michalek and Tobias Lindberg as well as Ottawa’s second-round pick in the 2017 NHL Draft. That leaves Leafs with 4 contracts in the 50 total as the fallout now. Cowen will be bought to recapture 1 and Lindberg the only one they really want and would love to find new homes for Greening and Michalek.

Leafs need to make a Dion type trade in reverse taking on 1 vet contract and packaging 3-4 out freeing up 3 contract spots in the process.

Leafs traded Dion, Matt Frattin, Casey Bailey, Ryan Rupert, and Cody Donaghey. It was more like 5 contracts out and 4 contracts back. Ottawa can release Frattin and Bailey as FAs and Toronto will buy out Cowen. In Lou I trust.

 

[schenneuf]

1. matthews
2. marner
3. rielly
4. nylander
--------------
5. gardiner
6. kadri
7. komarov
8. jvr
--------------
9. zaitsev
10. marincin rfa
11. c. carrick rfa
12. dermott
13. valiev
--------------
14. soshnikov
15. brown
16. hyman
17. leipsic
18. kapanen
19. leivo rfa
20. gauthier
21. c. smith rfa
22. a. johnson
23. timashov
24. bracco unsigned
25. dzierkals unsigned
--------------
26. laich
27. Bozak
28. michalek
29. horton
30. lupul
31. robidas
-------------
32. bernier
33. sparks rfa
34. bibeau
35. kaskisuo
-------------
36. hunwick
37. harrington rfa
38. loov
39. percy rfa
40. brennan (re-signed for marlies)
41. corrado rfa
42. a. campbell
43. s. carrick rfa
--------------
44. froese
45. holland (likely not tendered)
--------------
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.

Doesn't include UFA's: boyes, paranteau, grabner, b. smith, arcobello, clune, stalock, torres.

 

[Xscout*]

yeah i'm not seeing a big problem here when you look at it straight on.

with the Cowan buyout and 9 UFA's that alone buys you tons of space. possibly non tender a couple RFAs or another package deal similar to Grabner.

also possible to move Michalek's 1 more year, possibly Greening (though much harder as his salary is quite a bit higher than his cap hit) Bozak might be dealt, Hunwick... the list goes on.

if you REALLY tried to make a ton of space you could probably get us down to like 35 contracts which then makes it hard to ice 2 pro teams lol.

 

[Moncherry]

Not a fan of getting rid of Leivo. Not at all.

 

[Stigma]

Not a fan of getting rid of Leivo. Not at all.

Me neither. The knock against him is his speed/skating, I believe. Is there any evidence that this has hindered him so far? Is he a defensive liability? I don't see it. Maybe stats would prove me wrong. All I know is that when he played with the Leafs, he put the puck in the net with relative ease (5 goals - 12 games). He also has nice size.

Now, if there's something happening behind the scenes (which my gut says there is), that's a different matter.

 

[HoweHullOrr]

The biggest problems are not the pending UFAs as those are easy solutions.

The problem is with the vets still under contract Lupul, Laich, Greening, Michalek, Froese, Robidas, Horton etc that all occupy roster spots among those 50 contracts and have little to no trade value and so removing them difficult.

Those kind of players are typically bundled together with something more useful in order to move their contracts.

All we have to do is put them on LTIR or use some other magical erasure solution that we talk about over there in the Stamkos thread.

Its easy and there's never any implications from what I hear.

We do however have a lot of UFAs that won't get resigned, although this article has already factored this in to the equation (i.e., "so you are back at 45") and they have not been included.

 

[HoweHullOrr]

We take on someone else's headache in trade for 1 contract and make them take 2 of our own in exchange.

The Leafs wanted to get rid of Dion and his contract at any cost but received Jared Cowen, forwards Colin Greening, Milan Michalek and Tobias Lindberg as well as Ottawa’s second-round pick in the 2017 NHL Draft. That leaves Leafs with 4 contracts in the 50 total as the fallout now. Cowen will be bought to recapture 1 and Lindberg the only one they really want and would love to find new homes for Greening and Michalek.

Leafs need to make a Dion type trade in reverse taking on 1 vet contract and packaging 3-4 out freeing up 3 contract spots in the process.

I don't think it's going to be as hard as some think - they'll probably do another Grabner trade to sell under performing prospects like Percy for pennies on the dollar, I also expect a few roster players - ie Bozak or Laich to be moved this offseason.

And there will likely be minimal free agency signings.

This sounds very simple but you have to find teams looking to take on players that have... Bozak 4.2 million cap hit for 2 more years and ...Laich 4.5 million for 1 year, Grabner is a UFA and will just be released.

Perhaps a good example of the bolded is the Phaneuf deal. We got rid of a contract, but had to take a bundle of several contracts back to make that happen. But I'm sure we have a magical erasure solution and this will be easy without any implications.

 

[Pi]

Me neither. The knock against him is his speed/skating, I believe. Is there any evidence that this has hindered him so far? Is he a defensive liability? I don't see it. Maybe stats would prove me wrong. All I know is that when he played with the Leafs, he put the puck in the net with relative ease (5 goals - 12 games). He also has nice size.

Now, if there's something happening behind the scenes (which my gut says there is), that's a different matter.

He gets knocked off the puck far too easily, skating is definitely a concern. Those are fixable things to me. It's hard to score in the NHL, I think he can be a 20 goal guy. I hope we don't get rid of him. Put him win with Kadri or Nylander next year, increase his value and trade him if you have to but not for a 4th or 5th round pick.

 

[Ricky Bobby]

Not a fan of getting rid of Leivo. Not at all.

Leivo is a waiver issue not a 50 man issue.

There is no 50 man issue. The much bigger issue is the waiver wire next season and the season after.

 

[HarrisonFord]

With the Leafs next year:

Laich
JVR
Kadri
Leo
Nylander
Matthews
Leivo
Hyman
Sosh
--------------------------
Carrick
Percy
Rielly
Gardiner
Corrado
Marincin
Hunwick

Trade Harrington in the offseason probably

IR: Lupul, Robidad

 

[ShaneFalco]

I'd look into re-signing Parenteau and dealing him at the next deadline. Maybe Holland or Carrick. That's about it.

Thing is, they didn't get anything for him last year, so another year older, would someone bite this year?

 

[-DeMo-]

don't really see the issue here to be honest and I actually expect a relatively quiet summer, I expect them to let some of the kids play a full season and see what they have in some guys before using Assets to acquire pieces they might already have. the article states we have 46 players and that includes the likes of Nielson/Tima/Marner/Mathews, and 45 if Cowen is bought out like we all expect. there's lots of room there. the only real moves I expect would be trading for a Dmen which will almost certainly have a contract or 2 going the other way, signing a Stamkos/Vesey and that's it. and then maybe a couple of PTO's so the contract issue isn't a problem imo.

 

[Jack Bauer]

Thing is, they didn't get anything for him last year, so another year older, would someone bite this year?

He was banged up.

Best case scenario even for a healthy 20 goal scoring Parenteau is a 2nd or 3rd.

I don't see the point with the amount of bodies we have already.

Just trying to find room for guys like Hyman, Soshnikov, Leivo, Brown plus the "big 3" makes it pretty hard to justify a Parenteau just to hope to get a pick for him.

 

[Jack Bauer]

don't really see the issue here to be honest and I actually expect a relatively quiet summer, I expect them to let some of the kids play a full season and see what they have in some guys before using Assets to acquire pieces they might already have. the article states we have 46 players and that includes the likes of Nielson/Tima/Marner/Mathews, and 45 if Cowen is bought out like we all expect. there's lots of room there. the only real moves I expect would be trading for a Dmen which will almost certainly have a contract or 2 going the other way, signing a Stamkos/Vesey and that's it. and then maybe a couple of PTO's so the contract issue isn't a problem imo.

Agreed, I think what we'll be looking at is only bringing in upgrades on current vets.

I think guys like Holland are going to be moved for mid round picks just to find them a new home.

For a player like Bozak he's back if we can't find a better option to play ahead of him like a Stamkos. But if we sign a Stamkos then Bozak gets moved.

It's 1 thing to say the kids need to earn their ice time. It's another to have 7 or 8 of them deserving ice time but only have 4 roster spots due to the amount of veterans returning.

Some space has to be opened up to give the youth time to play.

 

[TLeafsFan]

We don't do Detroit any favours.

 

[Mad Brills*]

they don't have the cap room for datsyuk's deal unless they move a bozak/laich/michalek

 

[Menzinger]

Perhaps a good example of the bolded is the Phaneuf deal. We got rid of a contract, but had to take a bundle of several contracts back to make that happen. But I'm sure we have a magical erasure solution and this will be easy without any implications.

Nobody ever said there won't be implications - but the Leafs literally got rid of 5 contracts for 1 deal this past season.

It's hardly ancient history.

 

[HoweHullOrr]

Nobody ever said there won't be implications - but the Leafs literally got rid of 5 contracts for 1 deal this past season.

It's hardly ancient history.

I see this as a very likely move.

But, its a move that could have implications, and is also a move made by "necessity". We could be throwing away a player that develops into a legit NHL player.

And we are doing this because we have a lot of dead weight contracts in our systems that we'd love to move but cannot move without taking back the kind of (bad) contracts that we are trying to get rid of in the first place. We are all hoping that we don't find ourselves in this position again in a few years ...... cough ..... Its hardly ancient history

With the Lupul IR thing, is it that easy? Or, would the NHLPA be smart enough to want one (or more) legitimate doctors report(s) from neutral 3rd party doctors? The latter seems more likely, but I don't really know so thought I'd throw it out.