Hawkaholic
Registered User
Marleau wasn't even a 50pt player the last 2 years and signed for 6mil at age 38 for 3 years. Toews is 8years younger and a much better hockey player. There is literally no reason to even debate this.
Proposal: Toews for Faulk
- Thread starter RememberTheRoar
- Start date
LakeLivin
Armchair Quarterback
I don't know if you were being serious, but I'd actually do that, and throw in a non-top-tier prospect or a later round draft pick to boot.
ThatSaid
Registered User
First of all, captain or not, he's not someone we can replace right now. Forget his leadership. We don't have a potential #1C in our pipeline or on our roster. Schmaltz is a great young offensive player, but he either ends up a LW or in a bum-slaying 3rd line C role. He just doesn't match up well in his own zone. Good transitionally, very good offensively, but he doesn't play low enough defensively to be a long-term solution as a top-6 C imo. Looks ok on Kane's line, cause they don't care about D there, but frankly he does very little to support Kane. So, if we trade Toews, who is going to take the hard match-ups?
Second, people are talking about Toews' low point numbers like he started out as a offensive stud. He's the C that flipped the other team's roster for 3 Cups by stifling the other team's best scorers. Yes, he's been absolute trash for the last two years in that department as well. Absolutely. But at his cap hit, we're not going to get enough quality back for him to become competitive again. Our only hope is that either Q gets ousted after a tough start and a new, modern system is installed, or that Toews finds his game again. Moving him with any retention is a death sentence for this core. Toews can put up 60 points for eternity so long as he's keeping guys like Seguin, Forsberg, and Laine off the board when we play them.
Third, we need to improve our center depth, not gut it. Believe it or not, there are a lot of decent young D-men in our pipeline. I know this isn't a particularly popular opinion among fellow Hawk's fans, but losing our shutdown 4th line C (Kruger) had an immediate impact on the way our team performed. Kruger was fed absolute dungeon d-zone starts practically his entire tenure here and averaged way more minutes than the typical 4th line C, all while keeping other team's top scorers off the board. Once he left, Kane ended up with more difficult match-ups, and we leaned on Toews a bit too much for his 2-way game. This year, we lost Hossa, which despite everyone outside of the Hawk's sphere believing was a shrewd cap circumvention, doomed us. If Toews can't bounce back and get back to his dominant 2-way style, there is very little that can save this team. We simply don't have enough offensive firepower to do what the Penguins have been able to do these past 3 years.
So basically, TL: DR, no #1C coming back, no #1C going out, bad contract or not. Simply can't sell low on Toews.
Second, people are talking about Toews' low point numbers like he started out as a offensive stud. He's the C that flipped the other team's roster for 3 Cups by stifling the other team's best scorers. Yes, he's been absolute trash for the last two years in that department as well. Absolutely. But at his cap hit, we're not going to get enough quality back for him to become competitive again. Our only hope is that either Q gets ousted after a tough start and a new, modern system is installed, or that Toews finds his game again. Moving him with any retention is a death sentence for this core. Toews can put up 60 points for eternity so long as he's keeping guys like Seguin, Forsberg, and Laine off the board when we play them.
Third, we need to improve our center depth, not gut it. Believe it or not, there are a lot of decent young D-men in our pipeline. I know this isn't a particularly popular opinion among fellow Hawk's fans, but losing our shutdown 4th line C (Kruger) had an immediate impact on the way our team performed. Kruger was fed absolute dungeon d-zone starts practically his entire tenure here and averaged way more minutes than the typical 4th line C, all while keeping other team's top scorers off the board. Once he left, Kane ended up with more difficult match-ups, and we leaned on Toews a bit too much for his 2-way game. This year, we lost Hossa, which despite everyone outside of the Hawk's sphere believing was a shrewd cap circumvention, doomed us. If Toews can't bounce back and get back to his dominant 2-way style, there is very little that can save this team. We simply don't have enough offensive firepower to do what the Penguins have been able to do these past 3 years.
So basically, TL: DR, no #1C coming back, no #1C going out, bad contract or not. Simply can't sell low on Toews.
