Prediction Contest: What will Kyle Dubas' first "Moneyball" type move and who is untouchable?

[Ziggdiezan]

If Kadri is never suspended, Matthews plays to his ability and Andersen plays solid and we make the second round I doubt anyone complains. It's easy to look back and say these were the wrong decisions but selling those assets would have made us a worse team and there is something to be said about creating a culture of winning.

Also if Rielly didn't have a poor series too. This often gets overlooked, the Leafs best defender who looked like a solid #1D all year played like dog shit for like half the games in the series.

 

[Ziggdiezan]

Yeh that's exactly my point.
I can handle his gaffs at his current price point but there is no way they should invest $6 mil for him.
I think he's likely moved at the draft.

If the Leafs can move him for futures and use those futures to go after a Tanev or Myers I'm all for it.

I worry though if they trade Gardiner without any other top 4 defenders coming in. I think Dermott is ready for that 2nd pairing spot but it would be nice to have some cover for him.

 

[leaffaninvancouver]

Also if Rielly didn't have a poor series too. This often gets overlooked, the Leafs best defender who looked like a solid #1D all year played like dog **** for like half the games in the series.

Fair enough, there's lots of factors my point was that it's easy to look back at a season and say this is what we should have done. It's just a bad way to look at things. I mean anytime you don't win the cup you're better off to have been in last place using that logic because of better draft picks.

 

[The CyNick]

I've heard many rumors about the Hamonic offer. I've heard JVR+2nd was the offer which I think makes more sense. No way a team would value JVR less than a 2nd. Isles could have flipped him for a late first very easily at the point of the hypothetical trade.

Clearly they couldn't because that was the offer according to credible sources.

Clearly they didn't get any offers at the deadline that knocked their socks off, so seems reasonable to think a 2nd round pick was his value. Maybe it went up a bit at the deadline because he had a career year, but since they didn't move him, clearly not that much.

 

[The CyNick]

Or more likely valued moving their guy out to the West the most.

Hamonic isn't a difference maker. They wouldn't care. Especially if they felt the Leafs were selling low on him and he could be turned into a 1st+

 

[4thline]

They also had an abundance of players they could A) sell off and B) keep one or two.
Look at the list. Chicago and Boston were also well established with a successful vet core.
We only have one or 2 guys (JVR/Gardiner) worth anything. Bozak/Carrick/Komarov/etc aren't fetching you anything. We have about 2 guys and a lack of center depth in the organization. We need more D around the age of Dermott developing. No vet core. Limited success. Year 3 basically of the Matthews draft. We aren't in a position to lose what limited assets we have for free.

Their sell offs were not comparable to what people are advocating for. The closest (like I said) was a 77 point Havlat (worth more than JVR) that was kept and left to walk during a 104 point season one year after missing the playoffs, two years after drafting 1st
Byfuglein- offseason, post cup, 1 year from RFA, 25yo
Ladd-off season, post cup, pending rfa, 25yo
Versteeg-off season, post cup, 2 years from RFA, 24 yo
Saad- offseason, post cup, pending RFA, 23 yo
Brouwer- off season, post cup, pending RFA, 25 yo

Sharp- offseason, post cup, 2 years from UFA
Campbell- off season, post cup, 5 years from UFA


They salvaged value from cap casualties and had a pipeline in place to replace their secondary players, during the off-season. They didn't weaken their team at the TDL, and didn't weaken it more than they had to for cap compliance in the off-season.

The Blackhawk lesson is not "don't lose assets for nothing", it's "don't tie up money in 3rd contracts to replaceable non-core wingers.

 

[hotpaws]

This makes some sense. Trade JVR in the summer when we're not sure we make the playoffs without him - maybe not a chance we want to take. On the other hand, maybe it's the job of our management team to assess somewhat accurately how good our team is and make their decisions accordingly?

i'd love our mgmt to be able to accurately project how the season will unfold but to do that you'd have to be able to forecast injuries , development/regression of our younger players and how the rest of teams we're competing against perform , so while i'd love to have the assets from a JvR trade i'm not going to sit here and rag on mgmt for playing it safer after the decade plus of failure we just came out of

this year we have a similar issue with Gards who i'd love to jettison but realize upgrading on him on top of adding to our blueline isn't easy or cheap

 

[Duke Silver]

Adam Mascherin.

 

[pucky]

I expect better asset management than what we've seen over the last 2 years. 2nd round picks traded two years in a row to fill the 4th line C position, while simultaneously letting JVR, Bozak, Komarov, etc walk for nothing.

Do that for a couple more years, and we'll have a decimated farm system with limited cheap internal options to help us manage our cap while Matthews/Marner/Nylander are all on their big contracts.

That's correct. Mismanagement for consecutive years from the Leafs have managed to make them a mediocre, overrated team for a number of years. A team, no matter who the personnel is, relies way too much on their goaltending and shoddy defence results in no or little improvement. Successful regular seasons but abysmal playoff showings (despite 7 games against an overconfident Bruins group).

 

[The CyNick]

Also if Rielly didn't have a poor series too. This often gets overlooked, the Leafs best defender who looked like a solid #1D all year played like dog **** for like half the games in the series.

He looked the same as he did in the regular season. He's just not a good defender. I watch the guy up close almost every home game, and I don't see growth in his ability to defend his own net. The reason why people think he had a great regular season was because he put up points. Which is great, but doesn't make him a good defender.

Now everyone is going to jump in and post about his incredibly tough usage and junk...

 

[IPS]

He looked the same as he did in the regular season. He's just not a good defender. I watch the guy up close almost every home game, and I don't see growth in his ability to defend his own net. The reason why people think he had a great regular season was because he put up points. Which is great, but doesn't make him a good defender.

Now everyone is going to jump in and post about his incredibly tough usage and junk...

3rd pairing defensemen would you say???

 

[Gary Nylund]

i'd love our mgmt to be able to accurately project how the season will unfold but to do that you'd have to be able to forecast injuries , development/regression of our younger players and how the rest of teams we're competing against perform , so while i'd love to have the assets from a JvR trade i'm not going to sit here and rag on mgmt for playing it safer after the decade plus of failure we just came out of

this year we have a similar issue with Gards who i'd love to jettison but realize upgrading on him on top of adding to our blueline isn't easy or cheap

Of course nobody can accurately predict the future but it's the job of our management group to try and do just that the best they can and act accordingly.

You're right, similar issue with Gards coming up and if I'm in charge, keeping him and letting him reach UFA status is 100% out of the question. They did it with JVR and IMHO it was an obvious mistake which shouldn't be repeated. If you think that it may make sense to keep him because it would be tough to upgrade on him and so on then you're just so far off I don't even know where to begin. Did you really learn nothing from the JVR example? Don't you understand that it's going to be even harder to "upgrade" on him if we let him walk and get nothing back?

How are we going to "upgrade" on JVR? If you don't understand that assets we got back for him could be used to do just that ...

 

[ShaneFalco]

Don't you understand that it's going to be even harder to "upgrade" on him if we let him walk and get nothing back?

This is the main point I don't get. We need to find replacements or upgrade on JVR and Gardiner, but somehow trading them (to some) during the off-season sends the wrong message, makes the team weaker, will make it hard to replace.....etc etc. But letting them walk is ok

 

[hotpaws]

Of course nobody can accurately predict the future but it's the job of our management group to try and do just that the best they can and act accordingly.

You're right, similar issue with Gards coming up and if I'm in charge, keeping him and letting him reach UFA status is 100% out of the question. They did it with JVR and IMHO it was an obvious mistake which shouldn't be repeated. If you think that it may make sense to keep him because it would be tough to upgrade on him and so on then you're just so far off I don't even know where to begin. Did you really learn nothing from the JVR example? Don't you understand that it's going to be even harder to "upgrade" on him if we let him walk and get nothing back?

How are we going to "upgrade" on JVR? If you don't understand that assets we got back for him could be used to do just that ...

when i did i say let Gards walk ?

i said/meant if we move him instead of resigning him we'll need to not only replace him but also still need to upgrade our D and how many teams are actively looking to move the type of D we want ? so now instead of looking to add one D if we trade Gards we need to add 2 with at least 1 if not both being an upgrade on him

 

[The CyNick]

3rd pairing defensemen would you say???

Ideally to me he's your second pair guy with a solid defensively reliable partner. Unfortunately Leafs don't have many of those guys.

But yeah he would be most successful as a 3rd pairing guy who wouldn't have to worry about defending top end players.

 

[Gary Nylund]

when i did i say let Gards walk ?

i said/meant if we move him instead of resigning him we'll need to not only replace him but also still need to upgrade our D and how many teams are actively looking to move the type of D we want ? so now instead of looking to add one D if we trade Gards we need to add 2 with at least 1 if not both being an upgrade on him

Here's your original quote:
"who i'd love to jettison but realize upgrading on him on top of adding to our blueline isn't easy or cheap"

That sure sounds a lot like if we're unable to upgrade and/or add etc. then you'd consider keeping him. And the rest of this post you just made sounds like you're just giving more reasons for keeping him as you're going on about how hard it will be to find Dmen. If that's not what you mean to say then that's fine, maybe put a little more thought into your posts so that they actually represent your thoughts.

And this is exactly what happened with JVR. Who will replace his goals blah blah blah and here we are, if his goals do need to be replaced then the fact that we got nothing back for this asset makes replacing them that much harder.

 

[Gary Nylund]

Ideally to me he's your second pair guy with a solid defensively reliable partner. Unfortunately Leafs don't have many of those guys.

But yeah he would be most successful as a 3rd pairing guy who wouldn't have to worry about defending top end players.

And there you go again. Just the other day you again repeated this nonsense about how there are only about a dozen #1 Dmen in the league and the rest are "interchangeable". Now you're going on about "second pair" guys and "3rd pairing" guys but according to you, there all interchangeable so those labels make zero sense. You can't even stay consistent with the nonsense you spew and insist is accurate.

You're hilarious dude!

 

[hotpaws]

Here's your original quote:
"who i'd love to jettison but realize upgrading on him on top of adding to our blueline isn't easy or cheap"

That sure sounds a lot like if we're unable to upgrade and/or add etc. then you'd consider keeping him. And the rest of this post you just made sounds like you're just giving more reasons for keeping him as you're going on about how hard it will be to find Dmen. If that's not what you mean to say then that's fine, maybe put a little more thought into your posts so that they actually represent your thoughts.

And this is exactly what happened with JVR. Who will replace his goals blah blah blah and here we are, if his goals do need to be replaced then the fact that we got nothing back for this asset makes replacing them that much harder.

-yes i'd love to deal him
-yes i said it won't be easy or cheap to find replacements

but no where in any my posts did i say to just let him walk which is the argument you're trying to make for some reason

 

[FreeBird]

J

Are you kidding?

Chicago sold off Byfgulien, Ladd, Versteeg, Sharp, Saad, Brouwer, Bolland, etc rather than lose them for nothing. They didn't lose a single player of JVRs calibre to free agency in their ~10 year run. Theyre the very definition of a franchise that didn't let guys walk in free agency.

Boston? That's a slightly better example, though they did sell Lucic before he hit free agency. Their window didn't last as long though, and only reason for their resurgence is they drafted Pastrnak, McAvoy, and Debrusk with mid/late 1sts three years in a row. Odds of that happening to save your franchise are very very low. Our mid/late 1sts from the last 10-12 years are Tlusty, Gauthier, Biggs, Percy, and Liljegren.

JVR vs Big Buff are you Kidding.

 

[Peiskos]

I still feel Toronto needs to dump every remaining player who was apart of the two game 7 collapses against the Bruins.

Bozak (might have been injured for that 2013 game 7.. don't really remember but he can still go)
JVR (We will regret overpaying him based on a season he will likely never replicate again)
Komarov (We have younger skilled players to fill his spot, ex Andreas Johnsson)
Gardiner (That 2018 game 7 performance was HORRIFIC, it shows mental fragility in big moments, sayonara!)

Kadri can stay, I like his contract and believe he can be apart of a winning team.

We move forward from there with internal replacements/trades.

 

[Gary Nylund]

-yes i'd love to deal him
-yes i said it won't be easy or cheap to find replacements

but no where in any my posts did i say to just let him walk which is the argument you're trying to make for some reason

Here's what I said once again:

"That sure sounds a lot like if we're unable to upgrade and/or add etc. then you'd consider keeping him."

If you can't see how your posts make it sounds that way then I can't help you.

 

[hotpaws]

Here's what I said once again:

"That sure sounds a lot like if we're unable to upgrade and/or add etc. then you'd consider keeping him."

If you can't see how your posts make it sounds that way then I can't help you.

not my first choice but yes i'd i consider keeping him and by that i mean re signing

 

[Gary Nylund]

not my first choice but yes i'd i consider keeping him and by that i mean re signing

Ah OK, that makes sense then. I guess I misunderstood what you meant, my apologies.

 

[therealkoho]

They made out like bandits?

yes, these bandits are known for their voracious and unquenchable libidos

hence that expression

 

[therealkoho]

Which Philosophical discipline best applies: Plato or Michel Foucault?

Nietzche