Rumor: Will the Leafs pull the trigger on Alex Pietrangelo this off-season?

[seanlinden]

Like I've said all along, I want to see them add Pietrangelo and take a one year run with Matthews, Tavares, Marner, Nylander, Rielly and Pietrangelo on one team and an imbalanced roster and then make the hard edits if necessary.

The players to move out to facilitate Pietrangelo coming would be Johnsson, Kerfoot and if necessary Andersen.

By the end of next season, if Andersen is still here, he comes off the books automatically at which point a cheaper goalie can be acquired on the eve of the expansion draft. Depending on how the young defensemen develop, Jake Muzzin could also be a target to be moved. And Justin Holl.

In two years time, when Rielly is approaching free agency, we can see where the money situation lines up. By that time the Kessel cap hit will have expired. The world could be back to normal and the cap could creep up slightly.

There are so many factors that come into play before you feel forced to move Nylander or Marner. And to be honest, so what if we have to move one or both.

It it that approach that led the Leafs down to the path of cap-hell that they are probably on. The Leafs are not in a 1-year run position -- they've got a 4 year window -- and they've never won a playoff series. This team needs to go through the playoff-ringer a bit before we can truly call them cup contenders.

The league financial outlook is going to be better in 2 years, presumably, so the mid-level players will start getting paid again. The cap however, is going to lag behind because of the debt that the players owe the league.

 

[Dekes For Days]

Well if you mean like dropping $9M on another player that's expected to be the "one missing piece" , then we finally agree on something.

Signing Pietrangelo isn't an emotional, reactionary move. He's a free, elite player in our biggest hole, that we've been looking to fill for a while. Avoiding signing a player like that solely because you think we need more "toughness" and "dat grit" is an emotional, reactionary move. Avoiding signing a player like that solely because you refuse to accept the quality of the team as a result of the outcome of a 5-game sample against 0.952 goaltending is an emotional, reactionary move.

 

[Cleetus]

Yep, so we should look at actual reasons for things and evaluate properly, to have the best chance at winning. Not just stick to false narratives like "toughness" or "wanting it bad enough".

should stop making excuses about everything,blaming everything except the leafs....

 

[Dekes For Days]

should stop making excuses about everything

Properly evaluating and understanding the reasons that something happened =/= Excuses.

 

[IrishInOntario]

The point I'm trying to get across is that neither Brodie or Tanev are foundational pieces that fundamentally alter the quality of the blueline, or are really long term fixes in a way that Pietrangelo would. So they would be part of the revolving door of non solutions we try every year.

Brodie is a LHD who plays right - judge for yourself if that fits your criteria of an elite RD - also 30 years old, is short and has been rumored to be planning on retirement.

Tanev is a the right type of defenseman at RHD, right size and wingspan, but horribly injury prone, is also 30 years old, and just had a career year with Quinn Hughes, whom we don't have. People worry about decline and I'd say Tanev is a much more likely candidate to get hurt and have a fall off than AP.

Moneywise, Brodie currently makes $4.65 million, and Tanev makes $4.45 million. Assuming they both get a very conservative raise to $5.0 million flat on the open market, they would still cost $10 million for the pair. That alone is a greater cap hit than if we paid Alex Pietrangelo $9.0 million (which I'm not sure he would get judging by the $7.7-$8.25 AAV we've heard this past week) and put him on a permanent pairing with Rasmus Sandin on his ELC, or if we signed a veteran on a $900K deal like Tampa did with Schenn and Bogosian.

So why go after two stop gaps when we can get the best UFA possible and pair him with a cost controlled asset we already have in the system? To me, the argument is like, do you want one Auston Matthews and a Jason Spezza, or two Tyler Bozaks?

I'm fine with going all in on Pietrangelo, but only if you're going to move Nylander and Johnson. That opens up 10.4 million dollars in cap space, plus the room you already have from trading Kapanen... That space enables you to get Pietrangelo for 8.5-9.0 million, and not turn your bottom 6 forwards into 6, borderline AHL players, stripping all your depth... I've suggested this here previously.

Sign Alex Pietrangelo as a F/A.
Sign Bobby Ryan to a F/A deal.
Sign Mark Borowiecki as an F/A.
Trade Engvall for assetts.

To Anaheim
William Nylander (7.0 million)
Andreas Johnson (3.4 million)

To Toronto
Rickard Rackell (3.8 million)
Maxime Comtois (820k)
1st Round Pick

Rackell with get you 80% of Nylander's production playing alongside Tavares, at half the cap hit. Maxime Comtois comes in as a bottom 6 ready, 6'2, 200+lb power forward with upside, and having two, 1st round picks in this draft this year would be awesome to re-stock forward depth that Toronto will need over the coming years with the flat cap.

Hyman / Matthews / Marner
Rackell / Tavares / Mikheyev
Ryan / Kerfoot / Comtois
Robertson / Spezza / Barabanov

Reilly / Pietrangelo
Muzzin / Holl
Borowiecki / Lehtonen

Anderson
Campbell

I genuinely love that team. I'd love it even better if the Leafs flipped Anderson and 1st round pick to Arizona, for Darcy Kuemper and Kevin Bahl.

 

[seanlinden]

No he was right. The reason is the Leafs just don't want it bad enough. They definitely don't want it more than the other team. All the big dogs on the Leafs play just like the "Rink-Rat" spoiled brat kids that end up on the same team in a pick-up game. I don't know how they managed to assemble all those kids onto the same team, but if you think the Big Four on the Maple Leafs were good enough this post-season, you've been watching mediocre hockey too long.

I am/was a huge Red Wings fan, i'm really just a fan of good hockey. I started following the Leafs hard when Babcock came over and I was really excited to see this Leafs roster develop, and what Babcock could do with them. He immediately started to trend them upwards and I got more excited. Started seeing all the Marner, Matthews, Nylander pieces coming together and thinking "damn, they're going to be like the Red Wings, dominant for years".

But then they started souring on Babs because "he's tough". Boo-hoo, I don't need a coach who is super friendly with his teammates. I don't care about what kind of guy babcock is, he wants to win more than anything else. I believe Mike Babcock would drown his mother to win the Stanley Cup, and if that's your goal you need someone with that kind of focus, someone who would do anything to win. There is no one on the Leafs with that, currently. There wasn't any Leafs who actually looked disgusted or pissed not to make the First round of the playoffs.


They just play a very non-cohesive, non-commital style game. This superstar team, excuse me, group of superstars, is designed for more of an All-Star type game, and you can make whatever excuse you want about them not making Round 1 of the playoffs. The fact of the matter is Columbus was a better team and that's what it takes. I am absolutely knocked sideways that people who have been watching hockey for years and years can watch this team and think they're "right there".

If the Leafs as a group are really believing this core as-is is good enough, I hope you have a lot of excuses prepped for the coming years. Nothing will change unless the big dogs attitudes change. You can't bring in one guy to re-arrange the culture of the team. There is no one in that locker room who is going to stand up and say "enough of this crap" and go out and put up and shut up. 4th line Clifford wasn't going to come in and tell Marner, Matthews and everyone else "HEY you're not playing hard enough". You don't come into a new locker room and just dictate like that from the 4th line.
What one guy in the League could come onto the Leafs and bring that kind of culture change with them? Ovechkin? Crosby?

What one guy are they going to bring in to give culture shock to the Big 4 and challenge their style of play? They traded away all their tenured veterans who would've had clout to say something. Matthews, Marner and Tavares can't tell the team "hey YOU guys need to play harder while we play pretty". The Big 4 are running the team and with that, their attitudes are on full display.

It is fun to watch when they are engaged, but it's not winning hockey. I wish it was, I'd love to see them just skilling out and dominating, but it's terrible to watch such talent and time wasted because they don't want to play harder. I'm not bashing on them, this is just my opinion, but i think they need to upgrade their MF attitude towards playing the game. It's not an isolated incident or a one off, it's a trend.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

With Johnny T, I see a bit of that approach, but the other 3 -- they don't really care. I think it may come down to Tavares looking at the situation and realizing -- I'm 30 years old -- we've got this group of ridiculous talent -- this could be one of my last/only opportunities to win a cup... whereas AM/MM/WN all look at it with less urgency. They all have long careers ahead of them.

It takes a couple of hardships to realize that opportunity is fleeting. The comparable might be Brayden Point -- but he's joined / grown into a team that has been through the emotional ringer the last 4-5 years, and that can certainly rub off on a young guy.

Muzzin plays that way, but again, he's only 1 guy -- and as you mentioned no 3rd liner is going to set the tone for how those big 3-4 are going to play.

 

[Cleetus]

Properly evaluating and understanding the reasons that something happened =/= Excuses.

Understanding is one thing, but blaming losses on everything except the leafs is wrong... that’s not how you fix it

 

[Dekes For Days]

Understanding is one thing, but blaming losses on everything except the leafs is wrong... that’s not how you fix it

Nobody is blaming losses on everything except the Leafs. They can be better, and we should always strive to be, but the reality is that external factors have considerable impacts on outcomes over small samples in hockey, and in this particular 5-game sample, opposing goaltending was a massive factor. That doesn't make us a bad team. Focusing on incorrect reasons for losing is not how you "fix" it.

 

[ULF_55]

The point I'm trying to get across is that neither Brodie or Tanev are foundational pieces that fundamentally alter the quality of the blueline, or are really long term fixes in a way that Pietrangelo would. So they would be part of the revolving door of non solutions we try every year.

Brodie is a LHD who plays right - judge for yourself if that fits your criteria of an elite RD - also 30 years old, is short and has been rumored to be planning on retirement.

Tanev is a the right type of defenseman at RHD, right size and wingspan, but horribly injury prone, is also 30 years old, and just had a career year with Quinn Hughes, whom we don't have. People worry about decline and I'd say Tanev is a much more likely candidate to get hurt and have a fall off than AP.

Moneywise, Brodie currently makes $4.65 million, and Tanev makes $4.45 million. Assuming they both get a very conservative raise to $5.0 million flat on the open market, they would still cost $10 million for the pair. That alone is a greater cap hit than if we paid Alex Pietrangelo $9.0 million (which I'm not sure he would get judging by the $7.7-$8.25 AAV we've heard this past week) and put him on a permanent pairing with Rasmus Sandin on his ELC, or if we signed a veteran on a $900K deal like Tampa did with Schenn and Bogosian.

So why go after two stop gaps when we can get the best UFA possible and pair him with a cost controlled asset we already have in the system? To me, the argument is like, do you want one Auston Matthews and a Jason Spezza, or two Tyler Bozaks?

I'll take the Cup winner thanks. just kidding.

Isn't the question, O'Rielly and Bozak or Matthew and Spezza?

Really, I guess going for Pietrangelo is an all-in move.

A 7 year deal for a 30 year old ... kind of like Lamoriello did for Anders Lee on Long Island ... I don't like these.

If they win, no one should care if they end up with $18mm tied up in 2 players who have fallen off a cliff.