Armchair GM 2021-2022: Catharsis
- Thread starter herman
- Start date
I mean I think the odds of him being a contributing NHLer at this point are very, very, very slim (that's partially on him, and partially because the Islanders did no favours to him and his development). But the Marlies could use some offensive talent with a number of their better players leaving, and if he ends up exceeding expectations then the team can take things from there.
Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate said:
Just wait until I start talking about bringing Daniel Winnik back.
The more I think about it, the more I hope that the Leafs try and sign Doug Hamilton to a contract in the 8 - 8.5 range. Get him signed and then move Kerfoot, or hope he gets picked in the expansion draft, and use that money to flush out the other areas of the lineup like the last couple of forwards and the backup goalie. Signing him to that contract would give them about 2 to 3 million left, and then getting rid of Kerfoot would add another 3 million.
Then you have the big 4 up front and the defence looks like:
Muzzin - Hamilton
Rielly - Brodie
Sandin - Holl
And I say that if you start running in to depth problems on the forward lines, you start to move the big 4 on to their own lines and see if the other team can shut them down. I think all four of them are good enough to drive a line on their own.
Also, could the Leafs just offer Rielly a $1.2 million raise in an extension and call it a day, as that is the money that comes off the books from Kessel's contract?
Then you have the big 4 up front and the defence looks like:
Muzzin - Hamilton
Rielly - Brodie
Sandin - Holl
And I say that if you start running in to depth problems on the forward lines, you start to move the big 4 on to their own lines and see if the other team can shut them down. I think all four of them are good enough to drive a line on their own.
Also, could the Leafs just offer Rielly a $1.2 million raise in an extension and call it a day, as that is the money that comes off the books from Kessel's contract?
Significantly Insignificant said:
With Kerfoot gone and Hamilton signed at $8mil you'd have $6.3mil left to sign 3 forwards, a back-up or 1B goalie, plus possibly a 7th defenceman and/or 13th forward. Let's sign my 3 default depth players to $900k contracts (Galchenyuk, Bunting, Hutton) and promote Robertson and you've got about $2.8mil left to sign a back-up goalie (or $3.7mil if you don't have a 7D and run a barebones 20 man roster). So doable for sure but with all the money invested in the big 4 forwards and the top-4 defence the rest of the forward group is pretty weak.
Significantly Insignificant said:
You'd be left with the question of how to re-sign Campbell after his $1.65mil deal comes up at the same time, or how to replace him for that same amount. You could move Holl but replacing him with Liljegren only saves you a little over $1mil.
So everything would be doable but very, very tricky to pull off. Flat cap really sucks. We'd likely be hitting $90mil or close to it in 21/22 if it wasn't for everything going on.
CarltonTheBear said:
Which is why I think the Leafs need to do a better job of leveraging the big four up front. They can all drive a line, and if you have some talent sprinkled throughout the lineup that can play with the big four, you could roll 4 lines and be successful. Matthews doesn't need to be playing with Marner. He just needs someone to get him the puck and then go to the net. If you look at the approach that Pittsburgh took when they won their first cup, they moved Crosby, Malkin and Kessel all on to separate lines and forced the other team to pick their poison. They took a different approach the next year with Kessel and Malkin playing together, but if the Leafs had a top 4 D like I listed, that would be better than what the Penguins rolled with in either of those two years.
Like if you had something like:
Galchenyuk - Tavares - Simmonds
Bunting - Matthews - Spezza
Robertson - Engvall - Marner
Mikheyev - Hallander/Brooks - Nylander
I think that while none of those lines may light the league on fire, overall if you are rolling four lines, that's tough to keep up with.
Then on defense you have your Norris trophy candidate d-man in Hamilton.
herman
Well-known member
Significantly Insignificant said:
Just leaving aside the proposition of smeared out minutes for the big 4*, is this above statement really true? Because I've only seen it from 3 of the 4.
* there's point of diminishing returns in either direction -- overload vs extremely balanced -- and not every passenger on the line is going to be able to handle an increased load or diminished opportunity.
herman said:
Which three? If you are leaving out Marner, I thought he was the straw that stirred the drink on that Bozak/JVR line back in the day. And if that is the case then spread them out over three lines, and mix and match based on who is going and who isn't. Are you feeling sorry for the Nylander because he is on the supposed 4th line? Don't be, there is no fourth line. (That won't make sense if you are not familiar with Ikea commercials)
I guess my point is that the Leafs are a very stagnate team when it comes to formations and line combinations, which I believe reduces their ability to adapt. If their philosophy is that they are going to just overpower the other team with whatever they decide is their formation and line combinations, well then you had better hope you don't have a lot of weaknesses to exploit, because that other NHL team that you are playing against will look for them.
I grew up in an era where, when Scotty Bowmen first started, he would switch up his lines every shift in the first period, and then by the third he had locked in on who he was playing. Then when he made his way to Detroit, he was all about having one 5 man rotation, and then the rest of the lineup was a blender. He adapted to what he had and what he thought would get him the win.
I don't think Keefe is a dumb coach. It just seems they are locked in to doing things a very specific way event though they are running in to issues with the way they are doing things and that adaptability just isn't there. There were questions about the PP all year. There were questions as to how this team was handled in the playoffs. My big thing is why wasn't Marner switched off that first line? It's clear he wasn't the same player to everyone watching. What would it have hurt to put him on a third line once JT went down and maybe move Spezza up?
At the end of the day, the Leafs have 4 forwards who are really good to elite. If you have that, then you should be able to utilize that as a strength to overpower the other team by exploiting where they are weak. It doesn't work though if you put them all on the same line and the other team just shuts them down because their strength is putting out a super strong defensive unit that can remove a line from a game.
bustaheims
Well-known member
Significantly Insignificant said:
All that really accomplishes is diluting the offence. When Pittsburgh split their big 3 forwards, they also had guys like Rust, Guentzel, and Hornqvist for them to play with. With those proposed lines, you're basically nerfing Nylander and hoping the Robertson breaks out big enough to capitalize on Marner's playmaking. Basically, you're reducing the effectiveness of the top 2 lines while hoping to create offence from the bottom 2, but without providing the support those lines need to actually produce enough to justify the move.
bustaheims said:
The first year that the Penguins won the cup Kessel was playing with Bonino and Haglin. Kessel had 59 points, Bonino had 29 (in 61 games) and Haglin had 27 (in 37 games with the Pens). Rust had 11 in 41 games and Guentzel was not on that team.
The next year Rust had 28 points, Nick Bonino had 37 and Carl Haglin had 22, points in the regular season. Kessel managed to get 70 points but he spent more time with Malkin that year.
It's not like you do it all the time, or you mix and match here and there based on what the other team is giving you, but you have to experiment with it in the regular season, so that the players are ready for it when it does happen. When things aren't going, you change something to get them going. Plus you still put them together on the powerplay. The idea is to score one more goal than the other team, not necessarily five.
herman
Well-known member
Significantly Insignificant said:
Yeah, I was referring to Marner, who has almost always had to be propped up by a Top 2 pick on his line. Everyone else has played with lesser talent and elevated those lines.
When JvR/Bozak played with Brown instead of Marner, there was no perceptible dropoff in play driving.
I understood the IKEA reference
I'm in favour of blending and mixing and matching in game to suit the situation, and there was definitely some roster lock-in last season that is reminiscent of Babcock in a different direction.
bustaheims
Well-known member
Significantly Insignificant said:
The point is those Pittsburgh teams had depth. They had other players who could counted on enough to contribute 15+ goals a year. Outside of the big 4, the Leafs don't have that. Outside of the big 4, Galchenyuk and Simmonds are the only guys in your proposed lineup who have scored 15+ goals in the last 4 years - and neither them have approached that number in the last 2 seasons. You're asking a lot from guys who haven't had recent success putting the puck in the net at the NHL level. The Leafs don't play top heavy because of a lack of creativity. They do so because they're lacking in depth. The cap space they have needs to be spent addressing that.
bustaheims said:
I don't think they had as much depth as you think. Outside of their big three, they had 5 guys in double digits for goals for that first team that won the cup:
Hornqvist - 22
Kunitz - 17
Cullen - 16
Letang - 16
Hagelin - 10 (in 37 games with the Pens)
So lets say Hornqvist is like Marner, as Marner is the 4th guy on the list if we go by Herman's rules. Marner will get you 20 to 30 goals, and I think he can do that without playing with an elite center like Matthews or Tavares, but he's still the 4th guy, so if you want to play him with Tavares, Matthews or Nylander, you can.
One of those double digit scorers is a d-man, and hopefully, if you are getting Hamilton, he's the guy getting you 15 to 20 goals from the backend.
That leaves three guys that have to hit double digits in goals, so any three of Galchenyuk, Spezza, Simmonds, Brooks, Mikheyev, Engvall, Bunting or Robertson have to get in to that 10 to 15 range. I think that is doable.
I will admit that this theory of mine is built on the belief that elite players have the ability to make those around them a little better, so I think that Matthews and Tavares can elevate their line mates, without too much of a drop off in their own production. However, if you are of the belief that Matthews and Tavares need Nylander and Marner to be effective, well the Leafs are kind of up against it to get an elite defenceman anyways because that means you can't trade Marner or Nylander. I look at what Nylander did in the playoffs without Tavares, and I imagine a three headed attack where Nylander is running his own line and it is difficult to stop.
When it comes to effectiveness, the other way to look at it is how many goals do you think Marner contributes to Matthews total? Does he go from a 65 goal scorer to a 40 goal scorer by losing Marner on his wing? Can Marner make that up on another line to give you more balance? Say Nylander and Marner were on a line with Spezza at center, can that line score at a regular pace against weaker competition than what Tavares and Matthews are seeing? Would it be better to have a 40 goal Matthews with a ring, or a 65 goal Matthews with no playoff success?
And don't forget, you now have Hamilton on defence, and if you are lacking depth up front, you could move someone like Holl for a forward, or maybe Rielly isn't signed and you move him. I think ultimately, the Leafs need that Norris caliber defenceman on the backend, and I don't think they have it currently on their roster.
herman said:
I think that is tough to swing though. I don't know if you get enough in a Marner trade to pick up one of the other players. I get your point, that it might be better if the contracts on the Leafs were more diversified up front, but it's not like the guys they are paying are underperforming all that much. Marner is still a top ten point producer in the League. When you trade those guys however, you don't seem to get the same value back.