General Leafs Talk v2.0

[CarltonTheBear]

But how many people do you think were drafted after Biggs that had legitimate top 6 potential? Or at least to the degree that they were a safer pick to get there? I agree with the general premise that the team should be aiming higher with a first round pick, it's a point people made this off-season as well after Gauthier was picked, but I'd bet if you went back and looked at scouting reports from that draft there was nobody picked in that range that looked like a safe bet to be what the team needs now.

How many of them were "safer" picks? Maybe not many, but I remember there being a decent amount that had a higher offensive ceiling. They were also riskier picks, but given that we had two first rounders that year I would have been fine going with one of the riskier draft picks considering how starved our prospect pool is of high-end forward talent.

As for this past draft, I was fine with the Gauthier pick because this years class of prospects in the late 1st round all seemed to be pretty meh to me. He was also a centre which is a big plus and seems to have a slightly higher offensive upside.

 

[Kin]

How many of them were "safer" picks? Maybe not many, but I remember there being a decent amount that had a higher offensive ceiling. They were also riskier picks, but given that we had two first rounders that year I would have been fine going with one of the riskier draft picks considering how starved our prospect pool is of high-end forward talent.

Well, I think the bigger problem there was that in order to be worth what the Leafs paid to move up for him Biggs had to be more than he was. I don't know if you're right that a riskier pick there is a better one but I definitely would have rather rolled the dice at 30 and 39 regardless of who was taken.

As for this past draft, I was fine with the Gauthier pick because this years class of prospects in the late 1st round all seemed to be pretty meh to me. He was also a centre which is a big plus and seems to have a slightly higher offensive upside.

I'm not so sure of that. My memory of the Biggs pick is that there were a lot of question marks concerning his upside, my memory of the Gauthier pick is that basically everyone said he didn't have that offensive upside. I'm fine with the pick too as I think shooting high in the 20's is probably going to be less and less legitimate as time moves on and scouting improves but I definitely think the two picks are of a kind.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

If you tell me that
Vitale
Megna
Jeffrey
Sill

are great options with the top 3 out, I don't know what to tell you. 

This is just one team example, I'm sure other teams have similar issues.  Sure you can move wingers to center like Jokinen and Adams, but someone else then has to take their roles on the wing.  There's no perfect solution of how much depth to carry on a roster.

Well, I don't know how you came down to those 4 names because like you said if Crosby/Malkin/Sutter all went down to injury Jokinen and Adams would definitely be moved over to centre, so what you would actually likely see is:

Jokinen (2nd/3rd line cenre)
Ebbett (AHLer with 64 points in 191 NHL games)
Vitale (4th line NHL centre)
Adams (4th line NHL centre)

At the very least, you have 4 NHL players all playing a position they are comfortable in. I think that trumps...

JVR (0 games of NHL experience at centre)
Smith (AHLer with 6 points in 24 NHL games)
McClement (4th line NHL centre)
McKegg (21 years old, 0 NHL games)

Yes, the Pens would have of course suffered a little on their wings too, but those are much easier positions to fill from your farm system than centre is. And yes, Nonis did a decent job by adding Smithson and eventually Holland, but it shouldn't have been a surprise to him that the team needed more depth at centre. And he should have addressed that in the offseason.

 

[Zee]

If you tell me that
Vitale
Megna
Jeffrey
Sill

are great options with the top 3 out, I don't know what to tell you. 

This is just one team example, I'm sure other teams have similar issues.  Sure you can move wingers to center like Jokinen and Adams, but someone else then has to take their roles on the wing.  There's no perfect solution of how much depth to carry on a roster.

Well, I don't know how you came down to those 4 names because like you said if Crosby/Malkin/Sutter all went down to injury Jokinen and Adams would definitely be moved over to centre, so what you would actually likely see is:

Jokinen (2nd/3rd line cenre)
Ebbett (AHLer with 64 points in 191 NHL games)
Vitale (4th line NHL centre)
Adams (4th line NHL centre)

At the very least, you have 4 NHL players all playing a position they are comfortable in. I think that trumps...

JVR (0 games of NHL experience at centre)
Smith (AHLer with 6 points in 24 NHL games)
McClement (4th line NHL centre)
McKegg (21 years old, 0 NHL games)

Yes, the Pens would have of course suffered a little on their wings too, but those are much easier positions to fill from your farm system than centre is. And yes, Nonis did a decent job by adding Smithson and eventually Holland, but it shouldn't have been a surprise to him that the team needed more depth at centre. And he should have addressed that in the offseason.

The Pens team goes as their centers go, take out their top 3 and they're in for a lot of trouble.  I took my 4 based on who's actually played center for them this season.  Sure you can move the aforementioned guys (Adams and Jokinen) to center given that they have NHL experience there, but the wingers they would bring up certainly wouldn't pick up the slack.  The Leafs team on the other hand has had their strength through wingers for the most part.  Bozak as the #1 center doesn't turn anyone's head but the line gets by because you have 2 top-tier wingers in Kessel and JVR.  So as I said before, the Leafs have more strength on the wing but lack of strength up the middle.  I think any team who relies heavily on their centers would suffer as much or more than the Leafs are currently suffering if they lose their top 3 centers.

 

[Frank E]

If you tell me that
Vitale
Megna
Jeffrey
Sill

are great options with the top 3 out, I don't know what to tell you. 

This is just one team example, I'm sure other teams have similar issues.  Sure you can move wingers to center like Jokinen and Adams, but someone else then has to take their roles on the wing.  There's no perfect solution of how much depth to carry on a roster.

Well, I don't know how you came down to those 4 names because like you said if Crosby/Malkin/Sutter all went down to injury Jokinen and Adams would definitely be moved over to centre, so what you would actually likely see is:

Jokinen (2nd/3rd line cenre)
Ebbett (AHLer with 64 points in 191 NHL games)
Vitale (4th line NHL centre)
Adams (4th line NHL centre)

At the very least, you have 4 NHL players all playing a position they are comfortable in. I think that trumps...

JVR (0 games of NHL experience at centre)
Smith (AHLer with 6 points in 24 NHL games)
McClement (4th line NHL centre)
McKegg (21 years old, 0 NHL games)

Yes, the Pens would have of course suffered a little on their wings too, but those are much easier positions to fill from your farm system than centre is. And yes, Nonis did a decent job by adding Smithson and eventually Holland, but it shouldn't have been a surprise to him that the team needed more depth at centre. And he should have addressed that in the offseason.

I'd bet that Nonis was hoping for better things with Colborne.

That he stunk up the joint in pre-season when it was his spot to lose surprised many.

But as many have suggested, this doesn't excuse the lack of depth, it just explains a bit of it.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

I'm eternally grateful that on a non game day I can consistently come on here and see that blue leaf coloured in telling me there is new posts.

 

[Zee]

I'm eternally grateful that on a non game day I can consistently come on here and see that blue leaf coloured in telling me there is new posts.

Beats the alternative we had last year at this time during the lockout....

 

[CarltonTheBear]

The Pens team goes as their centers go, take out their top 3 and they're in for a lot of trouble.  I took my 4 based on who's actually played center for them this season.  Sure you can move the aforementioned guys (Adams and Jokinen) to center given that they have NHL experience there, but the wingers they would bring up certainly wouldn't pick up the slack.  The Leafs team on the other hand has had their strength through wingers for the most part.  Bozak as the #1 center doesn't turn anyone's head but the line gets by because you have 2 top-tier wingers in Kessel and JVR.  So as I said before, the Leafs have more strength on the wing but lack of strength up the middle.  I think any team who relies heavily on their centers would suffer as much or more than the Leafs are currently suffering if they lose their top 3 centers.

You can't just look at centres and wingers as if they are completely separate though. Before we acquired Holland our depth at wing (which I've said time and time again is among the very best in the league) suffered just as much as our depth down the middle did though. It forced our 2nd best winger to play a position that he wasn't effective at at all, and it forced two of our top-9 wingers to play with McClement who is a black hole offensively. JVR at centre essentially caused our entire 1st line to slow down and our 3rd line did nothing offensively either during that period.

We finally acquire another centre that we should have had all along, JVR goes back to being our 2nd best winger, Lupul drops back to the 2nd line which spreads out the talent on wing a little more and we finally have two lines that can score again.

 

[moon111]

The Leafs didn't have ANY prospects.  Now they have even promoted a few of their own developed players.  Maybe we shouldn't be upset that a guy like Kadri isn't down in the minors to bring up, and more that JFJ didn't see the writing on the wall.  He totally dropped the ball on the salary cap & required prospect system needed and left the Leaf roster so bare they weren't able to compete for years.

 

[Hampreacher]

Given that Carolina has been scouting Liles how about Liles for Gleason? The numbers work cap wise.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

Given that Carolina has been scouting Liles how about Liles for Gleason? The numbers work cap wise.

Here's what Dreger just said on the radio:

@Hope_Smoke

Dreger "I still think there is a deal to be made between the Leafs & Carolina for Liles. Nonis is prepared to eat about $1 mill in salary"

 

[bustaheims]

Given that Carolina has been scouting Liles how about Liles for Gleason? The numbers work cap wise.

Liles being moved would be to free up cap space, not replace it with another contract.

 

[Jalili]

The Leafs didn't have ANY prospects.  Now they have even promoted a few of their own developed players.  Maybe we shouldn't be upset that a guy like Kadri isn't down in the minors to bring up, and more that JFJ didn't see the writing on the wall.  He totally dropped the ball on the salary cap & required prospect system needed and left the Leaf roster so bare they weren't able to compete for years.

To be fair, the team actually drafted pretty well under JFJ in his last few years with the Leafs. His last 2 drafts netted players like Reimer, Gunnarsson, Kulemin, Tlusty, Stalberg, Frattin and Komarov.

I think the problem with the Leafs not having forward prospects ready for succession is due to drafts like in 2008 and 2009, as an example, that didn't pan out as well as they would have hoped.

 

[mr grieves]

Folks are just reminding other folks when time proves them right -- and that's more or less why the internet exists.

I strongly disagree with this!!! I can think of a few other things of why the internet exists!

Well, sure, but researching false flag attacks, defrauding the elderly, and watching porn aren't things I like to do with people I meet on message boards. Those are private pleasures.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

Here's what Dreger just said on the radio:

@Hope_Smoke

Dreger "I still think there is a deal to be made between the Leafs & Carolina for Liles. Nonis is prepared to eat about $1 mill in salary"

I don't buy that. If it took anywhere close to $1mil to trade Liles he'd be gone by now. This is just Dreger being a mouthpiece for the Leafs again.

 

[Arn]

Matt Finn signed to an entry level contract?

Is that for the Marlies or to cover the Liles trade?

 

[Deebo]

Matt Finn signed to an entry level contract?

Is that for the Marlies or to cover the Liles trade?

Neither, he'll probably finish the season with the Gueplh Storm and possibly join the Marlies after their season is done.

 

[BlueWhiteBlood]

Matt Finn signed to an entry level contract?

Is that for the Marlies or to cover the Liles trade?

Neither, he'll probably finish the season with the Gueplh Storm and possibly join the Marlies after their season is done.

Yeah, just regular entry level stuff here.

 

[OldTimeHockey]

Folks are just reminding other folks when time proves them right -- and that's more or less why the internet exists.

I strongly disagree with this!!! I can think of a few other things of why the internet exists!

Well, sure, but researching false flag attacks, defrauding the elderly, and watching porn aren't things I like to do with people I meet on message boards. Those are private pleasures.

Pfft, defrauding the elderly is always more fun when done as a team. High Five's always make things more enjoyable. Save the 'self fives' for your other 'private pleasures'

 

[Boston Leaf]

With Kadri and possibly Bozak back who goes down? I hate to see SMith rewarded for his 3 point night with a trip back to the A but figure it would be he and Holland?