Why the Leafs will be better...

[hap_leaf]

If the Leafs are to be better, there is going to have to be:
no injury plagued season to Lupul;
Kadri with 25+ goals;
JVR and Kessel repeat offensive production;
one of Santorelli, Kontiola, Booth can supply secondary scoring;
a completely new defensive structure or a new coach

 

[2badknees]

Which teams in the east could one say have gotten worse over the offseason?

Worse: I'd say possibly Detroit, Ottawa, Pittsburg and Boston (although the latter two still a playoff lock).

The Same: Flyers, Jersey, Montreal, Washington, Carolina are more or less the same team.

Better: Buffalo, Florida, Rangers, Columbus, and Tampa too, even without St. Louis.

Based on this, I see the Leafs at their usual no man's land range of squeaking into the playoffs on the high end, and drafting around 6 or 7 on the low end.

 

[bustaheims]

Just a little nitpick - if Columbus doesn't get Ryan Johansen under contract pretty early in the season (and, things don't sound particularly promising on that front),  I'd say they've definitely gotten worse, not better - especially with Horton out indefinitely with a back problem. Even with Johansen, I'm not sure they've really improved all that much.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

Detroit's tough to peg too. They didn't add anybody, and they lost Alfredsson and Bertuzzi, so on paper you'd think they should be worse. But they managed to get 93 points last season while both Zetterberg and Datysuk only played half seasons because of injuries and cap problems kept Nyquist in the AHL for the first two months of the season. If they can get close to full seasons out of those 3 they'll definitely be a better team than last season.

 

[Kin]

Which teams in the east could one say have gotten worse over the offseason?

Worse: I'd say possibly Detroit, Ottawa, Pittsburg and Boston (although the latter two still a playoff lock).

The Same: Flyers, Jersey, Montreal, Washington, Carolina are more or less the same team.

Better: Buffalo, Florida, Rangers, Columbus, and Tampa too, even without St. Louis.

Based on this, I see the Leafs at their usual no man's land range of squeaking into the playoffs on the high end, and drafting around 6 or 7 on the low end.

The Islanders should also be in the "better" category.

Anyways, I think the bigger question would be where the Leafs would fit into that and I think that if you're going to look at teams like Washington and Montreal, both of which added multiple players who are likely to play bigger roles than anyone the Leafs added, as teams who are "the same" then the Leafs should probably be in that group as well.

 

[Kin]

Detroit's tough to peg too. They didn't add anybody, and they lost Alfredsson and Bertuzzi, so on paper you'd think they should be worse. But they managed to get 93 points last season while both Zetterberg and Datysuk only played half seasons because of injuries and cap problems kept Nyquist in the AHL for the first two months of the season. If they can get close to full seasons out of those 3 they'll definitely be a better team than last season.

Not to mention that provided that Anthony Mantha isn't out too long he's a lot of people's pick to win the Calder.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

Not to mention that provided that Anthony Mantha isn't out too long he's a lot of people's pick to win the Calder.

Oh, right, I try to forget he exists (picked one spot ahead of Gauthier). But yeah, he could definitely make an impact if the Wings decide to let him stay up.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

3. Key young players, Gardiner, Rielly, Kadri will take the next step. It would be nice to see Frattin join that group.

Frattin will be 27 in January, he's not really that young anymore.  Odds are there's not a ton of upside left for him to attain.

 

[L K]

3. Key young players, Gardiner, Rielly, Kadri will take the next step. It would be nice to see Frattin join that group.

Frattin will be 27 in January, he's not really that young anymore.  Odds are there's not a ton of upside left for him to attain.

Given his limited pro experience I think it's reasonable to hope for some improvement, but yeah, his improvements at this point are more likely to be in the "more well rounded player" setting, rather than actually being that much better of a player.  His offensive zone awareness might get a tad better, his defensive play might improve, but he's not going to suddenly turn into a 40-50 point winger.

 

[2badknees]

If they can get close to full seasons out of those 3 they'll definitely be a better team than last season.

Definitely tough to peg - but I think after every year that goes by, the odds of Franzen, Datsyuk, Zetterburg playing a full season goes down. Weiss should have a handicapped parking spot at the joe.

They lost Legwand to free agency, Alfredsson was I think their top pointgetter last year? The D is only as good as it is due to Babcock, rather than high end talent, IMO. And I've never been a Howard fan. I think he's been sheltered by a possession system before teams really started figuring it out with all this stats focus.

Love watching the wings, but I think they'll look seriously at moving one or two of those top 3 aging contracts. This would certainly be the draft year to try.

 

[Redleaf]

3. Key young players, Gardiner, Rielly, Kadri will take the next step. It would be nice to see Frattin join that group.

Frattin will be 27 in January, he's not really that young anymore.  Odds are there's not a ton of upside left for him to attain.

Given his limited pro experience I think it's reasonable to hope for some improvement, but yeah, his improvements at this point are more likely to be in the "more well rounded player" setting, rather than actually being that much better of a player.  His offensive zone awareness might get a tad better, his defensive play might improve, but he's not going to suddenly turn into a 40-50 point winger.

I think Frattin might surprise a lot of fans this season. Maybe not the 40-50 point variety of 'surprise', but perhaps the 20-35 range. Especially if he plays with Kadri for any significant amount of time.

I'd like to see a 2nd line of JVR-Kadri-Frattin develop some chemistry.

 

[2badknees]

I think Frattin might surprise a lot of fans this season. Maybe not the 40-50 point variety of 'surprise', but perhaps the 20-35 range. Especially if he plays with Kadri for any significant amount of time.

I think that if he's playing 2nd line minutes with Kadri, and is only on pace to put up 20 points, the only surprise to me would be why he wouldn't be on waivers. 

 

[Kin]

I think that if he's playing 2nd line minutes with Kadri, and is only on pace to put up 20 points, the only surprise to me would be why he wouldn't be on waivers.

Almost regardless of how many points he puts up it's not a good sign for the team if he goes from being the 12th/13th forward on the Kings to being a top 6 player for the Leafs.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

I'll be pretty surprised if Frattin plays over 30 games this season. He'll be in the pressbox for most of the year.

 

[freer]

With the guys the leafs brought in I would be surprised if Frattin makes the team. This is IMO

 

[Kin]

They lost Legwand to free agency, Alfredsson was I think their top pointgetter last year?

Legwand was only there for 21 games and Alfredsson was only their top point getter by virtue of his being one of the only forwards to play close to a full season(and he might be back anyway).

It's weird to think about because of the remaining presence of guys like Datsyuk, Zetterberg and Franzen but the Red Wings have a pretty young group of forwards that are pushing towards the forefront of the club. Tatar is 23, Nyquist is 25, Sheahan is 22, Jurco is 21.

So even if their older players break down I think that there's quite a bit of reason to think that more of that load could be carried by their younger players. Certainly enough of it to think that the loss of Legwand/Alfredsson doesn't really make the team worse.