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I forgot about Mermis. Of course it’s sort of easy to given that he’s 31 and has 78 career NHL games.
Obviously not sure, but I’m thinking depth-wise, the Leafs have
RHD
Tanev
Carlo
Ekman-Larsson
Myers
Benning <– almost forgot about him
RifaiLHD
Rielly
McCabe
Benoit
Thrun
Mermis
WebberOEL is not a RHD. He’s a LHD who plays on the right side. And poorly. He shouldn’t be on the right side except if it’s on the PP. The Leafs knew this which is why they signed Hak but that didn’t pan out.
The Leafs RHD situation, as always, is poor. Tanev is 35+ and on a Cup winner, he’s a great 2nd pair guy. But he’s not Seth Jones. Not even close. Carlo, when Boston was great, was on the 3rd pair. It’s a shame he plays such a timid game for his size because he could be a force if he played with snarl. But he doesn’t. It’s a big problem made even bigger with the fact that Rielly is a pylon defensively.
This Leafs blueline may have already peaked last year because it’s going to be very old and very bad, very soon with next to nothing in the pipeline to make that better. By time Danford is in the NHL full time, half the guys on our blueline will be retired or on Robidas Island.
Right. OEL is an LHD – and his best results were on the left-side. Benoit being left-handed and having his best results on the right-side is just one of those things.
In terms of Carlo – in 2022-23 the Boston Bruins had the 4th best points percentage of any team in NHL history. Carlo was principally paired with Lindholm in 2nd pair duties; he was very effective. That same pairing was the Bruins best pairing in the playoffs against Florida. He is a perfectly fine top-4 defenseman and has proven so on one of the best teams in over a century. His 5v5 ice time was lower than some of the other pairings but he led the team in penalty killing ice time so his distribution was affected that way.
You can’t really compare Jones to Carlo – they play entirely different roles. Jones had an effective playoff paired with Mikkola. Mikkola gave Jones freedom and he was good with that room – but don’t start thinking Jones is a defensive stalwart. He had a good couple of months playing beside a monster of a man who was allowed, because of the NHL playoffs, to commit a lot more infractions than would normally be tolerated. Jones did excel in his minutes and I won’t take that away from him, but in the regular season with Florida where the rules are just called normally, Jones was really mediocre – which is where he’s been for the past several seasons.
Carlo’s role is to provide a similar amount of freedom to his partner – who is unfortunately Rielly. I’ll agree that Carlo isn’t nasty enough but he uses size effectively down low and Rielly both didn’t do enough to make use of that freedom afforded to him nor did he do anything to contribute to the defensive requirements of his pairing. He had an awful and an awful second round against Florida.
That would be nice. At this point he looks like a guy who’ll compete with Myers and Mermis as a potential call up if someone gets hurt and who costs a bit less than Reeves to play with the Marlies
I forgot about Mermis. Of course it’s sort of easy to given that he’s 31 and has 78 career NHL games.
Obviously not sure, but I’m thinking depth-wise, the Leafs have
RHD
Tanev
Carlo
Ekman-Larsson
Myers
Benning <– almost forgot about him
RifaiLHD
Rielly
McCabe
Benoit
Thrun
Mermis
WebberI highly doubt he’s the next Benoit unless it’s in context of a guy nobody knew that turned out solid. He’s a puck moving defenseman that hasn’t been able to do that very effectively in the NHL yet.
He could be just a piece going elsewhere, in a bigger trade. All of this smoke about Karlsson coming over from Pittsburgh could be a prerequisite to a larger transaction. I’m not convinced that Karlsson is the answer. If he reverts to his Norris Trophy mode, then maybe. But he’s on the wrong side of 30, so I wouldn’t bet on this occurring.
I couldn’t imagine Karlsson being a solution here. His $10m salary isn’t manageable – even if you could move Rielly out, that’s a $2.5m increase on the blueline that should be allocated up front. Pittsburgh does have all of their retention slots but . . we don’t have the assets to pay them for a Karlsson or have them retain – at least not the 25% we’d want.
If you look at Karlsson’s impact to his team the last 3 years, it is beneficial to some degree – like Pittsburgh was -33 when he was off the ice last year and -5 with him; the year prior they were +6 with him and +1 without him. San Jose three years ago he was even at 5v5 while his team was -50. But he’s going into his age 36 season.
Still if you compare Karlsson relative impact to his teams over the past three years, he has had a positive impact (his GF% has been 48%, 52% and 50% over the past three years, while his teams without him on the ice have been 41%, 50% and 37%). Contrast that with Rielly and you have Rielly’s GF% of 51%, 54% and 51% compared to the team without him on the ice being 58%, 55% and 59%. It’s a pretty decent argument that Rielly’s contribution as a puck mover has not been beneficial for quite some time.
That being said – and it really should be noted because it’s important – when the important games come around, Rielly’s GF% in the playoffs has been 50%, 67% and 76% – compared to the team’s GF% without him being 48%, 42% and 30%. Entering his age 32 season, the diminishing results in the playoffs could be an age-related trend or just role-based. He’s still had a beneficial presence in the playoffs. Karlsson hasn’t seen the playoffs since 2019. The closest he’s seen anything was the 4 Nations Cup where he was 83% GF and his team was 43% without him (put simply, he was 5-1 GF/GA, and Sweden was 3-4 GF/GA when he was off the ice).
So while I wouldn’t strongly advocate to get Karlsson, I would actually say that he’d be an improvement over Rielly in the season and probably still an asset in the playoffs.
Which blog are we using on this site? Lol
I get what you’re saying tho senstroll, I know Marner is a superstar passer but I honestly don’t think a healthy Matthews needs one either. Give him a powerhouse net crasher which he has in Knies and a decent top six passer who isn’t an all star and Auston will be just fine.
Yup.
Mitch Marner is an elite puck distributor but he doesn’t create room – in fact he sort of causes lanes to get closed because defenders expect him to try and find a clean passing lane. Matthew Knies is on his way to becoming a top level space creator – he can use his physical size and strength to battle low which will often draw more than one defender to his vicinity. Matthews has shown his ability to get lost in the play – which all elite goal scorers do – he doesn’t need to be in the cross crease lane to get those passes; he’ll find a soft pocket. He has more in common with Brett Hull that way than he does with Ovechkin. If Maccelli can complete a pass – or even Domi – and Matthews is healthy again, they should be okay. They will miss Marner, but ideally not as much as some seem to think.
Finally saw someone post about this question I asked a while ago.
Marner is worth about 5-6 standings points roughly. career high 7.5, if you believe in Standing points measurements (like WAR)Matthews was way down last season (even with MM on the team)
AM having a bounce back season would make up most of that gap, alonethe response I expect is, AM will never get close to 60-70 goals without MM… and thats dumb.
I dont think he would score 60 again even with MM on the team, no player has 3, 60 goal seasons anymore
in the 50s I see that happeningWith a few more tweaks and maybe a nice tdl addition, the Leafs are no worse off come playoff time..imo
It’s sort of two-fold – there have been 6 times the 60 goal mark has been hit since salary cap was instituted (Stamkos, Ovechkin, McDavid, Pastrnak and Matthews x 2)- and only 43 times in all of hockey history by 23 players.
In the captain obvious column, there’s a correlation between goals scored in a season and the number of higher scorers – and scoring is still up. Like here’s a brief history of average goals / season in the nhl:
Now here’s a test:
(It says it supports BBCodes. it does not. Here’s a shitty unformatted table to replace the one I’d tried:)
Year Average Goals Leading Scorer
2024 247 52
2023 253 69
2022 258 64
2021 255 60
2020 237 41 ** Shortened by COVID to 56 games, this prorates to 60
2019 244 48 ** Shortened by COVID to 70 games, this prorates to 56
2018 244 51
2017 240 49
2016 223 44
2015 219 50
2014 218 53
2013 219 51It’s not always 1:1 but there’s a pretty strong correlation there between average team goals >250 and the league having a 50 goal scorer. Last year at 247 trended downwards, but the league’s best goalscorer trended downwards. If Matthews had an average season he probably bounces the league average up 1 all be himself. The league’s best player also struggled with his linemates a little and didn’t create a goal machine or be a goal machine either. My personal challenge with era-adjusted scoring is that it sort of ignores the rising tide raises all boats sort of thing – Gretzky and Lemieux alone drove scoring in the NHL. They weren’t a product of it they were a cause. Look at how league scoring drops when they were retired or aging. We see that now with McDavid, MacKinnon and Matthews driving up numbers across the board.
In conclusion, I think Matthews can do it again because he is that good at it and the league is still sustaining it.
Leafs ship Reaves to Sharks, acquire Thrun
nice ????
Like – none of us know Thrun from a hole in the wall, I don’t think – but he has represented the US in the U17, U18, U20 (WJC) and the World Championship. He’s 6’2 / 190, so maybe a little sleight of build, but at 24 he’s better than just getting a contract dump which is what I would have expected.
There is a lot of talk about the trade market “heating up” due to the weaker UFA class – but I am still not sure what our assets really are nor what their value is.
Like Cowan has higher value and I think Hildeby and Akhtyamov have more value than most Leaf fans would expect – but I think Danford, Koblar and Hopkins probably have less value than we’d expect because they’re projects. The only other prospect who was drafted in the top 3 rounds that we have in the system is Moldenhauer, and I think his value is all but gone.
From that pretty shallow pool you have a 2026 3rd, 5th and San Jose’s 6th. A 2027 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and Philly’s 6th. All picks in 2028.
I read that the Leafs would be in on McCann but I don’t know with what asset capital in order to be competitive.
Too much tax talk, but also much better than usual in here! <thumbsup>
How ’bout a serious discussion on the two/three elements left for the Leafs to crush it next season:
Knies, Matthews, ??Roslovic?? (Domi)
?Marcelli? Robertson?, Tavares, Nylander
McMann, Roy, Marcelli/Domi/Roslovic?
Lorentz, Laughton, PezzMcCabe, Tanev
Rielly, Carlo
Benoit, OEL
MyersStolarz
Woll1RW = ? (Domi IMO)
2LW = ?
3/4LD = ?I kinda believe if Leafs can dump Rielly and upgrade that LD position, the Leafs’ D is solid as fuck. Better than it’s been in a long, long, time. (If Rielly stays it will still survive, the D was the least of our problems last season). So who is a skull crushing LD the Leafs could trade for???
I think the forward group is only a 2LW away from solid but you could make the argument for a 1RW, P Kane would’ve been so good there…Domi or Marccelli(sp?) can fill that role well enough…I’m feeling Domi will do really well there. So who is the 2LW???
Is Pezz the 13th forward?
is there a market for these two: Kampf and Jornkrok what a realistic trade proposal?Anaheim is below the cap floor at the moment. You could unload Kampf and Jarnkrok for future considerations easily enough – especially Jarnkrok now. He’s in his final year and his signing bonus has been paid, so he’s only owed $775k. Kampf also had his signing bonus paid, but he has 2 years left, so you’d still be on the nut for all of his $2.4m next year – but only $1.075m this year.
I do think there are teams that could definitely upgrade their bottom-6 with those guys, but who are we getting now? We didn’t bother to upgrade our bottom-6 with anyone and Pezzetta . . . let’s say that his enthusiasm overshadows his ungoodness. He could bring some energy to the 4th line, though; I’d just be surprised if he gets more than 40 games.
Too much tax talk, but also much better than usual in here! <thumbsup>
How ’bout a serious discussion on the two/three elements left for the Leafs to crush it next season:
Knies, Matthews, ??? (Domi)
???, Tavares, Nylander
McMann, Roy, Marcelli/Domi
Lorentz, Laughton, PezzMcCabe, Tanev
???, Carlo
Benoit, OEL
MyersStolarz
Woll1RW = ? (Domi IMO)
2LW = ?
3/4LD = ?I kinda believe if Leafs can dump Rielly and upgrade that LD position, the Leafs’ D is solid as fuck. Better than it’s been in a long, long, time. (If Rielly stays it will still survive, the D was the least of our problems last season). So who is a skull crushing LD the Leafs could trade for???
I think the forward group is only a 2LW away from solid but you could make the argument for a 1RW, P Kane would’ve been so good there…Domi or Marccelli(sp?) can fill that role well enough…I’m feeling Domi will do really well there. So who is the 2LW???
I’m pretty sure Maccelli was gotten to be in the top-6 as a Marner-lite replacement. I think Treliving is looking for another top-6 forward but if he fails, my suspicion is that Domi gets that look. Then he should still be seeking to bolster that third line with a properly complimentary checking forward.
With Rielly . . .the simple way I look it is that the problem with defenseman who can’t play defense is always that they can’t play defense. But how much are they giving you in that trade off? Like Jake Gardiner had one year where the trade off was wonderful (I think he was third pairing with Carrick or something like that) – but most other years were absolutely terrible. In the end it wasn’t a trade off anyone wanted to be making.
You take a guy like Bouchard and look at his xG with a star partner like Ekholm and you can see that his xGF and xGA differential was 3.26 – 2.22; when he was with Kulak it was 2.95 – 2.17. Bouchard is exceptionally offensive with poor defensive skills – and he is very puck reliant (ie, if he has the puck he’s pretty good, but without it, we see how bad he is).
Now compare that to Rielly with Carlo and you see 2.91 – 2.07, which is very similar to Bouchard with Kulak. Rielly with Tanev was 2.77 – 1.92 which makes sense when you consider that Tanev is more defensive but less offensive. It would be great if we had a guy like Ekholm, but that was definitely Ken Holland’s masterpiece in Edmonton. It was a brilliant trade.
It’s something we know, but if you had just guys like Tanev, for instance – lots of blocked shots, lots of closed lanes but not a ton of puck retrieval or zone exit passes. Guys like Morgan Rielly – as much as he drives me crazy, too, are a necessary evil. So you insulate them with a guy like Carlo and I think you can potentially maximize their value.
I say this because I have to remind myself of this all the time. Morgan Rielly drives me fucking crazy.
In the above hypothetical, you are letting the old GM of the leafs, Marner and Matthews off the hook. JT’s contract as an FA shouldnt have increased Marner and Matthews second contract as much as it apparently did. Even with JT as 11, neither matthews or marner were worth over 10 per….they simply hadnt won anything…granted neither did JT, but he was an FA and apparently turned down 13millies elsewhere.
Dubas just did a horrible job negotiating the contracts; Marner should have signed for 8, matthews 9.5 for the term they signed. The money they got should have come with an 8 year term. Then we wouldnt be in this situation now.
Willy was 7.4…reduced to 6.9 because he sat out.
Marner at 8
Matthews at 9.5I think the playoff results would have been different with the extra cap.
Ifs and butts…ah well.I’m not so much letting anyone off the hook – but in terms of economy of scale, which is used comparatively as well – as soon as the Leafs were willing to pay Tavares $11m, it changed all comparative metrics. It should be noted that Rantanen signed his deal two weeks after Marner for $9.25m, so calling Marner a $9m or $9.5m player at the time is fair by those metrics – and saying that Matthews was a $10m player is also fair by the same comparative measure.
Dubas overpaid Tavares and it directly led to the prices for the other high-end players increasing as a result. I recall that initially Marner was expected to go $8m x 8 and Matthews was $10m x 8 – neither of which happened. Now whether either of those numbers were ever true or not, I don’t know, but it was widely reported at the time – but whether those reports were projections/expectations or actual leaks, I really couldn’t say and obviously don’t recall.
