[monkeypunk]

thats fine, more just looking at the overall impact of losing Marner and getting another different player. insert whoever you want

~senstrolltwo

You’re asking a simple question that does require a slightly complex answer, though. I think you want the simple answer that of course they will be worse if Marner leaves – he’s a star player. On the surface it’s true, but it’s not about Marner – it’s about the whole of the team and what you make of it.

Losing Marner and replacing him with Ehlers is probably not a substantial difference – maybe a -6 point swing. But it’s what they do with the other money they are saving that makes the difference.

If they are truly looking to change their identity and both Berube and Treliving are on the same page, then getting guys like Bennett and Marchand make that happen – and I couldn’t predict the point swing variation from it. Older but more competitive. Tougher but less skilled. Less soft but more irritating.

At the end of the day if the forwards on this team are changed up where more than 50% of them win more than 50% of the puck battles, then you have a team that is better suited for the playoffs. When Jarnkrok, Kampf, Domi, Robertson, Marner, Matthews, Nylander, Tavares and Holmberg are losing more battles than they’re winning, you have a problem.

If you swap out Jarnkrok, Kampf, Robertson, Marner and Holmberg for guys who win more puck battles than they lose, you can easy absorb and support the other 4 guys (and it should be noted that a healthy Matthews wins more battles than he loses, but this year was hopefully a statistical outlier) losing battles.

[monkeypunk]

Here is a question
Lets say the Leafs now with Marner are a 105 point team. pretty much last season, a few less

How many points do the Leafs have in 2025-26 if..
-they dont re-sign marner and dont replace him
-replace him with Bennett
-replace with player of your choice (name them)

I guess it depends on what you’re looking at and how you’re looking at it. Marner both drives play and kills penalties. Bennett doesn’t kill penalties, but he did have a much higher Created xGoals – so he’s in the right places, doing the right things. I feel that if you could mix him in with Tavares and Nylander, you’ve made your second line a very dangerous line. With a healthy Matthews, it would be a resurgence, even with Marner gone – but Domi could offer a shadow of what Marner brought. You could seek out an Ehlers or a Boeser, but I’d much rather be targeting Marchand and other guys to recreate the bottom-6 with more compete and more defensive acumen to help improve the PK as a whole.

The area I’d see improvement is that you can improve the areas you can’t today due to dollar allocation which affects a larger percentage of the overall game (ie, Marner is on the ice for 33% of the game, but the other 67% does suffer as a result of the lack of rounded talent out there).

[monkeypunk]

I agree, Johnston was horrid defensively but I’d rather have him as a trading chip than N. Robertson or Jarnkrok, especially if it were able to facilitate being able to bring in high quality reinforcements like Rantanen.
~UG

Sure – but Johnston was drafted 23rd – noting that the Leafs since 2021 held the 25th, 25th, 25th, 23rd (traded down) and will have the 25th spot again this year. As we’ve noted, they haven’t done a good job of getting value for their 1st round picks that they’ve traded, but they have seemingly found some value in their later picks – Danford, Cowan, Minten, Hildeby, Grebenkin, Knies – maybe even Akhtyamov all have NHL potential – that’s largely since 2021. Setting aside the tragedy with Amirov, the 2020 draft was disappointing – to have made 12 picks and have none of them turn out (save maybe Akhtyamov) is terrible.

This all being said – the guy we hired to be our new Director of Amateur Scouting, Mark Leach, comes from Dallas.

[monkeypunk]

Tampa Bay and Carolina do much better at the draft table than the Leafs. Winnipeg, not so much. But it usually shows up on the ice which is why Tampa Bay has won Cups and Carolina goes deep often.
~UG

With all due respect to the Carolina Hurricanes, and bearing mind that the Leafs failures are evident – but also tell the tale of their path – the Eastern team in the Stanley Cup final has been from the Atlantic Division every year since 2019. The Atlantic is a gauntlet – Boston, then Tampa and now Florida have all been powerhouses. Would Jim Nill have managed the Leafs into surpassing any of them? I don’t know. A lot of the Stars players did not have an answer for both the Oilers speed and their physicality. Wyatt Johnson had an exceptionally awful playoff. Did you know that the -16 he and Duchene both had is the worst playoff +/- since they started tracking it (Paul Reinhart had a -16 to tie this auspicious mark in 1982-83).

[monkeypunk]

Incorrect.

This is exactly what happens when the only impact players the franchise is capable of drafting is lottery picks.

If this Leafs team was constructed by Jim Nill, it would have all the superstar players along with drafted, developed depth players.
~Unholy_Goalie

Noting that Jim Nill has been the GM of Dallas for 12 years and they have not only won nothing, they have missed the playoffs in 4 of those years. I like Dallas – I think they are an excellent hockey team.

I also like the teams and style of Tampa, Carolina and Winnipeg – and just like the Leafs, none are playing.

Typically Nill has held onto his picks and he’s drafted well – although his second round picks have worked out better than a lot of his first round picks; you have Robertson, Hintz and I guess Stankoven (I’m not a huge fan of his, but he was used in the Rantanen acquisition, so hard to argue he had value) – but then you had higher picks like Honka, Gurianov, Tufte, Dellandrea and so on that really – for where they were picked – should have hit.

Maybe if he’d landed on those Dallas would’ve won a cup by now, instead of being curb stomped by Edmonton in 5.

[monkeypunk]

No 1st round picks until 2028
Outside of Cowan, no real high prospects (maybe danforth?)
The player who leads in point most year in reg season, but doesnt show up when it counts in games 5-7 is probably walking for free.
Captain is pretty soft, often injured during the playoffs and doesnt seem to hate to lose.
A bunch of ok FA’s who are gonna want to be overpaid this offseason.

Leafs look………………….like the leafs.
~Fakepartofme

Yet they took the reigning Cup champs to game 7. They laid an egg, but it’s not like Florida didn’t just dummy Tampa and Carolina taking both out in 5.

By all accounts the team’s top scorer, who most here are adamant absolutely sucks in the playoffs, is leaving – and sure it’s for nothing (and the guy responsible has already been shown the door), but what if Matthews played with some grit or tenacity on his line? What if Tavares or Nylander had some toughness or battle on their line? Options will present themselves here and if Treliving wants to make the team different, this is the chance to do just that.

A 1st round pick today isn’t likely to make an impact on this roster until 2029. Knies did in 3 years, but he really is an exception.

I don’t like losing Marner for nothing, but this is the cost of going for it. I’d rather they pushed their chips in rather than sit on the sidelines and collect prospects.

[monkeypunk]

Laughton didn’t do a single thing that every other 4th line guy couldn’t do. You can pick those guys up for $2M – $3M on July 16th. It was a terrible overpay.

~Wedgie

I’m not judging the trade until this upcoming season is done. Laughton has long been touted as a leader who leads by example and off the ice. Tortorella has nothing but good things to say about him, and he’s not typically the complimenting type. Whether he never found his footing here or his role or his linemates, I don’t know – but I’d like to give him another year before that 1st rounder is considered a waste of a pick. At this point if we’re spending draft picks, I like the idea of paying to acquire term and retention.

For two months of O’Reilly and Acciari they gave up a 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, Gaudette and Abramov; for eleven games of Foligno they gave up a 1st and 2 4ths.

I’m not saying that makes the Laughton look any better right now – a bad trade is a bad trade, even if there are worse ones – but I am saying that Laughton still has time here to make that trade worthwhile.

[monkeypunk]

Thing is, trying to trade Marner only after his no-trade clause kicked in was a waste of time. I don’t blame Tre for it, it’s all on Shanahan, but once he was stuck with him, I guess he did overpay on the short term trades to make sure he’d have one last chance at winning with the “core 4”.

I did like the Carlo trade though, that’s a useful player moving forward regardless of the cost.
~Scabeh

I didn’t really mind either one, to be honest. They got 50% retention on Laughton, got him for two years and they gave up a late 1st – which I know does have value. You get, typically, about a 60% hit rate on late first round picks. There’s a 20% and 15% hit rate on 4th and 6th round picks. Granted the quality of the player and their ceilings are typically quite different. The best 6th round pick in recent memory was Connor Brown. Holmberg was down in that 6th/7th round area, too – but if contrast that with Easton Cowan, taken 27th, you’re getting a very different calibre of player.

Frankly I didn’t think – and still don’t think – that Laughton was a problem in the playoffs. Saddling him and Lorentz with Jarnkrok, who was bloody awful, was a problem. Taking your less talented players and handicapping them sure isn’t going to help. That said, and being honest, if you’re paying a 1st rounder, you want a guy who is contributing more than Laughton did. Hopefully the second year at $1.5m makes that payment worth it. Frankly, given how badly he struggled, you wonder if putting McMann down on the 4th line with Laughton and Lorentz wouldn’t have created a better cycle and potentially generated some offense. Lord knows McMann wasn’t doing anything anywhere else.

The Carlo trade, similar to you, I like. You get him for 2 more years, he’s retained to a shade under $3.5m and you’re giving up a pretty solid prospect in Minten, a 1st and a 4th. It seems like fair value.

[monkeypunk]

I did like the trade proposal I saw the other day.
Karlson for Kampf + 2025 2nd rnd pick (FLA) + 3rd rnd pick either 2025 (COL) or 2026 (Leafs).
This would mean Marner is gone.
I’d like the to go after Tanev but he will cost at least 3~4M on a 4 year deal.
kinda expensive for a bottom 6 player.
I’d definitely would bring back Lorentz. 2yrs @ 900K per
~dmnted

I am of the opinion that Tanev is a $2m / year guy. 6 years ago, Rutherford got a hard-on for a 14 goal guy who played 14 minutes / night and overpaid him @ $3.5m. He’s a phenomenal worker and he’s tenacious and he’s exactly what any bottom-6 would want – but he had 10 goals and 12 assists in a full season and turns 34 at the end of this year. You’re buying his twilight years and those should be discounted, I would imagine.

[monkeypunk]

Marchand on the Leafs…. Are you trying to make me hate the Leafs more?

~Scabeh

You definitely would. What them go full bastard and sign Cousins, too. Just throw their hat in the “Someone’s always gonna be suspended!” ring.

But I look at Edmonton and I think it’s been guys like Keith and Perry who showed the team what it really took to win. Guys who have been there and done it before lead the way. The Leafs need that from someone – or someones. In their past they’ve had Hainsey and I guess Muzzin who were sort of their guys who’d been there and could lead that way. The other guys they had to lead them – Thornton, Marleau, Spezza, Simmonds, Foligno – they’d all won nothing. I suppose they had O’Reilly as well, but I never got the feeling they put him a leadership role as much as they should have.

[monkeypunk]

The question is who on that list changes the “DNA” of the group AND makes us better. Because Tree needs to do both. I don’t envy him.

~fifty mission cap

I’ve said this recently, and I believe it – I don’t think you replace Marner. The point here is that this is a team that loses too many 50/50 battles for pucks. They lose on the boards. Those lose in front of their net. They lose in front of the opposition’s net. The DNA here, in my opinion, is that there’s too much soft and not enough compete.

Now if I had my way we’d be moving on from Marner, Robertson, Jarnkrok, Kampf and Patches. If they could get Rielly to waive, I’d do that, too – but replacing him would be difficult, because no matter how lousy he is at defense, you still need some puck movement and skating up the ice.

The guys *I’d* want to target are Bennett, Marchand, Suter, Tanev; I’d see it as Knies-Matthews-Domi; Tavares/Marchand-Bennett-Nylander; Tavares/Marchand-Suter-McMann; Lorentz-Laughton-Tanev. There’s still pop in the top-6, but you add compete and more 50/50 puck battles won and the bottom-6 gains some offensive traction on the 3rd line with defensive awareness and lots of puck battle in that mix. There are a lot of names in the bottom-6 mix which can help a team – Smith is a favourite of mine; I like Roslovic and I appreciate the speed of Mangiapane or Granlund. There are ways to remake parts of this team in ways that compliment the key pieces. Marchand is a guy that I would absolutely target because you need a voice that knows how to win and what it takes to win and can still lead by example. He’d be my #1 target if I were Treliving.

Does that change the “DNA”? I don’t know – but they need less passivity, and they’re just carrying too much of it with both Mitch and Willy.

[monkeypunk]

then why would he take a discount knowing the market is thin? out of the goodness of his heart? many teams will be calling his agent for his services.

~Yes its me 2050

Specifically because he does want to be here. It was reported that as long as the offer is in the ballpark they can work to get it to where it’s fair. If the Leafs come in at $1m or Tavares comes in at $8m, then they probably don’t get something done – but the general feeling was that something centered around a $4-5m AAV as a starting point would be good. People will talk him at $2m which is preposterous and some will talk about him at $7.5m – which is probably where the market would value him (from Stamkos setting the bar).

[monkeypunk]

If #1 happens, the Leafs are fucked. You can play “money puck” with depth. You can’t replace Marner. Matthews gets worse, Knies gets worse, the PP gets worse. I’ve been asking this question for weeks, can anybody name the team that lost their #1 point scorer as a UFA and won a Cup after? Has that ever happened? Is that common? I think we just witnessed what happens when you try to win a Cup with a team like Carolina because that’s what happens when you try to replace a star (Rantanen) with spare parts and go up against Florida.

I’m not choosing to get rid of Marner, I’m of the opinion that he has no interest in returning and I’m further of the opinion that the Leafs have little interest in him taking up nearly 15% of the cap. The problem isn’t solely Marner, it’s general construction when you have too many guys providing too few 50/50 wins – Marner, Matthews, Nylander, Domi, Tavares, Rielly, Robertson, Holmberg – and the guys they were paying specifically to win those types of battles in Kampf and Jarnkrok – all lost way more than they won.

You continue to be of the opinion that an NMC isn’t an obstacle but it can be. That list of assumptions is based on logical expectation – Rielly, Nylander and Matthews all have NMCs. Would it be preferable to trade Nylander and keep Marner? Maybe – but it would be difficult, probably not return a fair return, and continue to keep too much high end imbalance against the cap. At some point it’s not about 1 player. It’s about reconstructing the team to win more of those battles. So if you need top-end talent to go and you need to throw out some of the low-end guys who also aren’t cutting it and you end up losing Marner, Tavares, Robertson, Holmberg, Jarnkrok and Kampf and bring in guys who win pucks – like Marchand, Smith, Bennett, Tanev and Suter – you’re better off for it. If Tavares is affordable, he presents decent offense – especially if he has someone on his line who can provide physicality and win pucks – so I don’t discount him returning, because he has value.

If #2 happens, the Leafs are extra fucked. Tavares is not worth a dime more than 2 million. Why? Because he’s so useless defensively, you’d need to spend another 5+ million to put him with players that compensate for his defensive ineptitude.

This is where a Sam Bennett comes in. Yeah, Tavares does suck defensively – but most of it comes from having him not play centre. Put him on the wing where he can perform a decent role and give him someone who will win pucks and be physical and both he and Nylander would benefit. It’s like having Pacioretty on steroids.

Does he want to come here? Word is that Bennett has only two destinations in mind – Florida and Toronto. So yeah, there’s a chance. Similarly with Marchand – he wants an east coast contender, so he can play at a high level and be near family. Toronto, Florida and Tampa would all fit that bill nicely for him.

#3 is an overpayment. Leafs can’t afford to give him that much, that soon. Give me a 3 year bridge deal. If he proves he’s worth big money, give him Domi’s cap hit when his contract expires.

#4 is also an overpayment. The home town kids have to stay at league minimum. Lorentz was offensively useless in the playoffs. Leafs need to keep these 4th liners under 1 million.

Knies is coming in over $7m and has earned it. $7.5m is the new $6.4m and a 22 year old who just put him 29 goals and 58 points fits into that range. Keller signed for $7.2m coming in with worse numbers – and that equates to $8.4m in a $95.5m cap world.

Lorentz played for $775k last year but he did leave money on the table and while I suspect he’d do so again, he’s a very effective bottom-6 player who can PK very well – among leaf penalty killing forwards, he led the team in both GA/60 and xGA/60. He deserves a raise and he’s a player the team would do well to keep.

#5 absolutely.

#6 hopefully. Perfect example why you can’t give Lorentz 1+ million.

Not really since Kampf played 1 atrocious game, and Lorentz played all 13, and was still the top guy in xGA/60 on the PK. You need role players and you need guys who win battles – Lorentz is both.

Again, I’m sorry, but this is a sad sack of shit of a team with most of the same guys who were big contributors to the reasons this team did not succeed.

McMann had 0 playoff goals. Domi had some great moments in the playoffs but absolutely sucks defensively. He can’t play center. Much less, a shutdown center on the 3rd line.

The 4th line is more of the same garbage. I’ll give Lorentz and Laughton another chance (gave up a 1st rounder and a top prospect for him so we’re stuck with him), but Jarnkrok has done nothing but proven he is completely useless in the playoffs. Another guy with 0 goals, no size, not enough hitting, not good enough when the games matter. Absolute zero interest in bringing him back at 2+ AAV to play as a 4th liner. Send him to Columbus or some place where they’ll be happy just to make the playoffs.

At the end of the day, my post was basically about what you have. If I was remaking the lines, and going with a combination of what I’d like to do combined with the challenges I think they face (like losing Marner), I’d probably think this way:

Knies – Matthews – Domi
Tavares – Bennett – Nylander
Marchand – Faksa/Suter – McMann
Lorentz – Laughton – Tanev

Your top-3 lines all have size, board battle, shooting, net presence and passing. The 4th line is an energy puck hound line. As I said, I want more compete and I want a metric fuckton more 50/50 wins.

[monkeypunk]

The suit looks good, but the hat and shades are cringey cheese

~PDO Speedwagon

Is everyone blind? He looks like Duckie from 16 Candles.

[monkeypunk]

I agree he is dramatic at times, but I have no doubt the leafs were gauging interest in MArner and I have no doubt our core 3 arent as driven as other stars around the league.

~Fakepartofme

I think we know what we see with our eyes and how we feel about it. Here’s the thing I’d have to question – Berube is a take-no-shit coach. He will call out a floater, especially if he needs those buttons pushed. Why didn’t he? He actually doubled down on how much he thought they cared and tried.

I think it’s less about their drive and desire and more about needing an instructor to show them the way. Think about who led these guys? Marleau and Thornton were the shepherds to success. Two guys who won absolutely nothing in the NHL; they did win gold medals in the World Championships or the Olympics, but were largely contributors, not leaders (Thornton did lead Canada to the World Championship gold in the lockout year and led Davos to the Spengler cup in the same year) – and when playing against real NHL peers in the toughest of competition, neither were truly prominent.

Even Tavares, on the Island, had a couple of years of broken down Doug Weight as his mentor, but Weight was largely injured and they didn’t make the playoffs in those years either.

You need someone to show you how and lead the way. Have they really had that? Because if we shouldn’t question their desire and effort, then that has to be it, doesn’t it?

[Author]

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