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Nik the Trik said:Things I'm sure about:
X-Matthews-Marner
X-Nylander-Kapanen
X-Kadri-Brown
X-X-X
Gardiner-Zaitsev
Rielly-X
X-X
Andersen
X
Everything else is negotiable.
herman said:Are there any young Matt Niskanen type defense in UFA this year? He was more the type of player I think the Leafs could conceivably make a pitch for, and kind of the characteristic opposite to Shattenkirk.
Lower goal scoring = cheaper, but defensively sound puck mover (i.e. Who I hope Zaitsev will be long term).
herman said:Are there any young Matt Niskanen type defense in UFA this year? He was more the type of player I think the Leafs could conceivably make a pitch for, and kind of the characteristic opposite to Shattenkirk.
CarltonTheBear said:herman said:Are there any young Matt Niskanen type defense in UFA this year? He was more the type of player I think the Leafs could conceivably make a pitch for, and kind of the characteristic opposite to Shattenkirk.
Brendan Smith is probably the closest there is:
Good skater, but basically no threat offensively. Could form a good 2nd pairing with Rielly to help get his shots against numbers down or with Carrick to get a stabilizing 3rd pairing.
cabber24 said:Karl Alzner would be high on my wish list. Not flashy but has a lot of what the Leafs need. Minute crunching defensively sound D-man.
His career does consist of 2 games... he plays close to 20 minutes most night and is usually quite dependable.CarltonTheBear said:cabber24 said:Karl Alzner would be high on my wish list. Not flashy but has a lot of what the Leafs need. Minute crunching defensively sound D-man.
He was quite possibly their worst defencemen through 2 games and the team was almost definitely better off with Nate Schmidt in the line-up over him.
cabber24 said:His career does consist of 2 games... he plays close to 20 minutes most night and is usually quite dependable.
CarltonTheBear said:I know that this won't exactly be popular, and no I'm not basing it entirely on his performance in the playoffs, but I really think that trading Zaitsev for a quality left-winger might be something that the Leafs should look into this offseason. I don't think that we'll get as lucky as New Jersey did with Larsson for Hall, but if we can get anything close to that it's something we should at the very least explore. I'm also just not convinced that his value will ever be higher than it is right now.
I will add the one condition being obviously that we need somebody to replace his minutes on the right side for next season if we want to still compete. But since this is an armchair GM thread I'm going to armchair GM.
-Trade Zaitsev for 'mystery top-6 left winger for Matthews'
-Sign Shattenkirk and Brendan Smith
-Clear cap space where necessary, starting with Bozak. While his play has absolutely won me over, I think his value too is at the highest it will ever be
-If we end up losing Martin in the expansion draft or trading him, I'd bring back Boyle for the 4C
-*shudders* bring back Hunwick. If it's a cheap deal, the extra depth can't hurt. I just hope he doesn't get guaranteed minutes again
(Zaitsev)-Matthews-Marner
Leipsic-Nylander-Kapanen
Komarov-Kadri-Brown
Hyman-Boyle-Soshnikov
Leivo
Gardiner-Shattenkirk
Rielly-Smith
Marincin-Carrick
Hunwick
Andersen
CarltonTheBear said:-Trade Zaitsev for 'mystery top-6 left winger for Matthews'
-Sign Shattenkirk and Brendan Smith
Nik the Trik said:I have two problems here. One, and I've said this before, I think scoring wingers are probably where you can best use the UFA market. Using a commodity like Zaitsev in search of one seems like a bad use of assets.
Two, I think you're almost certainly paying a heavy premium for defensemen on that market. I think Shattenkirk is better than we saw in this series but I think we have to be realistic about the fact that signing him probably means committing to pay him in the area of 7 million a year for his 34-36 seasons.
CarltonTheBear said:I think that my general feeling here is that if we're going to use the UFA market to improve our team we have to accept that whoever we get is almost certainly going to be overpaid. That's just how that market works. So I'd rather overpay for a top-3 defenceman than a top-6 forward.
Nik the Trik said:That's sort of my point though. I think there's lots of evidence that you can use the Free Agent market to add a scoring winger without paying a huge price(Justin Williams, for instance) and there's not much to suggest the same with top 3 defensemen.