Armchair GM 2016-2017

[Kin]

It's an interesting idea. I don't know how much it holds up though. In the seven drafts you mention there are/were 9 defensemen taken in the top 5. In the 7 drafts previous to those(2003-2009) there were 10 defensemen taken in the top 5. It's tough to compare as we don't really have a full idea of the newer guys careers but it seems like you have roughly the same percentage of busts/stars/ok players.

Go back another 7 drafts(1996-2002) and again it's roughly the same number of top 5 defensemen(11) but this time it's an absolute trainwreck in terms of quality. It's Jay Bouwmeester as unquestionably the best and then guys like Chris Phillips and Joni Pitkanen. Go back another 7 drafts and there are 12 top 5 defensemen although the quality improves with Niedermayer and Pronger.

So the number of defensemen picked in the top 5 seems pretty consistent. The quality of them too except for the awful 1996-2002 stretch. So changes in the draft seem like a tough sell. I think the value of defensemen is more just about coaches valuing the transition game and realizing how valuable the guys who can skate and play with smarts are. It used to be that the big slow physical guys were just as valued and (maybe) just as valuable. Now that's no longer the case. So the pool of highly sought after defensemen shrank and the guys in it became more sought after.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

Some talk about Nolan Patrick and the draft here yesterday, last week Bob McKenzie released his pre-season rankings for the 2017 draft: http://www.tsn.ca/mckenzie-s-pre-season-ranking-the-nolan-patrick-draft-1.567410

What he wrote on Patrick was interesting:

While some of the scouts surveyed by TSN do not discount Patrick evolving into that role, the consensus view is Patrick is projected more as a second-line NHL centre and doesn't have the same ?wow? factor as McDavid, Eichel and Matthews.

"He's going to be a good, maybe very good, NHL player," one scout said, "but he isn't a dynamic player. His skating isn't bad but he's not dynamic like those others [McDavid, Eichel and Matthews]."

...

Patrick's birthday is Sept. 19, so he was just four days off being eligible for last season's draft. Had he been available last June, where would he slot amongst the best players of a very strong draft class, like Matthews, Patrik Laine, Jesse Puljujarvi and Pierre-Luc Dubois, among others?

The consensus amongst scouts surveyed by TSN is that Patrick wouldn't have displaced any of the top four picks in last year's draft. Depending on the scout, they retroactively rank Patrick anywhere between No. 5 and 10, based on his 2015-16 season.

 

[rdowdall]

It's an interesting idea. I don't know how much it holds up though. In the seven drafts you mention there are/were 9 defensemen taken in the top 5. In the 7 drafts previous to those(2003-2009) there were 10 defensemen taken in the top 5. It's tough to compare as we don't really have a full idea of the newer guys careers but it seems like you have roughly the same percentage of busts/stars/ok players.

Go back another 7 drafts(1996-2002) and again it's roughly the same number of top 5 defensemen(11) but this time it's an absolute trainwreck in terms of quality. It's Jay Bouwmeester as unquestionably the best and then guys like Chris Phillips and Joni Pitkanen. Go back another 7 drafts and there are 12 top 5 defensemen although the quality improves with Niedermayer and Pronger.

So the number of defensemen picked in the top 5 seems pretty consistent. The quality of them too except for the awful 1996-2002 stretch. So changes in the draft seem like a tough sell. I think the value of defensemen is more just about coaches valuing the transition game and realizing how valuable the guys who can skate and play with smarts are. It used to be that the big slow physical guys were just as valued and (maybe) just as valuable. Now that's no longer the case. So the pool of highly sought after defensemen shrank and the guys in it became more sought after.

Although the other way to look at it would be that the price of a top end d-man was always high, and then it could be tied to the draft.  I started looking at Norris winners in the 80's and 90's to see how many switched teams.  All of them did.  Randy Carlyle, Doug Wilson, Paul Coffey, Ray Bourque, Chris Chelios, Rod Langway, Brian Leetch, Al MacInnis, and Chris Pronger were all moved around.  So I looked at the situation around their trades:

Rand Carlyle:  Traded after his second year to the Pens.  Traded from Pens to the Jets in 8th year for a 1st round pick.
Doug Wilson:  Traded at the end of his career.
Paul Coffey:  He was moved a lot.  For a lot of different things at a lot of different times.
Ray Bourque:  Moved at the end of his career
Chris Chelios:  Moved to Chicago in his prime.  However he cost Dennis Savard.  He was traded to Detroit for 2 firsts and Anders Erickson.
Rod Langway:  Traded to Washington before his third year.  Also his Norris wins are a bit of an aberration (IMHO).
Brian Leetch:  Traded near the end.  As Leaf fans we know this.
Al MacInnis: Traded with a 4th to the Blues for Phil Housley and a 2nd. 
Chris Pronger:  Moved around a lot, for a lot of stuff.  Similar to Paul Coffey. 

When you get in to the 2000's you still have a couple of d-men that moved like Chara and Scott Niedermayer, but because Lidstrom won it so much, it's kinda throws this sort of analysis of using the Norris as a guideline in to the iffy category.

However the other part that has an impact is that trades are harder to complete now because of the cap, and also because of the cap you don't have financial problems forcing them to jettison good players at a bargain.  I think if this was still the 90's, Trouba would have a new address by now, and it would probably be the Rangers, or Detroit.   

So perhaps great d-man have always been at a premium, and maybe it's tied to the fact that it's harder to figure them out in the drafting stages.  I mean it does make sense in a way.  You have less of them than forwards.  It's likely the same effect that is seen with goalies. Goalies don't seem to get drafted very high either because they are harder to gauge when they are younger and that could be because the pool is smaller.  Also when you get a good goalie, they don't tend to switch teams in their primes. 

 

[rdowdall]

Some talk about Nolan Patrick and the draft here yesterday, last week Bob McKenzie released his pre-season rankings for the 2017 draft: http://www.tsn.ca/mckenzie-s-pre-season-ranking-the-nolan-patrick-draft-1.567410

What he wrote on Patrick was interesting:

While some of the scouts surveyed by TSN do not discount Patrick evolving into that role, the consensus view is Patrick is projected more as a second-line NHL centre and doesn't have the same ?wow? factor as McDavid, Eichel and Matthews.

"He's going to be a good, maybe very good, NHL player," one scout said, "but he isn't a dynamic player. His skating isn't bad but he's not dynamic like those others [McDavid, Eichel and Matthews]."

...

Patrick's birthday is Sept. 19, so he was just four days off being eligible for last season's draft. Had he been available last June, where would he slot amongst the best players of a very strong draft class, like Matthews, Patrik Laine, Jesse Puljujarvi and Pierre-Luc Dubois, among others?

The consensus amongst scouts surveyed by TSN is that Patrick wouldn't have displaced any of the top four picks in last year's draft. Depending on the scout, they retroactively rank Patrick anywhere between No. 5 and 10, based on his 2015-16 season.

After reading that, if the Leafs have the top pick, then it's the year to go for the best defenceman in the draft.  I would be hesitant of trading the pick and having the team you traded it too picking that d-man.   

 

[Kin]

 
Although the other way to look at it would be that the price of a top end d-man was always high, and then it could be tied to the draft.

*cut*

I have to be honest, I'm not entirely sure where you went on this one. It seems like you're lumping in guys like Bourque and Leetch who got dealt after 15+ years with one team with guys who were traded multiple times in an entirely different era and trying to draw a particular meaning from it. I think it's probably fair to say that elite players at any position have always been highly sought after but what I'm talking about is the price of defensemen relative to forwards. Lots of elite forwards in the 80's and 90's switched teams too so I'm not sure what the contrast is you're seeing.

 

[rdowdall]

 
Although the other way to look at it would be that the price of a top end d-man was always high, and then it could be tied to the draft.

*cut*

I have to be honest, I'm not entirely sure where you went on this one. It seems like you're lumping in guys like Bourque and Leetch who got dealt after 15+ years with one team with guys who were traded multiple times in an entirely different era and trying to draw a particular meaning from it. I think it's probably fair to say that elite players at any position have always been highly sought after but what I'm talking about is the price of defensemen relative to forwards. Lots of elite forwards in the 80's and 90's switched teams too so I'm not sure what the contrast is you're seeing.

I have to be honest as well, as I was going through that exercise, I kinda knew it wasn't going anywhere.  I had put the time in though, so I figured what the hell, I'll post it anyways.

I was trying to come up with a way of assigning an asset cost to defencemen across different times.  After thinking about it a bit, I think that is incredibly hard to do because there are too many variables that go in to trades across the different eras.  For example, is a 1st rounder worth more in the NHL today than it was in the 80's due to more teams currently and the existence of a cap? 

I agree with your premise that defencemen are at a premium in the current NHL due to the shift in philosophies in playing styles and teams trying to build their team makeup around this shift.  However, I think there was a similar shift between the late 80's and the early 90's which saw teams move towards bigger, more physical defencemen to handle the likes of Lemieux, Lindros and Jagr.  So I was trying to see if maybe there was a premium put on d-men during that shift as well.  I thought maybe looking at Norris winners would sort of give an idea of what elite defencemen were being moved for, but as you pointed out, that sort of thing really tells us nothing.  In order to track this sort of thing you would need to look at the types of deals made and by which teams.  This still leads to the problem though that the deals in those days were somewhat influenced by the existence of larger markets being able to use salaries to their advantage.

 

[Highlander]

Interesting thought, if we had left Kessel alone and drafted Sequin and Hamilton, would we have been in a position to draft Matthews now?

 

[Tigger]

Interesting thought, if we had left Kessel alone and drafted Sequin and Hamilton, would we have been in a position to draft Matthews now?

Never mind Rask.

 

[Kin]

Interesting thought, if we had left Kessel alone and drafted Sequin and Hamilton, would we have been in a position to draft Matthews now?

Probably not but that seems like the sort of thing where there's just been too much distance between then and now and so many other moves made that it'd be impossible to say for certain what the team would look like now. I mean, if the team has Kadri/Seguin in the fold do they draft two C's with their first round picks in the '13 and '14 draft? What if that means that instead of Gauthier/Nylander they have Theodore/Ehlers? Or something lousy from both years?

Also, I don't mean to misinterpret the implication here but as excited as we all are for Matthews...I'd still rather have Seguin/Hamilton. Seguin is arguably just behind Crosby as the second best offensive C in the world. I don't know how the rest of you see Matthews but Seguin seems like a fairly reasonable goal for what he could eventually be.

 

[TBLeafer]

Interesting thought, if we had left Kessel alone and drafted Sequin and Hamilton, would we have been in a position to draft Matthews now?

Probably not but that seems like the sort of thing where there's just been too much distance between then and now and so many other moves made that it'd be impossible to say for certain what the team would look like now. I mean, if the team has Kadri/Seguin in the fold do they draft two C's with their first round picks in the '13 and '14 draft? What if that means that instead of Gauthier/Nylander they have Theodore/Ehlers? Or something lousy from both years?

Also, I don't mean to misinterpret the implication here but as excited as we all are for Matthews...I'd still rather have Seguin/Hamilton. Seguin is arguably just behind Crosby as the second best offensive C in the world. I don't know how the rest of you see Matthews but Seguin seems like a fairly reasonable goal for what he could eventually be.

I'd say McDavid is just behind Crosby and he'll show that this season should he stay healthy.  He's better than Seguin.  .PPG+ player in his rookie season when healthy.  Its insane how good you have to be as a regular in the NHL to do that, let alone a rookie.

 

[Kin]

I'd say McDavid is just behind Crosby and he'll show that this season should he stay healthy.  He's better than Seguin.  .PPG+ player in his rookie season when healthy.  Its insane how good you have to be as a regular in the NHL to do that, let alone a rookie.

McDavid might very well vault himself right into the #1 spot this year but I'll need to see him do it over the course of a full season before I put him in that territory. Either way, the difference between Seguin and Crosby the last couple of years(1.08ppg for Crosby to 1.05 for Seguin) is so small that the main point there remains.

 

[TBLeafer]

McDavid might very well vault himself right into the #1 spot this year but I'll need to see him do it over the course of a full season before I put him in that territory. Either way, the difference between Seguin and Crosby the last couple of years(1.08ppg for Crosby to 1.05 for Seguin) is so small that the main point there remains.

Yes it does.

 

[herman]

From the Rakell thread:

FORWARDS

J. Van Riemsdyk ($ 4,250,000) --- T. Bozak ($ 4,200,000) --- M. Marner ($ 894,166)
L. Komarov ($ 2,950,000) --- N. Kadri ($ 4,500,000) --- M. Michalek ($ 4,000,000)
W. Nylander ($ 894,166) --- A. Matthews ($ 925,000) --- Z. Hyman ($ 900,000)
N. Soshnikov ($ 736,666) --- P. Holland ($ 1,300,000) --- C. Brown ($ 686,667)

DEFENCE

H. Lindholm ($ 7,300,000) --- J. Trouba ($ 5,000,000)
M. Rielly ($ 5,000,000) --- N. Zaitsev ($ 925,000)
M. Marincin ($ 1,250,000) --- C. Carrick ($ 750,000)

GOAL

F. Andersen ($ 5,000,000) --- J. Enroth ($ 750,000)

Extras

M. Martin ($ 2,500,000) --- R. Polak ($ 2,250,000) --- M. Hunwick ($ 1,200,000)

2016 NHL Cap Limit: $ 73,000,000
23 Player Roster Cap Used: $ 72,324,165
Cap Buried in the Minors: + $ 5,250,000
Cap Hit from Buyout(s): + $ 683,333
2015 Bonus Overages: + $ 512,000
Cap Retained in Trades : + $ 1,200,000
Long Term Injury Reserve: - $ 8,300,000
Cap Space Available : $ 1,330,502

This looks delectable. I think we're clear of any cap overage issues in the upcoming offseason as well with all that space clearing off from departed/ing UFAs. We might lose Corrado to waivers and maybe Carrick to expansion, but for Lindholm and Trouba, I'm very okay with that.

 

[Kin]

If it's Gardiner+ for Trouba I think that + is going to have to be pretty significant and, assuming we're offer sheeting Lindholm and without draft picks, we're probably saying goodbye to anything high value not in the NHL.

 

[mr grieves]

If it's Gardiner+ for Trouba I think that + is going to have to be pretty significant and, assuming we're offer sheeting Lindholm and without draft picks, we're probably saying goodbye to anything high value not in the NHL.

What do we have of 'high value' not in the NHL? Kapanen, Leipsic, Johnson, Timashov, Bracco, Soshnikov, all have high end potential, but you'd be lucky to get a 15-20g/45-50p, middle-6 NHL regular out of any of them. Gardiner, plus one of them, plus a pick (probably 1st), and we're still not at what WPG wants for Trouba -- and the offer sheet is out.

Maybe the Lindholm offer sheet makes more sense? As noted in the other thread, a Kessel-like move after we've already got Seguin, Hamilton, etc. is not a bad move... and an overloaded LD doesn't matter so much when we're told Rielly likes (prefers?) playing his off-side.

H. Lindholm --- M. Rielly
J. Gardiner --- N. Zaitsev
M. Marincin --- C. Carrick

 

[Kin]

What do we have of 'high value' not in the NHL? Kapanen, Leipsic, Johnson, Timashov, Bracco, Soshnikov, all have high end potential, but you'd be lucky to get a 15-20g/45-50p, middle-6 NHL regular out of any of them. Gardiner, plus one of them, plus a pick (probably 1st), and we're still not at what WPG wants for Trouba -- and the offer sheet is out.

I think that's all true, I don't think Trouba to the Leafs is at all likely, but I suppose the assumption of any discussion around the topic rests on Winnipeg sort of giving up and taking less than they're looking for.

 

[herman]

Rielly likes (prefers?) playing his off-side.

Do you have a reference for this? I've only seen that he plays there out of necessity and that Babcock prefers his defense on their strong sides. While he can handle it, his defensive numbers flag when he's on the right.

Phaneuf preferred playing on his offside and had trouble adjusting.

 

[mr grieves]

Rielly likes (prefers?) playing his off-side.

Do you have a reference for this? I've only seen that he plays there out of necessity and that Babcock prefers his defense on their strong sides. While he can handle it, his defensive numbers flag when he's on the right.

Phaneuf preferred playing on his offside and had trouble adjusting.

Thought I saw it quoted on Twitter, somewhere. Source was of the reputable sort (Mirtle, maybe?).
I'm curious to know whether his defensive numbers flag when he's on the right or when he's on the right, in order to play with Hunwick.

 

[herman]

http://www.pensionplanpuppets.com/2016/8/9/12331450/examining-how-morgan-riellys-partners-affected-him

PPP did a rundown of Rielly's numbers depending on his partner.

The three defensemen that Rielly played the most on his natural side with were Polak, Phaneuf, and Corrado. All three pairings were more offensively potent than any of Rielly's pairings where he played RD (with the exception of Gardiner, who is a total outlier on the Leafs defense in the best possible way). There's not enough data here to say this with certainty (I want to stress that - aside from Hunwick and Marincin, we're looking at pretty small TOI figures), but perhaps for Rielly, the handedness effect manifests itself mostly on the offensive side of the game. I?d like to explore this more in a future piece, because there?s a lot to unpack here. For now, it?s interesting to note how Rielly seemed to be disproportionately affected on offense by playing his off-side. If true, this would reduce the strength of the argument that Rielly?s poor defensive numbers are a result of him playing an unfamiliar side of the ice.

So it wasn't exactly his defensive numbers that flagged when he was playing the right side, it was his offense. Except with Gardiner (who is magic). More offensive chances usually means fewer defensive situations in my mind, but still, Rielly plays a high event game from either side.

Generally speaking, defensive numbers go down for players on their offside (link). Babcock is playing Marincin on the right side now, so Rielly takes the left. Rielly also occasionally gets time with Zaitsev. We'll see after a few more games what's working or not.

Edit: http://www.pensionplanpuppets.com/maple-leafs-stats-analysis/2016/2/9/10933164/should-we-be-concerned-about-morgan-riellys-defensive-play

PP did another analysis of the Hunwick-Rielly pairing and found that shots were coming in largely from Rielly's right side of the ice.

 

[mr grieves]

Interesting stuff. I guess what I wonder is whether the deficiencies in Rielly's game on the right are so great that you wouldn't want to add a LD of Lindholm's calibre. If he did well with Gardiner (magic) on the left, then things might work out with Lindholm. Maybe Trouba would be ideal, but I'm proceeding under the assumption that he's very unlikely to be acquired -- you can't just offer sheet him and there are probably other teams that have the pieces WPG wants for him (haven't Carolina and Anaheim been drafting good defensemen?).