Armchair President/GM 2023-2024
- Thread starter herman
- Start date
Zadorov's a really tricky player to get a value on. There's obviously a lot of hype around him, especially for a big guy, but we're also talking about a 28-year old who's played top-4 minutes in just 1 season in his career (on a medicore Chicago team). The flip side is unlike a lot of "big guy" defencemen who generally play bottom pair minutes his on-ice results are actually pretty good, and aside from some mistakes the eye tests have apparently matched that as well lately. Also to his credit Calgary's defence has been very good (one thing Treliving definitely got right there), so I'd imagine he'd have been playing top-4 minutes on a lot of teams other than Calgary the past couple of seasons.
So he shouldn't get traded for what the typical physical 3rd pairing defenceman gets (like say a 3rd for Schenn or 4th for Lyubushkin), but you also can't exactly sell the farm for him by moving a 1st or a top prospect because he's not an established top-4 guy. He's somewhere in between. Which feels like a 2nd rounder (which the Leafs don't have for the next 3 drafts), or a 3rd/4th plus a prospect/young player in the realm of Abruzzese/Holmberg/McMann.
So he shouldn't get traded for what the typical physical 3rd pairing defenceman gets (like say a 3rd for Schenn or 4th for Lyubushkin), but you also can't exactly sell the farm for him by moving a 1st or a top prospect because he's not an established top-4 guy. He's somewhere in between. Which feels like a 2nd rounder (which the Leafs don't have for the next 3 drafts), or a 3rd/4th plus a prospect/young player in the realm of Abruzzese/Holmberg/McMann.
Jolly good show chaps
Member
CarltonTheBear said:
Given cap restraints though I'm pretty certain a decent salary needs to go out. And that will increase the ask.
Jolly good show chaps
Member
Bill_Berg_is_pissed_off said:
What does that do to the ask though (genuine question as someone with much less knowledge than most on here)
Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington said:
It's worth noting that there are ways to soften the blow of Klingberg's contract. For starters $2mil of his $4.15mil AAV has already been paid out in the form of a signing bonus. That leaves a $2.15mil salary (and of course some of that has already been paid as the seasons gone on).
Next, the Leafs could do Calgary some favours by taking on a contract or two that they might not want.
They currently have 2 guys on LTIR: Oliver Kylington and Kevin Rooney. Kylington has a $2.5mil AAV deal that expires after this season. He missed the entire 22/23 season due to personal reasons, and while it appeared like he was going to attempt a return this season it hasn't happened yet and he ended up back on LTIR. If he's going to stay there the entire season again, which feels likely, the Leafs could take his contract since they'll be in LTIR all season anyway. Since he's not physically injured I would imagine insurance isn't paying for any of his salary, so that'll be a nice chunk of money off of Calgary's books.
Rooney has a $1.3mil AAV deal that also expires this summer. I actually mentioned him before in a different context but he's a failed Treliving signing from his last offseason in Calgary and was probably destined for the AHL before he was injured in training camp. He won't be spending the entire season on LTIR but the Leafs could bury him in the AHL for a small cap hit and eat his salary.
The Leafs can also retain a little on Klingberg's deal depending on how much cap space they have left.
So that leaves a trade that looks something like:
Zadorov for Abruzzese and a 3rd. Value wise again I think that makes sense.
Kylington and Rooney for Klingberg with 12% retention (a $500k cap hit for the Leafs). This gets $3.8mil off of Calgary's books while taking Klingberg's $2.15mil salary minus 12% (all less of course when pro-rated). Klingberg's AAV would go down to $3.65mil, just a shade under Zadorov's meaning Calgary wouldn't need any additional moves to make things fit on their end.
With Kylington on LTIR, Rooney to the AHL once he's healthy ($150k cap hit), and Reaves also to the AHL ($200k cap hit), it leaves a healthy 21-man roster (which might not happen for awhile until Lily returns) looking like this with roughly $10k in cap space to spare.:
Knies-Matthews-Marner
Bertuzzi-Tavares-Nylander
Domi-Robertson-Jarnkrok
Gregor-Kampf-McMann
Rielly-Brodie
McCabe-Liljegren
Zadorov-Giordano/Timmins
Woll
Samsonov
Reaves could stay up to continue collecting his NHL paycheque while in the pressbox for as long as Liljegren is hurt at least.
Champ Kind
New member
CTB, excellent analysis. Thank you.
A Weekend at Bernier's said:
Granted this is very much a best case scenario for the Leafs, and it's possible that Calgary doesn't value saving hard cash that much and prefers an actual sweetener for Klingberg instead. But trades like this have happened before. It's basically a mini Horton for Clarkson type deal.
Champ Kind
New member
CarltonTheBear said:
Just my gut's $0.02, but I would be willing to bet Conroy is going to hold out for the strongest hockey-related return on this deal. Of course, like Bob Dylan says, "you gotta serve somebody", and the top brass will ultimately determine what type of deal is made. But I'm sure Conroy will want to try to "win" his first big deal as GM, especially if it's with his former boss.
bustaheims
Active member
Bender said:
Additionally, if Klingberg can contribute at all with the Flames, he can be flipped at the deadline for another asset.