Kappi vs Johnsson

[Highlander]

When it comes to the $$$ crunch and we can only keep one of the two, who would you keep?
Johnsson has been a long term project with me, but Kappi is such an engine. Guess I would keep Kappi.

 

[Guilt Trip]

This isn't even close in my mind. Kappy.

 

[Bates]

How much will each cost? Rather important going forward.

 

[Highlander]

How much will each cost? Rather important going forward.

Hey Bates are you in AZ, will you be going to the Leaf game in Feb?

 

[Highlander]

How much will each cost? Rather important going forward.

Hey Bates are you in AZ, will you be going to the Leaf game in Feb?

If you are I have a contact directly with the Yotes if you want me to pass along his number, cheaper seats than on Stubhub or Ticketmaster

 

[Zee]

If they come down to equal money I'd keep Kapanen over Johnsson. I love em both and think both are legit top 6 forwards but Kapanen has that speed to kill and he's 2 years younger. I hope the Leafs can have both around for a few more seasons but I'm not sure the money will work

 

[Bates]

How much will each cost? Rather important going forward.

Hey Bates are you in AZ, will you be going to the Leaf game in Feb?

If you are I have a contact directly with the Yotes if you want me to pass along his number, cheaper seats than on Stubhub or Ticketmaster

I am not right now but might be for Feb. Their head of ticket sales was once my season ticket account rep.  Leafs tickets this year look pricey but I will attend if I'm there.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

Assuming we're trading one and not just losing him for nothing the return also needs to be taken into consideration here. Like I choose Kapanen over Johnsson even if Kappy's cap hit is a little more. But at the same time Kapanen is a lot more likely to bring back a top-4 defencemen (or least be a central piece of a package to do so), so maybe for that reason alone I'd pick Johnsson.

 

[Zee]

Assuming we're trading one and not just losing him for nothing the return also needs to be taken into consideration here. Like I choose Kapanen over Johnsson even if Kappy's cap hit is a little more. But at the same time Kapanen is a lot more likely to bring back a top-4 defencemen (or least be a central piece of a package to do so), so maybe for that reason alone I'd pick Johnsson.

Doesn't anyone want the goat for a top 4 dman? Need I remind you that Freddie has first round pedigree?

 

[Phileas Fogg]

Unless Kapenen signs a team-friendly deal, I guess the answer is whichever the acquiring GM overvalues the most.

 

[Highlander]

How much will each cost? Rather important going forward.

Hey Bates are you in AZ, will you be going to the Leaf game in Feb?

If you are I have a contact directly with the Yotes if you want me to pass along his number, cheaper seats than on Stubhub or Ticketmaster

I am not right now but might be for Feb. Their head of ticket sales was once my season ticket account rep.  Leafs tickets this year look pricey but I will attend if I'm there.

Your contact may be better than mine, if you don't mind passing it along in a message! Thanks

 

[hockeyfan1]

The science behind Kapanen?s on-ice assets:  According to Dr. Mike Bracko, U of Illinois-Chicago, players like Kapanen posses incredible speed & skillset can be explained via two factors, of which they are muscle power & biomechanics.

Muscle power (conditioning & strength of leg muscles, including ? fast twitch? that can propel a player of his ilk to speed up, glide, sprint, on-off), & biomechanics (leg/feet(arms/whole body movement that includes the ability or flexibility of what is called ? knee flection?, etc.).

?Kapanen likely just has more muscle power. One of the ways I can identify that objectively is the players now are lower and have more knee flection, which allows them to have more power than the players in the ?90s,? Dr. Bracko said.

?And then players like McDavid or Kapanen don?t seem to glide that much anymore ? not like Gretzky did. They?re lower and in a more biomechanically effective position for them to accelerate not only from stationary but also from a two-foot glide.?

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and

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[Arn]

We can and we will keep them both

 

[Kin]

So, to be clear, this question is whether the Leafs should keep Johnsson over a guy who is younger, faster, bigger, stronger, who can kill penalties and is a better scorer?

I said it in the ex-Leaf thread but honestly, Johnsson really hasn't done much to establish that he has a real spot on the team going forward. I compared him to Leipsic there and their numbers are virtually identical while being of a similar age and size and Leipsic could have been had for virtually nothing. The Leafs are going to have internal options there shortly(Grundstrom, Marchment) and Johnsson doesn't address any of the peripheral needs the team has. He's shown flashes of being a decent offensive player but those really aren't as rare as we might think.

I've got nothing against him, he's an ok place holder, but honestly if I could choose right now I'd rather have Leipsic in the lineup.

 

[Zee]

So, to be clear, this question is whether the Leafs should keep Johnsson over a guy who is younger, faster, bigger, stronger, who can kill penalties and is a better scorer?

I said it in the ex-Leaf thread but honestly, Johnsson really hasn't done much to establish that he has a real spot on the team going forward. I compared him to Leipsic there and their numbers are virtually identical while being of a similar age and size and Leipsic could have been had for virtually nothing. The Leafs are going to have internal options there shortly(Grundstrom, Marchment) and Johnsson doesn't address any of the peripheral needs the team has. He's shown flashes of being a decent offensive player but those really aren't as rare as we might think.

I've got nothing against him, he's an ok place holder, but honestly if I could choose right now I'd rather have Leipsic in the lineup.

You've hated Johnsson for a while now, I remember when he first got called up you were complaining that you didn't see his offensive upside. Did he cut you off in traffic or something?

 

[Hobbes]

This would be a case where I think Dubas can go to their agents and talk about the 2019-20 cap crunch that becomes less of a problem when Marleau retires (and Horton is off the books)(and the salary cap likely goes up once more) and see if both would be willing to do a lowish dollar 1-year or 2-year bridge deal.

Neither guy is a core player and if we're going to succeed as a team these are the sorts of players who will end up coming and going, much as we'd like to keep everyone. They'll be the guys you move at the draft for an extra pick or two and hopefully keep filling your pipeline with the next generation of Kappy/Johnsson type players on ELCs. In theory there should be some guys down on the Marlies right now who ought to be getting ready to push for roster spots on the Leafs next year and hopefully become their replacements.

We can't keep 'em all so we're going to have to get used to losing some of our pet fav's.

 

[Kin]

You've hated Johnsson for a while now, I remember when he first got called up you were complaining that you didn't see his offensive upside. Did he cut you off in traffic or something?

I post a lot here so I genuinely didn't remember if this was true. I did a quick search of his name in any posts of mine and honestly I've only mentioned him about a half dozen times outside of GDT's(and none in a particularly negative sense). When he came up the only strong opinion I had about him was that I thought he should keep the 4th line LW spot over Komarov if he earned it.

Like I said, I don't dislike him just that as of yet I'm not convinced he's anything particularly above the sort of talented offensive NHL fringe players that, as we've seen with Leipsic and Leivo, can be had for essentially nothing.

Perhaps more relevantly, I worry that Johnsson is precisely the kind of player that could post good looking numbers if he keeps getting PP/Matthews time and will get overvalued if he scores 15-25 goals. With the guys in the system, he's someone the Leafs probably shouldn't pay significantly more than the minimum. 

 

[sickbeast]

I say trade Nylander and keep both Kapanen and Johnsson.

 

[Bullfrog]

I say trade Nylander and keep both Kapanen and Johnsson.

I am so thankful you're not the GM of the Leafs. So very thankful.

 

[herman]

Things we do because there's nothing to complain about right now: Pair up every Leaf in a head-to-head match up so we can all say for certain who is better

Marner vs Nylander
Matthews vs Tavares
Johnsson vs Kapanen
Gardiner vs Rielly
Liljegren vs Sandin
Scott vs Woll
Ennis vs Leivo
Gauthier vs Lindholm
Hainsey vs Zaitsev


Outside of Leivo already being traded off, and everything else under that line being something we don't care about, the answer is they're all Toronto Maple Leafs, and pretty good to really great.