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Minor Ex-Leaf News

Hobbes said:
I wasn't terribly upset when the Leafs elected not to re-sign Gardiner because I expected his cap hit would be too high to fit (we still had Zaitsev on the books at the time) and because I didn't have as high an opinion of him as some here do.

Most of the time he's a very decent defenceman with excellent analytics (as well as "old style" stats) but from time to time he'd make those nasty misjakes, and their likelihood of happening seemed to be directly proportional to the pressure of the situation. I've talked about this a couple of times, recently, where playing in high-pressure situations can mess with your head, and Jake always struck me as someone who didn't handle it very well. His most egregious moments seemed to happen at the most inopportune times. He would also do jaw-droppingly amazing things at times,  so I always thought of him as a "pick your poison" player and completely understood why others liked him more than I do/did.

By any objective measure he's far from being a bad defenceman and I'd happily take him at his current $2ishM cap hit over Zaitsev at $4.5 or Ceci at $4.5. I'd take him every day of the week over dozens if not hundreds of other NHL blueline regulars. There are also dozens I'd happily take ahead of him, but most (none) aren't available and most are significantly more expensive.
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See I think this is a reasonable take that most of us here actually have rather than some of the strawman arguments that I've been seeing lately that he's amazeballs or whatever. I take him over Ceci/Zaitsev any day of the week. The thing about the Leafs market is we are so inward looking. How many comparable D are there at his hit/age/production? It all goes into the calculus. If he's overpaid at $8m yeah he's terrible relative to that contract and to other D at that cap hit, but for his cap hit, age, for what he provided I think he'd make a fine 3/4. Problem is, like many players before him, he was probably played a bit too high in the lineup. Let's not forget he was also playing under Babs. I think he'd potentially feel more comfortable, as the whole team appears to feel, under Keefe.
 
Guilt Trip said:
Same applies when a player isn't that good. Analytics don't always tell the whole story either.
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I really think we need to stop thinking of "analytics" as some sort of single thing. Advanced stats, like simple stats, all try to tell part of the story. Just like a player's goal total doesn't tell the entire story of them as a player, neither do possession numbers. That said, nobody would seriously argue that goal totals, especially not goal totals over several years, tell you nothing about a player's ability to score goals. Likewise, possession numbers over a period of years do tell us something, even if they're not the entire story.

So in Gardiner's case what we have is a situation where his advanced numbers say something, his more traditional numbers say something and then we have people's opinions about things that "numbers don't show". Which, you know, we shouldn't discount but I think that when they're directly contradicting what the sum total of the measurable stuff tells us there is a greater burden on them.
 
Nikita Soshnikov is having a pretty good season in the KHL right now. He's second on his team in points with 38 in 48 games. He trails linemate Linus Omark, who some might remember as a shifty Oilers prospect.

That puts him 5th overall in points in the league and he's 3rd in goals. Nice to see him thriving after his NHL career got derailed because of injuries. Since being traded to the Blues (which was about 2 years ago now) he's played just 28 professional games prior to this season. 17 in the NHL and 11 in the AHL.
 
CarltonTheBear said:
Nikita Soshnikov is having a pretty good season in the KHL right now. He's second on his team in points with 38 in 48 games. He trails linemate Linus Omark, who some might remember as a shifty Oilers prospect.

That puts him 5th overall in points in the league and he's 3rd in goals. Nice to see him thriving after his NHL career got derailed because of injuries. Since being traded to the Blues (which was about 2 years ago now) he's played just 28 professional games prior to this season. 17 in the NHL and 11 in the AHL.
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I believe he trained with the Leafs in the summer. Said something about the Leafs having the best of the best when it came to training.
 
He was a minor Leaf, but this isn?t minor badness.
https://twitter.com/hockeyxt/status/1258152517596217344
 
herman said:
He was a minor Leaf, but this isn?t minor badness.
https://twitter.com/hockeyxt/status/1258152517596217344
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Saw that. It's ok he deleted his instagram I'm sure it's all good now. [emoji849]
 
As it turns out, Jack Rodewald also played for the Marlies from 2014 to 2016, at the same time that Leipsic did.

Sent from my MHA-AL00 using Tapatalk

 
I'd just like to point out that you are all fat and your significant others smell bad.

I can't wait to have hockey back to chat with all of you.  See you soon!

Wait, why am I banned. 

I'm sorry I said stuff in private and it got out.

Sadly I think Leipsic is probably not the only hockey player who has these kind of viewpoints. 
 
Wait, LK said he's sorry. So, it's all good now. Welcome back!

He'll make sure his disgusting comments stay private for now on.
 
LK will attend mandatory social media sensitivity* training

* how to hide his internet activity training
 
I do appreciate getting upset by this but to me it's more like the Senators guys from the Cab last year. It's a document of a hockey player acting like I was already pretty sure hockey players act like.
 
OldTimeHockey said:
Nik Bethune said:
hockey player acting like I was already pretty sure hockey players act like.
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Hockey Players acting like people act.
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I get what you're saying but it's silly to pretend like this isn't particularly prevalent in sports culture and young men specifically.
 
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