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Nonis Legacy - Good and Bad

B

Britishbulldog

Active member
I have been looking at articles around the internet covering the period that Nonis was GM from Jan 9, 2013 to April 13, 2015 and it has not been very rewarding.  I then realized most here would know the answers so here it goes:

So what was Nonis's legacy for signings, trades and buyouts....both good and bad?  Was Burke responsible for any of the buyouts? Any brief evaluations on some of Nonis's decisions?

Buyouts:
Compliance:
2013
Komisarek's with only 1 year left on his contract ($3.5 MIL regular buyout would have been 2/3 over 2 seasons or $1.167 for 13/14 and 14/15 if I did the math correctly)
Grabovski with 4 years left after not being picked up by ANY team on unconditional waivers(Burke signing)

Regular:
2014
Gleason with 4 years cap hit lingering (after traded for JM Liles instead of buying Liles out)

Re-signed:
2013
July 5th Bozak -$4.2 x 5 years
July 1st Clarkson - $5.25 x 7 years
July 5th Bernier $2.9 x 2 years
October 31st Kessel - $8.0 x 8 years
December 31st Phaneuf - $7.0 x 7 years

UFA Signed
Raymond

2014
July 29th Gardiner - $4.05 x 5 years

UFA Signed
Santorelli
Booth
Winnick
Robidas
 
Britishbulldog said:
I have been looking at articles around the internet covering the period that Nonis was GM from Jan 9, 2013 to April 13, 2015 and it has not been very rewarding.  I then realized most here would know the answers so here it goes:

So what was Nonis's legacy for signings, trades and buyouts....both good and bad?  Was Burke responsible for any of the buyouts? Any brief evaluations on some of Nonis's decisions?

Buyouts:
Compliance:
2013
Komisarek's with only 1 year left on his contract ($3.5 MIL regular buyout would have been 2/3 over 2 seasons or $1.167 for 13/14 and 14/15 if I did the math correctly)
Grabovski with 4 years left after not being picked up by ANY team on unconditional waivers(Burke signing)

Regular:
2014
Gleason with 4 years cap hit lingering (after traded for JM Liles instead of buying Liles out)

Re-signed:
2013
July 5th Bozak -$4.2 x 5 years
July 1st Clarkson - $5.25 x 7 years
July 5th Bernier $2.9 x 2 years
October 31st Kessel - $8.0 x 8 years
December 31st Phaneuf - $7.0 x 7 years

UFA Signed
Raymond

2014
July 29th Gardiner - $4.05 x 5 years

UFA Signed
Santorelli
Booth
Winnick
Robidas
Click to expand...

Clarkson was UFA signing, not a re-signing.
 
Anthony Petrielli @APetrielli
So Bolland (walked for nothing) & Holland (the Leafs gave up a 2nd for playing <10mins/gm) are the only 2 centers Nonis acquired in 3 years.
12:17 PM - 12 Apr 2015
Click to expand...
 
Britishbulldog said:
So what was Nonis's legacy for signings, trades and buyouts....both good and bad? 
Click to expand...

You could point to the Clarkson UFA signing as maybe his worst deal. Grabbo buyout, Lupul, Phaneuf or Kessel re-signings might catch a few votes. 2013 was a pretty bad year for Nonis decisions.

Leafs 2015 road record of 1 win 21 losses 3 OTL/SOL ... kind of says it all about the character and talent of Nonis' roster.

Burke deserves some of the blame.

Dragging his heels on analytics didn't help him.

Slow to move away from top 6 - bottom 6 and the reduced role of enforcers didn't help him.

Failing to flush out the bad characters of some of the players he re-signed hurt him.

But the total of Nonis' transactions: committing a couple of hundred million to the roster over the next 3+ years while leaving the franchise with no realistic hope that this team had a prayer of accomplishing anything special in the post season ...

Overall, Nonis made a humongous several year bet via a series of contracts on a chronic, irreparable loser.

That sums up his legacy on deals for me. And it's the key reason why he got fired.
 
2 other God awful signings, Robidas for 3 years at 3 per and Komarov for 4 years at 3 per. I fail to see how Komarov is much of an upgrade on D'Amigo in the skill department, both have hands of stone and neither should play above the 4th line. I also think Gleason was at least as good as Robidas so why buy one out to simply replace him with a more fragile version.
 
Nonis' prize free agent acquisition in 2013 was David Clarkson. His prize free agent acquisition in 2014 was Leo Komarov. He legitimately believed that both of those players would be difference-makers on this team. That really says it all.
 
hobarth said:
2 other God awful signings, Robidas for 3 years at 3 per and Komarov for 4 years at 3 per. I fail to see how Komarov is much of an upgrade on D'Amigo in the skill department, both have hands of stone and neither should play above the 4th line. I also think Gleason was at least as good as Robidas so why buy one out to simply replace him with a more fragile version.
Click to expand...

Komarov was a good signing, up until OV, elbowed him in the back of the head. D'Amigo was nothing more then a 4 th liner playing 5 -8 mins on any team. Robidas IMO was a crap shot, a roll of the dice, he can still play well, it is now all about his health.
 
Nonis' legacy is really going to depend on how you see the mandate he had. He was hired to continue Burke's work. He maintained the core of the team Burke put together. He never had the autonomy to set his own course and he was never the kind of guy who was going to come in and really dictate how the organization was going to be run.

I think the last few months proved what his worth was at one point to this team and what it will be wherever he lands. I didn't love every move he made but he left the team after two pretty good drafts and having made some good deals to increase the number of draft picks the team has in the coming years. That's a lot more than his predecessors can say.
 
CarltonTheBear said:
Nonis' prize free agent acquisition in 2013 was David Clarkson. His prize free agent acquisition in 2014 was Leo Komarov. He legitimately believed that both of those players would be difference-makers on this team. That really says it all.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it is kind of weird that he would have that perspective still.
 
Nik the Trik said:
Nonis' legacy is really going to depend on how you see the mandate he had. He was hired to continue Burke's work. He maintained the core of the team Burke put together. He never had the autonomy to set his own course and he was never the kind of guy who was going to come in and really dictate how the organization was going to be run.

I think the last few months proved what his worth was at one point to this team and what it will be wherever he lands. I didn't love every move he made but he left the team after two pretty good drafts and having made some good deals to increase the number of draft picks the team has in the coming years. That's a lot more than his predecessors can say.
Click to expand...

In my mind I realize that I have assessed his actions in 4 areas but I don't know if Nonis was directly responsible for any of them:

Leaf re-signings
I liked Reimer, Kadri and Franson re-signings but HATED how they were handled.  The jury is out on Gardiner and the rest I didn't like.  Gleason's character, toughness, shot blocking, etc was more appealing to me than Phaneuf's obvious weaknesses/strengths.  Gleason got bought out, Phaneuf got signed to a Doughty/Weber calibre contract.

UFA signings
The $1.5 MIL and under signings seemed solid but all the signings over $1.5 MIL ranged from poor to idiotic.

Buyouts
Horrible management of the compliance buyouts.  I think all would agree it should have been used on JM Liles.  I guess Grabovski was doomed under Carlyle as well.  I would have then traded Komisarek for Gleason.  It's crazy that next year Gleason's buyout will cost the Leafs almost $2 MIL in cap space while he plays for the Canes.

Trades -
http://www.nhltradetracker.com/user/trade_list_by_team/Toronto_Maple_Leafs/1

I am not sure there is one of them that I wouldn't have done.  I believe Lombardi was moved as his 1st trade. 
 
Nik the Trik said:
Britishbulldog said:
Phaneuf got signed to a Doughty/Weber calibre contract.
Click to expand...

That's just not true.
Click to expand...

No your right.  Only Doughty's contract is comparable and it was $7 MIL over 8 years post cap-era.  Weber only compares to Phaneuf's deal in cap hits.  Weber's deal was designed by Paul Holgrem to over pay Weber in an attempt to crush Nashville's limited financial clout.

Either way it is indefensible to claim that Phaneuf, as a player who was currently under contract with the Leafs and NOT on the open market yet, is worth Drew Doughty money when looking at Phanuef's skills, on ice demeanor and off ice demeanor.  He simply and conclusively is NOT in the same class as the $ 7 MIL Norris contenders.

Is that what you meant?

Either way, at the time of the signing I was hoping that Phaneuf would be sent to Edmonton (or any team in the bottom 20 as Edmonton ended up trending towards a 1st overall again which would be too much compensation for a player of Phaneuf's skill) for a 1st pick and Gleason would have assumed Phaneuf's role of leadership and toughness on the backend with Rielly, Gardiner and Franson taking care of the PP duties.  Instead Nonis made him the Leafs highest paid defense man.
 
For the most part, the Nonis era in Leafs land has been a huge fail.  So, having said that, his legacy can only be remembered as bad, not real bad, just bad!  ;)
 
Britishbulldog said:
No your right.  Only Doughty's contract is comparable and it was $7 MIL over 8 years post cap-era.  Weber only compares to Phaneuf's deal in cap hits.  Weber's deal was designed by Paul Holgrem to over pay Weber in an attempt to crush Nashville's limited financial clout.

Either way it is indefensible to claim that Phaneuf, as a player who was currently under contract with the Leafs and NOT on the open market yet, is worth Drew Doughty money when looking at Phanuef's skills, on ice demeanor and off ice demeanor.  He simply and conclusively is NOT in the same class as the $ 7 MIL Norris contenders.

Is that what you meant?
Click to expand...

No. Neither contract is comparable. Doughty's contract was signed as a RFA. Weber's was a back diving, old CBA deal that will pay him more than his cap hit for the relevant years of his career. What was relevant when Phaneuf's contract was being negotiated wasn't RFA deals or old CBA deals, it was what Phaneuf could have gotten if he'd gone to free agency.

Doughty got 7 million a year without other teams bidding, with no leverage. It is not a reflection of what he would have been worth to other teams. RFA deals are artificially deflated. Saying that a pending UFA's contract should conform to a pay structure set by RFA deals is like arguing the price of ice should be universal, whether you're in Miami or the Arctic.

A fair argument can be made that the UFA market is inefficient to the point that a team should wash their hands of it. If you don't think Phaneuf was worth 7 million as a UFA, a figure he'd almost certainly have gotten if the Leafs had let him walk, that's fair. If you think that means they should have traded him, again, fair. But it's nonsense to claim that he's overpaid because of how he compares to deals signed by RFAs who are better than he is. That's just not the way the NHL salary structure works.

Under this new CBA what we've seen is a sharp spike in what elite UFA's will be making now that the backdiving deals are gone. Elite players in the NHL will have 8 figure cap hits. That's the salary structure that Phaneuf had to fit into and the one Nonis was dealing with.
 
Agreed. If Weber signed an UFA deal right now (or rather, at the same time as Phaneuf did) it'd easily be $10M+.
 
Bullfrog said:
Agreed. If Weber signed an UFA deal right now (or rather, at the same time as Phaneuf did) it'd easily be $10M+.
Click to expand...

The first 8 years of Weber's contract would come with a cap hit of $11.5mil. Suter's would be $10mil.
 
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