Nik the Trik said:
princedpw said:
I completely agree --- if it has snuck up on him, he is scary bad at math. I am annoyed because I vastly prefer Liles buyout - Franson - Grabbo - Mac to Grabbo buyout - Bozak - Clarkson - Liles (which have very similar cap hits). The former being both better now and retaining more flexibilty capwise going forward, in my most humble opinion, of course.
I might too if push came to shove but honestly either way you're dealing with such a mediocre collection of players that it's really not worth getting worked up about.
A couple of minor comments here:
-- if you think they are all mediocre players, unlikely to lead us anywhere, I'm surprised that you aren't more heavily against what has happened this offseason. Aren't you upset we tied ourselves to mediocre (and almost certainly declining) players for such a long time at such huge cap hits?
-- also, I won't try to argue with you, but I personally didn't view Grabbo as mediocre, though of course he is far from an allstar. Personally, I weight his play from 2010-2012 higher than his play in the lockout season in terms of what he is capable of going forward. During that time, he looked to me like he played like an upper tier 2nd line or lower tier 1st line center (ie: he was in the top 30 centers or so scoring, especially his even-strength scoring, and he had the best Corsi on the team against some good competition. I know you don't believe in Corsi and that's fine --- it seems to be the best tool I personally have to predict his future performance)
-- on Franson, this post summarizes a number of my thoughts:
http://theleafsnation.com/2013/7/27/no-its-a-bad-idea
Though, I can take a wait-and-see attitude on this. When (and if) a trade is made, I can assess it to see if indeed it looks like a fair trade or if it looks like Nonis got squeezed because he botched his cap space management this season.
Overall, this offseason is looking like it is going to wind up being a very inefficient one for the Leafs. And I find that upsetting because with the cap and teams being closer than ever to one another in terms of performance, efficiently managing your assets seems like it could be the thing that makes a difference. It wouldn't be so bad if the inefficiencies were constrained to the short term, but they aren't. They are pushed far in to the future, which leaves me without much hope going forward.