Tyson Barrie
- Thread starter disco
- Start date
Pietrangelo's next contract (UFA next summer) should give us an idea what a #1-but-not-Norris-level defenceman will cost.
Nik the Trik said:
Ah right, missed that. He'll be a very good comparable since he's more of a rover like Rielly/Barrie.
herman
Well-known member
If not Barrie, next year's RD UFAs (by current cap hit) look like this. There are more omitted, but they're bottom pair options (incl. Polak).
Pietrangelo
Schultz
Green
Spurgeon
Bogosian
Vatanen
Faulk
Ceci
Tanev
Hamonic
Braun
Stone
Gudas
Pysyk
K. Miller
TvR
Polak
If you want to do a UFA signing for the top of your depth chart, you're looking in the prime age category (i.e. under 30 at the time of signing, lower is better).
Barrie
Faulk
Ceci
Pysyk
TvR
This list is Poop.
RFAs open up more possibilities, but that's assets going out the door for them.
Pietrangelo
Schultz
Green
Spurgeon
Bogosian
Vatanen
Faulk
Ceci
Tanev
Hamonic
Braun
Stone
Gudas
Pysyk
K. Miller
TvR
Polak
If you want to do a UFA signing for the top of your depth chart, you're looking in the prime age category (i.e. under 30 at the time of signing, lower is better).
Barrie
Faulk
Ceci
Pysyk
TvR
This list is Poop.
RFAs open up more possibilities, but that's assets going out the door for them.
herman
Well-known member
If the goal of the game is to score more goals than the other team, I?d rather have 23 yr old Nylander and Barrie vs no Nylander + 30 yr old Pietrangelo and Muzzin.
I.e. how would the Leafs be best served maximizing their costliest assets in Tavares, Matthews, Marner? Is it with multiple expensive d-men? Or is is with a you g playdriver and playmaker who makes the most of Matthews? skill set, and creates a credible matchup issue alongside a Tavares-Marner pairing?
I.e. how would the Leafs be best served maximizing their costliest assets in Tavares, Matthews, Marner? Is it with multiple expensive d-men? Or is is with a you g playdriver and playmaker who makes the most of Matthews? skill set, and creates a credible matchup issue alongside a Tavares-Marner pairing?
Frank E
Active member
herman said:
Right, but preventing goals also helps the differential.
This cap issue really comes from the Tavares signing. I'm not disappointed in the signing, but it was going to force some roster movement, as we discussed at the time.
I think my concern is that it doesn't look like Dubas & co. want to make the tough decisions. I think trading Kadri was an easy thing to do, given his contract and the crap he pulled again this post-season.
I think they've yet to make some tough ones, and I'd only consider letting Gardiner walk a tough'ish one.
There's a whole lot of UFA candidates in the Leafs' d-men come next summer, so if Dubas thinks he has RFA problems this year, I sure hope he has a plan during the season to mitigate the UFA issue he has around the corner.
As discussed elsewhere, if we sign 2 UFA defencemen (Barrie/Muzzin/Petro/whoever) that puts the Leafs in a spot where they'll have to expose Dermott in the expansion draft the following offseason or pay a premium price to keep another team away from him. Just something to keep in mind.
herman
Well-known member
Scoring goals is the hardest thing to do in this sport, so I think I?d rather put my money there. Evaluating true defensive play is also a bit of a crapshoot around the league so if you can do that better than others, there is an opportunity to pick up a good player on the cheap.
Rielly+Barrie+Dermott is a pretty reasonable base to add Sandin and Liljegren to.
Rielly+Barrie+Dermott is a pretty reasonable base to add Sandin and Liljegren to.
Frank E said:
I think he's made pretty solid decisions. Perhaps whether or not they are "tough" is in the eye of the beholder. Kadri was a very valuable as a 30-goal scoring center on a great contract at the tail-end of his prime. It's tough to trade value away. Making it tougher, Dubas needed to get 2 valuable pieces back -- another center and a top RHD. And last, Kadri's no-trade clause complicated things a step further apparently. That doesn't sound like a super-easy, no-brainer situation to me.
He's also managed Toronto cap space in a pretty remarkable way. According to various reports, we have barely (just barely) enough to keep Marner if someone offersheets him at 10.5. Beyond dumping Marleau/Zaitsev/Brown, there have been quite a number of contracts to acquire or sign (Kappy, Johnsson, Kerfoot, the Barrie salary retention, and earlier guys like Moore) and the sum of those numbers had to turn out just right and it looks like it has so the Leafs can protect themselves if they need to. I just don't think getting everything to fit like that down to the penny as it appears they have was very easy at all given all the potential unknowns they had to deal with. I'm impressed.
ZBBM
Active member
herman said:
I haven't seen Barrie play yet so this is tentative but setting aside Sandin and Liljegren for the moment, I think you need a Muzzin-type to leaven the mix. Personally I think having 2 offensive d-men and 2 defense-first guys on the top 2 pairings is the way to go, or at least a couple of defense-firsters among the top 6.
Kin
New member
I get that there are going to be people heavily invested in the Leafs "winning" the Kadri deal by virtue of signing Barrie and having him contribute for a long time but I think, and I've said something like this before, but right now what separates the Leafs from a lot of top tier contenders is that the Leafs really haven't gotten the sort of contributions outside of their top 10 draft picks and big free agent signings that teams that have won had.
Something that's almost universal among cap-era teams who win cups is that they get big contributions from guys they drafted outside of the range of where you typically find superstars. And I'm not talking about Andreas Johnsson sort of "Hey, he can be a third wheel on a good line" sort of contributions but more like "Hey, he might be nominated for a major award" sort of contributions.
Whether it's Chicago with Keith or Boston with Bergeron and Marchand or LA with Quick or Pittsburgh with Letang and Murray or Washington with Holtby...the teams that have won have gotten all-star performances from players drafted outside of the first round. St. Louis has continued the trend this year with Parayko too.
This is where the Leafs next major upgrade is going to have to come from and it's where Dubas and his 800 Kinesiology and Statistics hires are going to have to justify their paychecks. Unfortunately the way the team was built means they almost certainly need to get that surprise on defense and so Liljegren/Sandin are the eggs in the basket for the time being but that is the only real option the Leafs are going to have for big time changes to their talent pool given the cap situation they're in.
So while I appreciate the case for signing Barrie I think the truth is that if neither Liljegren or Sandin are close to being so good that they make Barrie superfluous then there's a pretty good likelihood that this core group the Leafs have assembled aren't going to be enough to win a title.
Something that's almost universal among cap-era teams who win cups is that they get big contributions from guys they drafted outside of the range of where you typically find superstars. And I'm not talking about Andreas Johnsson sort of "Hey, he can be a third wheel on a good line" sort of contributions but more like "Hey, he might be nominated for a major award" sort of contributions.
Whether it's Chicago with Keith or Boston with Bergeron and Marchand or LA with Quick or Pittsburgh with Letang and Murray or Washington with Holtby...the teams that have won have gotten all-star performances from players drafted outside of the first round. St. Louis has continued the trend this year with Parayko too.
This is where the Leafs next major upgrade is going to have to come from and it's where Dubas and his 800 Kinesiology and Statistics hires are going to have to justify their paychecks. Unfortunately the way the team was built means they almost certainly need to get that surprise on defense and so Liljegren/Sandin are the eggs in the basket for the time being but that is the only real option the Leafs are going to have for big time changes to their talent pool given the cap situation they're in.
So while I appreciate the case for signing Barrie I think the truth is that if neither Liljegren or Sandin are close to being so good that they make Barrie superfluous then there's a pretty good likelihood that this core group the Leafs have assembled aren't going to be enough to win a title.