Where to send Liles??

[Kin]

People bring up the "damage to reputation" from time to time (we seen it before with "don't send him to the minors" or "don't buy him out even though he sucks") but it's pretty hard to quantify.  There seem to be many significantly bigger factors in where a player signs (money, location, team prospects).

But I think the reason that it's "hard to quantify" is that the things that would really do the sorts of damage I'm talking about just don't get done. I'm not talking about buying out under-performing players or demoting them or things that are going to be seen as the natural course of looking at the game as a business, I'm talking about a GM engaging in the kind of sales job he'd legitimately have to do in order to get a pending UFA to sign with his team, which would involve saying how they thought a player fit in going forward, while really planning to trade that player.

You'll notice I didn't say that Holmgren did damage to his "reputation" and what effect that might have on players choosing to sign there as UFAs(where players have legitimate choice about who they sign with) but, rather, I just said that he did damage to his ability to do one specific thing and that's signing young RFA's to long term deals. That may be hard to quantify as well but I think that's a case where common sense trumps any need for hard evidence. If you were an agent and you had a client on the Flyers and Holmgren was trying to sign your client to a long term deal that locked them in at a reasonable price based on their desire to stay in Philadelphia but didn't give them immediate NTC or NMC control don't you think you'd have a fundamental responsibility to talk about the Carter and Richards situations?

If the Leafs were contenders then signing guys at the deadline and letting them go, which slowly drains your longer-term assets would be the way to go.  I don't think they are and should be doing the opposite.  Trade those guys you don't want to keep for futures, especially those guys like Mac that could have more value elsewhere than with you.

Well, we could talk I suppose about what being a "contender" really means in this era of parity and 8 seeds winning cups and the Leafs being barely knocked out by a team that almost won the cup but I think I'll stick to the idea expressed elsewhere that the value Mac brought to the team in terms of winning games outweighed what he could have fetched in a trade in a long-term sense.

I'd be happy to fire the cup-winning coach and to snub my nose at the other GMs by retaining Grabbo. 

I know you would but I think that sort of underlines the problem of forgetting some of the realities that Dave Nonis is dealing with and focusing entirely on the quantifiable. Here are some of the things that Nonis has to consider when making that decision:

- How Randy Carlyle is viewed by the other players on the team
- How that perception influences the sorts of decisions that players like, say, Phil Kessel and Dion Phaneuf have to make shortly.
- His ability to hire a top tier coach after firing a coach over a personnel dispute
- How firing the coach would be perceived by the media after a season where he took the team to its first notable success in nearly a decade, received(rightly or wrongly) a legitimate amount of credit for the success
- The tension that could arise in the dressing room after choosing Grabo over Carlyle and then having Grabo(or, worse, the team) struggle next season

Those all seem like pretty basic considerations to me. For someone to disagree, I think, they'd have to come pretty close to thinking of players as being very little more than numbers to be entered into spreadsheets. I mean, even accounting firms have human resource divisions after all.

Now, I'm not saying that Randy Carlyle is the greatest coach who ever lived and that Phil Kessel is going to re-sign with the Leafs at a below market value price to play for him but what I am saying is that because Nonis is, at the very least, in the position of having to accept all of those things as very real issues that influence his decision and assuming that he's a competent enough person to have a general sense of the atmosphere in the locker-room of his team and follow up on that("What do you think of Randy, Phil?") that he does deserve something of the benefit of the doubt when he decides against the course of action you'd happily take.

Because I'm in the dark about most of those matters I can't say one way or the other of course about the effect firing Carlyle might have on the team but, honestly, if you're in your similar position of ignorance of those things but willing to risk the worst case scenario(Carlyle is popular in the room, players want to play for him, firing him after a chaotic season would deal a blow to organizational stability/the team's ability to hire a coach who wouldn't feel as though he didn't have control over the line-up) over the difference between Grabo and Bozak then in refutation of what you claim in a different post...quite frankly, you do need to be told that Grabo isn't a superstar.

I'm in full-on pessimism mode again.  Can you tell?

That's fine. People see the team how they're going to. To me it seems like all of this angst and hand-wringing is being done over the difference between a player with a career .59 ppg and a younger, bigger, cheaper one with a career .56 ppg which is the only reason I'm as, oh, interested in the matter as I seem to be.

 

[Kin]

I will grant you it means something: he's not a super-star.  But we knew that already.

I don't think it's limited to just that. I think this last UFA period told us pretty bluntly that it doesn't require a player to be a super-star to be highly sought after. I think that the reaction to Grabo is less an indication of how he ranks as a player(although that's obviously part of it) but how he ranked as a player compared to the other available free agents. Even if we buy that Mikhail Grabovski is the single most involved player in any of the four major sports when it comes to negotiating his own contracts and so rather than the 15 minute conversation most players would need to have with their agents to get a deal done his signing would actually interfere with his wedding plans then I don't buy that if Grabovski was seen as being near the top of the heap in terms of free agent centers that there wouldn't be teams who wanted him and were willing to wait.

Look, I get decisions get made on Free Agency Day and at the Deadline that make us scratch their heads but I'm just not willing to believe that a guy who was hotly desired simply got squeezed out because teams couldn't wait for him. If someone really wanted him, they'd have signed him by now.

I don't think your argument about investments is one of your better ones.  It can't be easy to estimate the expected revenue generated by any particular player in isolation.  It seems unlikely that GMs approach signing players with that kind of mindset as opposed to "I have a fixed X amount of dollars to build the best team I can."

Well, it's not precise enough to go into Bookkeeping 101 or anything but that is the thought process. Players help win hockey games, winning hockey games equals revenue, therefore players have certain values. As i said, if you're not a guy who's selling a ton of merchandise but rather just contributes in general to a winning team you might be a bad investment by default but everyone else in the league gets signed under those conditions so I'm not really willing to believe that this one case is a situation where teams aren't going to look at acquiring a player as an investment.

 

[Kin]

Apart from what sort of asset Grabovski was before he was re-signed or at the beginning of the season given the Leafs' unsettled management and the lockout, was at the end of this one given his poor performance and/or misuse, is now as a UFA given his parting shots and the cap, or could've been had he been retained, whatever team ends up signing him for $3.5m or $4m or $4.2m (the Tyler Bozak special) is going to get a very good hockey player at a very good price. I think, at the end of the day, why no one offered a 7th round pick or grabbed him off waivers, how long it took him to sign, etc. aren't going to mean much. Grabovski scoring 25 goals and 55 points on a cheap contract is going to be the main thing that people look to when talking about his value.

Maybe, and I wouldn't put it past Grabo to do that somewhere if he can find a situation where he'd be a top 2 centre and has linemates he can play well with. The problem as I see it, the reason that teams are largely uninterested, is not so much that Grabo had a bad year last year but that Grabo exposed a weakness last year that kind of plays into the wind of how a lot of teams are building themselves these days. Namely he showed that he's got very limited value if he's being asked to chip in as a #3 centre.

I think, because of the cap, the days of having your two superstar centres are basically over with the rare exception of a place like Pittsburgh. Because of that I think a lot of teams have one guy like that but then have a bunch of guys they need to be flexible with. Guys who can be #2 guys but who can also contribute in other ways when they're not scoring. Just as a for instance, I don't think it's a coincidence that both teams that reached the Stanley Cup finals traded away their fairly well compensated #3 centers who had both had, like Grabo, disappointing offensive seasons. Peverly and Boland are good players but they aren't really good investments as bottom six guys.

That, to me, is the real reason Grabo is having trouble finding a spot. Either he has to convince a team without good centers, and therefore are probably a lousy team, that what he'd bring to them is worth giving less time to young players/getting them out of the basement and the rewards of that or he has to find a good team with good centers that he can contribute as a "in the mix" sort of guy which he really struggled with this year.

I mean, if I'm St. Louis I don't think Grabo would be one of my top 2 guys and if I'm Columbus or someone I don't think he does enough for me to make a significant investment in him.

As for the bolded bit, especially regarding the cap crunch, I think everyone who holds the view of Grabo and the off-season moves that princepw seems to sees the Bozak-over-Grabo move in the context of others Nonis made.

Maybe, but people choosing to look at them in that fashion doesn't make them actually joined at the hip. When talking about the decision to buy-out Grabo and sign Bozak vs. the alternative proposal of letting Bozak walk and keeping Grabo we do have to acknowledge the cap savings of the decision Nonis made as a real thing.

 

[mr grieves]

Apart from what sort of asset Grabovski was before he was re-signed or at the beginning of the season given the Leafs' unsettled management and the lockout, was at the end of this one given his poor performance and/or misuse, is now as a UFA given his parting shots and the cap, or could've been had he been retained, whatever team ends up signing him for $3.5m or $4m or $4.2m (the Tyler Bozak special) is going to get a very good hockey player at a very good price. I think, at the end of the day, why no one offered a 7th round pick or grabbed him off waivers, how long it took him to sign, etc. aren't going to mean much. Grabovski scoring 25 goals and 55 points on a cheap contract is going to be the main thing that people look to when talking about his value.

Maybe, and I wouldn't put it past Grabo to do that somewhere if he can find a situation where he'd be a top 2 centre and has linemates he can play well with. The problem as I see it, the reason that teams are largely uninterested, is not so much that Grabo had a bad year last year but that Grabo exposed a weakness last year that kind of plays into the wind of how a lot of teams are building themselves these days. Namely he showed that he's got very limited value if he's being asked to chip in as a #3 centre.

I think the last sentence and your next paragraph on how center depth and cap space will be distributed are probably right. More right than the theory that Grabo's TSN interview has had any real bearing here, certainly. The #3C spot is one teams do well to fill on the cheap. Grabovski was far from cheap.

But, to beat the dead horse, he wasn't merely a #3C, but a #3 shutdown center. Not all #3s are that. On the Leafs last season, that's exactly what the #3 was. And, complemented by the scoring talent he was and given as many offensive zone starts as Maxime Talbot, Boyd Gordon, Maxim Lapierre, David Steckel, Nate Thompson, and Mike Fisher, Grabovski proved he can 'chip' in about as much as those guys (16P vs., respectively, 10P, 14P, 10P, 7P, 15P, and 21P). I don't think that Grabo showed he's a bad #3 center, but it certainly was shown that a #3 center making $5.5m doesn't have much value. That's not something the player alone shows you, but that performance (the player), his contract (GM), and his use (coach) together show you.

As for the bolded bit, especially regarding the cap crunch, I think everyone who holds the view of Grabo and the off-season moves that princepw seems to sees the Bozak-over-Grabo move in the context of others Nonis made.

Maybe, but people choosing to look at them in that fashion doesn't make them actually joined at the hip. When talking about the decision to buy-out Grabo and sign Bozak vs. the alternative proposal of letting Bozak walk and keeping Grabo we do have to acknowledge the cap savings of the decision Nonis made as a real thing.

Generally, I disagree that you can say a money-saving move is "good one" or a "bad one" without considering what they savings are for -- absent that, the savings aren't yet a "real thing" because they're not put to any use. My deciding to move into a smaller apartment to save rent is a good idea, if it's done to save up for the down payment on a house. My deciding to move into a smaller apartment to save rent is a less good idea, if I spend the savings on scratch tickets.

In this case, that the buyout happened happened within 24 hours of the two signings suggests the moves were indeed joined. Nonis needed cap space. For what? We knew the next day.

 

[Kin]

But, to beat the dead horse, he wasn't merely a #3C, but a #3 shutdown center. Not all #3s are that. On the Leafs last season, that's exactly what the #3 was. And, complemented by the scoring talent he was and given as many offensive zone starts as Maxime Talbot, Boyd Gordon, Maxim Lapierre, David Steckel, Nate Thompson, and Mike Fisher, Grabovski proved he can 'chip' in about as much as those guys (16P vs., respectively, 10P, 14P, 10P, 7P, 15P, and 21P)

Well, I've already gone into the ridiculousness of trying to pin a huge amount of weight to the difference of one offensive zone start per game to expectations of production or role so instead I'll focus on what seems to be a pretty glaring oversight in your thinking here. You're very quick to attribute the fact that Grabo didn't score a lot to who his linemates were last year but you're noticeably slower to think that maybe, just maybe, who his linemates were determined his line's usage more than him. Grabo was used on a shutdown line, maybe, but that doesn't make him a shutdown center any more than using Bozak on the top line makes him a "top line" centre in the sense that it's a qualitative evaluation.

McClement and Kulemin were the team's #1 and #2 penalty killing forwards in terms of ice time. They were the guys who Carlyle was using to neutralize the other team's best offensive players. Grabo did not distinguish himself in that role. He didn't blossom into an effective penalty killer, he didn't kill penalties at all. He didn't win face-offs or block shots or start hitting a bunch of people which are typically the attributes that people look for in real shutdown centers. Gordon, who you use as an example of one and who got signed to a pretty good sized contract, is the exact opposite of that. He won face-offs, blocked shots and was recognized for his defensive contributions by finishing 12th in the Selke voting. Grabovski not only didn't get a Selke vote but was, in fact, the only Leafs centre not to get a Selke vote(which may invalidate the Selke voting to some...to me it's just a great big neon sign of how easy it was to get a selke vote in Toronto).

So, you know, being able to score like Boyd Gordon doesn't make a player Boyd Gordon any more than playing defense like Evgeni Malkin makes someone Evgeni Malkin. Gordon got paid for basically everything he does besides scoring. If all you're bringing to the table is Boyd Gordon level offense, as Grabo mainly did last year, you're going to have a tough time finding work.

Generally, I disagree that you can say a money-saving move is "good one" or a "bad one" without considering what they savings are for -- absent that, the savings aren't yet a "real thing" because they're not put to any use. My deciding to move into a smaller apartment to save rent is a good idea, if it's done to save up for the down payment on a house. My deciding to move into a smaller apartment to save rent is a less good idea, if I spend the savings on scratch tickets.

No. A good idea doesn't become a less good idea because you subsequently have a bad idea that's entirely unrelated. Brushing my teeth three times a day is good for me regardless if I then decide to smoke crack and take a swing at a cop. Unless the two are intrinsically linked, and they're not, they can be judged on their own merits.

There were ways for Nonis to have fit Clarkson and Grabovski under the cap together. If he'd used the compliance buy-out on Liles and let Bozak walk, for instance. Buying out Grabovski didn't materially affect the team's ability to sign Clarkson. It was just the same decision Chicago and Boston made with their underperforming #3 centers.

 

[mr grieves]

Well, I've already gone into the ridiculousness of trying to pin a huge amount of weight to the difference of one offensive zone start per game to expectations of production or role

And I'd be convinced by that if the lines weren't what they were (and given that they were what they were, zone starts correlate with role) and if every other center with same percentage of defensive-zone starts didn't put up similar points. What conclusion is there to draw other than starting players in the defensive zone a lot limits their chances to contribute offensively?

This'll be settled pretty quickly if the variable we're squabbling over -- Grabo's ice-time and zone starts -- is altered next season, and he's back to producing what he pretty consistently produces.

so instead I'll focus on what seems to be a pretty glaring oversight in your thinking here. You're very quick to attribute the fact that Grabo didn't score a lot to who his linemates were last year but you're noticeably slower to think that maybe, just maybe, who his linemates were determined his line's usage more than him. Grabo was used on a shutdown line, maybe, but that doesn't make him a shutdown center any more than using Bozak on the top line makes him a "top line" centre in the sense that it's a qualitative evaluation.

McClement and Kulemin were the team's #1 and #2 penalty killing forwards in terms of ice time. They were the guys who Carlyle was using to neutralize the other team's best offensive players. Grabo did not distinguish himself in that role. He didn't blossom into an effective penalty killer, he didn't kill penalties at all. He didn't win face-offs or block shots or start hitting a bunch of people which are typically the attributes that people look for in real shutdown centers. Gordon, who you use as an example of one and who got signed to a pretty good sized contract, is the exact opposite of that. He won face-offs, blocked shots and was recognized for his defensive contributions by finishing 12th in the Selke voting. Grabovski not only didn't get a Selke vote but was, in fact, the only Leafs centre not to get a Selke vote(which may invalidate the Selke voting to some...to me it's just a great big neon sign of how easy it was to get a selke vote in Toronto).

I'm not sure what disagreement you think you're finding here. Grabo was played as a shutdown center because he was the center on a third line that was used to shutdown other teams' scoring lines. That doesn't mean I think Grabovski's a "shutdown center" any more than I think Bozak's a "top line center."

Grabo's defensive abilities, relative to other players in the league who are used in that role, aren't up to where they should be, and Bozak's offensive abilities, relative to other players in the league who are used in that role, aren't up to what they should be. Those are the qualitative evaluations. They're also given some support by pretty simple measures.

And yet both players had those roles in the line-up, which you can say with some certainty given their ice-time, line-mates, and zone starts (that Bozak was below 50% has to do with his being used as a face-off specialist to preserve leads, watching the games tells me). As a matter of use, if not qualitative evaluation of players' skills and abilities, Bozak was a top line center and Grabovski a shutdown center. Little wonder, then, that for the single season Grabo was used as a shutdown center he underperformed, and, in the several seasons Bozak's been used as a first-line center, he's underperformed.

So, you know, being able to score like Boyd Gordon doesn't make a player Boyd Gordon any more than playing defense like Evgeni Malkin makes someone Evgeni Malkin. Gordon got paid for basically everything he does besides scoring. If all you're bringing to the table is Boyd Gordon level offense, as Grabo mainly did last year, you're going to have a tough time finding work.

I took your "chip in" to mean generate offense. If by "chip in" you meant not "provide tertiary scoring" but "generally contribute," Grabo didn't distinguish himself, no, but he didn't do terribly either. Carlyle trusted his line to shutdown several threatening lines, and, with Grabo as its center, the line did pretty well. And Grabo managed to produce points at a slightly better clip than most of those in similar roles.

You're telling me it was sensible to get rid of Grabovski because he wasn't much of a shutdown 3C... but I'm saying it was a pretty bad idea to play a fairly consistent 20G/50P two-way center, who's paid $5.5m, as a 3C in the first place. Just what sort of performance would make a $5.5m third-line center not underperform? Had Grabovski discovered his inner Boyd Gordon, wouldn't his 2nd-line center contract have made him just as bad an idea on the third line?

Generally, I disagree that you can say a money-saving move is "good one" or a "bad one" without considering what they savings are for -- absent that, the savings aren't yet a "real thing" because they're not put to any use. My deciding to move into a smaller apartment to save rent is a good idea, if it's done to save up for the down payment on a house. My deciding to move into a smaller apartment to save rent is a less good idea, if I spend the savings on scratch tickets.

No. A good idea doesn't become a less good idea because you subsequently have a bad idea that's entirely unrelated. Brushing my teeth three times a day is good for me regardless if I then decide to smoke crack and take a swing at a cop. Unless the two are intrinsically linked, and they're not, they can be judged on their own merits.

I liked the poker and nickel slots analogy earlier in the thread and many of your others. Much as I like crack analogies in principle, this one doesn't do much to clarify anything. You'd have been closer to the mark had the crack been meth and taking a swing at a cop resulted in a billy club to those pearly whites.

Buyout Grabo, re-sign Bozak, sign Clarkson are all transactions that involve creating and using cap space. They're related. I don't know of any observer -- from the hacks at the Sun to the stat head bloggers -- who didn't see them as related, didn't understand the buyout as clearing the deck for free agency. The reaction of most here to the Grabo buyout was "let's wait and see what they do with the money -- if it's to re-sign Bozak and overpay Clarkson, Nonis done bad." So, again, cap dollars saved are evaluated in light of what's done with the savings.

But you're right. The moves are "entirely unrelated" in some sense... unfortunately, it's only in some existential sense where everything hinges on the essence of "intrinsically" that's so goofily abstract and meaningless that I can only imagine, at worst, you're looking to find something to argue about. At best, it's just my stupid fantasy wanking -- fire Carlyle! re-hire Quinn from retirement! sign Grabo to a 20 year extension! -- pursued by other means. You know how to internet well, obviously.

There were ways for Nonis to have fit Clarkson and Grabovski under the cap together. If he'd used the compliance buy-out on Liles and let Bozak walk, for instance. Buying out Grabovski didn't materially affect the team's ability to sign Clarkson. It was just the same decision Chicago and Boston made with their underperforming #3 centers.

Yes. So, to get to Clarkson, you need to choose your own adventure: buyout Grabo and sign a cheaper center; let Bozak walk & buyout Liles; let Bozak & MacArthur walk (and still buyout Liles?). Whichever you choose, that/those move is/are the prerequisite for signing Clarkson. Those are related moves Nonis needed to make to redeploy cap space and sign Clarkson.

And the ones he chose were bad moves. I guess, in part, because he mistook a center who underperformed on the third line was an under-performing third-line center.

 

[Kin]

What conclusion is there to draw other than starting players in the defensive zone a lot limits their chances to contribute offensively?

Something tells me that if you looked at baseball line-ups you'd conclude that putting hitters in the #9 spot must somehow hamper their ability to hit because, wouldn't you know it, #9 hitters tend to have poorer numbers than #3 hitters.

I'm not sure what disagreement you think you're finding here. Grabo was played as a shutdown center because he was the center on a third line that was used to shutdown other teams' scoring lines. That doesn't mean I think Grabovski's a "shutdown center" any more than I think Bozak's a "top line center."

Well, with all due respect to you, I'm sure, can understand why this line confused me

But, to beat the dead horse, he wasn't merely a #3C, but a #3 shutdown center. Not all #3s are that.

That line, pretty clearly, is a statement of what he was, not how he was used.

Grabo's defensive abilities, relative to other players in the league who are used in that role, aren't up to where they should be...

Right. And despite being a significantly superior offensive player, one who has scored a lot on really impressive individual efforts in the past, he wasn't able to significantly outscore the guys on your list. To me, that speaks pretty clearly to the lousy year he had in all ways. That's what I'm getting at. You keep talking about Grabo's offensive zone starts and the other comparable players who got those starts but if we start from the premise that I think both of us agree with which is that Mikhail Grabovski is a better offensive player than guys like Chris Kelly and Boyd Gordon then putting him in similar situations should still yield better offensive results.

It really didn't. Superficially it did, he did have a decent point total compared to those guys, but that's because Grabo was only used "in their role" in the most superficial of manners. Of the guys you list Grabo ranked next to last in points/60 despite having more points than anyone but Fisher. That's because those guys, who were actually used as shutdown centers, spent a good chunk of their time on the PK, something Grabo didn't(in fact, he got PP time). By the measurement of offensive efficiency you favour, Grabo ranked 50 spots lower than David Steckel.

That's really where this discussion begins and ends. Grabo was used in a role last year and he didn't respond well, offensively or defensively. Because he's going to be seen by prospective employers as a risk, as a guy who isn't necessarily a lock to play well in an offensive role, the fact that he wasn't able to chip in(and in light of those points/60 numbers I think it's fair to say it doesn't matter how I use that) in a different role limits his value to a team if he's being looked at as a 2/3 center which he almost certainly is. 

I took your "chip in" to mean generate offense. If by "chip in" you meant not "provide tertiary scoring" but "generally contribute," Grabo didn't distinguish himself, no, but he didn't do terribly either. Carlyle trusted his line to shutdown several threatening lines, and, with Grabo as its center, the line did pretty well.

But that's where your bias sticks out like a sore thumb. You're willing to give Grabo the credit for the work his linemates did and the general effectiveness of his line that you're not willing to give Bozak. Grabo, by default, was used in a defensive role but he didn't have a particularly good defensive season. That McClement and Kulemin did isn't going to change how a team sees him. Sure, you can make the argument that Grabovski proved that he isn't himself a hindrance to an effective defensive line but that's exactly the same thing that Bozak can claim about his qualifications as a first line center.

You're telling me it was sensible to get rid of Grabovski because he wasn't much of a shutdown 3C...

Sweet christmas, a thousand times no. I am not saying that because I am not interested in having the exact same Bozak vs. Grabovski argument that you seem pathologically determined to turn every single conversation into. I've made my arguments about the decision to buyout Grabo elsewhere.

What I am saying here is that the reason I think that Grabovski is having trouble finding trouble finding a new team is because he showed last year that he provides very limited value in a third line role and so he's effectively limited himself to teams who want to guarantee him a certain amount of ice-time and not many of those exist. Ottawa, for instance, is not a situation where he'd certainly be one of the top two centers so even if they had the ability to sign him, he doesn't make a lot of sense.

Buyout Grabo, re-sign Bozak, sign Clarkson are all transactions that involve creating and using cap space. They're related. I don't know of any observer -- from the hacks at the Sun to the stat head bloggers -- who didn't see them as related, didn't understand the buyout as clearing the deck for free agency.

Yes, they're related in the incredibly vague sense of it they were all moves Nonis made and, yes, you're right a lot of people are going to try and turn that into the simplest and most easily digestible narrative by then saying that they all follow each other but that still doesn't mean that you judge one move by one of the others unless one necessitated the other, none of which apply here.

The reaction of most here to the Grabo buyout was "let's wait and see what they do with the money -- if it's to re-sign Bozak and overpay Clarkson, Nonis done bad." So, again, cap dollars saved are evaluated in light of what's done with the savings.

Oh, ok. So because you've gained the ability to speak for most people here, who shockingly agree with you about everything this season, your own premise is correct. Well, golly, hard to argue with that I suppose.

But you're right. The moves are "entirely unrelated" in some sense... unfortunately, it's only in some existential sense where everything hinges on the essence of "intrinsically" that's so goofily abstract and meaningless that I can only imagine, at worst, you're looking to find something to argue about.

Yes, clearly if there's someone who is just looking to find a way to talk about Grabovksi vs. Bozak and the wisdom about signing Clarkson it's me, not the guy who has written somewhere in the vicinity of 99% of his posts on this board on those two subjects.

 

[Bill_Berg]

I think Liles should go to Montreal. They need to add some size over there.

 

[mr grieves]

Something tells me that if you looked at baseball line-ups you'd conclude that putting hitters in the #9 spot must somehow hamper their ability to hit because, wouldn't you know it, #9 hitters tend to have poorer numbers than #3 hitters.

Not hit, but drive in runs and cross the plate -- yes.

Then again, maybe Randy Carlyle is just the sort of tactical genius that would slot David Ortiz into the 9 slot...

I'm not sure what disagreement you think you're finding here. Grabo was played as a shutdown center because he was the center on a third line that was used to shutdown other teams' scoring lines. That doesn't mean I think Grabovski's a "shutdown center" any more than I think Bozak's a "top line center."

Well, with all due respect to you, I'm sure, can understand why this line confused me

But, to beat the dead horse, he wasn't merely a #3C, but a #3 shutdown center. Not all #3s are that.

That line, pretty clearly, is a statement of what he was, not how he was used.

That I said "was" when the player's neither retired nor dead should've been some help there...

That's really where this discussion begins and ends. Grabo was used in a role last year and he didn't respond well, offensively or defensively. Because he's going to be seen by prospective employers as a risk, as a guy who isn't necessarily a lock to play well in an offensive role, the fact that he wasn't able to chip in(and in light of those points/60 numbers I think it's fair to say it doesn't matter how I use that) in a different role limits his value to a team if he's being looked at as a 2/3 center which he almost certainly is. 

Apart from the fact that points/60 is a stat I've been told is useless, I don't disagree that's the likely problem he's having in finding a new team. "Which he almost certainly is [being looked at as]" does not make the player "almost certainly" a 2/3 center. 3 seasons as a solid 2C and half of one as an inadequate 3C does not make the player 2/3 center. And to be clear: That's not a statement about use, role, performance last season, or league perception, but a qualitative evaluation of the player and a judgment made about the numbers he's put up over his career so far. And it's why I've said that whatever team signs Grabovski to a $3m/year contract is going to have a great price performer on their team.

I took your "chip in" to mean generate offense. If by "chip in" you meant not "provide tertiary scoring" but "generally contribute," Grabo didn't distinguish himself, no, but he didn't do terribly either. Carlyle trusted his line to shutdown several threatening lines, and, with Grabo as its center, the line did pretty well.

But that's where your bias sticks out like a sore thumb. You're willing to give Grabo the credit for the work his linemates did and the general effectiveness of his line that you're not willing to give Bozak. Grabo, by default, was used in a defensive role but he didn't have a particularly good defensive season. That McClement and Kulemin did isn't going to change how a team sees him. Sure, you can make the argument that Grabovski proved that he isn't himself a hindrance to an effective defensive line but that's exactly the same thing that Bozak can claim about his qualifications as a first line center.

I'm as in favor of playing Grabo on a third line as I am playing Bozak on a first line. My bias sticks out because the team rid itself of one miscast, overpaid player and kept -- extended, overpaid -- another.

Buyout Grabo, re-sign Bozak, sign Clarkson are all transactions that involve creating and using cap space. They're related. I don't know of any observer -- from the hacks at the Sun to the stat head bloggers -- who didn't see them as related, didn't understand the buyout as clearing the deck for free agency.

Yes, they're related in the incredibly vague sense of it they were all moves Nonis made and, yes, you're right a lot of people are going to try and turn that into the simplest and most easily digestible narrative by then saying that they all follow each other but that still doesn't mean that you judge one move by one of the others unless one necessitated the other, none of which apply here.

That Nonis actually did need cap space to re-sign Bozak and sign Clarkson and actually did create it by buying out Grabovski doesn't much matter to you because the signings didn't "necessitate" the other -- other moves were possible. And yet that is actually what happened, which, when evaluating additions and subtractions, counts for something to me. Not to you, fine.

The reaction of most here to the Grabo buyout was "let's wait and see what they do with the money -- if it's to re-sign Bozak and overpay Clarkson, Nonis done bad." So, again, cap dollars saved are evaluated in light of what's done with the savings.

Oh, ok. So because you've gained the ability to speak for most people here, who shockingly agree with you about everything this season, your own premise is correct. Well, golly, hard to argue with that I suppose.

There's a pretty obvious difference between speaking for others and remembering what others actually said.

No one here reacted to the buyout as anything other than a cap-space-saving measure, and everyone agreed to see how the forward corps shook out before drawing any conclusions. The basic point: who cares if Grabo's bought out if the team's improved by better using the cap space? I'm with the consensus here that it's fair to evaluate the off-season moves in relation to each other, not just by comparing price-performance at each line-up spot. You're just about the only person who suggested the move be viewed in isolation -- get rid of bad contracts, save money -- but it's not clear that you were even telling us whether you thought the move was a good one or bad one in those limited terms, because you were entertaining that notion to guess at what MLSE might've been thinking. Which is fine and useful, but don't pretend that MLSE's reasoning is the only legitimate one for a fan to accept when wondering what's happening with his or her team. This isn't a "premise" in a proof; it's a pretty sensible vantage point from which an observer can evaluate the moves his team's GM makes.

But you're right. The moves are "entirely unrelated" in some sense... unfortunately, it's only in some existential sense where everything hinges on the essence of "intrinsically" that's so goofily abstract and meaningless that I can only imagine, at worst, you're looking to find something to argue about.

Yes, clearly if there's someone who is just looking to find a way to talk about Grabovksi vs. Bozak and the wisdom about signing Clarkson it's me, not the guy who has written somewhere in the vicinity of 99% of his posts on this board on those two subjects.

Yeah, I don't think that's exactly what I said it seemed you were looking to do.

And I'd quibble a bit over the percentage, but, sure, the biggest signing and player movements of the off-season have been the majority of what I've posted about in a posting career that goes all the way back to the end of last season.

 

[Kin]

Not hit, but drive in runs and cross the plate -- yes.

Then again, maybe Randy Carlyle is just the sort of tactical genius that would slot David Ortiz into the 9 slot...

Neat way of entirely avoiding the other completely rational explanation about zone starts. Of course, that contradicts your "I'm SO MUCH SMARTER than Randy Carlyle" thing so I suppose I didn't expect it to get a lot of traction.

Apart from the fact that points/60 is a stat I've been told is useless, I don't disagree that's the likely problem he's having in finding a new team. "Which he almost certainly is [being looked at as]" does not make the player "almost certainly" a 2/3 center. 3 seasons as a solid 2C and half of one as an inadequate 3C does not make the player 2/3 center. And to be clear: That's not a statement about use, role, performance last season, or league perception, but a qualitative evaluation of the player and a judgment made about the numbers he's put up over his career so far. And it's why I've said that whatever team signs Grabovski to a $3m/year contract is going to have a great price performer on their team.

Yes, you've been told that. My reference to it as the stat you have been using to measure offensive efficiency is just to highlight how you're super committed to evaluating players by advanced stats except for when those self-same advanced stats conflict with the narrative you're pushing.

And as to the general point, again, you're again ignoring the whole point of what I'm saying. The reason Grabo is being looked at as a 2/3 centre, again, is not because teams around the league aren't as smart as you are and unable to see that the position of #2 centre is some rank that Grabovski has irrevocably earned based on prior play but rather because that is where Grabovski is going to fit in on the depth chart of most teams. You didn't respond to the Ottawa example but that is a perfect example of a situation where, at best, Grabovski would be seen as a guy who, if they wanted to sign him for that three million dollars, would be battling for the #2 spot with Kyle Turris and, because he's just shown he's not super valuable if he loses that battle, has drastically reduced his value to a team if the only situation where he fits is one in which they'll guarantee him the #2 spot no matter how poorly he may start the year or play in general. That is one of the reasons that teams seem reluctant to sign him. There are a lot of teams in that group that very credibly have two centers they like more or just as much as Grabo. That's why he's going to be seen as a 2/3 centre, not because they're not as aware of the 20 goals he scored five years ago as you are.

I'm as in favor of playing Grabo on a third line as I am playing Bozak on a first line. My bias sticks out because the team rid itself of one miscast, overpaid player and kept -- extended, overpaid -- another.

Again, Bravo on entirely ignoring what I said and again trying to turn this into another Grabo vs. Bozak argument.

Being on a line that did good things did not mean that the player himself did good things. Grabo did not have a good year last year defensively, no matter what his line did.

That Nonis actually did need cap space to re-sign Bozak and sign Clarkson and actually did create it by buying out Grabovski doesn't much matter to you because the signings didn't "necessitate" the other -- other moves were possible. And yet that is actually what happened, which, when evaluating additions and subtractions, counts for something to me. Not to you, fine.

It counts in the overall evaluation of what Nonis did, sure, but B following A doesn't mean A caused B. That's just sort of basic introduction to logic stuff there.

There's a pretty obvious difference between speaking for others and remembering what others actually said.

And a difference still in inventing a consensus that didn't exist. That is what you're doing here. Like everything here, there were differing opinions.

No one here reacted to the buyout as anything other than a cap-space-saving measure, and everyone agreed to see how the forward corps shook out before drawing any conclusions. The basic point: who cares if Grabo's bought out if the team's improved by better using the cap space? I'm with the consensus here that it's fair to evaluate the off-season moves in relation to each other, not just by comparing price-performance at each line-up spot.

Of course no one looked at it as anything other than a cap saving measure. It saved cap space. There were people, however, who said that it was justified based just on how Grabo played and, more over, the consensus there had nothing to do with Clarkson which, and let's remember this is the argument you were actually making, the Grabovksi buy-out has to be looked at in the context of clearing room to sign Clarkson. With regards to that A) there's no real consensus on Clarkson and B) that's still not true. The Leafs didn't need to clear space to sign Clarkson.

If you go back and read the Grabo buy-out thread the overwhelming consensus isn't "Oh, this means the team is going to sign Clarkson" but rather "This must mean that the team has something big in mind to replace Grabo". Clarkson was not a Grabo replacement, so clearly that's not what they're referring to. You hear Stastny's name and Weiss' and so on but not Clarkson. This was not seen as a move to clear space for Clarkson and I suspect you know that given how you've subtly shifted from claiming that people are going to see the buy-out as intrinsically connected to that signing to instead saying that they were waiting to see "How the forward corps shook out".

Signing Clarkson was probably on the agenda regardless of what happened with Grabo. Signing Bozak probably wasn't. Choosing Bozak over Grabo in that context gave the team more wiggle room and that's why it should be factored into any such evaluation. Of course some people won't care much there because they're big advocates of Grabo over Bozak....are you in that category? Is there a way you could make your feelings known on that subject? I wish you'd finally clear that up. This beating around the bush is just killing me.

And I'd quibble a bit over the percentage, but, sure, the biggest signing and player movements of the off-season have been the majority of what I've posted about in a posting career that goes all the way back to the end of last season.

Yes. I noticed that in this thread entitled "Where to send Liles??".

 

[CarltonTheBear]

So, Anaheim? Souray's out for 4-6 months.

 

[bustaheims]

So, Anaheim? Souray's out for 4-6 months.

Maybe. They did just sign Fistric, though. I know he's not really a replacement, but, I imagine Anaheim's on a pretty tight budget, so he may have to do. They also might need whatever money they might have available if Selanne decides he wants to play another season.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

So, Anaheim? Souray's out for 4-6 months.

Maybe. They did just sign Fistric, though. I know he's not really a replacement, but, I imagine Anaheim's on a pretty tight budget, so he may have to do. They also might need whatever money they might have available if Selanne decides he wants to play another season.

Yeah it was just wishful thinking given the trade history between the teams. I didn't realize how tight up against the cap Anaheim even is though. Especially if/when Selanne signs. This whole $6mil drop in the cap for one season thing is insane.

Teams should have been able to exceed the cap this seasom by a certain amount and have it carried over to 14/15.

 

[Kin]

I wonder if the Devils, now that they have a real owner, are an option now. They have some cap space and Liles is a little Rafalski-ish.

That said I also wonder if that's not Grabo's eventual landing spot.

 

[Jalili]

I wonder if the Devils, now that they have a real owner, are an option now. They have some cap space and Liles is a little Rafalski-ish.

That said I also wonder if that's not Grabo's eventual landing spot.

NJ was the team I had pegged a while back as a suitor for Liles, but I think they've filled that spot already with Marek Zidlicky.

 

[Corn Flake]

I wonder if the Devils, now that they have a real owner, are an option now. They have some cap space and Liles is a little Rafalski-ish.

That said I also wonder if that's not Grabo's eventual landing spot.

I kind of think Grabbo wouldn't really buy in to Lou Lam's conformity kool-aid style.

 

[Corn Flake]

NJ currently made up of 10 players making $1 mil or less. 

Talk about the bargain team.

 

[nutman]

Liles will be in a leaf jersey come opening day.

 

[Corn Flake]

Liles will be in a leaf jersey come opening day.

Sitting with you in your basement watching the game?

 

[nutman]

Liles will be in a leaf jersey come opening day.

Sitting with you in your basement watching the game?

Lol  good one. but I think he will be with us this season. he will also show up.