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Core 4 No More: The Motherfucking Off-Season Thread

It's wild, im not blown away by Tre's offseason, but aside from dumping no money, and not being an OEL guy, i think it's been fine

Noted awesome GM Jim Nill threw a fuck ton of cash at Boosh, Dumba, and Smith on his blue line. Just awful
 
Probably not the worst he could've done but there was a lot of potential this offseason, IMO and if you're going to be a top heavy team, you really need to be finding value throughout the lineup yet it seems we're on the high end of nearly every deal, including the core.

A coach willing to give opportunities to Wes' ELC finds might provide some sort of relief in that regard.
 
xGAR (last 2 years)
Skjei - 25.5 (20th), $7 mill
Montour - 23.7 (21st), $7.1
Roy - 22.4 (26th), $5.5
Tanev - 21.7 (30th), $4.5
Zadorov - 17.2 (39th), $5
Walker - 15.6 (49th), $3.6
Lilly - 11.3 (74th) $3
OEL - 8.5 (86th), $3.5
Carrier - 8 (90th), $3.5
Pesce - 7.2 (99th), $5.5
Martinez - 1.1 (185th), $4
Haakanpa - 0 (212th), $1.5
Middleton - 0 (212th), $4.35
Edmundson - -5.4 (321st) $3.8
Dumba - -10.4 (340th), $3.75
Boosh - -16.7 (347th), $3.25
 
I thought it was a nice opportunity for them to lock in their d corps for the next 5 years or so. They have a bunch of forward prospects that they can and will get value from. But on d it's minimal so I felt this was an opportunity to grab some longterm solutions back there.

They got a lot better but 1. I wish they added two impact d instead of one and 2. I wish they went younger and locked a couple ~28-30 year olds in for ~5+ years. They're in the same position they were in a couple years ago with Brodie and Muzz except OEL and Tanev are older. Ticking time bomb.

With that said there's a chance that Tanev was the biggest impact d out there so it's a bit conflicting. He's damn good if healthy and if he doesn't die of old age.

I'd feel better about it if I felt this put them into the top 2-3 teams in the NHL. Don't think it does though. They'll be at a similar level as they've been at for years unless Liljegren, Cowan, Knies, etc step up in huge ways.
 
Preston said:
I thought it was a nice opportunity for them to lock in their d corps for the next 5 years or so. They have a bunch of forward prospects that they can and will get value from. But on d it's minimal so I felt this was an opportunity to grab some longterm solutions back there.

They got a lot better but 1. I wish they added two impact d instead of one and 2. I wish they went younger and locked a couple ~28-30 year olds in for ~5+ years. They're in the same position they were in a couple years ago with Brodie and Muzz except OEL and Tanev are older. Ticking time bomb.
Click to expand...
I'd definitely agree with everything here.

Blueline is for certain immediately better.
 
Preston said:
I thought it was a nice opportunity for them to lock in their d corps for the next 5 years or so. They have a bunch of forward prospects that they can and will get value from. But on d it's minimal so I felt this was an opportunity to grab some longterm solutions back there.

They got a lot better but 1. I wish they added two impact d instead of one and 2. I wish they went younger and locked a couple ~28-30 year olds in for ~5+ years. They're in the same position they were in a couple years ago with Brodie and Muzz except OEL and Tanev are older. Ticking time bomb.
Click to expand...

The Brodie/Muzzin contracts were both short term too. All those contracts handed out yesterday are bad, and not long term solutions.

The Leafs went for the value play, which allowed them to keep Domi and Lilly.

So it comes down to is Lilly the better long term play than Skjei/Roy/Montour. Time will tell.
 
Yeah Brodie and Muzzin's ages weren't concerns from from a cap perspective. They were concerns because they were gonna need to replace them imminently. Now they're in a situation where they're paying those guys for the next several years. So you just hope to get as many good years as you can out of them, but it's sorta out of your control now.
 
The real issue is we have to win now. Its not about giving ourselves the best chances over the next 5 years.

Now they are running it back with better D, a new coach and hopefully better goaltending but still a question mark. Is that enough? Or can you just never win with 4 guys who play the same position taking up 50% of your cap. If the last 6 years didn't make up your mind, this year should answer it finally.
 
only problem was that I was never in love with Skjei or Montour. I definitely leaned Skjei of the two but I wasn't in love with the idea. Though tbh at $7m Skjei is probably a good investment. Montour i'm less enthused on because i still see him as mostly a one year wonder and PP specialist at this point. But these are still both guys who put up their really sexy numbers in pretty sheltered usage on good teams.

Roy seemed like the clear value play - a guy with little hype but plenty of substance playing (i'm pretty sure) tough minutes in his prime. Tanev and Roy are similar impact players but obviously tanev is way older. I do wish we got Roy instead of Tanev. Or both really. We kind of did the bare minimum here getting only one of the big-4 - but at least he's arguably currently the best in one key area for now at least, and the cheapest.

But once Lilly was re-signed it was pretty clear that they wouldn't be able to land 2 of the clear cut "Big 4" ufa dmen. Lilly's a tough case atm but analytically he's obviously well worth the contract. But i hate paying money to bottom pair dmen so hopefully he can prove better than that.

OEL is also a risk to be paying for a bottom pair guy.....but tbh, I think calling him the "#5" on florida is not exactly correct. I'm pretty sure he's a good bit better than Mikkola and was more important to florida's season, even if Mikkola did technically slot ahead of him in the lineup alongside Montour on the 2nd pairing for balance reasons. But OEL was immense when Montour and Ekblad were out injured - for the first couple months of the year he was playing near 24mpg, and 2nd in EV TOI, and scoring at a 50-60pt pace until those two got back into the lineup. I'm pretty sure florida would rather be paying OEL than Mikkola right now tbh. Especially since now they just lost both their PP point guys and have very little money to replace either of them.

It's not what I wanted but tbh it's a nice relief that moves i don't necessarily love are at least solid analytically.
 
xGAR previous 2 years

2024-25 Leafs D
Tanev - 21.7 (30th)
McCabe - 20.7 (32nd)
Lilly - 11.3 (74th)
OEL - 8.5 (86th)
Rielly - 6.2 (113th)
Haakanpa - 0 (212th)
total: 68.4

2023-24 Playoffs Leafs D
Liljegren - 16.4
Rielly - 9.9
McCabe - 7.6
Edmundson - -7.3
Boosh - -7.9
Benoit - -15.8
Total: 2.9*

* w/ good McCabe: 16.0
 
Last edited:
leafman101 said:
xGAR previous 2 years

2024-25 Leafs D
Tanev - 21.7 (30th)
McCabe - 20.7 (32nd)
Lilly - 11.3 (74th)
OEL - 8.5 (86th)
Rielly - 6.2 (113th)
Haakanpa - 0 (212th)
total: 47.7

2023-24 Playoffs Leafs D
Liljegren - 16.4
Rielly - 9.9
McCabe - 7.6
Edmundson - -7.3
Boosh - -7.9
Benoit - -15.8
Total: 2.9*

* w/ good McCabe: 16.0
Click to expand...
this is pretty hilarious.
 
leafman101 said:
xGAR previous 2 years

2024-25 Leafs D
Tanev - 21.7 (30th)
McCabe - 20.7 (32nd)
Lilly - 11.3 (74th)
OEL - 8.5 (86th)
Rielly - 6.2 (113th)
Haakanpa - 0 (212th)
total: 68.4

2023-24 Playoffs Leafs D
Liljegren - 16.4
Rielly - 9.9
McCabe - 7.6
Edmundson - -7.3
Boosh - -7.9
Benoit - -15.8
Total: 2.9*

* w/ good McCabe: 16.0
Click to expand...

And I just totally left off McCabe from this years D, which brings it up to 68.4. So if you take off our #2 dman this years D still absolutely destroys last years.
 
yeah obviously the blueline is better than last year, especially since Brodie just completely fell apart.

I'm trying to think though if this dcorps is necessarily better than ones from previous years. I'm actually leaning yes towards that too, but I'm not sure.

looking just at playoffs D for now:

NOW: Rielly, McCabe, Tanev, OEL, Liljegren, Benoit, Hakanpaa, Timmins
2024: Rielly, McCabe, Edmundson, Boosh, Liljegren, Benoit, Brodie, Timmins
2023: Rielly, McCabe, Brodie, Schenn, Giordano, Holl, Liljegren, Gustafsson
2022: Rielly, Muzzin, Brodie, Giordano, Boosh, Holl, Liljegren, Sandin
2021: Rielly, Muzzin, Brodie, Holl, Bogosian, Sandin, Dermott, Liljegren
2020: Rielly, Muzzin*, Barrie, Ceci, Holl, Dermott, Marincin, Sandin
2019: Rielly, Muzzin, Hainsey, Zaitsev, Gardiner, Dermott, Holl, Marincin
2018: Rielly, Gardiner, Hainsey, Zaitsev, Polak, Dermott, Carrick, Marincin
2017: Rielly, Gardiner, Hunwick, Zaitsev, Polak, Marincin, Carrick, Marchenko
 
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