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Leaf Rumours

I'm with player. With clarckson I don't think the leafs can resign kully unless he doesn't want a raise. You can't have 5 $4+ mil wingers.
 
MindzEye said:
Give Kuly term to help keep the cap hit lower and yeah, he's a keeper. As long as he never even mentions his 30 goal season as a starting point for his value, I don't see any reason why we can't get him at around the usual 3rd round rate of ~3.5 million on a 4-6 year deal.
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Right on.
 
With Lupul, Kessel, JVR, Clarkson all locked up -- there's no chance Kulemin will ever be a 1st/2nd liner on this team again unless there are injuries. Which means, he's a 3rd/4th liner longterm. Is it worth spending 4ish mill for a 3rd long term?

Nonis mentioned last season that he gets lots of calls about Kulemin, so maybe it's best to maximize his value through trade.
 
PlayerToBeNamedLater said:
With Lupul, Kessel, JVR, Clarkson all locked up -- there's no chance Kulemin will ever be a 1st/2nd liner on this team again unless there are injuries. Which means, he's a 3rd/4th liner longterm. Is it worth spending 4ish mill for a 3rd long term?

Nonis mentioned last season that he gets lots of calls about Kulemin, so maybe it's best to maximize his value through trade.
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I don't know why people don't get this- Carlyle uses his 2nd line as a shutdown line whereas most teams use their 3rd as a shutdown one, he does it opposite here which means Kulemin gets 2nd line mins here due to being on the shutdown line.
 
Pronger84 said:
I don't know why people don't get this- Carlyle uses his 2nd line as a shutdown line whereas most teams use their 3rd as a shutdown one, he does it opposite here which means Kulemin gets 2nd line mins here due to being on the shutdown line.
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It doesn't matter what he does, or what he likes to do, there's only so many minutes to go around.

Kulemin only played 16 minutes last year and that's with Lupul missing almost the entire season and no Clarkson. Kulemin is going to be behind Kessel, Lupul, JVR, Clarkson on the wing depth chart.

He's going to play 3rd line minutes with everyone healthy -- and you have to ask yourself whether that role warrants a big money player.
 
PlayerToBeNamedLater said:
With Lupul, Kessel, JVR, Clarkson all locked up -- there's no chance Kulemin will ever be a 1st/2nd liner on this team again unless there are injuries. Which means, he's a 3rd/4th liner longterm. Is it worth spending 4ish mill for a 3rd long term?

Nonis mentioned last season that he gets lots of calls about Kulemin, so maybe it's best to maximize his value through trade.
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Honestly...with a cap that is primed to trend upwards very quickly, I don't see the problem with paying Kule 3.5-4.0 per.
 
MapleLeafBlueJayBoy said:
Really?

Big time pass for a guy with 14 goals the past two seasons.
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I don't think calling this year a "season" is entirely fair. He was on pace to be back to his usual 15-17 goal 40pt "self". Throw in the fact that he's plus-plus defensively, a monster to deal with along the boards (watched him go into the corner with Lucic on a few occassions during the Bruins series and come out with the puck) and we already know that he has the ability to catch offensive lightning in a bottle...

and of course, the puck hogging black hole he was stuck with for the last 2 years is gone.

3.5-4.0 million for a player like that is far. Shorter term, closer to 4, longer term closer to 3.5.
 
Damn for some reason i thought he was getting close to 30(thought 28-29) but he's only 27 so basically best years and what ME pointed above. Totally loved those plays when he'd bulldoze his way and come up with the puck..I'd like to see at some point what him and Clarkson can do together. Maybe throw Bolland in there too.
 
They can't afford to give a long term, big deal to a 3rd line winger. After they resign their RFAs this year they'll have around $25 mill in cap space to resign kessel, phaneuf, bolland, kully, mcclement and gardener.

Modest estimates: kessel $8, phaneuf $7, gardener $2.5 is already $17.5/$25sh. You can't keep all of bolland, kully and Reiner. And kuly is priority #3 in that group for me.

And with a good year gardener gets a lot more than that. And all of that is assuming the leafs can resign all their current RFAs for the remaining cap space which I'm doubtful of if Franson want $4.
 
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We also get an extra $2.5 million next year with Armstrong and Tucker off the books as well as retained salary from Frattin and Scrivens; would just add that to Kessel's salary and give him 8 years
 
MindzEye said:
I don't think calling this year a "season" is entirely fair. He was on pace to be back to his usual 15-17 goal 40pt "self". Throw in the fact that he's plus-plus defensively, a monster to deal with along the boards (watched him go into the corner with Lucic on a few occassions during the Bruins series and come out with the puck) and we already know that he has the ability to catch offensive lightning in a bottle...

and of course, the puck hogging black hole he was stuck with for the last 2 years is gone.

3.5-4.0 million for a player like that is far. Shorter term, closer to 4, longer term closer to 3.5.
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True, Grabo was pretty awful.

I guess we will see this year. He'll be free of Grabo and maybe can put together a respectable season.
 
MindzEye said:
I don't think calling this year a "season" is entirely fair. He was on pace to be back to his usual 15-17 goal 40pt "self". Throw in the fact that he's plus-plus defensively, a monster to deal with along the boards (watched him go into the corner with Lucic on a few occassions during the Bruins series and come out with the puck) and we already know that he has the ability to catch offensive lightning in a bottle...

and of course, the puck hogging black hole he was stuck with for the last 2 years is gone.

3.5-4.0 million for a player like that is far. Shorter term, closer to 4, longer term closer to 3.5.
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This is the key point.

For two years I was saying that Grabs was killing him, and most laughed.

I think it's pretty clear now that that was the case. If Kuly played with Kadri, he'd be back to 30 goals, imo. The Clarkson signing only bothers me on a couple of minor levels, but that's one of them, that we know no matter what essentially that Kuly won't be on the top two lines.
 
Couple of guys that i wouldn't mind seeing signed:

Dustin Penner - Big body, that can probably be had relatively cheap. Decent option for the 3rd line.

Peter Mueller - Big time prospect a few years back that has seen his production and career slip due to concussions. Might be a good buy-low candidate. Big body, can play center if needed.

Signing both those guy would open up the possibility to move out Kulemin while his value may be perceived high. Kulemin + Liles + for a solid top-4 defender.

Lupul - Bozak - Kessel
JVr - Kadri - Clarkson
Penner - Bolland - Mueller
McLaren - McClement - Orr

Solid forward group.
 
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