The Fantastically Beautiful Joyously Superfun 22-23 Season Celebration Thread

[LeafGm]

we should get hats for all the OG members of the Timmy fan club. this is one where we have both been on the same page for a while.

Lots of early members of the Lilly fan club around here!

I've never been too certain about his offensive potential, but I've always been pretty bullish that he had a great chance of being a big, solid top-4 RHD that can skate and move the puck well. And he's pretty steadily progressed towards that throughout each step of his development.

Though I still don't trust that Keefe won't do some dumb shit like bench him for Jordie Benn.

 

[Aberdeen]

Lilly will be Rielly with ability to defend

 

[MindzEye]

Sandin on the other hand gives me less confidence.

Question with him is going to be physical profile imo. If he's still built like a 12 yr old dutch girl in 18-24 months, yeah, this is probably what he is. Which is a better version of Travis Dermott, the crusher of soft matchups who looks perpetually ready for a bigger role but then never actually performs well in it.

If he was an elite skater I could see him getting away with being a small and weak top 4 (he's not soft at all, which is great, he's actually pretty physical considering how light he is). But the foot speed is pretty average there.

 

[Wayward DP]

Question with him is going to be physical profile imo. If he's still built like a 12 yr old dutch girl in 18-24 months, yeah, this is probably what he is. Which is a better version of Travis Dermott, the crusher of soft matchups who looks perpetually ready for a bigger role but then never actually performs well in it.

If he was an elite skater I could see him getting away with being a small and weak top 4 (he's not soft at all, which is great, he's actually pretty physical considering how light he is). But the foot speed is pretty average there.

I did advocate for trading him this past offseason. Not sure I've seen much to change my mind if I'm being honest.

 

[MindzEye]

No rush with him being signed through next season at 1.4 millie and him having already shown the ability to crush cans pretty easily. We can afford to be patient. But if a trade comes around for the right player and they want Sandin, I would do the deal.

 

[LeafOfFaith]

I don’t think Sandin looks like his prior self yet this year. I’ve been high on him, close to Lilly but not quite, and think he’ll be very good. Hoping to see him step up to last year’s level and better. Shaky so far.

 

[LeafOfFaith]

No rush with him being signed through next season at 1.4 millie and him having already shown the ability to crush cans pretty easily. We can afford to be patient. But if a trade comes around for the right player and they want Sandin, I would do the deal.

Depends on the deal but we should be careful with this. He’s probably the potential ideal replacement when Brodie or Gio are done.

 

[MindzEye]

He’s probably the potential ideal replacement when Brodie or Gio are done.

1) If he's good enough to play up the lineup, that's part of my concern. Travis Dermott crushed cans for a few years too and never made the jump up the lineup successfully. I think Sandin is a fair bit better than Dermott, but at 22-23 most of us were jerking off to Dermott as well. Which rolls nicely into point #2

2) Finding good top 4 LHD actually isn't that hard. If we look at a list of which top 4 LHD (of varying quality) have moved teams in the last few seasons (in no particular order): Muzzin, Brodie, Gio, Lindholm, Krug, Schmidt, Theodore, Hanifin, Matheson, Chiarot, Toews, Suter, OEL, Dunn, Skjei, McDonagh, Romanov, Maatta, Zadorov, Dillon

RHD? Dougie Hamilton, Montour (who is junk), D'Angelo (trumper/racist), Klingberg (expensive FA), Larsson (lol), Petry, Ceci, Barrie, Hamonic

Basically very expensive FA's or junk nobody should want to play 19+ minutes a night. It's very difficult to get good top 4 RHD's (which is why Brodie is so valuable), but replacing the best that Sandin is likely to become? Meh. Not that hard at all imo.

 

[LeafOfFaith]

Probably true. I just like that he's home grown, looks like he's got a ton of potential to me, and that we could potentially sign him to one of those nice 5-6 year contracts for relatively cheap and have our own long term (likely) second pair guy in place.

 

[fergy57]

Idk, if he nuked the start of his season this hard to settle for 1.4, I'm gonna be skeptical of him giving us a 'deal' moving forward.

 

[LeafOfFaith]

$1.4m is dick though. If we give him $3M or $3.5M, he gives us decent term. They had no room though this year.

 

[LeafGm]

Idk, if he nuked the start of his season this hard to settle for 1.4, I'm gonna be skeptical of him giving us a 'deal' moving forward.

Outside of Toronto-born veteran former stars like Spezza & Gio who've already banked piles of money so far in their careers, if you're skeptical of the possibility that any player is going to give us a "deal", you're going to be right about 99% of the time.

 

[LeafOfFaith]

By the way, I wasn't alluding to any kind of "deal" - just whatever a fair cheapish contract would be for a guy who isn't established and signing for term. Not expecting discounts from anyone anymore really, other than someone who I'd think is desperate to be a Leaf as a FA and/or already has made bank elsewhere.

 

[soco22]

It should surprise no one if he turns into a #1 defender.

16 - Elite prospect
17 - Mono
18 - Quality 3rd pairing defender in AHL
19 - Top 4 defender in AHL
20 - #1 defender in AHL interrupted by covid shutdown
21 - Season interrupted by more covid fuckery, and for some reason we felt it was better for Zach Bogosian to play 45 games. Moar stud AHL #1 stuff
22 - Establishes himself as a NHL regular with ridiculous underlying analytics, continues to get dicked around by the coach
23 - We Are Here.

I don't think it's crazy to suggest that without the covid shutdowns fucking with his development time in the AHL, he probably pushes harder for ice time in his 20 & 21 yr old season. Generally advances a year in his current development where he sure looks like at least a top 4 defender at 23.

All the tools are there for at least being a complimentary top pairing guy, and maybe a 2 way water carrier.

I think dubas worst offseason move was bridging him. We are gonna pay for that, especially with Matthew, marner and Nylander all needing contracts around the same time. Could have prob gotten a top pair dman (turns into that) for 3.5-4 over 7 or 8 years if we pulled the trigger. Now will prob be 6+ at a minimum if he also starts putting up great 5 on 5 offensive stats on top of his amazing analytics. And I expect him to put up 10+ goals and 40+ points with 25 min ice time without much PP time (I think he is gonna take the spot on our second PP eventually) next year before we have to go back to the table and sign him.

idiot move to use that money on fucken Murray instead. Maybe coukd have forced dubas to also not be an idiot and take the full hit of the contract

 

[zeke]

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[zeke]

decent play in this tough 3 game set over the last week. but still not firing on all cylinders.

PIT/VAN/PIT up next and they're dangerous but very beatable. would be a good time to turn it up a notch, win all 3, and get us up near the top-5 in both the standings and the nerdies again.

Still with Keefe would split Matthews and Marner just even temporarily. But if he's going to stick with it at least it's nice that Robertson finally clicked with Tavares and Nylander last game. But Bunting obviously has to go back to the top line over Kerf.

put back the kerf/engvall/jarnkrok vanilla line and see what happens.

 

[zeke]

 

[MindzEye]

Is he recovering from an injury or from drug addiction?

 

[Volcanologist]

 

[fergy57]

Is he recovering from an injury or from drug addiction?