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The Official 2026 Off-Season Thread: Revenge of the Nerds

Something else to consider with Max is that he's type 1 diabetic. I would have to ask Preston to be sure but I bet that fucks with recovery timelines.
 
For a guy who had an injury all season he still managed to play 80 games (and was heathy scratched twice)

Sounds more Wolverine than Tiabetic
 
Preston said:
Hayton does make sense, not sure Utah will want to pay 5+ million for a 3c and a guy that just scored 26 points last year. Should be a nice buy-low candidate.

His points per 60 last year was unfathomably bad tho, his 5 on 5 production was off the charts shit. Like below OEL and barely above Jake McCabe and Calle Jarnkrok bad.. but.... He shot 3% and his on-ice s% was 8%. So probably some bad luck there.
Click to expand...

Reasons i like him:

1. He is a legit C through and through - very good skater with good size used to going up against the other team's top lines on the reg, and also a very good faceoff guy.

2. He's at least good defensively and probably closer to very good. And he's at an age where the top defensive Cs start to turn into those elite shutdown types.

3. The offense is only 3rd line caliber - but his career 15gl/35pt pace is legit 3rd line production. And he's peaked more at 20gl/45pt type offense the previous couple years before the down year this year.

4. But the offensive picture isn't quite that simple - his nerdies offense is actually way way better than 3rd line stuff. Of 457 forwards to play 500+ 5v5 minutes the last 2 seasons, he ranks 36th in xgf/60 - tied with guys like Eichel - and a pretty amazing 13th in ixg/60. Over his career, of 583 forwards with 1000+ min 5v5 he ranks 138th in xgf/60- firmly in the top 25% - and 69th in ixg/60 - just outside the top 10%. So he does a lot of good stuff offensively even though it seems clear that he simply doesn't have the finish to ever be a real producer. But still - even doing the stuff needed to put up those nerdies means lots of ozone time and effective pressure on the other team's defense, so it's not all empty stuff even if he never is much of a producer. And even then, it seems likely he'll probably fluke into some good offensive years just from a lucky shooting percentage.

this also makes Chayka's drafting him 5th overall actually make more sense than this nerdies GM going for the prototype big C - there's a good chance that Hayton was also blowing up the nerdies in junior too, and Chayka thought he likely had a hidden gem with very underratred offensive upside.


and imo with the cap rising $5.5M is gonna be less than 5% of the cap for most of the contract and that for me is more than fine for a legit good 3C, even if he never gets any better than that.

Utah has their top 2 Cs and now a number of good C prospects coming up....and Hayton is still their ex top-5 pick and a career dissappointment as a result, and he's coming off a terrible offensive year but likely still demanding a healthy contract, so he might end up being cheaper than he should be.
 
zeke said:
Reasons i like him:

1. He is a legit C through and through - very good skater with good size used to going up against the other team's top lines on the reg, and also a very good faceoff guy.

2. He's at least good defensively and probably closer to very good. And he's at an age where the top defensive Cs start to turn into those elite shutdown types.

3. The offense is only 3rd line caliber - but his career 15gl/35pt pace is legit 3rd line production. And he's peaked more at 20gl/45pt type offense the previous couple years before the down year this year.

4. But the offensive picture isn't quite that simple - his nerdies offense is actually way way better than 3rd line stuff. Of 457 forwards to play 500+ 5v5 minutes the last 2 seasons, he ranks 36th in xgf/60 - tied with guys like Eichel - and a pretty amazing 13th in ixg/60. Over his career, of 583 forwards with 1000+ min 5v5 he ranks 138th in xgf/60- firmly in the top 25% - and 69th in ixg/60 - just outside the top 10%. So he does a lot of good stuff offensively even though it seems clear that he simply doesn't have the finish to ever be a real producer. But still - even doing the stuff needed to put up those nerdies means lots of ozone time and effective pressure on the other team's defense, so it's not all empty stuff even if he never is much of a producer. And even then, it seems likely he'll probably fluke into some good offensive years just from a lucky shooting percentage.

this also makes Chayka's drafting him 5th overall actually make more sense than this nerdies GM going for the prototype big C - there's a good chance that Hayton was also blowing up the nerdies in junior too, and Chayka thought he likely had a hidden gem with very underratred offensive upside.


and imo with the cap rising $5.5M is gonna be less than 5% of the cap for most of the contract and that for me is more than fine for a legit good 3C, even if he never gets any better than that.

Utah has their top 2 Cs and now a number of good C prospects coming up....and Hayton is still their ex top-5 pick and a career dissappointment as a result, and he's coming off a terrible offensive year but likely still demanding a healthy contract, so he might end up being cheaper than he should be.
Click to expand...

1779728688578.png
 
and yeah, I'd much rather throw ~5 million at this kid for his prime years than to pay someone like Laughton 4+ million for ages 32-35

Decent size, good skater, strong nerdies in heavy defensive usage. I'd prefer more pure skill (Kadri, etc) but he wouldn't hurt us there either.

McKenna-Matthews-Knies
Robertson-Tavares-Nylander
Cowan-Hayton-Maccelli
Joshua-XXXXX-XXXXX
Lorentz
 
I like our lineup infinitely better with no Domi being shoehorned into it anymore.

Hiring Mats seems to have just completely changed the luck of this franchise overnight.
 
Preston said:
It's like acquiring kerfoot all over again! Except this guy can probably play center.
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Yep, just like Kerfoot, except this one is bigger, actually a good 3C, and might have some offensive upside beyond 15/35 while carrying his own defensive usage line.

So not at all like Kerfoot. But they both play hockey so I definitely see the area for confusion.
 
MindzEye said:
Yep, just like Kerfoot, except this one is bigger, actually a good 3C, and might have some offensive upside beyond 15/35 while carrying his own defensive usage line.

So not at all like Kerfoot. But they both play hockey so I definitely see the area for confusion.
Click to expand...
Milquetoast, low event and boring as fuck offensively with a muffin shot. But that's ok and they can probably use that as long as he can play center!
 
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