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

that's almost as many fights from those 7 guys (17) as the whole leafs team had last year total (19).

Domi (5): Gudas, Ekblad, Pettersson, D'Astous, Mintyukov
Joshua (3): Crozier, Schenn, Zadorov
McCabe (2): Tuch, Gallagher
McMann (1): Zadorov
Benoit (1): Halonen
Mermis (1): Xhekaj
Knies (1): Hischier
Carlo (1): Nurse
Laughton (1): Cousins
Cowan (1): Lacombe
Pezzetta (1): Viel
Rielly (1): MacLean
 
anyway Trump finally made the latest Claude available to foreigners:

Here's the rundown of Toronto's July 1 additions and how the analytics crowd is reading them:
The moves:
  • Sergei Bobrovsky — 3 years, $7M AAV (goalie)
  • Jack Roslovic — 2 years, $4M AAV
  • Colton Sissons — 2 years, $4.25M AAV
  • Teddy Blueger — 2 years, $2.5M AAV
  • Brandon Duhaime — 2 years, $2.6M AAV (some reports say 3yr/$7.8M total)
  • Zack MacEwen — 2 years, ~$437K AAV
  • Trade: acquired Nick Paul from Tampa for goalie Dennis Hildeby + a 2027 4th + a 2028 3rd
  • Lost: Nick Robertson, traded to Pittsburgh for a 4th-round pick after requesting out
The analytical case for it: The throughline hockeybuzz and others are pointing to is deployment logic, not star power. Sissons and Blueger are both strong faceoff, heavy defensive-zone-start centers — Sissons starts over 42% of his shifts in his own end with a career ~54% faceoff rate. The pitch is that stacking bottom-six with players built for those minutes frees up Matthews and Tavares from ever needing to be your defensive-zone answer, which lets Toronto's actual offensive talent get deployed almost purely in the O-zone. Duhaime adds a legitimate physical/speed element (92nd percentile top skating speed) for forecheck pressure.

Where the skepticism comes in:
  • None of Roslovic, Sissons, Blueger, or Duhaime posted big underlying possession or scoring numbers last season (Sissons had 11 points, Duhaime 9). This is a volume-of-depth bet, not a talent infusion.
  • Losing Robertson — a 24-year-old with legitimate scoring touch — for a 4th-round pick is the move analytics folks are most likely to flag as value-negative long-term, even if the locker-room rationale (trade request) made it close to unavoidable.
Net effect: it's a coherent structural bet on deployment and depth over star power, but it leans heavily on a bounce-back from Bobrovsky and modest depth players outperforming their raw numbers — not a slam-dunk by the underlying metrics.
 
Duhaime adds a legitimate physical/speed element (92nd percentile top skating speed) for forecheck pressure.

That was one of the reports on him. Fast and tough. Two things we had little of last year.
 
LeafOfFaith said:
Duhaime adds a legitimate physical/speed element (92nd percentile top skating speed) for forecheck pressure.

That was one of the reports on him. Fast and tough. Two things we had little of last year.
Click to expand...
Brandon Duhaime — explicitly described as a "human wrecking ball," carries a heavy fight card, regularly drops the gloves against top-tier tough guys
 
Losing Robertson stings more than it looks on the surface. He's 24, has legitimate goal-scoring touch, and they got a 4th-round pick for him. Yes, he requested a trade, which limits leverage — but that's still selling low on a player who was, statistically, more talented than most of what came in.


The toughness/protection framing, while probably real, is also a bit of an emotional overcorrection. Fighting and physicality are not strongly correlated with playoff success in the modern analytics era — teams don't win Cups because they have better enforcers, they win because of goaltending, special teams, and top-end play-driving. If the Gudas hit narrative genuinely shaped July 1 spending, that's a front office partially responding to a PR/locker-room embarrassment rather than pure performance analytics.


What's actually defensible: the zone-deployment logic is sound in theory — freeing Matthews and Tavares from ever eating tough defensive shifts is a real efficiency gain if it works. And getting term-light, prove-it deals (2 years mostly) on the depth guys limits long-term risk if this doesn't pan out.


Net take: this is a "we got embarrassed and bullied last year, and we're going to make sure that doesn't happen again" offseason more than it's a "we identified market inefficiencies and exploited them" offseason. It might make Toronto a tougher out. It's much less clear it makes them a better team.
 
Losing Robertson definitely was a bad thing that’s getting lost in the noise of everything else.

I don’t think he made another trade request though? I think that was just last year.
 
Would make a lot of sense to move out Rielly/Joshua and maybe Lorentz and look at a top 6 upgrade and/or at least hold a little capspace for deadline deals.

Knies - Matthews - XXXXX
McKenna - Tavares - Nylander
Cowan - Sissons - Roslovic
Paul - Blueger - Duhaime

McCabe - Raddysh
OEL - Tanev
Andrae - Stecher

Bobrovsky
Stolarz
 
mbow30 said:
They can count on roslovic for 20 goals. Maybe Paul as well.

I don’t love the moves and sissons got too much but we’re talking as though they got plugs to fill roles that other teams have 30 goal guys in.

Even hayton…

Past three years (and in his career) he avgs 35 per 82. Sissons is 25.
Click to expand...

Generally, just wish we would start making room for the marlies to come in. Every year we seem to sign vets and forget to give the guys we developed a spot. Coukd have 2-3 mill on a few players by giving a shot with much less risk.
 
Other than maybe Groulx and maybe Villeneuve, none of our Marlies are really ready for anything other than injury call-ups. A lot of them got some NHL exposure last season especially after the deadline, but other than a 2 goal game from Groulx none looked particularly ready.

On the plus side, McKenna (18), Cowan (21), Knies (23)
 
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