Trades and Potential Trades

Wilson is never shy about price if he wants something. It's one of the reasons I was a big fan of his until a few years ago. Torres is off the books at the end of the year for Toronto too. If I was a Leafs fan, I would be very pumped up about this trade. I like that they're later years too. Leafs already have 11 players on 3 year ELCs and they drafted 6 OHL, 1 US that went to the OHL, and 2 Euros last year and they have a pile of picks for 16's draft. Spreading it out makes much more sense to me so that they don't overload/clog the system.

 

Back to what I was saying before, this rebuild is going to be really long and sloppy, longer than most probably expect. They're not taking any shortcuts, this trade for 17' and 18' picks means they're lining up the system to support the big team instead of just flinging picks to the wall to see what sticks in my opinion.

The only downside for Skinny is that he may as well watch the Raptors for a couple years, there aren't going to be any meaningful shifts in Toronto for a while. Even the ones that appear to mean something, won't. There will be no shame Skinny.

 

I'm willing to wait on a rebuild than watch the clown and pony show with burke, kessel and fanoof. I don't get wilson, to lose your 2nd rounders two years consecutively, harsh.

 

To me, during this period in the cap era, I would rather have some bargain basement vets than 2nds unless my team is going full tank, and even then there can be exceptions. They're too expensive (925K cap vs 575K league minimum), clog up a slot in the system for years (initial 3 year ELC plus obligatory 2 year extension if they progress at all) and then they're still not much more likely to outperform 3rd and 4th rounders.

Gms have traded over half of their 2nds from the last 2 drafts. 7 are already moved for 16' and 2 for 17'.

I'm not knocking it for the Leafs. You have to build up competition in the system for ice time, and that's where the value of the likely marginal return at the NHL level is offset for a franchise tearing everything up and starting over.

The problem with 2nd rounders is TIME. Time and timing are among the most under emphasized/unappreciated aspect of trades and asset management in my opinion.

Time to develop, time eating a contract slot, time spent measuring bias, time on ice burned before they end up dumping them, time on ice not available to attract other acquisitions, etc. Then they often get caught up in a scenario where they're fighting the waiver exception clock too, depending on how front offices were managed prior to the selection.

I think too much of the focus on 2nds is just on what the result is in 5 years as if assets, like those listed above, aren't being used to develop that player. It's tough for me to quantify, but I'm working on that.

 

Something else with Wilson, unlike NYR, FLA, CHI, etc., I don't think SJ has the luxury of looking at deals from a straight asset management/hockey ops perspective. I think the business side of the franchise has been increasingly involved in Wilson's dealings.

SJ has been among the better performing franchises for a long time now. Since their decline has been anticipated and noticeable for many consecutive years now, it's starting to reflect in revenue and that's causing problems/concerns for ownership. They're a very good example of what happens when a team wins.

 

I'm just looking at the 2nd rounder from an asset that could've been used in another deal to bring in some help. Pollack is an ok stay at home, not great, one 2nd rounder should've got it done. I'm scratching my head on the second one. Wilson could've talked lou down to a 5th, but I know he's been driving a hard bargain for the last two weeks.

 

The 2nd had to do with the cap. SJ had to jettison a significant dead cap hit and Toronto will be pretty close to the year end cap number when all is said and done. For TOR to take on more salary, which may prevent them from being able to complete more moves prior to the deadline, Wilson had to overpay in my opinion.

I'm oversimplifying a little bit but that's what it looks like. We saw some similar trades within the last year where the cap exchanges cause the price of a deal to go up.
Wilson has been nutty lately, maybe he just really wanted to overpay instead.

 

Toronto looks to be doing things by the numbers.
I don't think Lou will be very involved in valuations or drafting.
What Toronto has been doing looks very numbers/CBA driven leading me to believe Lou's young apprentice is working out what's acceptable in terms of values.

Lou isn't one to trade players for picks very often, unless it's just dumping a young player about to lose waiver exemption that he doesn't like.

If I'm a Leafs fan, I'm happier still that Lou doesn't seem to be weighing the scales on player values. Maybe he changed...but nothing points to that. Now I'm confident Lou pulls the trigger, I just don't think he's putting the information together himself. Credit to Shanny if that's the case. (that hurts to say because he's a penis)

 

The players are feeling the heat in Toronto. Parentaeu could be next according to Friedmann and Gardiner says he or no one is safe. Could be anybody at anytime.

Is there a point where they can do too much and really over shoot and kill the whole process of a rebuild that wont take forever?

 

So much more than just lou, you have shanny,hunter,lemaire,dubas etc.

 

If gardiner could bring in a player they like better then why not. I don't think gardiner's a guy they'll take picks back for along with kadri,jvr,rielly and bozak.

 

I think there's a couple of models, but usually if you're really bad, and you do not have the bones of a team that can be on a winner in a few years, then you tear it down to the studs. Then, you could draft carefully (and often) and wait for the prospects to develop. That requires a huge amount of patience.

Terry Murray is impetuous, so he took a lot of the young assets he and his predecessor had acquired and moved them in "quantity for quality" deals. There's no assurance that either approach will work. But we'll know a lot sooner if TM made good moves compared to the alternative.

A good team is usually built from the blueline and then down the center. A team only plays six top-six F's and has one 1D pair. In other words, you do not have to focus on assembling 23 players. However, great care must be given to make sure that every player fits into their scheme - and some teams do not have an apparent plan, (team identity). You're going to pick up two or more of this group of eight through the draft; more if you're willing to be patient, (and you're GM is good at what he does).

No true rebuild team is going to see great results for a few seasons, (and that is starting from after the tear-down is finished). But it does not have to be like the Oil for ten years either.

So, it takes having a 1) team identity, 2) good drafting, 3) shrewd trades, and 4) a lot of time to rebuild. The only missing ingredient not covered is - 5) luck.

Alternatively, a team could choose to not go through the pain. All that's needed for this to work is for the team & the fans to be content with mediocrity and early playoff exits.

 

strange seeing Calgary and Vancouver in bed together again. Flames get Hunter Shinkaruk and Canucks land Markus Granlund. Seems like Vancouver gave up way too early on Shinkaruk, is there something here that I don't know? Shinkaruk is a kid, just drafted in 24th overall in 2013 and he leads their AHL club in scoring. Kind of the opposite of the Sven Baertshi deal.


"I don't think we gave up on Hunter Shinkaruk," Benning said in a conference call. "He's having a good year in the (AHL) for us this year. We worked with him to improve the details in his game. But we just felt that we're getting a good player for him in return.

"This is a move that when we get to where we want to be (competitively) and win on a nightly basis that Markus is the guy that can do that for us."
"When we call players up, it's to fit a role with our group," he said. "I think at the end of the day, we didn't feel he was ready to be a full-time NHL player yet. We thought it was important for him to stay down in Utica and keep developing the parts of the game that he needed to work on.
"Our goal, if we were to have kept him, was for him to be ready to play in the NHL next season."


an awful lot of time between now and next season, especially for a developing kid that's tearing up the AHL.

 

I would be pretty comfortable assuming Hunter deals with all things related to the AHL.
Lou is Shanny's "culture guy" and the hammer to keep Dubas from being jerked around by the other league execs. I don't think LeMaire does anything significant given that roster.

None of them have had any real success managing within the CBA rule set. Leads me to believe Dubas is the brains of the outfit.

 

I think the rebuild in the cap era is something that some teams are still struggling with(oilers,canes,cbj), some teams have had success like the blackhawks and kings the avs are up and coming, but there's never a guarantee. There's no perfect formula but if you have a plan and stick to it, it's a good start. You have to have a shrewd gm like a lombardi type for the trades. A good balance between the backend and forwards up front. The oilers if you see them on a PP look like they have nhl forwards but ahl D at the point.

 

never like to see anyone acquire Raffi Torres but I love this deal for Toronto.

 

Raffi is staying put with the sharks farm club.

 

thats good. the Marlies don't have to take him? why would SJ's AHL team even bother keeping him??.maybe part of the deal?

 

Maybe they're doing raffi a favour not making him have to relocate.

 

Maybe the Marlies want nothing like him in their lockerroom.