So CAR takes $17M in cap and gives some great cost controlled assets in exchange?

Common sense is far from that...

Ummm... they get an entire cost controlled second line... at what point in your life did you start following hockey... yesterday or today? I don’t see them as a team that wants or needs zaitsev but he could be moved elsewhere.

Certainly helps the leafs cap but hurts the team. Is commiting to 1 good season on the parts of kappy and Mango to long term deals worth all of the assets we are giving up?

CAR has no reason to waste that much money on assets they don't really need.

Scoring was an issue for Carolina all season. Subtract zaitsev and they take on 8m in cap and greatly upgrade their offence, add two players that can manage 2c as well. Management has said they are willing to spend....

If they're willing to spend, then how about just keeping Pesce and Wallmark and the picks and sign a player like Hayes on high money.

Also subtracting Zaitsev is not that simple, since there's not really big market for overpaid d-men, u know.

You can add or substract players from that deal .... but I think all those leaf players have to be moved somewhere, anywhere. Carolina is an ideal trading partner for Toronto, and they have cap space, and need offence. You can say what you want about Nylander, but he's a great young player with the potential to put up 70-80pts seasons, Connor Brown can be extended as he is an RFA, and could benefit from not being 3rd/4th lined in toronto .... Kadri just comes with term and a cheap price tag for a guy that proved he can put up 30 goals playing top 6 minutes. This is a good deal for both teams ... zaitsev was just a salary dump for me, you can throw him anywhere else.

a lot of talk about Matthews and Marner and those big contracts. Same with JT.

But I honestly didn't see the drive in them to win that series. There has to be an unmatched level of determination. You could see it in the younger penguins squad when they won their 1st cup together.
I just don't see that out of Toronto. This was their best shot and they didn't get out the 1st round.
They can't just sit around waiting for the older teams to age out. If you want to be great you have to beat those who you think you are worthy of replacing. I have yet to see it in this group.

yeah, I dunno pharrow. I mean, I agree with your last three sentences almost completely, with only a little quibble on not seeing it all with this leafs team.

I think we saw it often over the year, its just wasn't been sustained. The leafs were right there with Boston again this year and outplayed them for long stretches throughout the series.. but I think they did that mostly on skill.

I really think that alot of them have tuned Babcock out... That his double standards, rhetoric, decisions and inability to adapt when things weren't working took a toll on their buy-in. Now, that's no excuse and Dubas and company will need to decide if the roster needs a shakeup or if the coaching staff does in order to get the collective, full team buy-in and committed drive required to win.

For my money I hope this group is given a shot to be fully assessed under a different coaching regime before the roster is blown up. The group is too young and talented not to take that gamble, imo - and alot of energy, time, effort and mula has gone into developing them... Cause once you trade them, you don't usually get them back. And if the coaching, in fact, partly holds the blame, then where are we left 2 to 3 years from now?

I think the leafs are set-up really well, with a good pipeline of prospects on the way. Too early to start taking it apart now. Keep the offense in tact. Be patient with D development, even if it means a step back. I think it'd do the leafs well to let them develop as a group, and to stop looking outside for quick short term fixes. We need to be real - we have a ways to go..

I find it a little ridiculous to say this was their best shot. Really? The core group of this team is 20-23 years old, they haven't even hit their prime yet. So you're telling me that all these young players now are gonna be on the decline? Nonsense. Comparing them to Crosby, sure .... the team that got handed a generational player .... Sid won the cup in his 4th year in the league. So it was exactly instant success for the pens either.

It's not about the core group of players. It's about the Salary they are about to make and how it's going to drain the rest of the talent away from the team for a long long time.
They were on the cheap, and it was the best shot they were ever going to have because they could afford the rest of the talent around them.

All I know is they got torn up by Bergeron in the faceoff circle and it cost this team big time. They brought in JT just for that sort of thing. And Matthews is suppose to be a generational talent.
Bergeron was never put in those sort of words, they were saved for Crosby and Ov.
They have to have the compete level to step up to an aging 33 year old center and win. That's what it means to be the next "great" you have to actually beat the players you want to replace. Not wait for them to fade out.
I don't think it's the coach. He's not a bad coach at all. They needed to play harder. You have to want to win. Boston did, Toronto didn't.

Bergeron is a stud. But JT pretty much played him to a draw at the dot. It was Hyman who got his lunch fed to him by Patrice during the PK. Why he was even taking draws against him is on Babs.

And AM picked up 5 goals in the series. He played upto his hype- why he wasn't on the ice more when we were chasing a lead in game 7 is also on Babs.

But overall, I agree, the leafs knocking the Bruins off is on the players. They took them to game 7 again, they'll get there.

And you're right * 2, the alpha dog doesnt roll over easy.. but the Bruins are aging and the leafs are stepping into their own. At a certain point a threshold gets crossed and there is a changing of the guard. Didnt happen this year, and the leafs will be forced to lick their wounds on the golfcourse, learn from it, and wait for another shot..

He should have used JT for draws on the PK and then had him switch off with Hyman after a puck clear, he did this early on in the season.



It shouldn't, I mean there are enough aGMs roster here that prove it can be done next year. Look at mine, 3M in cap space .... Marleau and Muzzin come off the books after 19-20, thats 10M in cap relief right there, not to mention the cap going up an average of 3M a year since it was implemented. It's really only this off season that is tight for Dubas, if he can somehow manage to trade Marleau and retain some salary that would be huge, but we can't really count on that since its entirely up to patty, thats why I didn't put him in a trade. This team is on it's 3rd year of the rebuild, and they're still developing, hell I remember when they drafted AM everyone was saying this team would be able to make the playoffs in 3-5 years .... so they have exceeded expectation to a point where all of leafs nation thinks they should be crowned cup champs already, not true.

Anyways ... I'm excited to see what Dubas does this off season, and I'm excited to see the new crop of Marlies getting promoted to the club.

you mean like toronto got handed one?

It was their best shot. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that 3 players collecting a significantly large portion of the salary cap takes away from where the money was spent prior. Anyone who knows anything about cap analytics could tell you that.
They won't be a true cup contender till the cap raises significantly now to make their cap hits less. But considering how short the deals are, that may never happen.

Toronto didn't get handed AM, they finished dead last and won the lottery. Pitts on the other hand ... Do you even remember the lottery draft for Sid? Me neither, because they didn't televise it, only the "results" I found it very convenient at that time that a team that was on the verge of bankruptcy, and relocating got a player like sid, I mean ... what are the odds.

ooooo last place a whole 18.5% chance..... yawn. Go tell that to Ottawa. We still have never seen a draft. You think those stupid cards are an actual drawing.
but enjoy your handed to you player.

Lol .... yeah, because the NHL really wants a star player in Toronto, rather than let's say ... Arizona .... give your head a shake. Again ... the league didn't hand AM to Toronto, why would they?