Ristolainen is bad defensively and we need a defensive Dman.

I think he has room to grow, and hes been asked to do too much in a bad system in BUF.

He can play 20+ minutes a night, has some offensive flair, and hits. He is not the crease clearer, reliable vet we need, but hes cheap in trade and hopefully we can address his weaknesses in defense, while bringing in crease clearer Oleksiak and allow Cam York to pick up some of the puck rushing slack. (ideally, we can fix Myers and address his defense as well).

Our team can score and is deep at forward, but lacks some speed and grit. The youngsters collectivekly regressed (notably Sanheim, Myers and Hart, but also Patrick, Lindblom, and Provorov), but ultimately the team finished with a winning record and gave up the most goals. Ultimately its giving the youth and coaches another chance to stop the regression.

Trying to address team speed and grit: Frost, Foerster, York, Marner bring speed, Allison, Oleksiak, Risto bring hitting and grit.

Dumba or UFA David Savard could also be a good fit here, but if we can stop the regression from Sanheim and Myers, you're looking at a defensive collective, with Provorov not being responsible for being the number 1 on defense and offense.

As a leafs fan, I think management will only move marner if we are getting something back that is really unique. Like this :

JVR (50% retained)
Nolan Patrick
Morgan Frost
2020 1st

JVR at $3.5M is insane value for us given how cash strapped we are and both Patrick and Frost have 2/3 years of game breaking potential at under $1.5M each. The mid round first is additional value if we decide to try and trade up for Wallstedt to solidify the goaltender position long-term.

It's a lot to ask for but Marner was top 5 in points this year and it will take a lot to pry him away from Dubas.

Interested if you would still take this. The ~ $5M in cap space this trade frees up for you can easily replace those guys with equivalents (minus potential) in your lineup. JVR salary retention is only two years.

Flyers dont offer that....IMO you are getting a 24 yr old who has scored 60+ pts last 2 years from second line, signed long term at 5.5, a solid 2nd line winger who is almost a guaranteed 20-30 goals, those two players together offer you a wider forward corps and produce more than Marner.

You'll never trade a marner for a marner, the best you can do is address multiple team issues. But no way does PHI offer JVR at 50% retained and multiple young guys. (and I doubt few teams could afford that in a flat cap world).

Its just a proposal, and IMO TOR rolls a much more impressive top 6 of hyman-matthews-TK, JVR-Tavares-Nylander and still gets a 14th overall and a good dman prospect. Not to mention TK plays with grit, and JVR is a big body, two things TOR could use. TOR is going to struggle to produce a better team with 3 top heavy forwards, for almost the same amount of marner money, youre getting two top 6 forwards who produce more.... And JVR (with no injury histroy) is a safe bet to continue producing throughout contract and his trade value increases as he nears end of contract.

But hey its just a proposal.

I don't think it's a good idea to take a risk with Risto and with the regressing young players there are so many young players who regressed this season that it's better to play it safe and get someone who has proven to be a great defensive player. What if we take a risk on Risto and it doesn't pay off and players like Hart, Provorov, Sanheim and Myers keep regressing because we didn't make any significant changes to our defense to stop them from regressing.

Trying to get more speedy forwards into our forward group should be a thing to look into but we shouldn't rush Foerster he's been great in the AHL but i wouldn't say his quite NHL ready i would say 1 year of deveplopement would do wonders to his game. He owns a lethal shot and a playmaking ability which are his main tools when playing. I remember back when he was drafted that he had to deveplop his skating which was his weakness back then but when the AHL season started his skating looked much better meaning he is ready to work hard on the weaknesses of his game.

Adding soneone like Savard to play with Sanheim would be great giving Sanheim and Myers less responsibility and letting them play with less weight on their shoulders. I think Myers can play top 4 when he's on his game but putting him to the 3rd pair with York lets York play his offensive game while Myers is back defending with less responsibility which also gives us a great depth to our defense stopping Hart from regressing.

To add grit to the lineup Risto is a great option and he was one of the top hitters in the league this past season if i remember correctly but he is a risk to pair up with either Sanheim or Provorov he still has some room to develop his defensive game but if he can't then we got a bit of a problem on our hands. If he can develop his defensive game to a level where we can put him to our 2nd pair with Sanheim then that's great we got a defenseman whos game is balanced on all parts. Players like Allison and Morin are both big and physical which partly solves the problem. Morin doesn't quite deserve a roster spot but he can be a 7th dman who is put to the lineup when we need more grit on our matchups. Allison looked great on ice when playing on our 4th line he was energetic he was physical and had great offensive production as well he's what we need put into a still developing player.

Overall we need someone to play with Provorov that can take care of the defense and it should be our main goal this offseason. Addressing our 2nd pair is optional but it should be seriously looked into to make our defense great again. Adding speed is bit challenging with our forward group but we can have Laczynski on our 4C he looked NHL ready with energetic play with also great 2 way game that had him a spot on our PK while being quite speedy.

Awesome and amazingly well thought out.

I agree with most points, and would certainly prefer a RD like Dumba, Manson or Savard and certainly theres the cap space and trade capitol.

As far as Foerster, I think with that 4th line, you want some real energy guys, who can play defense first and foremost, and move up and down lineup, and play capably: Laughton, Patrick and ? is the key. Maybe not Foerster, theres no lack of options if your 4th line is two 3rd line guys who can play mulitple positions well.

It's nice to hear good feedback after writing that for about an hour.