Pat Verbeek Laughs Dubas off the phone

McTavish is 100% untouchable and Dotsal is probably close to that

CBJ pass. For better or worse, we are stuck with Elvis. Tarasov should make a good 1a/1b option alongside him, at least.

Yes Mctavish has the upside of a 60-70 point player while Nylander is already there with an upside of 90-100 playing beside Z. Sure

Totally fair, I didn't know if the Jackets would try a 1A1B with Elvis and Sam. But totally fair that Tarasov is seen as their starter in a few years!

Ah yes I forgot you know the exact ceilings of all players my b

McTavish plays a complete game, you know the things the leafs are always desperate for?

Points arent everything every hockey fan knows that. if Nylander is so much better why make the trade?

Dont get salty cause it wont happen

The two of which combined cost us 1.8 million against the cap vs Nylanders 9. If we want in on willy, we can afford to be patient and bid on him in FA. Won't be much of a bidding war, few teams have the cap room to chase him.

Neither of those players is touchable for Anaheim, end of discussion.

Retitle this GM "California Dreaming"

Much better repost than someone else. I think this is likely what the Ducks will do this offseason if someone like Meiers does hit UFA. The ducks have been bad for so long but it sure looks like the pieces are there for them to make a big splash the next couple years in the UFA pool with all the cap space they have. I understand not moving valuable pieces to get valuable pieces

Cap reasons and center depth is the reason the Leafs make the trade. Arguably the best defensive season Nylander has ever had too. Sure he's not a complete defensive gem, but he doesn't have to be playing on the wing. The idea is getting the center depth and gaining cap space when the Leafs clearly don't have alot of that.

ANA says No

And another leafs fan throwing Joey Anderson in a trade as value. Just stop Leaf fans, Joey Anderson has ZERO value, and why does CBS trade a 1st for the expiring rights of a backup goalie?

And does Matthews really just take 14mil? No, if the cap is due to grow he'll want to remain one of the top paid guys throughout its contract, so it could be more. But really, unless the leafs make the eastern conference finals, why are you bringing back engvall and kampf. Do you think that robertson will be a good 3rd liner? At some point if the leafs arent successful, you do have to look at the top 4 forwards AND goaltender and have to think why hasn;t it worked? But Nylander will be an expensive expiring UFA for someone to take on and why would they offer so much for an expiring deal they could bid for, for free at the end of the season?

Your idea doesnt take into account any of the Ducks needs. easily declined by ANA

We have a very obvious hole at 1LW, anyone can see that we need to fill it. Uncle Rico has been doing an admirable job but his contract is coming to a close soon. Ideally, the coaching change next year is enough to spark Comtois being put at 1LW. Not that's he's going to generate a lot of points on the score sheet, but as a puck digger and netfront nuisance that can bury the odd rebound. Meier would be better, but getting him may be an issue.

But we have no one for or other top 6 LW spot, and we need a goal scorer/volume shooter like Debrincat to pair with McTavish Strome who are probably 2nd line for the foreseeable future. Hopefully our top 5 draft piece goes there.

However, it's plain as day to see, the problems with our team are on the blue line. That's where we will be making a splash in FA this coming off season. We're hoping to get Graves or an equivalent LD for Drysdale, and we need someone for Fowler to sunset his career along side. I actually think Dumba is the piece to get.

My thoughts are that all other teams immediately decline

Last place teams don't usually trade for older players who need massive new contracts

Completely fair, while I am excited to see a coaching change next season and to see what coach ignites the team I highly doubt that Comtois is that guy. I like his style alot but do you really think he can be a #1 winger with the past two seasons he's had? If not it is not like this UFA class and next years class won't allow for the ducks to get someone to come over and be that guy.

Graves I think would be a perfect fit for Drysdale, I also think he won't be resigning in New Jersey with what they have coming up next year. I worry about Dumba, while on paper I think it would work, I struggle to think about him and Flower having to defend for a long period of time. I think ideally Flower would play better with a stay at home guy that allows him to take a rush. Similar to what the Leafs do with Reilly an have him play with Broide. Dumba to me, is too good offensively for him to be told to take a seat and defend. Someone like Holl weirdly enough I feel would benefit Flower more than Dumba (Even though Dumba is clearly much better than Holl)

I'll add my voice to the chorus. Anaheim won't be contending next season. Why wouldn't the Ducks be patient and wait until the summer of 2024 to make Nylander an offer? He'd be more likely to accept it then if it has the right figures because we'd all know what his last season with Toronto looked like, as opposed to his first season with Anaheim.

Anderson is simply in this deal for contracts. He doesn't have a place on the Marlies and certainly not on the Leafs. Cleveland is one of the worst teams in the AHL (Second last in their division) and would likely welcome a scoring winger.

Matthews signing a short team deal allows him to get more money on his next deal. What sounds better, 8 years at 15 million or 5 years at 14 million and then a 3 year deal at 17 million and so on. Its similar to an NBA contract where players will actively opt out because the cap goes up every year. If he signs a 8 year deal id be happier than multiple 3-4 year deals but I have a feeling he understands the market is going to get a huge cap hike in a couple years and suddenly him making 15 million as a top 5 player is considered just alright. (this is of the idea that the cap goes up 2-3 million a season like Betman predicted last season by 2025).

Totally agree with with bring them back in Kampf and Engvall, I'm assuming here that with Meier at the deadline, the Leafs actually get past the first round. If not, well then your question is valid and what do you do at that point? Likely move out key pieces and not resign the same guys as you're suggesting.

As for Nylander, I think Dubas has learned just walking your best players to UFA sucks. if the leafs get a deal done for someone like Meier (If there was a trade), then I would try to move Nylander rather than let him walk. Even more so if we don't get past the first round. If it happens again I suspect that Nyalnder is likely first to go due to his high value and one year remaining. As for the bidding for him during the upcoming season, I understand why the Ducks (who are not in a winning position) wouldn't go after Nylander, but for a team that wants to make a playoff push, why wouldn't you? It's just like teams looking at Kane, Horvat and Towes , they want to win and those players on the end of their contracts are easy to trade for while making the team much better

Totally agree, I think that has now been established. I think the Ducks would love Nylander but likely won't deal either of players above and would try to get him with cheaper pieces or just wait to UFA in 2024.

It's not that Comtois is good enough to be a #1 winger by himself, it's more that he is there in a supporting role. He's there to be the physical presence, dig out the puck, screen the goalie and muscle home rebounds. He has good enough hands to punish a team for ignoring his presence, and he will answer the bell for Zegras and Terry. He's been misutilized a lot the last couple years, were hoping that changes. He's been up on line two for a bit now and has been looking good up there. Zegras can realistically make anyone look good, it's just about finding the right guy to slot in. Meier would 100% be my choice if we could land him, but I think that line needs a power forward at LW more than it needs outright skill.

Dumba has really dropped off offensively and improved his defensive game as of late, but there's a.multitude of reasons to get him. Great locker room presence will help keep the team on track, willing to throw the big hit to re energize the team, willing to have a scrap for the same reason. He's no Arber Xhakej in the ring, but enough that with Comtois, Jones, and Vatrano it'll keep other teams honest.

We don't want to get overly top heavy though.

Totally fair with Comtois / understand why you want him there. Has he played with Terry and Z yet this year? Feels weird why they wouldn't try it yet.

Love the idea of Dumba being a locker room guy and standing up for his team. I just worry a cap hit of lets say 6 million a year could see him lose some of that defensive touch he has get lately. Would you resign Shat for a year or two to play on the 3rd pair of the idea of the first two pairs looked like this?
Flower and Dumba D1 and Graves and Drysdale D2. ? and Shat D3?
I personally wouldn't and if Dumba was the guy you wanted I would suggest getting a shut down guy to play the PK and third pair. But again, I haven't seen or heard enough of Shat this season to know how good he's been.

I'd sooner take the trade for Nylander than resign Shattenkirk to be brutally honest. The guy keeps piling on the bad giveaways that keep ending up in the back of the net. He has good games from time to time, but there's no middle ground left, he is either good (not great) or absolutely brutal, and we really need better stability at the back. I don't know if he hasn't learned the system, if he and his D partner are not communicating, or what, but he constantly appears to be on a different page than the rest of the team.

Comtois has had very limited utilization with Z&T. Not a whole lot came out of it, but its been a small sample size, and I think the coach was looking for Max to put up points rather than play the supporting role. Right now he is playing with Zegras and Strome on 2nd line and its looking good as far as generating chances go. Really Max just needs to stay with Zegras wherever Z goes in the lineup. Zegras notably heated up when Comtois got put on his LW and he got moved to center on 2nd. (went cold on the top line, got dropped to 2LW with Strome centering, that DID NOT work)

I don't think Dumba is going to get 6 million again. I think signing him to 4.5-5 mil AAV for 4-5 years is enough of an overpayment to secure him. I know it SEEMS like he is old, but he is only 28, he should keep it together well enough until his age 32 or 33 season. We'd also be looking to sunset him down to 2nd pairing with Fowler in the 24-25 season until Fowler's deal is up, then maybe let him down to a sheltered 3rd pairing role to finish out his deal. We have limited RD options in the pipeline outside of Helleson for the next 3-4 years anyway, we should get our value out of Dumba.

As to a shutdown 3RD and PK guy, yeah, we need one of those too. I'd like to take a one year dump for that personally, a Zaitsev or a Meyers. We have Helleson who should be good to go for third pairing after another year in the AHL, but I want to let him adapt properly before calling him up, if we burn him we have no one else (a couple long shots) in the tank until we get down to the guys we drafted last year.

SJ will want the 23' 1st
and if it's not Knies coming back then you need to be giving up 2 good prospects to hope SJ goes for quantity anyway. I don't think Niemela or Voit alone will get them to bite

Voit and Niemela are also not the best leafs prospects, and without a top prospect in the deal the sharks are going to want the 2023 first. Plus the sharks have a lot of quantity in their system they are just missing that star

McTavish is a 19 year old rookie averaging .6 PPG. Can’t say he’ll never get to 1 PPG. Nylander has just barely gotten there himself in his 7th season.