Quoting: HabsFan61
Is this opinion based on anything? Because I see two forwards who underperform but one is making 5.7 million and the other at 50% is only 2.3.
Oh boy. I sure am glad you asked.
Dvorak has 2 years left on his contract versus Mantha's 1. The AAV differs by 1.3M, which isn't negligible, but 2x4.45 is 8.9 whereas 1x5.7 is just 5.7 last time I checked. So even if we're looking at them both as cap dumps, it will cost more to dump Dvorak. Let's look at production now.
Mantha: 11G-16A in 67GP
Dvorak: 10G-18A in 64GP
Dvorak had slightly better numbers, but legitimately negligible. However, Dvorak had far less competition for ice time on Montreal. Dvorak's ATOI for the 22-23 season was 16:52, whereas Mantha's was 14:13. Dvorak on average was getting an extra two and a half minutes per game and did nothing with that time. Not to mention that Dvorak had 118 minutes on the PP versus Mantha's 59, literally exactly half. Dvorak should've way outscored Mantha due to his deployment. Dvorak's career high in points is also only 38, which he hit in 19-20. Mantha's is 48, which he hit in back to back seasons in 17-18 and 18-19, which I'll concede was a long time ago, but I'm still betting on Mantha over Dvorak given those track records.
Dvorak is a serviceable two way center? Dvorak over the course of the season threw 13 hits, had 66 blocks (decent for a forward, nothing spectacular), and had a Takeaway-Giveaway differential of -14. That's awful. That isn't a good two way center. Not to mention he had a CF of 42.5%, which is also atrocious. He hasn't posted a CF% over 50% (which is average) since 2019-20. There's nothing good about Dvorak's defensive game other than his painfully average FOW% of 52%.
Comparing those numbers to Mantha: 68 hits, 24 blocks, -10 takeaway giveaway differential. Not much better in terms of defense, but at least he hits someone once a game. The real difference here is his 53.1% CF. This is the lowest CF% Mantha has EVER had in his career and it's still 10% better than Dvorak's season. Literally over 10 percentage points better than Dvorak. And before you say something like "well the caps are better than the habs so he should have better numbers;" the caps finished 8th worst in the league and had only 4 more wins than the habs.
I haven't even talked about Laviolette's deployment of Mantha, but at this point, I've made my point. Dvorak is garbage and has little to no redeeming qualities whereas Mantha had his deployment screwed by an awful coach (good luck rangers). I'll take one year of Mantha over two of Dvorak. It isn't even close, not even in the same ballpark. Mantha at least has a chance to bounce back and has good underlying numbers, whereas Dvorak's numbers all say he is what he is; a cap dump.
While there is significant retention in this deal, it still does not even close to justify the caps paying two second round picks to swap Mantha for a far inferior player. Dvorak is not an upgrade in the slightest.
To further expand this point, go to https://hockeymon.streamlit.app/ because honestly I don't know where else to get THIS specific information for free, but compare the numbers for Dvorak and Mantha and you will find that even though Mantha has mightily struggled to produce, he is a far more positive impact player than Dvorak. Like, not even close.