Rangers pass.....too bad you didn't offersheet him, eh?

My issue with an offer like this is we know at 21 Laf can put up 39 points. There’s no guarantee Tuch will do that and he’s already 21. The 1st might not be that high, which worries me. Harris is solid, but he’d be no more than a 3rd pair guy for us behind Lindgren and Miller.

I mean to be honest, if he has another underwhelming season, Drury will probably move on from Laffy

Maybe, but lets see what he does this year first.

I mean I’d rather not get rid of him, but between him or Kakko, Laffy would be my choice to trade. NYR have too many LW in the system with cuylle and Othmann ready to make the jump

Cuylee and Othmann will both benefit from a season in Hartford and Laffy, Kakko and Chytil get a new coach for this year to see what they can do.

Harris + first + ? ( Beck, Farrell, Mesar)..... or Matheson ?

Mesar would be intriguing to me. Pretty sure most of our fellow Rangers and Habs fan will say too much or not enough, but it’d be interesting.

I for one would do Mesar and maybe even be willing to add like Rohrer to sweeten the deal up as another right shot winger with size.

With Anderson and Gavrikov, Matheson is unnecessary, and Allen is no improvement on Copley and Talbot. We might trade the second for Matheson if we needed him, but we don't. Sanault for that package is out of the question, never mind the draft pick.

Laf will be huge for us once Panarin is gone. Kreider is sadly on the wrong side of 30 so Lafreniere will be "That Guy" before you know it. And he has a way higher upside than Kakko. I personally think Perrault will make Kakko obsolete once he gets to the show

Allen isn’t better than Copley or Talbot and Matheson is pointless with Anderson and Gavrikov.

This makes no sense lol. We have 0 RW outside of Kakko, so having Perreault means nothing and he could not even play RW

There’s a HUGE logjam at LW, so you either start trading Laffy, othmann, cuylle, Skyora, Berard, etc. or no one will play

Perrault is a RW now, so he'll probably stay there. Or if BC tries him elsewhere at least we know that he can go back to RW.

Lafreniere is absolutely not the one you trade out of those guys. I bet he will spend a lot of time on the first line this year, with Panarin on the second and Kreider on the third with Trochek. To start preparing him. One of Othmann, Cuylle, Sykora, or Berard will either have to switch to the other side or will be gone. Luckily I could see Cuylle in particular taking on a Goodrow-type role as a 3rd/4th line guy who can switch between all 3 positions.

Also I think the Rangers will make a big RW signing in a few years whether it's a trade or through free agency. I'm talking a Marner, Nylander, Konecny caliber proven guy. At that point where is Kakko supposed to go? If he takes a huge step forward before Perrault comes up then he will be fine. But if he shows little to no improvements he'll be a trade chip. Because that Marner/Nylander/Konecny caliber guy would obviously be the #1 RW and Perrault would likely be #2.

Kakko has looks worlds better than Laffy. So I’m keeping Kakko over Laffy any day of the week

And fans complain about having Panarin’s contract on the books, so they’ll complain when NYR overpay Marner, Nylander, Konecny, etc.

If Panarin showed up in the playoffs no one would complain about him. But he doesn't. So it makes sense that people are getting sick of paying a regular season assist merchant -- not even goal scorer, not to mention defensive liability -- McDavid money. I think the only one of those 3 I mentioned who would command that type of deal is Marner. Which, I would be fine paying him that much money because he's way younger than Panarin, puts up equal to more points in the reg season, is fantastic in the playoffs, and is defensively elite (Selke caliber actually.) Either Konecny or Nylander would be cheaper than Panarin/Marner in my opinion.

Kakko should look a lot better than Laf, because's he's had an extra year of development compared to Laf and hasn't been blocked by Kreider and Panarin for his entire career. But Lafreniere still has a way higher upside than him. If I remember correctly hasn't he been the team's leading scorer at 5v5 since he joined? You cannot give up on a guy like that. I'm not saying we give up on Kakko either now, but if in a couple years he doesn't AT LEAST take the step that Chytil has, it will be a different story

Panarin doesn’t show up for 1 playoffs and suddenly he’s labeled as a guy with a history of bad playoffs? Marner on the other hand isn’t that much better than Panarin in the playoffs lol

Well the LW position has Kreider, Panarin, Laffy, Othmann, cuylle, Skyora, Bedard. Top 2 aren’t being moved because of their NMC/NTC or they’re impossible to move. So that leaves trading Laffy and the prospects lol

Laffy may have better 5v5 stats than Kakko, but right now Kakko is way better with the puck and really good defensively off the puck. Laffy doesn’t excel at anything, he’s just average or good at anything he does

Panarin underperformed in the 2022 playoffs too, it just gets overlooked because he had the OT winner vs the Pens and we could excuse everything else as him being hurt. His total no-show last year, however, putting up 2 assists in 7 games with all of the weapons on that roster is ridiculous. It was beyond just "bad" it was egregious and there's no excuse for it. He literally single-handedly cost us a real chance at winning a Cup. Marner is way better than him in the playoffs. He had 14 points in 11 games this past year, and 8 points in 7 games the year before that. If the Leafs could go on a deep run I guarantee he would continue to contribute. I have zero faith in Panarin if you haven't noticed that so far

Thankfully Panarin's contract will be up in like 2 years and hopefully he won't be re-signed. Kreider is retiring a Ranger so I have no problem with him staying as long as he wants because at least he doesn't have a big ego and can handle being moved into a third line role. Which I expect to see even starting this upcoming season tbh. And it's a great thing. I have no problem with Kreider and I'm a huge Kreider fan. That third line of Kreider/Trochek/Vesey is fantastic. The other prospects have a way higher chance of getting traded than Lafreniere. I expect most of them to spend a ton of time in the AHL until Panarin is gone. Or they might be called up the season after this one and given a look at RW once Wheeler is gone, just to see if something clicks. And I'm fine with that happening. But Lafreniere isn't going anywhere

16 points in 20 games isn’t good!? Jeez you better lower you standards because not everyone is gonna be a point per game in the playoffs

All the LW prospects should be playing RW as much as possible to see who can play both sides. Laffy even deserves another try at RW to see if he can handle it

But do you see what I'm saying? Marner is better than a PPG in the playoffs and he has Selke-caliber defensive ability. That's someone who deserves that amount of money. 16pts/20 games is nothing to sneeze at BUT, if you are the third highest paid player in the league that's leaving a lot to be desired. Kreider put up 16 points in 20 games and is paid half of what Panarin is. And when you compare him to the people around him on the salary list it's bad. If we are just looking at the 2022 playoffs: Mackinnon (24pts/20 games), McDavid (33pts/16 games), Matthews (9pts/7 games). Panarin is 100% underperforming relative to his salary.

I agree with that and I'm looking forward to seeing if Laviolette experiments. If Lafreniere can even just switch between LW and RW that's a major help both now and in the future

Well he shaved his head so he means business and Lavi providing a system should help him. He probably realizes now that his regular season antics don’t work in the postseason