NHL Trade Deadline Post
As trade deadlines go, the NHL has nothing on the NBA. There isn't nearly as much excitement before, during and after it; usually not as many moves; and even the moves that are made don't tend to move the needle much.
This year's NHL deadline ran from Monday night to Tuesday morning on my end. Since I usually stay up until around 1 a.m. anyway, I kept track of the deadline coverage up until about 1:30 ish Tuesday before going to sleep.
I got up and checked the trade coverage the first thing in the morning, though I didn't expect my Leafs to do much. Even Babs didn't think the team was going to make a splash.
As a fan base, we the Leafs devotees may seem insufferable to non-fans. People probably harbor similar feelings about, say, fans of the Yankees. You know, the ones that feel entitled, thinking they're supposed to get all the big-name stars, and get righteously angry when they're shunned, etc, etc.
The major difference between the Yanks and the Leafs, of course, is that we haven't won a damn thing for more than five decades!
Anyway, I thought I'd bring this up after reading some fans' reaction to the Leafs' standing pat at the deadline.
Just so you know, there are maybe a couple of million armchair Leafs GMs out there in T.O. I don't think I'd want Kyle Dubas' job, as much as I love that team.
And those fans jumped on the real GM for not making any move, or any move that registered (and with all due respect, dealing Par Lindholm for Nic Petan, who supposedly has more upside than people may think, doesn't fall in that category).
"Where's our right-handed shooting defenseman? Do we not need more sandpaper up front? I thought we were getting Wayne Simmonds or Micheal Ferland or even both! Is Dubas getting paid not to make any deal?"
Me? I was perfectly fine with this quiet day. We already traded for Jake Muzzin, just not on the deadline but a few weeks earlier to avoid all the circus that surely would have come. I saw a report about a deal that would have sent Connor Brown, a prospect and a pick to Vegas for Ryan Reaves (grit!) and Colin Miller (RH D-man!). I would have approved of that deal. Brown seems to have regressed and Reaves brings more old-school toughness to the table and we wouldn't be getting him for offense anyway. And Miller is a right-handed shooting, mid-20s D-man with some offensive upside.
Dubas apparently decided the price was still too steep, and he didn't want to disrupt what he already had on his hands. Babs would have liked Reaves but maybe not at the expense of Brown.
I can sense some old insecurity raising its ugly head again in the Leafs Nation, especially now that the Bruins have moved past us in the standings and we seem destined for another first round matchup, with Boston having the home ice for the second straight season. It goes something like, "Can we beat the Bruins in a seven-game series with the team we have? I think we're too soft to play those guys. They made some moves at the deadline. What did we do?"
The Bruins have had our number so far in the regular season. But I believe we can beat them in a seven-game set with our current team. And Dubas was 100 percent right when he said, "When you start building a team to play only one team in the playoffs, you start to lose your way a little bit and lose what you're about."
What this Leafs team is about is we're built on speed and skills. We don't have those old-school traits that people say can come in handy (or even become essential) in the playoffs. I have said this before and I'll say it again. I don't buy that theory.
At the very least, I won't buy it unless this Leafs team gets knocked out again by the Bruins in the first round.
For all of the Bruins' hard-checking ways, I think we have enough speed and skills to get around them and firepower to score a bunch of goals. And their offense hasn't exactly been setting the world on fire, so if we can just take care of our offensive end, we could have a surprisingly easy series.
Not saying Montreal and Buffalo are on the same level as the Bruins, but we put up six and four unanswered goals against those teams in the last games.
Clearly not ideal, because we didn't start on time and got behind early. Still, rallying with those goals, almost as if to casually show the rest of the NHL that, "Yeah, we can do these kind of things," was very impressive. And Carey Price for the Habs is a pretty good goalie.
So the opposition won't give us that much space in the playoffs? I think we will be able to find space.
We also have a penalty killer like this:
Although I tend to prefer that my teams deal prospects for proven pieces when they're available (as detailed in this post) I felt the situation with the Leafs at the deadline was different than the one with the Raptors at the NBA deadline.
Despite the impending cap crunch with the Leafs, I feel that the window is a bit wider open than with the Raptors. We aren't fretting about a star player's possible departure via free agency after this season (and I think we can all agree that UFA-to-be Jake Gardiner isn't the hockey player that Kawhi Leonard is the basketball player). And, for the sake of this argument, assuming we lock up Mitch Marner with a multi-year deal and retain RFAs Andreas Johnsson and Kasperi Kapanen, then we'll have core pieces in their prime under team control for a few seasons.
In sum, the Leafs have a far younger core than the Raptors. Cap or not, most of the key guys will be there for a bit, with moving parts in the immediate/near future likely being Patty Marleau, Ron Hainsey, the aforementioned Gardiner, etc. And we can still fill their voids internally. Even now, once Kadri returns from concussion, you could argue Marleau, not one of those fourth-line guys, should be scratched (Marleau's consecutive games played streak notwithstanding). And on defense, we have some first rounders with the Marlies who should hit the big stage in the coming years.
I like the way the team's set up now. The frustrating part for me is that these guys often don't start on time or give their best effort for 60 minutes. It's not something adding a player or two can address. It has to come from within.
On some closing thoughts...
I suppose the biggest deadline day trade was Mark Stone going from Ottawa to Vegas, which is fairly underwhelming if you ask me. Stone is a very good player, an underrated one even, who can play at both ends. He's still just 26 years old, too.
For my money, I would have liked to see season-end award winners like Artemi Panarin (who will always be the answer to this trivia question: who beat out Connor McDavid for the Calder Trophy in 2016?) and Sergei Bobrovsky get moved to contenders.
Of course, they both happen to play for the Blue Jackets, and they also happen to be contending for a playoff spot! Though both are UFAs after the season and it doesn't look like either will re-sign with CBJ, the front office didn't just hold on to those guys, they ended up acquiring some solid pieces like Matt Duchene and Ryan Dzingel.
The Jackets are clearly going all-in. Their fan base deserves that. If they make the playoffs and win a round or two, great. If not, then they'd still have decent pieces to build around even if they lose Panarin and/or Bob.
The Jackets sent a great message to their fans with their moves. But I also think the Leafs sent a powerful message to us fans: that the FO has faith in the team on the ice now.
This year's NHL deadline ran from Monday night to Tuesday morning on my end. Since I usually stay up until around 1 a.m. anyway, I kept track of the deadline coverage up until about 1:30 ish Tuesday before going to sleep.
I got up and checked the trade coverage the first thing in the morning, though I didn't expect my Leafs to do much. Even Babs didn't think the team was going to make a splash.
As a fan base, we the Leafs devotees may seem insufferable to non-fans. People probably harbor similar feelings about, say, fans of the Yankees. You know, the ones that feel entitled, thinking they're supposed to get all the big-name stars, and get righteously angry when they're shunned, etc, etc.
The major difference between the Yanks and the Leafs, of course, is that we haven't won a damn thing for more than five decades!
Anyway, I thought I'd bring this up after reading some fans' reaction to the Leafs' standing pat at the deadline.
Just so you know, there are maybe a couple of million armchair Leafs GMs out there in T.O. I don't think I'd want Kyle Dubas' job, as much as I love that team.
And those fans jumped on the real GM for not making any move, or any move that registered (and with all due respect, dealing Par Lindholm for Nic Petan, who supposedly has more upside than people may think, doesn't fall in that category).
"Where's our right-handed shooting defenseman? Do we not need more sandpaper up front? I thought we were getting Wayne Simmonds or Micheal Ferland or even both! Is Dubas getting paid not to make any deal?"
Me? I was perfectly fine with this quiet day. We already traded for Jake Muzzin, just not on the deadline but a few weeks earlier to avoid all the circus that surely would have come. I saw a report about a deal that would have sent Connor Brown, a prospect and a pick to Vegas for Ryan Reaves (grit!) and Colin Miller (RH D-man!). I would have approved of that deal. Brown seems to have regressed and Reaves brings more old-school toughness to the table and we wouldn't be getting him for offense anyway. And Miller is a right-handed shooting, mid-20s D-man with some offensive upside.
Dubas apparently decided the price was still too steep, and he didn't want to disrupt what he already had on his hands. Babs would have liked Reaves but maybe not at the expense of Brown.
I can sense some old insecurity raising its ugly head again in the Leafs Nation, especially now that the Bruins have moved past us in the standings and we seem destined for another first round matchup, with Boston having the home ice for the second straight season. It goes something like, "Can we beat the Bruins in a seven-game series with the team we have? I think we're too soft to play those guys. They made some moves at the deadline. What did we do?"
The Bruins have had our number so far in the regular season. But I believe we can beat them in a seven-game set with our current team. And Dubas was 100 percent right when he said, "When you start building a team to play only one team in the playoffs, you start to lose your way a little bit and lose what you're about."
What this Leafs team is about is we're built on speed and skills. We don't have those old-school traits that people say can come in handy (or even become essential) in the playoffs. I have said this before and I'll say it again. I don't buy that theory.
At the very least, I won't buy it unless this Leafs team gets knocked out again by the Bruins in the first round.
For all of the Bruins' hard-checking ways, I think we have enough speed and skills to get around them and firepower to score a bunch of goals. And their offense hasn't exactly been setting the world on fire, so if we can just take care of our offensive end, we could have a surprisingly easy series.
Not saying Montreal and Buffalo are on the same level as the Bruins, but we put up six and four unanswered goals against those teams in the last games.
Clearly not ideal, because we didn't start on time and got behind early. Still, rallying with those goals, almost as if to casually show the rest of the NHL that, "Yeah, we can do these kind of things," was very impressive. And Carey Price for the Habs is a pretty good goalie.
So the opposition won't give us that much space in the playoffs? I think we will be able to find space.
We also have a penalty killer like this:
Although I tend to prefer that my teams deal prospects for proven pieces when they're available (as detailed in this post) I felt the situation with the Leafs at the deadline was different than the one with the Raptors at the NBA deadline.
Despite the impending cap crunch with the Leafs, I feel that the window is a bit wider open than with the Raptors. We aren't fretting about a star player's possible departure via free agency after this season (and I think we can all agree that UFA-to-be Jake Gardiner isn't the hockey player that Kawhi Leonard is the basketball player). And, for the sake of this argument, assuming we lock up Mitch Marner with a multi-year deal and retain RFAs Andreas Johnsson and Kasperi Kapanen, then we'll have core pieces in their prime under team control for a few seasons.
In sum, the Leafs have a far younger core than the Raptors. Cap or not, most of the key guys will be there for a bit, with moving parts in the immediate/near future likely being Patty Marleau, Ron Hainsey, the aforementioned Gardiner, etc. And we can still fill their voids internally. Even now, once Kadri returns from concussion, you could argue Marleau, not one of those fourth-line guys, should be scratched (Marleau's consecutive games played streak notwithstanding). And on defense, we have some first rounders with the Marlies who should hit the big stage in the coming years.
I like the way the team's set up now. The frustrating part for me is that these guys often don't start on time or give their best effort for 60 minutes. It's not something adding a player or two can address. It has to come from within.
On some closing thoughts...
I suppose the biggest deadline day trade was Mark Stone going from Ottawa to Vegas, which is fairly underwhelming if you ask me. Stone is a very good player, an underrated one even, who can play at both ends. He's still just 26 years old, too.
For my money, I would have liked to see season-end award winners like Artemi Panarin (who will always be the answer to this trivia question: who beat out Connor McDavid for the Calder Trophy in 2016?) and Sergei Bobrovsky get moved to contenders.
Of course, they both happen to play for the Blue Jackets, and they also happen to be contending for a playoff spot! Though both are UFAs after the season and it doesn't look like either will re-sign with CBJ, the front office didn't just hold on to those guys, they ended up acquiring some solid pieces like Matt Duchene and Ryan Dzingel.
The Jackets are clearly going all-in. Their fan base deserves that. If they make the playoffs and win a round or two, great. If not, then they'd still have decent pieces to build around even if they lose Panarin and/or Bob.
The Jackets sent a great message to their fans with their moves. But I also think the Leafs sent a powerful message to us fans: that the FO has faith in the team on the ice now.
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