BrooksBurner

Good for Motte. Everyone wants to get paid. That doesn't answer why he should get more.

Also this.

For argument's sake, let's say you replace Panarin's $11.6M with a JT Miller or a Nazem Kadri at $8.5M. You've freed up enough money to maybe sign a Frank Vatrano. Is a Miller/Vatrano or Kadri/Vatrano combination more valuable than a Panarin/ELC ? I'd still take Panarin.

Tell me why Tyler Motte should get more AAV than Cup champion 4th liner Andrew Cogliano?

Carp wasn't any better than Staple in my opinion. He was completely unhinged and unreadable after Dolan fired JD/Gorton.

Lafreniere talks the talk and walks the walk, but I think we need to consider he may be feeling a different way behind the scenes. Top picks like that don't normally get sheltered like this. They play and they get paid, and the less they play the less likely they are to get paid. He knows it. His family knows it. His agent knows it. I'm sure the Rangers are cognizant of that. They even gave Kakko a top 6 role going into last season. Lafreniere is further along than Kakko in less time. It's important he gets top 6 minutes and the opportunity to make a name for himself, whether it's on the left or the right.

I agree that it is probably a moot point and that it is a lot more likely they move Lafreniere simply because it's the easier thing to do to move the unproven kid around. But I think we should stop pretending that moving Kreider over is without merit just because he scored 50. He didn't score 50 because he played left wing.

To be honest, I don't think Drury really thought the team would make it as far as they did so he had no problem with the 1st conditional. He also couldn't just half-ass it at the deadline because it would have sent the wrong message to the team, so I get why he did it without shoving more chips into the middle for a JT Miller or something. The funny part is that before the price for Copp was known, a lot of people were assuming Chytil was going to be involved. Now after the strong run Chytil's name is being floated as more of a center piece for some excellent 2C options, or as a potential 2C himself. So it could have been worse.

I really think that run was worth trading for Copp despite the price tag, but I would love to have some more context around the price on other options that would have bought two seasons rather than one. Who else was available and at what cost? And how much more was it than what was paid for Copp?

What math is he using? The Bruins have $2M in cap space and that's without a commitment to Bergeron on the books.

Oh, it definitely doesn't make the team better. There aren't many paths, if any, that don't lead to a worse team on paper than what we had to end the year this season. Even trading for a JT Miller is not replacing all of the production from the collection of guys who would not be on the roster next year (Strome/Copp/Vatrano/whoever is involved in the trade). Trade or not, next season is going to heavily rely on whatever kids are still here to step up and make the difference.

Unless Vancouver is taking Lundkvist as the core piece, I don’t see it happening. I don’t see the Rangers trading Chytil, Kakko, or Schneider for a 1 year rental. If the plan would be to extend Miller, better off keeping your pieces and waiting to try and sign him during UFA in that case.

The lineup slotting is kind of brutal here (Goodrow 4RW, Lafreniere 3LW, etc), but otherwise fine with a 1 year Toews approach even if he's old and trending down compared to an alternative like Suter. Double retention will also cost something more significant than you might expect, but you don't even need double retention. I'm assuming you dealt Nemeth with a pick to dump him. Just include him in a deal to Chicago instead. Get Toews at 50%. Still have over a mill cap space headed into season.

I'm breaking this out into a new thread because there's been a lot of discussion about where Lafreniere should play next season. Most of the conversation has been focused around him playing in the top 6. With Kreider and Panarin blocking him on the left, either one of those guys moves over or Lafreniere moves over. Generally, the argument is mostly between moving Kreider or Lafreniere over to the right. The arguments are strong both ways and I'm seeing fisticuffs and choice words being thrown towards each other about it. General recap of the arguments: Move Lafreniere because: Unestablished, unproven, still green. Don't move a known product in Kreider to accommodate an unknown product in Lafreniere. He's young, he can be molded. Kreider has been incredibly successful and coming off a 50 goal year, so why mess with something that works? Move Kreider because: Lafreniere's comfort is at LW. He is supposed to develop into a franchise player. Shouldn't this get priority? Kreider is a vet. His experience should help him be more successful moving over. Disclaimers I have been in the "keep Lafreniere in his natural position" corner I got an Evolving Hockey membership for a month to look at contract projections and chartz n stuff, so now I'm totally an expert with hockey analysis. Thanks Evolving Hockey! "Bro, it's 4th of July, take a break" - @Pete, probably. I had an excellent, relaxing weekend. But I just put the kid to bed and I have to work tomorrow. So now I'm relaxing and looking at hockey stuff. Also fireworks are overrated. Don't you judge me. Even though I've initially been thinking Lafreniere should stay in his natural position, I've thought that purely from a "long term franchise player" point of view. I hadn't put any time into looking at what kind of potential impact that might have on moving Kreider to the right. I thought the most important question to ask here is where on the ice is Kreider scoring his goals? We know on the PP they are all in front of the net, deflections, tips, etc. Nothing position specific. So we have to look at even strength. Where is he doing his damage? My initial assumption has always been that he streaks down the left boards, cuts in and makes things happen...receives long stretch passes or perhaps cross-ice passes from center/right to left for easy tap-ins. I was surprised to see that, at least for this season, this assumption was not the case. In fact, if you look at his ES goals that do not involve simply planting his body in front of the net and jamming home rebounds and tips, I found a surprising number of goals were actually from him streaking down the right side of the ice. Here's a link to 50 of his goals this year. It's a good watch for getting some feels from a magical season by #20, but you should also notice some things. I purposely copied the link at a specific timestamp because it shows two goals in a row of exactly the nature I am talking about - coming down the right side with a shot on net. If you skim this video for ES goals, you'll find a few instances where he accepts a pass on the left side of the ice and puts it in, but there are more instances of him scoring "goal scorer's goals" on the right side of the ice. Now here's where my $10 EH subscription comes into play that makes me a guru. ES goal chart for Kreider this year: An overwhelming majority of these are in front of the net, with some favoritism towards the left side of the crease area. But looking through the goal video, these really were not goals of the "because he's playing the left side of the ice" variety. He scored one goal from the left side within the faceoff circle or further out. Six goals from the right faceoff circle and out. But this is 1 year and could just be an anomaly. And it is, but not to the degree I was expecting. Kreider's career ES goal chart: There is no right side favoritism from the larger sample size that seemed to be present in this year's smaller sample size, but there is also no left side favoritism either. It's pretty evenly split. Without a name attached to this chart, you might be hard pressed to pick what the player's position is that this chart represents. You might even be thinking more "center" or "switches freely between wings". Make no mistake about it. Kreider is a premier net-front guy who does an overwhelming amount of his damage in front of the net, where position does not matter a whole lot. For comparison's sake, here's Panarin's career ES goal chart: This is much more clearly a left wing's chart, with a strong favoritism towards the left side of the ice. And now here's Lafreniere's production to date: His career is still a small sample, but there is already a strong favoritism developing towards the left side of the ice. So, in short, I will still maintain that Lafreniere should be kept on the left, and Kreider should move to the right. Kreider will get his goals in front of the net anyway and he has proven he can score from the right side of the ice effectively too.

The Kid Line was good, but I agree not an outbreak by any means. I thought Kakko was the passenger on the line though. Chytil drove the play and pace while also scoring, Lafreniere was driving the physicality and making plays consistently. Kakko was…what? I’m not sure. He wasn’t a “zero”. I recall a couple of nice plays, and he possessed the puck along the boards fairly well. But I really just don’t see game breaking attributes or top 6 to his game. Chytil has speed and plays with the kind of pace needed in the playoffs, though it’s obviously not always there throughout the year. He needs consistency. I thought Chytil played well when Gallant moved him up on Zibanejad’s right in the playoffs. It might be a path forward for him on the team if Kakko, rather than Chytil, gets moved for a center.

The only kid I trust to slot up without a safety net this year is Lafreniere. We will just disagree on who is closer to top 6 caliber between Kakko and Chytil. Kakko was just gifted a top 6 spot last year and was a drag. The truth is he has been gifted a rotation spot his whole career due exclusively to draft position. Chytil has never been gifted a top 6 spot to see what he does with the extra ice time. He hasn’t even been gifted a spot on the team. It was 100% earned.

Good finale. Good season.

Ok I’m throwing up in my mouth

If I see another lineup prediction with Kakko in the top 6 I'm going to throw up in my mouth.

A lot of Chytil slander in here. I don’t appreciate it.

Nashville already had Josi and Ekholm on the left. What in the world are they thinking tying up that kind of cap for 4 more years on a 33 y.o. LD going on the backend of his career?

Tony DeAngelo is worth more on the ice than any contract he will get. It will take more than one year of production and “good behavior” to get more buy in from teams. He will very likely be a 1-2 year contract at a time for the rest of his career.