Leafs Offseason Thread

37 days till the season starts.

Dale Derkatch joins the Leafs' amateur scouting staff.

Was previously Director of Player Personnel for the Prince Albert Raiders.

I'm a bit surprised that it's September and the sole move made has been to trade our only star player. But maybe nobody wants our other veteran players. I guess that's understandable.

It was pretty surprising at the deadline and then again around the draft.

At this point, I'm kinda resigned to the fact that either the deals available are shit or there is no market.

I'm sure teams would take Phaneuf, but they may not be willing to part with anything we want. I don't think there is any market for Lupul right now. And I expect that Bozak is going to be in demand as soon as a team loses its top center to injury for an extended period.

We had to eat money on Kessel's contract and take back a subpar return. There was no market for these guys. They probably could have dumped Phaneuf on someone if they ate a bunch of money and got nothing back.

The cap not moving much didn't help.

The team quitting on the season in the second half is what killed all their value. Our only hope is Babcock can get something out of them to raise their value.

Looking at Kadri's instapics. He's gotten a lot bigger. At least up top.

As much as Kadri has become an afterthought he still has the ability to be a tremendous player. I'm really looking forward to this season, despite the low expectations.

Kadri is a guy with huge breakout potential. I know we've all been conditioned to completely forget the shortened season, but 44 points in 48 games shows us, at minimum, where the high end of his production lies. He's an analytics darling with a pile of untapped offensive potential. Taking his career seriously + loving the 'Cock could turn him into a legit, legit player.

MindzEye said:

Kadri is a guy with huge breakout potential. I know we've all been conditioned to completely forget the shortened season, but 44 points in 48 games shows us, at minimum, where the high end of his production lies. He's an analytics darling with a pile of untapped offensive potential. Taking his career seriously + loving the 'Cock could turn him into a legit, legit player.

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Playing with JVR will help

So will playing under Babs

so i just read that the rogers nhl television deal is in canadian funds, not american. which was a sweet hedge for rogers and, with the falling canadian dollar, will kindly **** a league that does 2/3 of its business in the united states and pays 100% of its salaries in USD.

Leafs hire Tony Martino as a scout. Former US area scout for the London Knights.

Yeah, That Rogers deal looked like they paid too much. Now, not so much.

Leafs hire Statistician Bruce Peter from Saskatoon Blades.

Just in case you thought we were done with the hirings.

From Saskatoon's website:

Bruce Peter, Statistical Analyst for the Saskatoon Blades for the past 2 seasons has been hired by the Toronto Maple Leafs into their Analytics department. Bruce has been instrumental in the development and implementation of ground breaking work in the areas of advanced stat tracking and reporting.

“Bruce has been a big addition to our club and we are really excited for him to get a chance to go to the big leagues.” said Managing Partner, Colin Priestner. “We want to thank him for introducing a new way to look at statistics into the Blades.”

Rielly looking swole:

Looks like he's a former blogger/Habs fan.

You can find his posts here:

http://www.sbnation.com/users/Bruce Peter/blog

Aberdeen said:

As much as Kadri has become an afterthought he still has the ability to be a tremendous player. I'm really looking forward to this season, despite the low expectations.

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I agree... while I have never been a huge fan of Kadri's the guy has talent and has shown he is capable of being a 1C (see the 12/13 season as exhibit a), the problem with Kadri has been a huge lack of consistency and also being piss poor on faceoffs.

From what I have seen/heard Kadri seems motivated to prove himself and when Kadri is hungry that's when he's at his best... the BIG thing he needs to imrpove on his really tweaking his faceoffs. People can say all they want faceoffs mean nothing BUT Babcock is a huge believer of puck possession and when you LOSE a faceoff you don't have the puck... look at the guys in Detroit both Datsuyk/Zetterburg were above average on the dot, so my point is if Kadri has any hope in hell of lasting as a 1C here thats a big thing he needs to work on.

MapleLeafBlueJayBoy said:

The team quitting on the season in the second half is what killed all their value. Our only hope is Babcock can get something out of them to raise their value.

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As much as I blame the players for being unprofessional (and they were), the system was all kinds of wrong! Instead of using their speed to be aggressive in the defensive zone and then using their speed/short passing up ice coupled with firing shots on net... Carlyle had them being really passive in the d-zone, relying on heavy stretch passes/forwards cheating at the blueline and then playing "dump and chase" in the offensive end, basically that system basically forced the players to work from their weaknesses as opposed to their strengths.

Color me optimistic but Babcock is a take no shit kinda guy but also has a way of properly communicating what he wants/expects from the players... I have no doubt a lot of them will buy in, the ones who dont' will be shipped out pronto! As for the system, if he operates it like he did in Detroit then expect to see players stepping up in the neutral zone forcing the play, when they have the puck there won't be much of these long bomb passes.... instead you'll see precision short ones with the skaters standing close to each other moving their legs at all times.

The system and atmposhere Babcock will implement will be beneficial to the team.

I thought Dion could be moved, but with teams not throwing around money and Gio's deal in Calgary, I am concerned.

Best way to move him is have him play great under Babcock.