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The Official 2026 Off-Season Thread: Revenge of the Nerds

zeke said:
The biggest hole on the roster is once again 1D.
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As usual, you and I are right here buddy

iu
 
They should go hard for Tuch and Raddysh

UFA market is shit otherwise, and there arent enough nerds in the world to make the Leafs current farm able to land anyone of consequnce in a trade. Thats not to say they shouldnt be after undervalued assets from dumb teams, but they wont be able to get anyone with legit value
 
Carlo is guaranteed gone. Rielly probably gonna stay. I'll bet big money that the Carlo replacement will be a good skater. Good player? TBD, but he'll be able to skate and move the puck. Between the mystery guy, Rielly, and OEL, that's already an upgrade in d corps mobility and puck moving.

I assume the Benoit's and Myers types will be replaced by more versatile skaters as well. Those changes alone should improve their puck possession numbers. It's a low hanging fruit, like a lot of the tweaks that can be made to this roster.
 
MyNameIsJonas said:
They should go hard for Tuch and Raddysh

UFA market is shit otherwise, and there arent enough nerds in the world to make the Leafs current farm able to land anyone of consequnce in a trade. Thats not to say they shouldnt be after undervalued assets from dumb teams, but they wont be able to get anyone with legit value
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I do think Chayka will try to sign Raddysh. The new goligoski. He has an affinity for those type of players.

Though I guess it depends on how he and his team analyze the DATA on the player!

In any event, Raddysh for Carlo is a major upgrade. But he better be right about the player. If not I'll blame ME.
 
Preston said:
I do think Chayka will try to sign Raddysh. The new goligoski. He has an affinity for those type of players.

Though I guess it depends on how he and his team analyze the DATA on the player!

In any event, Raddysh for Carlo is a major upgrade. But he better be right about the player. If not I'll blame ME.
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Tampa should have an interesting off season...

Kuch is one year away from UFA...maybe they dangle him?
 
MyNameIsJonas said:
They should go hard for Tuch and Raddysh

UFA market is shit otherwise, and there arent enough nerds in the world to make the Leafs current farm able to land anyone of consequnce in a trade. Thats not to say they shouldnt be after undervalued assets from dumb teams, but they wont be able to get anyone with legit value
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Raddysh is the big obvious one for me. Even if you set aside this season as an outlier, he's pretty clearly a top 4 calibre RHD who does everything pretty well based on his previous 2 seasons. AFP has his contract projection at 4x5.3 which is a lower to a lot lower than I expect him to come in at, but even something in the 5 x 6-7M range has a chance to be a massive steal if this level he played at this year is just him now. After getting punted in the 1st round, Tampa might not be too horny to invest in him when they already have 20 million invested in 4 defenders next year.

Going after Tuch is a no brainer as well, but I expect him to end up 10-11 million per. Worth it if we can get him though, yeah.
 
Preston said:
Carlo is guaranteed gone. Rielly probably gonna stay. I'll bet big money that the Carlo replacement will be a good skater. Good player? TBD, but he'll be able to skate and move the puck. Between the mystery guy, Rielly, and OEL, that's already an upgrade in d corps mobility and puck moving.

I assume the Benoit's and Myers types will be replaced by more versatile skaters as well. Those changes alone should improve their puck possession numbers. It's a low hanging fruit, like a lot of the tweaks that can be made to this roster.
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I also wouldn't be shocked if the Chadwicks & Villeneuve's of the world got a legit shot at those 6-7 spots this year instead of the usual shitty veteran retread brigade we roll out there.

But yeah, Carlo will get moved. He should get us a good player from an organization who flamed out this year and misdiagnoses their problems. Jordan Spence from Ottawa stands out as someone I'd try to target.
 
I think they find a way to pay him — those big guys with skill are seen as NHL unicorns by most GMs
 
CH1 said:
I think they find a way to pay him — those big guys with skill are seen as NHL unicorns by most GMs
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Maybe, but the danger in letting him go to market is that he will able to speak to other teams that are also good or up and coming, can also pay him and most importantly dont hold their home games in Buffalo.
 
I have 2 MUST trades: Carlo and Joshua
1 would be reaaaaaaaaal nice to trade: Domi

And then after that you can start cooking, replace the Benoit's and Myers types with some cheap versatile 2 way d. I'd like to trade Rielly too, but without replacing him adequately, I'm not sure that's the right path. And this is probably not the offseason to replace him.

Then up front, you can replace the Joshua's and ideally's Domi's with a Radim Vrbata esque Arvidsson (I assume his nerdies are still good?), Mason Marchment, etc. Plenty of nerdie darlings out there. And find a 3c somehow, I'm sure they can find one somewhere, I haven't looked extensively.


McCabe-Raddysh
Rielly-Tanev
OEL-anyone

Then up front if you add a couple of those Marchment or Arvidsson types or even a Tuch, that's gonna be an enormous upgrade on the Domi's and Joshua's. It's not particularly difficult to turn this one back into a real good team. Chayka would have done it easily in Arizona too if he was building around Matthews, Nylander, Knies, Tavares.

Where you start to wonder, however, is if some of those moves will get them capped out and maybe their ceiling isn't quite at contender status despite being locked in. That's the concern there. Especially if Matthews isn't supermatthews anymore.

Need to keep their pick and need to pick the right guy if they do. Would be so so so huge.
 
the chances of SuperMatthews returning is the most important number to figure out

And one no fan nerd can come up with because it would require extensive medical knowledge that will never become public
 
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