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Leafs' Prospect/Marlies Discussion Thread!

That leaves only Zaitsev who Lilly would spell as a fellow RHD.

But if Dubas is planning to acquire a Pietrangelo, he’d take Zaitsev’s spot, so where would Lilly go? It’s an intriguing little situation.
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Well, you never plan to land "a Pietrangelo" because you never expect them to be available. Likely what this means is that Dubas is very willing to punt on Zaitsev, and thought that Lilly could replace him internally.
 
Zaitsev is the likeliest casualty if we’re resigning all the young forwards and keeping Gards. And no doubt they want to keep Gards over Zaitsev, so looks like he’s probably gone if Jake wants to sign a reasonable deal (and doesn’t have another -5 game 7 this year to sabotage himself).

So Lilly in for an outgoing Zaitsev and an extended Jake. But then how would Pietrangelo or someone of his ilk fit in? Unless Kapanen would be sacrificed, which I’d cry over. Can’t keep everyone, but sure do want to.

This would be amazing going into the playoffs though:

Rielly Pietrangelo
Gardiner Liljegren
Dermott Hainsey
Ozy
 
LeafOfFaith said:
Zaitsev is the likeliest casualty if we’re resigning all the young forwards and keeping Gards.
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Zaitsev is done here, Gardiner or no.



So Lilly in for an outgoing Zaitsev and an extended Jake. But then how would Pietrangelo or someone of his ilk fit in?
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Lilly is unlikely to see the Leafs now this season (given the missed time from the high ankle sprain) and if AP was available, Zaitsev is likely going the other way in the deal.
 
For sure. Zaitsev is goners if AP or some RHD of that caliber is coming in, almost certainly included in that very deal.

But if we don’t extend Gardiner, I’m not sold on Zaitsev being gone, at least not in the immediate future.
 
But if we don’t extend Gardiner, I’m not sold on Zaitsev being gone, at least not in the immediate future.
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Zaitsev is gone, Gardiner or no Gardiner. I don't think I could possibly express to you how bad he is at the skill set Dubas appears to value most. His media visit this morning underlined how much he wants to improve the puck moving ability of this blueline, and Zaitsev might be the worst puck mover of the group. Ron is the second worse, but at least Ron is out of contract in 6 months. There's zero chance that Dubas is content with a puck mover as bad as Zaitsev is, making 4.5 million.

AP or no AP, Gardiner or no Gardiner, Dubas would consider Zaitsev addition by subtraction and I expect him gone this summer at the latest.
 
what's strange to me is that zaitsev is particularly bad at the brand of hockey that babcock wants to play. he wants his dmen moving the puck up ice quickly and discourages them from spending time on the puck. don't understand why he likes the guy with zero panic threshold who is constantly throwing the puck away.

eye test and analytics show the same thing with that guy.
 
because we went from bottom feeder to playoff team with him on the top pair, playing all situations, scoring, and putting up positive cf% in elite top pair usage as a rookie.
 
I said it was awkward and unique, not that it sucks. Looks like teams have adjusted to it of late. Matty will obviously make his own adjustment and it'll all work out, but it is fascinating to follow.

Now I was wrong about Marner. But Leivo, Nylander, Dermott, Couturier, Schmidt, Brown being garbage, Zaitsev being garbage, etc. There are more hits than misses. I'm just an annoying obnoxious douchebag so people point out my misses. And man there are some bad ones, no doubt.
 
Wayward DP said:
I remember him getting a lot of second PP assists back when he was stealing Rielly's PP time
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Yep. Another amazing Mike Babcock deployment decision.

P/60 didn't look too bad:

Zaitsev: 4.09 P/60 in 161 minutes
Rielly: 4.16 P/60 in 72 minutes

But when you peel back just one more layer

P1/60

Zaitsev: 0.74
Rielly: 2.5

So basically, this shitty contract we're stuck with is at least partially due to Babcock's ridiculous use of him, allowing Zaitsev to be a complete passenger on the powerplay and soak up a bunch of undeserved secondary assists while surrounded by superior offensive players.

tumblr_o0dxpkBfwo1th7li3o1_500.gif
 
16-17

Rielly: ES 18:21 (A qoc), .90p/60 (.69p1), 51.0cf% (+0.3rel), 50.1xgf% (-1.4rel) / PP 0:57, 4.16p60 (2.50p1) / PK 2:21, 2.85xga/60
Zaits: ES 17:53 (A qoc), .82p/60 (.49p1), 50.3cf% (-1.1rel), 49.1xgf% (-3.1rel) / PP 1:58, 4.09p60 (.74p1) / PK 1:43, 2.62xga/60

Jake: ES 18:19 (B- qoc), 1.04p/60 (.68p1), 52.1cf% (+1.8rel), 51.6xgf% (+1.1rel) / PP 2:32, 3.46p60 (.86p1) / PK 0:20, 1.77xga/60
Carrick: ES 15:20 (C qoc), .41p/60 (.29p1), 52.5cf% (+1.2rel), 52.2xgf% (+1.5rel) / PP 0:34, 1.60p60 (1.60p1) / PK 0:15, 2.53xga/60

Hunwick: ES 15:08 (C qoc), .94p/60 (.50p1), 50.4cf% (-1.2rel), 52.4xgf% (+1.7rel) / PP 0:04, 0.00p60 (0.00p1) / PK 2:39, 2.60xga/60
Polak: ES 14:48 (C- qoc), .49p/60 (.32p1), 48.9cf% (-2.9rel), 50.8xgf% (-0.2rel) / PP 0:01, 0.00p60 (0.00p1) / PK 2:52, 2.57xga/60


I mean obviously Rielly is great and was helping him look good, but still Zaits was only a little bit underwater in top tier usage as a rookie, and even his PP production was just as good as Jake's. And there was no reason to think Zaits had already peaked and couldn't improve a bit on top of that.

And remember, Rielly's advanced stats were better that year than they had been in previous years, too.

And we went from bottom feeder to playoff team.
 
Very partially. A deeper dive into the numbers wasn't so difficult. A lot of you were blinded by the raw points total at the time, but to me it was pretty obvious that he was junk. You didn't even have to dig that deep.
 
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