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The Mother****ing Off Season Thread

Drai's one ELC season that he was better than Willy came when he was playing almost exclusively on mcdavid's wing.
 
zeke said:
Drai's one ELC season that he was better than Willy came when he was playing almost exclusively on mcdavid's wing.
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And willy played on Matthews wing almost exclusively and got 16 less points. As I said, a good starting point to as for Leon money, but this is a guy that proved he could play center at the NHL level and proved he can score a lot more than willy on the wing.

The difference between the two isn't as much as marner Vs Matthews, but there's no chance they were equivalents.
 
Preston said:
And willy played on Matthews wing almost exclusively and got 16 less points. As I said, a good starting point to as for Leon money, but this is a guy that proved he could play center at the NHL level and proved he can score a lot more than willy on the wing.

The difference between the two isn't as much as marner Vs Matthews, but there's no chance they were equivalents.
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Literally all the numbers say they were equivalents on their ELCs.

And that 3rd year Willy wasn't playing exclusively with Matthews.
 
And the majority of the time Drai spent away from McDavid on his ELC, he was centering Taylor Hall.
 
Preston said:
I would have been pretty upset if the leafs paid him center money tbh. Whether it's his fault out not, if you haven't proven longterm to be an NHL center you can't possibly pay him center money. In the end they paid him market value for a winger of his caliber (maybe 200-300k more if we're being generous).
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They only reason he isn't playing centre is: 1. they drafted Auston Matthews, and; 2. they signed John Tavares. The team took away his opportunity. At minimum, this has to come into consideration for his post-ELC.
 
BeLeafer said:
They only reason he isn't playing centre is: 1. they drafted Auston Matthews, and; 2. they signed John Tavares. The team took away his opportunity. At minimum, this has to come into consideration for his post-ELC.
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It's a weak argument. Had Marner panned out as an elite center they likely would not have gone after Tavares in the first place.
 
He didn't get a chance to pan out.

He played center his rookie year, and looked very good. Kadri and Bozak were the other centers.

Then Matthews was drafted. With Bozak and kadri's long careers as Cs, Willy was moved to the wing. And then Bozak was replaced by Tavares.

Interestingly, if Kerfoot can't hack it at C, there may be a spot open now.
 
I don't love the idea of paying a third line center 7 mil. Would much rather stack the top two lines. Willy, Mitch, JT and willy should be playing 20 minutes per night.
 
Preston said:
I don't love the idea of paying a third line center 7 mil. Would much rather stack the top two lines. Willy, Mitch, JT and willy should be playing 20 minutes per night.
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Nothing the organization has done indicates they buy the "Willy would be a great centre" thing. Including targeting a replacement centre in the Kadri trade, and then locking up that player immediately. Writing's on the wall, and has probably been there a while.

And yeah, Nylander is a top 6 forward beyond a doubt.

he's fine where he is(Matthews running mate).
 
Willy can drive a line, and may be the only other center on the roster that can if Kerfoot doesn't work out down the middle.

I think ideally you want give Matts a player like Willy to play with, but realistically he is going to score and dominate with whoever he plays with. All of Johnsson, Kappy and Nylander had near league best p/60 playing with him. So its nice to have a guy like Willy as an option down the middle.
 
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