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2025-26 NHL Miscellaneous Thread

andyt said:
LeBrun says the Bolts and Leafs are finalizing a sign and trade for pending UFA dman Darren Raddysh and the AAV will be in the 8s. Dreger says the return is a late round pick.


View: https://x.com/pierrevlebrun/status/2067918130127446314?s=61
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I read somewhere its 8x$8.5 million.

Risky? Sure, but the Leafs kind of have to take some shots. With McKenna also being added for next season, you would expect the Leafs to be looking to immediately get back to being a playoff team.

Plus....it's the Leafs!!! What could possibly go wrong with paying a 30 year old Dman whose breakout season only happened because a HOF ahead of him missed much of the season? Pen him in for 50-80 points per season for each of at least the next 5 seasons. Book it!

Seriously though, one thing the Leafs have had a problem with on the PP at the point is someone who can absolutely bomb shots. Marner was never a threat. Reilly doesn't scare anyone with his shot. Raddysh 100% brings that dimension.

Matthews-Nylander-Tavares-McKenna-Raddysh. That PP on paper looks really good.
 
cmaleski2 said:
I read somewhere its 8x$8.5 million.

Risky? Sure, but the Leafs kind of have to take some shots. With McKenna also being added for next season, you would expect the Leafs to be looking to immediately get back to being a playoff team.

Plus....it's the Leafs!!! What could possibly go wrong with paying a 30 year old Dman whose breakout season only happened because a HOF ahead of him missed much of the season? Pen him in for 50-80 points per season for each of at least the next 5 seasons. Book it!

Seriously though, one thing the Leafs have had a problem with on the PP at the point is someone who can absolutely bomb shots. Marner was never a threat. Reilly doesn't scare anyone with his shot. Raddysh 100% brings that dimension.

Matthews-Nylander-Tavares-McKenna-Raddysh. That PP on paper looks really good.
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Raddysh whether you like him or not was #2 on the UFA big boards so you knew a bunch of teams were lining up to pay him regardless.
 
Yeah, Raddysh is all but guaranteed to turn back into a pumpkin once he’s not piling up points on a power play with Kucherov, but if you’re Toronto and you’re looking to move on from Reilly, you kind of had to take that swing. The term is insane though. 8 years for a guy who’s alreadt 30 and not terribly mobile and a D corps that already leans old and slow. Woof. I get it, but woof.

The problem for the Leafs is that even if you swap out Reilly for Raddysh, you still have 4 other older defensemen with various levels of restricted movement in their contracts, all of whom are slow to the point of stationary. You just spent a huge amount of your Cap space to plug one hole (maybe) when you’ve got 4 more holes of similar size.
 
We had around $30 million and this was by far our biggest hole.

There's still work to be done on the D, sure, but I expect they'll swap out at half of their blueline in one offseason for guys who are better at getting the puck up to the forwards. I'd be pretty surprised if Carlo's not the next to go.
 
Like I said, I get it. I don’t think Raddysh is the fix you guys seem to think he is but he won’t make it worse. And that’s not nothing.

I just don’t see a clean, easy way to turn that group into two playable pairs and a 3rd pair you can shelter … which is what 90% of the decent teams are working with.
 
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FWIW, if there’s one lesson teams SHOULD be taking from the final 4 NHL teams* in this year’s playoffs, its that you need defenseman who can move. Like, actually move. Guys who couldn’t pick up the pace this post season got exposed. A lot … and often. Even when the physicality ratcheted up like it normally does, bigger snowplow crease clearing guys were more and more of a problem for their teams because they just kept getting beat wide and getting beat to the puck battles. Hard to lean on guys you can’t catch and even the biggest team in the final four (Vegas) still played at a pretty quick pace. 3 out of the last 4 teams just flat out book it out there.

Will NHL GMs learn this lesson or will they keep over-paying for guys like Trouba and Stanley? I think we all know the answer to that.

* yes, I’m going to start referring to the losing teams in the two conference finals as successful teams. Because they are. Normalize the Final Four in the NHL.
 
This is your reminder that K'Andre Miller is 6' freakin 5". Jaccob and Niki are no slouches either at 6' 3". Chatty, I believe, is over 6' tall as well?
 
If they’re big AND they can motor … keep those guys and be patient as they develop. For the price of a cheap qualifying offer and a few more NHL games, Chatfield could be a Vancouver Canuck right now. Same, even if they just play big and can motor. Sean Walker took forever to find a great fit. Meanwhile giant mooks like Logan Stanley and Tyler Myers have no problem getting NHL jobs.

The other side of that coin is important too. Don’t fall into the trap of keeping your veterans when they start to lose their edge. We all appreciated what Brady Skjei and Brett Pesce did here but once they started to slow down, they got swapped out for guys who could move. Burnsie too.
 
NoMich said:
This is your reminder that K'Andre Miller is 6' freakin 5". Jaccob and Niki are no slouches either at 6' 3". Chatty, I believe, is over 6' tall as well?
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Ghost and Walker are listed at 5’11”. Chatty is 6’1”, Reilly is 6’2”, you got the rest. in Chicago, Montgomery and Legault are 6’4”, Badinka is 6’3”, Seeley is 6’1”, Nystrom and Heimosalmi are 5’11” and Fensore is short.
 
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