In terms of the results on the ice, for the most part, they don't exist. The 3 combined have played pretty much the equivalent of one player.
Even if they did, ignoring the long term plan is pretty non-sensical, don't you think?
Right, and as I have explained in several posts already, almost every team has deadweight in their total payroll. Crosby hasn't played despite being included in the calculated cap hit and subsequent efficiency rating. Same with Pronger. Same with Savard. These are players with huge caphits who play for teams that are still more efficient! Then what about players who are actually playing but not contributing like Gomez? Kaberle? Lecavalier? Miller? Leino? If you are going to strip the three most unproductive, overpaid players from the Leafs' record, you'd have to do the same for 29 other teams, and then analyze any deviations. I find it easier to just accept reality for what it is.
The long term plan, which should have been an uncompromised pursuit of 16 playoff wins, has been chopped off at the knees for the opportunity to scrape into the playoffs in the coming seasons. A team such as ours should be holding on to every single pick and prospect in the system. How do I know?
Nashville, St. Louis, Ottawa, New York, Philly, Boston, Pittsburgh, Washington, Florida, New Jersey, Chicago, and many other teams say so.
Right, and as I have explained in several posts already, almost every team has deadweight in their total payroll. Crosby hasn't played despite being included in the calculated cap hit and subsequent efficiency rating. Same with Pronger. Same with Savard. These are players with huge caphits who play for teams that are still more efficient! Then what about players who are actually playing but not contributing like Gomez? Kaberle? Lecavalier?If you are going to strip the three most unproductive, overpaid players from the Leafs' record, you'd have to do the same for 29 other teams, and then analyze any deviations. I find it easier to just accept reality for what it is.
The long term plan, which should have been an uncompromised pursuit of 16 playoff wins, has been chopped off at the knees for the opportunity to scrape into the playoffs in the coming seasons. A team such as ours should be holding on to every single pick and prospect in the system. How do I know?
Nashville, St. Louis, Ottawa, New York, Philly, Pittsburgh, Washington, Florida, New Jersey, Chicago, and many other teams say so.
You're implying though that these deadweight contracts were taken on by the Leafs as part of the 'long-term plan' which is false. They were taken as salary dumps along with a youthful prospect, to which the latter is apart of the long term plan.
The difference between the players you listed above, save for Kaberle, is that they had been signed to long term contracts with the intent of being part of the long term plan. And thus that's where other teams inefficiencies are. The only player Burke has foolishly signed to anything resembling the long term plan was Komi, and he only has two more years left on his deal.
Burke has done his best to ice a competative team in the NHL while restocking the prospect pool and letting it develop all at once. IMO he's done a very good job at this.
PC it seems you're still hung up on the Kessel trade, which is fair, I wasn't a huge fan of it at the time but it was a gamble. In the end the Leafs got an elite talent in the league who is under 25, has scored 30+ goals in multiple seasons, and is among the league leader in points. So it's not like the Leafs got nothing out of that trade.
You've also brought up the trade where we moved up to get Biggs in this year's draft. In your view he's nothing but a projected third liner, and some scouts would agree... But nothing is for certain, so it's really too early to judge this call. The Leafs needed to get some size, grit and some skill and they got it all in Biggs. How he pans out is to be determined.
At the end of the day though you've got to ask yourself if Burke spent less salary and cap space over his tenure would we be in a better position or at least equivalent in the standings today? Would we have that many more additional picks and prospects to follow?
Well they lost two firsts and a second in the Kessel trade. Colborne and Gardiner (two 1sts) and Aulie (2nd) were acquired through "salary dump" trades, and use of our cap space. In addition to that, the Leafs acquire pivotal core players in Phaneuf and Lupul.
This is just one example, but Burke has levied the Leafs cap space and additional financial muscle (via burying contracts in the minors) to make the current team better and loading up the prospect pool.
Maybe it's me but I fail to see how, to date, Burke could have made the Leafs a better team now and for the future by being more 'cap efficient'.
Ah, yes, the old 'pick the worst three contracts on the Leafs and let's pretend they don't exist' argument!
nope, not three, just one.
Reverse the Lebda for Franson/Lombardi trade, and we have a team caphit pretty much exactly corresponding to our position in the standings - so, bang on cap efficient.
You seem to be arguing that using that extra capspace to add a young talent like Franson is a bad piece of team building, and that we'd be better off with the extra capsapce instead of having Franson + an easily waivable contract.
Right, and as I have explained in several posts already, almost every team has deadweight in their total payroll. Crosby hasn't played despite being included in the calculated cap hit and subsequent efficiency rating. Same with Pronger. Same with Savard. These are players with huge caphits who play for teams that are still more efficient! Then what about players who are actually playing but not contributing like Gomez? Kaberle? Lecavalier? Miller? Leino? If you are going to strip the three most unproductive, overpaid players from the Leafs' record, you'd have to do the same for 29 other teams, and then analyze any deviations. I find it easier to just accept reality for what it is.
The long term plan, which should have been an uncompromised pursuit of 16 playoff wins, has been chopped off at the knees for the opportunity to scrape into the playoffs in the coming seasons. A team such as ours should be holding on to every single pick and prospect in the system. How do I know?
Nashville, St. Louis, Ottawa, New York, Philly, Boston, Pittsburgh, Washington, Florida, New Jersey, Chicago, and many other teams say so.
No one is stripping them for being overpaid or unproductive. You're making that up as though it's a selective point. I'm not too sure you know what "reality" is. If you did, you wouldn't have went on your ill advised "university study" rants.
I'm not sure why you'd mention "16 playoff wins" and then cite a whole bunch of teams who haven't put together 16 playoff wins in forever. 5 of them have never won 16 playoff games, another hasn't done it in 36 years, another once in 70 years, another once in 51 years, another once in 38 years with a team built through many means aside from drafting. I think you've lost the plot here.
Like I said, it's not the big deal you're making it out to be and I've explained why not.
I got it from several people in this thread who are trying to wish away a few contracts here. Any team can do that.
If you are wishing one contract away, I suppose I can use my imagination and suggest that Burke would immediately spend the remaining capspace on a similarly unproductive player.
If Lombardi wasn't traded for, it stands to reason that Nashville would have traded Cody Franson to someone else to clear room for their up and coming drafted defencemen. Our capspace decreases because of Lombardi, but our performance decreases, since December was such a huge month for Cody.
The cap space would have been filled through similar means, and we would have another unproductive player coming back.
Shea Weber, Martin Erat, David Legwand, Craig Smith, Ryan Suter, Colin Wilson, Jordin Tootoo, Patric Hornqvist, Nick Spaling, Roman Josi, Kevin Klein, Ryan Ellis, Pekka Rinne, Anders Lindback
St. Louis Blues (homegrown players on roster)
David Backes, T.J. Oshie, Lee Stempniak (Carlo Colaicovo, Alex Steen ), Alex Pietrangelo, Patrik Berglund, David Perron, Roman Polak, Barret Jackman
Ottawa Senators (homegrown players on roster)
Jason Spezza, Erik Karlsson, Daniel Alfredsson, Nick Foligno, Colin Greening, Zack Smith, Erik Condra, Chris Neil, Jared Cowen, Chris Phillips, Kaspars Daugavins
Toronto Maple Leafs (homegrown players on roster)
Nikolai Kulemin, Carl Gunnarsson, Nazem Kadri, Luke Schenn, James Reimer
Couldn't agree more. Lombardi needs to go with that 3.5 million dollar salary. I still like Army though, but if he gets into more injury trouble we will probably have to try and get rid of him also.
What is Lombardi's salary stopping the Leafs from doing? MLSE has plenty of it so charity musn't be a motive.
How does anyone know what Lombardi's , Komi's or Army's salary has stooped us from doing ?
I do know however that there should be better ways to spend 11 mil combined than these 3 players .
With 11 mil we can get two players making 5.5mil cap hits. It'd be nice to have that space. We could sign parise for 7 mil and use the 4mil on a second liner or take another cap dump in the hopes of the player rebounding and getting a prospect like gardiner.
So what do you think it is going to look like in 2 years time Prez? Have you seen Burke trade any of his drafted talent since he got here? Have you seen him trade any of his high end inherited prospects since he got here? Logic would dictate that if he hasn't done it yet in over 3 years, he's probably not going to be likely to make a habit of it, rather, it appears quite evident he will allow them to develop and fill the roster in time. It took the Bruins 6 years to get to a point where they were replacing from within.
If you go through your list of teams, excluding the top 5 picks (because we expect them to be a cut above the rest and make it early), what do you notice about the length of time it took most of them to become NHL regulars?
Boston Bruins (homegrown talent on Cup roster)
David Krecji (4 yrs), Patrice Bergeron (3 yrs), Brad Marchand (5 yrs), Milan Lucic (2 yrs)
Chicago Blackhawks (homegrown talent on Cup roster)
Pittsburgh Penguins (homegrown talent on Cup roster)
Max Talbot (5 yrs), Kris Letang (3 yrs), Tyler Kennedy (5 yrs), Rob Scuderi (8 yrs), Brooks Orpik (4 yrs),
Nashville Predators (homegrown players on roster)
Shea Weber (4 yrs), Martin Erat (5 yrs), Craig Smith (3 yrs), Ryan Suter (3 yrs), Colin Wilson (3 yrs), Jordin Tootoo (7 yrs), Patric Hornqvist (5 yrs), Nick Spaling (4 yrs), Roman Josi (4 yrs), Kevin Klein (7 yrs), Ryan Ellis (3 yrs), Pekka Rinne (5 yrs), Anders Lindback (4 yrs)
St. Louis Blues (homegrown players on roster)
David Backes (5 yrs), T.J. Oshie (4 yrs), Lee Stempniak (4 yrs), Patrik Berglund (3 yrs), David Perron (0 yrs), Roman Polak (5 yrs), Barret Jackman (4 yrs)
Ottawa Senators (homegrown players on roster)
Erik Karlsson (2 yrs), Daniel Alfredsson (2 yrs), Nick Foligno (3 yrs), Colin Greening (6 yrs), Zack Smith (4 yrs), Erik Condra (6 yrs), Chris Neil (4 yrs), Jared Cowen (3 yrs), Chris Phillips (2 yrs), Kaspars Daugavins (6 yrs)
You really need to look beyond your nose here. Surely we aren't arguing that Burke should mystically speed up the prospect development rates that hold true for every other team in the NHL? Are we really having that conversation?
The only thing you could point to him doing is trading draft picks but that would force you to also point out his acquiring of draft picks.
These goalposts are moving at record speed, from cap hits to tanking to keeping picks/prospects to drafting well regardless of how many picks you have all in 3-4 pages. That's impressive.
None of these posts are really ground breaking. If the Leafs spent smarter they'd be a better team. Same could be said for every NHL team. If the Leafs drafted better, they'd also have a better roster. Well that's obvious and nobody would disagree with either of those. It's the "Leafs need to keep picks/prospects like...(insert long list of teams)" when many of them contradict your point on keeping picks/prospects. Give other list that has no relation to the number of picks/prospects kept, but shows the teams have drafted some good players even when they've traded picks/prospects.
Armstrong $3 million
Komisarek $4.5 million
Lombardi $3.5 million
There's the "inefficiency" with the Leaf payroll. And even in that last case, the player was taken on so we could get Franson.
The other two are players who were signed as free agents and hence overpaid, but who are certainly the calibre of talent that should be produced from within, or at the very least supplied by cheaper players(3rd liners and bottom pair dmen). So yes, there are three examples of where we're spending above where we're getting on the entire roster.
but, while certainly annoying, that's not really that big a deal. It's not like these guys are on gigantic 5-10 year anchor contracts. they'll all be off the books soon enough one way or the other.
I'm curious as to how many "cap efficient" impact players the Leafs were unable to sign due to the contracts above? Clearly the Leafs are the only team in the NHL with "poor" contracts. It is quite remarkable the lengths people will go to, to create a fallacy only to support a bias opinion. Quite sad really.
Burke spends to the ceiling and Leafs miss the playoffs. Therein lies your problem and reason for the complaints.
Bad contracts of overpaid and under-producing players the direct reason for this situation.
Now capped out because of former transaction, new transactions are hindered because of poor cap management. Big name players / centres Burke seeks like for example Getzlaf, Staal, Stastny all come with big ticket cap hits and if they're truly sellers than often the principle is based on dumping contracts for picks and prospects. While dumping picks and cheap prospect does not free up enough cap space to bring in that top line player preventing deals from being completed because of big contracts like Lombardi, Connolly, Komisarek etc stand in the way occupying valuable cap room.
People believe taking on $7 mil of Lombardi salary to get Franson was wise, but what would those same people say if its that same $3.5 mil now standing in the path blocking the opportunity to land a star player if available.
Bottom line spending to the cap ceiling is only wise when it also returns positive team playoff results as that is the gauge for testing efficiency of those contracts. IMO
I got it from several people in this thread who are trying to wish away a few contracts here. Any team can do that.
But you didn't get it from me, and the post you quoted was mine.
Quote:
The cap space would have been filled through similar means, and we would have another unproductive player coming back.
you have no idea what the cap space would have been filled by.
Look, you really want to be upset about this, so go right ahead. But the Leafs are in pretty good shape cap-wise and all 3 of their bad contracts expire in the next year or two.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PresidentCamacho
Boston Bruins (homegrown talent on Cup roster)
David Krecji, Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand, Milan Lucic, Tyler Seguin
Chicago Blackhawks (homegrown talent on Cup roster)
Patrick Kane, Duncan Keith, Jonathan Toews, Troy Brouwer, Dave Bolland, Dustin Byfuglien, Brent Seabrook, Niklas Hjalmarsson
Pittsburgh Penguins (homegrown talent on Cup roster)
Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Max Talbot, Kris Letang, Tyler Kennedy, Jordan Staal, Rob Scuderi, Brooks Orpik, Marc-Andre Fleury
well that's interesting...Boston had the same number of homegrown guys on their roster as we did.
Bad contracts of overpaid and under-producing players the direct reason for this situation.
It really isn't.
Goaltending, lack of size, and a poor PK are the primary reasons we aren't in a playoff spot right now. I'd bet anything you weren't thinking of a goaltender when you made the statement I'm quoting here.
Lombardi, Komisarek and Armstrong aren't stopping us from doing anything(armstrong has been injured for a large chunk of his Leaf tenure) and they aren't the reason we're in 9th right now.
), Alex Pietrangelo, Patrik Berglund, David Perron, Roman Polak, Barret Jackman
