Tom Sestito

Ah yes, the famous defender of management regardless of what they do. @riffraff you must be great. love your boss at work, every police officer, your mayor, your mp, your prime minister. all of those in positions of authority are always deserving and good at their jobs! we should worship their every move and not critique them so we can avoid being bad fans!

Glad to see the market is realizing how bad some of Benning's pro scouting mistakes are. Gudbranson played one of his better games of the season and in that he played like a capable #6, rather than the AHL level defenseman he usually plays like.

Probably the best post I've ever seen on CDC

I never referred to beagle specifically. Was moreso referring to potential future acquisitions, but sure, I can go to your strawman. Beagle is a a good fourth liner. He's trustworthy, still has some speed. By all accounts, a very good locker room guy. I like him. But he's 33. It's a lot of term and $ for a fourth line center of his age. Especially when you have a guy like Sutter who is probably the worst playmaking center in the league right in front of him on a high salary as well. Really limits the offensive production from the bottom six. But, if they trade Sutter, I'll have less of an issue with the $ they're paying Beagle. Just is redundant and a lot of money for two guys who fill similar roles with limitations offensively.

Yeah, Nylander has played like absolute garbage. Missing training camp and a third of the season will do that. He had two 60 point seasons preceding this one. He still has upside of being a consistent 30-30 guy for the next decade. I wouldn't want to deal our first for him until we see how the lottery shakes out, but if we can swindle something cheap if Toronto decides they don't want to wait for Nylander to get back on track and need the space now, I would be on board. Usually the top GM's who care a lot about asset management tend to back themselves into a bit of a wall once in a while. Celtics in the NBA are a good example right now, kind of mirroring the leafs. Really need to be able to make the right decisions of when to cut losses and move on if there's an opportunity presenting itself, rather than waiting for the asset to regain value.

We should gamble on it. Better than overpaying 30 year old veterans in free agency. We need elite talent in our top six still.

Shouldn't have any bearing on Tanev. Edler, who they were rumored to have been interested in... they are likely no longer suitors for.

Edler is a rental. Teams seem to be going away from rentals nowadays. But, it is also one less upper echelon LHD off the market. So supply has gone down. That was a fair price to pay for Muzzin. Having a safe player to play next to Gardiner would be smart now. While Tanev's value has definitely dropped, I still think theyd be good to acquire him for the second pairing. I legitimately believe the real reason they haven't traded Edler and Tanev in recent years is because of the failures in pro scouting. They haven't found a single capable defenseman for even the bottom pairing from their pro scouting in their five seasons. They really would need to hit on their futures to justify trading them.

iMac is such a shill lol

Alright.

I just think he plays a passive style. He lets people coast past him and chooses to survey. He doesn't really want to get in front of the play defensively. I don't think it's a big issue. If he is a slightly below average defensive player, while offering elite offensive talent, he is going to be a net positive. The real questions for me lie on if the offensive skill translates. It's hard to call at this point. The pick was definitely worth the risk IMO. I should clarify - when I say "the way he plays defense reminds me of bartkowski", I'm strictly referring to the way he defends. That completely ignores every aspect of his offensive game. Bartkowski had no offensive talent.

It should be the same. The WJC is relatively meaningless for player evaluation. Players can ride an individual hot streak and/or catch instant chemistry while other lines struggle to gain it. Quinn Hughes remains the same in my eyes. High risk, high reward. He's got this dynamic skating and puck moving ability that no one else seems to have. He's like a budget patrick kane anchoring a rush. He's small as hell and has an unorthodox way of defending. The way he plays defense reminds me of Matt Bartkowski. Whether that will end up being effective at the NHL level is to be seen. But man oh man is he ever exciting when he is on his game.

Are you saying that I don't watch the games? Or are you saying that because you watch games that your opinion is somehow validated? My family has been STH's for 12 seasons now. But alright. I don't feel I'm smarter than everyone else. But, I do believe those who believe Gudbranson is a net positive player are crazy. The way people who are fans of Gudbranson speak about him reminds me of that scene from Moneyball. Gudbranson is the slowest player on the team. Slower than Loui Eriksson, Schaller, anyone. He - at no point in his career - has ever kept pace with Mackinnon. MacKinnon is a top five fastest player in the league. Yeah, he may have pushed Getzlaf to the ice once. He also happens to be the canuck defenseman on the ice more than anyone else. He has no agility. He's on the ice more than Mason Raymond. Woo! He has a high scrums/60 stat. But when it actually matters during play, people target him on the ice because they know he's very slow to react. He's just not an NHL caliber player. He's a -100 with no offensive production while having the easiest matchups and zone starts. But he's a 6'9 250 pound canadian kid with good scrums/60

This post did not age well. So sad that your username is toyotasfan because toyota has built amazing vehicles for a long time. Rewatch the highlights and see how awful Gudbranson was tonight. In fact, you could do this for nearly any game this whole season. He had a stretch of about 5 games earlier where he looked competent. Now he's back to being his old useless self.