I don’t think engval and kerfoot makes Anaheim a real contender

This team is a contending team but mikheyev and dermott will both be getting around $1.25M no more no less

"Any team. Separate trades."

Beat me to it lol, certainly can't mean the leafs

if you lowball Dermott and give Mikheyev like 1.25, bury Boyd and Malgin, you'd be able to keep kerfoot and not chuck him away for scraps

I think he's budgeting. My guess is he's trying to show that Toronto has space to aggregate $3.5 million between the two of them.

Personally, I would have made it $1.75 million for Mikheyev and $1.5 million for Dermott so I had room to bring up some max-ELC (like Rasmus Sandin) in case of injury without having to put someone on LTIR.

IMO if you have Thornton and Spezza, you don't need Kerfoot. I get he's a great PK option, but Boyd-Simmonds can handle most teams 2nd unit.

Idk anything about Boyd, but Kerfoot is an underrated player. Also, Thornton is basically a rental, and also not even guaranteed to be good. I'd hate to dump Kerfoot and then have Thornton not pan out.

You have little choice. You don't have much cap space and still have to resign Mikheyev and Dermott.

We can easily keep them. No need to trade kerfoot

https://www.capfriendly.com/armchair-gm/team/2052160

That's assuming Mikheyev and Dermott let Dubas low ball the crap out of them. Have some common sense.

Your logic is essentially because Thornton and Spezza are in their late 30s and early 40s they are incapable of playing 3C. That's just ridiculous. Thornton got 51 points the year before last season and Spezza had over 20 while being tied to 4th line minutes. Both Spezza and Thornton will make quality 3Cs.

Marleau was here and promptly fell off a cliff when he turned 39. He went from a near 30 goal scorer to a completely invisible 4th liner who was an albatross of a contract. The same could happen with Spezza (37) or Joe (41).

Why not keep Kerfoot as a precaution, we are able to. Also, if Mikheyev gets more than 1.5M in arb, we let him walk, we have way too much depth as it is and overpaying him and losing kerfoot would be silly. As for Dermott, he has absolutely no leverage, Dubas probably will low ball the crap out of him. He won't get more than $1.5 unless it's a multi year

So you would let Mikheyev walk in order to keep Kerfoot at 3C when you have Thornton and Spezza?

@OldNYIfan, do you understand his logic? I need help.

Bro, Thornton and Spezza are likely walking at the end of the year. Who are we getting to play centre then? Why are we throwing away a perfectly young, healthy, defensively sound third line centre just because we have a pair of rentals?

This would be entirely different if the cap didn't allow us to keep Kerfoot, but it does. There's no need to trade Kerfoot. He can play LW in the top 6 and our bottom 6 can have Thornton and Spezza at C, if they can do it

Also yeah, if Mikheyev is awarded like 1.8M+ in arb, I'm not signing that. That's a huge overpayment for a guy who invisible in the playoffs and missed half the season due to a horrible injury

Spezza obviously isn't walking. He'll either retire or resign with the Leafs. Depending on how the playoffs go, Thornton would likely resign for league minimum again. If not, the Leafs will just do what they did this offseason, sign depth players via FA.

With Tavares, Matthews, Hyman, and Mikheyev, where does Kerfoot fit in the top 6? Kerfoot is not a top 6 player.

Kerfoot is very much a top 6 player, he played great on the wing with Tavares and Nylander this year. It was mikheyev who was completely invisible on that second line.

Also, these guys could be duds by next year, they are really old. There's no guarantee at that age that they can come back and do it another year, in which case they retire. And unless you're confident you can get somebody as good as Kerfoot next year for dirt cheap (you likely can't), the leafs will be lacking centre depth

How old are you? Just curious.

Mikheyev was invisible because he wasn't on the ice, he was injured most of the year.

If Thornton can put up 31 points as a 41 year old with horrible linemates on a horrible team then I think its fair to assume he'll do well with Robertson and Simmonds on a good offensive team.

Spezza did great for getting very little ice time, he'll do very well again.

Both Thornton and Spezza all of the sudden turning into duds is very unlikely and it doesn't take a genius to figure that out.

21 lmao

Believe me, I'm on your side. I hope to god that Spezza and Thornton play great, I think they will, but I don't wanna throw Kerfoot away, we don't have to. Also, Mikheyev was invisible in the playoffs, he played those and he went pointless in five games. He was a third liner playing top 6 minutes

You could easily get a 2nd or 3rd round pick for Kerfoot, that's not throwing him away.

You don't need Thornton and Spezza to be great. You just need Thornton to put up at least 30 points which he will do. Spezza will likely be on the 4th line and at that cost anything over 20 points would be nice.