Leafs absolutely do this and are cup bound afterwards.

Leaf’s defence woukd still be to offensive and soft.
Reilly/ klingberg/Dobson don’t hit and aren’t the greatest defensively Dobson and klingberg are terrible.
McCabe is solid but he can’t carry the whole top 4.

Gio can play physical but his age is limiting how much damage he can take these days.

Brodie is very solid but again him and McCabe aren’t pelech and Slavin

Dobson just turned 23 last year and is going to end up being a #1D. You can trade Brodie and pair each of those 3 with a defensive minded D. Dobson and Klingberg may not be the most physical but they're big and mobile, which is better than we can say for Lily and Brodie at this point. I agree we need to add physicality, but ideally each pair has a balance between a physical defensive D and an offensive puck mover.

Also, not sure when this D core was ever too offensive... we've been severely lacking offense from the backend for awhile. If you look at the roster I followed this up with I had Middleton-Dobson, Rielly-Peeke and McCabe-Klingberg. I value physicality as well as you and respect where you're coming from.

There is no chance the isles trade Dobson for a winger and adding a 2nd on top of it

Because they need another offensive defenceman? Haven't you been super critical of Klingberg? Dobson isn't needed.

McCabe can't carry anything. He's not very good. Was the leafs 2nd worst defenceman in the playoffs. Holl took a lot of heat but he was much better vs Florida than McCabe was. McCabe is so overrated because he hits sometimes.

I agree with you though. Dobson is absolutely not the target the leafs should go after. He's a right handed Rielly but not as good.

Liljegren is a mobile defenceman who is terrific at denying controlled zone entries and keeps upping his physical game. His underlying numbers have been excellent and he certainly should have been in the playoffs but Keefe likes his safe vets on the back end. Dobson doesn't improve our defensive game in zone or adds physicality. Move Nylander for him and our zone entries and offensive chance generation are drastically reduced. Nylander is so much more important to how TO plays and so many fans like you just don't understand. Just be an Islanders fan, they will always be old, mean and terrible offensively.

Lol, hyping Liljegren by calling him mobile and then ****ting on Dobson in the same sentence is certainly ambitious. Dobson just turned 23 in January and projects to be an elite #1 while already being a legit top 4 with great size and mobility. Let's not even bring up the fact Nylander is a 28 year old UFA while Dobson is signed at 4 mil until he becomes an RFA the year after next.

Compared to last year's roster after Muzzin went down we'd be replacing:

Bunting, Nylander, Kerfoot, Engvall, Malgin? ZAR, NAK, Sandin, Liljegren and Holl

with:

Domi, Bertuzzi, JGP, Knies, Lafferty, Reaves, Klingberg, Dobson and McCabe.

Not only would we be better offensively; we'd also be better defensively, more physical, faster, bigger, and yes.... meaner as well.

That's what happens when you distribute your salary cap amongst your whole roster, complicated stuff I know....

Dobson projects to be an offensive defenceman. He's worse defensively than Rielly and not as good offensively. He also was not good in the playoffs. We don't need him.

You don't understand how offense is created in today's NHL. You think a bunch of passengers from other teams will somehow dictate play for TO but they don't have those tools. The way Keefe's system works is they control the puck and get it into the offensive zone and keep it there working towards high danger chances.

Nylander is one of the best players at that in the entire game. I think he was something like 2nd only to McDavid for controlled zone entries and those increase for likelihood of scoring a goal by 100%. So let's get rid of that and become a dump and chase team that has no structure.

Swinging back to Liljegren, I am not at saying he's better than Dobson. Just saying Dobson isn't what TO needs. Their forwards are great but our defence still needs a bit of work. Personally I think we need 2 additions. One guy to play with Rielly, and one to play with Klingberg. Brodie could do either but if they moved him for someone more physical that's could be a decent idea although he's still one of the best defensive defenceman in the league. I also really don't like McCabe but as a 3rd pair guy he's fine at 2 million. Who they should get, I am not sure. I like the idea of Zadarov for the playoffs but he's worse defensively than Mccabe and neither are good enough to go up against top competition every night.

It's an interesting dilemma. Your plans create bigger issues than they solve though.

Lol yeah I just can't wrap my head around how offense is created but here's what I know:

- Nylander was 4th in scoring on the Leafs during these playoffs behind Marner, Matthews and Rielly.
- He was tied with Tavares and ROR for 5th in 5v5 points per game behind Knies, Marner, Matthews and Rielly.
- He scored 1 goal at 5v5 throughout the entire playoffs, the same amount as ROR, ZAR, Jarnkrok, Gustaffson, Kerfoot, Lafferty and Knies (with only Kerfoot and Jarnkrok playing as many games) and less than Marner (2), Tavares (3), Matthews (4) and Rielly (4).
- As is tradition, he was so bad defensively that he got demoted to the de facto 3rd line and given sheltered starts primarily in the O zone, yet still posted the worst goal differential of any forward on the team.

Outside of the Leafs:

Bertuzzi had 5G 5A 10PTS in 7 games

Compared to Willy:

4G 6A in 11 games.

Max Domi scored at a higher rate 5v5 over a longer duration of games (13 ES points in 19 games vs 6 in 11 for Nylander)

John Klingberg had a higher PPG 5v5 and otherwise with 1G 3A 4PTS in 4 games.


Now, of course Nylander just scored 40 goals and a PPG for the first time in his career. He ranked 20th in both goals and points as a result, and even lower if you factor in games played,

- Matthews had 40 goals in 74 games
- Tavares had 36 goals in 80 games
- The previous year when scoring was much lower, Marner scored 35 goals in 72 games (40 goal pace) and Bertuzzi scored 30 goals in 68 games on the Red Wings (36 goal pace). That same year, Bertuzzi had 24 5v5 goals in 68 games vs Nylanders 21 5v5 goals in 81 games.

All of the players I mentioned aside from Nylander are better than him defensively, and the only players who get paid more are Rielly, Matthews, Tavares and Marner, none of whom we can trade.

And now Nylander wants to get paid more than any winger not named Pastrnak, Marner, Huberdeau of Panarin until he's 36.

Does that break it down enough for you?

Yes, he's a good player. No, he's not nearly as good as you pretend.

You don't understand anything. You see points an all else is beyond your ability to understand. So you say what you and insult all who disagree. Fans like you are the worst to talk to. No knowledge, no logic, and belligerence to boot

I ONLY SEE POINTS?

Have you not been listening to anything I say about how he is our worst defensive forward and absolutely soft as baby****? You try to claim I don't understand then act as though you're the victim of my insults, it's incredibly cringy my guy.

No knowledge, no logic.... did you read any of that post? Do you actually want to provide a comment of substance or are you just going to pretend I'm a big stupid meany?

Nothing you say is anything beyond "the grass is greener" mentality many have. Everyone is better than everyone we have. Its stupid and I just don't care to deal with you anymore. Fans like you are the worst Leaf fans.

This is not a good deal for Toronto. The Islanders would win this trade. There is value in Dobson, no doubt.

But, Pageau makes too much $ for a 3rd liner, who is signed for the next 3 years. I think the only way Pageau is traded from the Islanders now is if there is some sort of retention involved.


Toronto can get a better return than this for these two.

essentially this is nylander for dobson and Pageau+2nd for Liljegren+3rd. Pageau has negative value and would cost a 1st to take, leafs cant afford a 5M dollar 3C, leafs decline this all day

Absolutely not

Dobson is 2x the defenseman Reilly is. Reilly has fallen off hard the past few years, age has caught up to him

Young high end RHD are the most valuable asset in the NHL right now, trading one for a winger who’s soon to be a UFA would be a terrible move for the isles

Keep dreaming, Islanders fans....

You didn't see him in the playoffs when he was healthy eh? No Rielly is still a top level defenceman no matter how badly the vultures on this site wants him to suck. He doesn't. Islanders fans were outraged by Dobson in the playoffs. Said he was their weakest defenceman. He's going to be good but he's 1 dimensional. Similar to Rielly but when it matters Rielly is at his absolute best.

If you’re using a portion of islanders fans opinions as an accurate representation of Dobson’s game, you’re already lost lol. They thought my Devon Toews sucked too. By almost every metric , dobson was by far the isles best defenseman in the playoffs.

Dobson isn’t one dimensional, he’s elite at a lot of different things and he is also very good on the PK.

https://www.naturalstattrick.com/playercompare.php?fromseason=20222023&thruseason=20222023&stype=2&sit=5v5&score=all&stdoi=oi&rate=y&p1=8480865&p2=8476853&loc=B&gpfilt=none&fd=&td=&tgp=410&lines=single

If you look at this comparison they have similar regular season numbers with Dobson getting more offensive zone starts and less time on ice. And that is on a defence first team while TO does play a little more high event hockey. Also that's the regular season where Rielly wasn't at his best.

zone starts don’t matter. What matters is quality of teammates and Reilly is surrounded with much better players.

Oh yeah? He has the likes of Pellech and Pollock to play with?

He played with Romanov who sucks.