Quoting: MondayLettuce
You are very correct about the rookie part. Minten played 4 games for us and looked great. I guess you can switch cowan with robertson. I really do believe minten can make it out of camp for real this time. I also really do believe cowan will produce for the leafs this year. He will start out scratched you are right. Also, yes the goalies are kind of unreliable so maybe the sign somebody else than brossoit who is more reliable. FInally, I believe domi would take 4M. Camps always start out asking for more, but if the player really wants to stay there they will take less eventually. Hymans camp wanted 5-5.5M (he got 5.5M) but came out later saying he woulda stayed in toronto for 4.5M, they just didnt offer him that. I think Bertuzzi would take 4.5 as well, maybe even a bit less. They wanna play for the leafs for sure.
I think Minten in a 4C role and maybe even 3C could work out, but unrealistic expectations for anything higher, and certainly Cowan as a 2LW is more than optimistic.
Take Knies for example, he didn;t really have an overwhelming first full year production wise on a high powered offense. For example Tyson Foertser played similar minutes and produced slightly more on a team that scored 1 goal less a game, (is doesn;t sound like a lot, but thats 180-200 pts more spread throughout lineup), so while Knies didn;t diasppoint, certainly 40 some pts is probably not as much as expected given the offensive output and allstars he was playing with.
And this isn;t a team "building up to something", thias is an annual regular season contender, that is an annual playoff disappointment, and while lacking a good prospect pool AND a ton of picks, doesn;t have tons of help on the horizon, they are under pressure to improve NOW. (IMO they can improve under a different system, but they need to start building from the net and defense at the expense of their offense).