The chemistry thing is BS here... whenever Kessel and Grabo play together, they put up numbers. The problem is the other lines suffer a drop in offense. But now we have Kadri- who also played very well with Kessel- to go with Grabo down the middle, meaning two good offensive threats. And we don't need Grabo playing a shut-down role with Bolland and McClement on the team.
- Feeling Glucky?

I don't think the chemistry thing is BS at all... its not that Grabbo and Kessel can't play together and put up points.. they can.. the problem is when they play together the other team puts up more points.

Yup.. the signing was dumb on Burke's part, it was his impatience and ego again. If he had signed Grabbo for 4 at 4.5 the situation would look quite different - and the expectations would be quite different.

The big mistake that lead up to needing to sign Grabbo to that contract was the Connolly disaster - because Burke was disappointed in the Richards sweepstakes and felt slighted. So he picks up a stiff who he Burke turned into the defacto #1 center ... all that did was make Connolly feel entitled. When he clearly was outplayed by Bozak - which he was - the mess was made.

But Nonis has a chance to clean up another Burke mess and at the same time improve his club. And in my opinion - this is the time to do that.
- BorjeFan4Ever

I'm going to cut Burkie a little bit of slack here: Connolly was the second best centre available, and he clearly needed to do something.

Signing him to only 2 years was a good idea.

Burkie took a gamble and lost. But I'd rather that than him doing absolutely nothing.

That's why we have training camp.

Lupul-K/G-Kessel
JVR-K/G- UFA?
Kulemin-Bolland- UFA/Promotion?(Colborne?)
Hamilton-McClement-Orr

If we don't wind up going after a center, getting 2 good physical wingers could make this team very very good.
- Feeling Glucky?

It's starting to look like

Lupul Kadri Kessel

JVR Grabovski Clarkson - the big free agent pickup of the summer

McClement Bolland Kulemin - Kulie plays RW, most annoying 3rd line in the league to play against!

McLaren Colborne Orr - Everyone is questioning why Colborne would be "wasted" on the 4th line. But really, you have to start somewhere. Perhaps we pick up a free agent to help out Colborne and McLaren gets more of spot duty with Orr when we play tougher teams

with the addition of bolland - grabo will be back to normal playing offensive minutes with offensive players...none of this grabovski, komarov, hamilton bullpoop.

bozak-grabov-kadri-mcclemment was last year...

Kadri-Grabovski-Bolland-Mcclemment-Colborne seems a hell of a lot better if you ask me...hell you could even move mcclemment up to the third line (there are so many double faceoffs these days, having 2 good C on the shutdown line to win draws cant hurt).

my thoughts we sign clarkson or horton and were set..

lupul-kadri/grabovski-kessel
jvr-kadri/grabovski-clarkson/horton
mcclemment-bolland-kulemin
mclaren-colborne-orr

I think they didn't do too badly with Wendel either
- Aetherial

Most of the early 80s to 86 they did just fine. Problem was they always shipped them away. There was nothing wrong with a core of Rick Vaive, Wendel Clark, Vincent Damphouse, Russ Courtnal, Al Iafrate, Steve Thomas.....and Daniel Marois was a great pick till he screwed up his back.

Worst thing the Leafs did was hire John Brophy, "lets not draft sakic, we already have too many small centres Harold, tell Stellick to take the Richardson kid instead."

It's starting to look like

Lupul Kadri Kessel

JVR Grabovski Clarkson - the big free agent pickup of the summer

McClement Bolland Kulemin - Kulie plays RW, most annoying 3rd line in the league to play against!

McLaren Colborne Orr - Everyone is questioning why Colborne would be "wasted" on the 4th line. But really, you have to start someone. Perhaps we pick up a free agent to help out Colborne and McLaren gets more of spot duty with Orr when we play tougher teams
- t_leafs21

thats how i see it my friend.

That's why we have training camp.

Lupul-K/G-Kessel
JVR-K/G- UFA?
Kulemin-Bolland- UFA/Promotion?(Colborne?)
Hamilton-McClement-Orr

If we don't wind up going after a center, getting 2 good physical wingers could make this team very very good.
- Feeling Glucky?

Hamilton? I think McLaren keeps that spot - they're just waiting to re-sign the RFA's.

damn.... didn't realize that.

okay Nonis... stop s_itting on the pot and get those buyouts done.
- BorjeFan4Ever

Prefer to see him wait until he is in a position where he HAS to free up cap room.

You never know what opens up finally this year or next year.

I'm going to cut Burkie a little bit of slack here: Connolly was the second best centre available, and he clearly needed to do something.

Signing him to only 2 years was a good idea.

Burkie took a gamble and lost. But I'd rather that than him doing absolutely nothing.
- Atomic Wedgie

I swear I read Barbie.....and I associated you using the name Barbie to describe Connolly hahahaha. The mind sees what it wants to I guess.

Bolland is better than Bozak- if Bozak could do the job(not that he could) at #1C, so can Bolland.

Faceoffs are something that can be taught. In fact, Grabo is an example of a guy that learned how to take faceoffs after coming to the Leafs.

Did you type in the wrong name in the last paragraph there? Because if our centers next year are LeCavalier, Kadri, Bolland, and McClement, we're in (frank)ing good shape.
- Feeling Glucky?

completely agree - if it were LeCavalier, Kadri, Bolland and McClement they would be in good shape... but sway LeCavalier and Grabbo and I'm sure it would be a mess.

someone else mentioned playing McClement at wing, I believe Bolland can also play wing and did during the playoffs... .so introducing Colborne/Colbourne/Colburn intermittently on the 3rd or 4th lines would also work.

effectively trade Grabbo for LeCavalier
trade Bozak for Bolland
sign Clarkson

and add a defender.

done

Yup.. the signing was dumb on Burke's part, it was his impatience and ego again. If he had signed Grabbo for 4 at 4.5 the situation would look quite different - and the expectations would be quite different.

The big mistake that lead up to needing to sign Grabbo to that contract was the Connolly disaster - because Burke was disappointed in the Richards sweepstakes and felt slighted. So he picks up a stiff who he Burke turned into the defacto #1 center ... all that did was make Connolly feel entitled. When he clearly was outplayed by Bozak - which he was - the mess was made.

But Nonis has a chance to clean up another Burke mess and at the same time improve his club. And in my opinion - this is the time to do that.
- BorjeFan4Ever

This makes no sense...


Burke didn't just say, "hey, want 5.5 Million?", they had to negotiate that amount... and seeing as Grabo was better than anyone we'd be able to get on the UFA market... in fact, he would have been one of the top UFA Centermen... he had the ball in his court.

Connolly was the next-best option in his UFA class... and because of the play of Bozak and Grabovski, very quickly found himself in the same situation Grabo did last year, an offensive player playing on the 3rd line... That's when his attitude kicked in, and he stopped giving a poop.

his contract wouldn't have been a good comparable for Grabo, because in his UFA year, his numbers were similar, and he was playing way more PK minutes than Grabo.

Blaming Burke for bad contracts is way off track too... since he was one of the few GMs with the foresight to stay away from those crazy backdiving contracts.

thats how i see it my friend.
- big_dion

Right!?

It honestly seems like McClement-Bolland-Kulemin is Nonis handing the Leafs a classic Carlyle 3rd line. He'll roll the poop out of that line, with short-handed time, they'll be the most played 3rd line in the league

For Kessel?

yeah, considering what Perry and Getzlaf got... I can imagine you will need to pay that for Kessel.

... and the Leafs do not have a choice. He is not replaceable except through the draft and a 3-4 year wait.
- Aetherial

top ten in scoring every year

he'll get that much.. easily.

I don't think the chemistry thing is BS at all... its not that Grabbo and Kessel can't play together and put up points.. they can.. the problem is when they play together the other team puts up more points.
- BorjeFan4Ever

I think somebody posted a bar graph earlier that disproved that earlier.

Can't wait for that day
- AdamFrench

By the time that occurs the cap will be back to around 70 million

This makes no sense...


Burke didn't just say, "hey, want 5.5 Million?", they had to negotiate that amount... and seeing as Grabo was better than anyone we'd be able to get on the UFA market... in fact, he would have been one of the top UFA Centermen... he had the ball in his court.

Connolly was the next-best option in his UFA class... and because of the play of Bozak and Grabovski, very quickly found himself in the same situation Grabo did last year, an offensive player playing on the 3rd line... That's when his attitude kicked in, and he stopped giving a poop.

his contract wouldn't have been a good comparable for Grabo, because in his UFA year, his numbers were similar, and he was playing way more PK minutes than Grabo.

Blaming Burke for bad contracts is way off track too... since he was one of the few GMs with the foresight to stay away from those crazy backdiving contracts.
- Feeling Glucky?

You can sugar coat it any way you want but 5 years @$5,500,000 is a bad contract for that type of player, I don't care what the situation was at the time,

Also just read this http://www.sportsnet.ca/h...nis-challenges-grabovski/

It's starting to look like

Lupul Kadri Kessel

JVR Grabovski Clarkson - the big free agent pickup of the summer

McClement Bolland Kulemin - Kulie plays RW, most annoying 3rd line in the league to play against!

McLaren Colborne Orr - Everyone is questioning why Colborne would be "wasted" on the 4th line. But really, you have to start somewhere. Perhaps we pick up a free agent to help out Colborne and McLaren gets more of spot duty with Orr when we play tougher teams
- t_leafs21

Yea that looks better. Wish we still had Komarov for that 3rd/4th line.

This makes no sense...


Burke didn't just say, "hey, want 5.5 Million?", they had to negotiate that amount... and seeing as Grabo was better than anyone we'd be able to get on the UFA market... in fact, he would have been one of the top UFA Centermen... he had the ball in his court.

Connolly was the next-best option in his UFA class... and because of the play of Bozak and Grabovski, very quickly found himself in the same situation Grabo did last year, an offensive player playing on the 3rd line... That's when his attitude kicked in, and he stopped giving a poop.

his contract wouldn't have been a good comparable for Grabo, because in his UFA year, his numbers were similar, and he was playing way more PK minutes than Grabo.

Blaming Burke for bad contracts is way off track too... since he was one of the few GMs with the foresight to stay away from those crazy backdiving contracts.
- Feeling Glucky?

He may have stayed away...but he still had may some bad contract decisions and signing.

I don't think the chemistry thing is BS at all... its not that Grabbo and Kessel can't play together and put up points.. they can.. the problem is when they play together the other team puts up more points.
- BorjeFan4Ever

Bozie's about to have his Dominic Moore moment - lets all enjoy it for what it is.

He may have stayed away...but he still had may some bad contract decisions and signing.
- Fakepartofme

He definitely ahd a couple bad UFA signings.

But overall I think Burkie gets hung out to dry a littel more than he should

He has turned this team from the talent/prospect depleted JFJ era to what we have now... a complete 180

Yea that looks better. Wish we still had Komarov for that 3rd/4th line.
- Feeling Glucky?

Pierre Lebrun just suggested on twitter that Lecav will look to pick his team in the next 24 hours before the negotiating window for all the other free agents begins.

I honestly don't think were getting Lecav, I wouldn't even bother putting him in our depth charts lol

Just read an interesting timbit higher up the forum. Would you want Iginla instead of Clarkson. Would that signing be out of left field or what!?!

And Ballard just cleared conventional waivers. Nice try Gillis lmao

Hal Gill (NSH), Greg Zanon (COL), Matt Hunwick (COL) on regular waivers. Teams are trying to pull a fast one before Buyout D-day hits

Bob McKenzie ‏@TSNBobMcKenzie 1m

Hal Gill (NSH), Greg Zanon (COL), Matt Hunwick (COL), Kris Russell (STL) on regular waivers. Keith Ballard (VAN) clears regular waivers.

WSH puts Jeff Schultz on unconditional ($100) waivers for purposes of buyout. Ditto for NYI and Rick DiPietro.

I know this is kind of getting ahead of things but are there any big name free agent centres next year? Or any other probable buyout candidates?

The issue around Grabs is that if we don't get Vinny or another potential top line guy (although I don't really want Ribeiro or Horton or anyone else) and we've bought out Grabs then we're in kind of a poopty situation. Considering the buyout has to be done prior to the start of free agency unless we talk to someone tomorrow or early thursday and get an agreement in place I think it would be too risky to buy out Grabs, especially if Bozak walks as well.

Unless an upgrade over Grabs agrees to a contract prior to the buyout window I would say we keep Grabs for another year and if he doesn't prove his value we buy him out next year and hope someone better is available in free agency if we haven't already replaced him in another way (i.e. trade).

Pierre Lebrun just suggested on twitter that Lecav will look to pick his team in the next 24 hours before the negotiating window for all the other free agents begins.

I honestly don't think were getting Lecav, I wouldn't even bother putting him in our depth charts lol


Just read an interesting timbit higher up the forum. Would you want Iginla instead of Clarkson. Would that signing be out of left field or what!?!
- t_leafs21

Wouldn't be good with Phaneuf on the team.

Iginla was part of the group of players that wanted Phaneuf out for having the gaul to demand accountability on the ice.

But yea, we probably won't get Lecavalier. We never get these guys that a bunch of US teams are after. We can match the $$s on paper, but they'll always get more in American markets, where the taxes are a lot lower. Unless the player specifically wants to come to TO, we're at a disadvantage.

It's starting to look like

Lupul Kadri Kessel

JVR Grabovski Clarkson - the big free agent pickup of the summer

McClement Bolland Kulemin - Kulie plays RW, most annoying 3rd line in the league to play against!

McLaren Colborne Orr - Everyone is questioning why Colborne would be "wasted" on the 4th line. But really, you have to start somewhere. Perhaps we pick up a free agent to help out Colborne and McLaren gets more of spot duty with Orr when we play tougher teams
- t_leafs21

I would rather not have Kadri on the first line.....simply does not seem ready.
The Leafs better get Vinny!