kipwinger

Where'd you see this rumor? Got a link?

What defenseman, in your opinion, is worth a 5 year 5.5 million dollar contract? I'm just trying to understand where you're coming from here.

Here's a quick breakdown of Toronto's salary structures. They already committed prime time money to crappy players. Which is why they can't afford to keep Frason. Toronto is paying Kessel, Phaneuf, Lupul, and Clarkson more than Chicago gave to Toews, Kane, Keith, and Hossa on their last deals (the ones they cleared Ladd et. al. to keep). They're paying them more than we paid Lids, Z, Dats, Franzen when we lost Hossa. They're paying them nearly as much as Chara, Bergeron, Kreci, and Rask. Kessel: 8 million cap hit Phaneuf: 7 million cap hit Lupul 5.2 million cap hit Clarkson: 5.2 million Van Reimsdyk: 4.2 million Bozak: 4.2 Gardiner: 4 Robidas: 3 Komorov: 2.9 Kadri: 2.9 Bernier: 2.9 Polak: 2.7 Reimer: 2.3

Ok, let's be more systematic about this. What holes do you see in Franson's game that make you think he's not worth that kind of money and term? And can you think of any comparable defensemen/comparable contracts that you think are more realistic for a guy like him?

Agreed. Plus, I think it's understood that if we signed a guy like Franson long term, we'd probably be letting Quincey walk after next season. Just a guess, but seems like a reasonable one.

James Wisniewski isn't worth his contract? He's a top four offensive defenseman and powerplay quarterback. Since he's been with Columbus he's scored 115 points in 199 games. He also averages over 20 minutes a night. He's been top ten in defense scoring twice in the four years he's been there, and has contributed 14 powerplay goals and 47 powerplay points since then. What would he need to do to be worth his contract if he's not doing it already? Learn to fly? Do the team's taxes as well?

Right, because trading Phaneuf and his massive (and undeserved) contract will be super duper easy to move. I'm not sure what's so hard to believe here. Toronto mismanaged their team and now can't afford to keep a good player? Good teams do it all the time, why is it so hard to believe a bad team (Toronto) couldn't do it too? I'll give you examples: 1. Boston couldn't afford to keep Iginla or Boychuk, but they aren't bad players. 2. Chicago couldn't afford to keep Campbell, Versteeg, Ladd, or Byfuglien, but they aren't bad players. 3. Detroit only offered Marian Hossa 4 million dollars to stay, but he's not a bad player. Sometimes, cap constraints mean you'll lose guys (or lowball guys) that you'd prefer to keep. It happens...a lot. Get over it. He's a good offensive defenseman. You don't have to like him. You don't have to want him on the team. But your continued insistence that he must not be good because the Toronto Maple Leafs organization can't retain him (at market value), is absurd. Completely and totally absurd. Is it really so hard to believe that that Maple Leafs are wrong? Or stupid? Or poorly run? They've been wrong, stupid, and poorly run for the last 65 year!

Toronto does everything absolutely backward. If they aren't giving a guy a contract, that's almost a full fledged endorsement. Seriously, if you use Toronto contract offers (and their worth) to form your impressions of players, then you'd have to conclude David Clarkson and Dion Phaneuf are REALLY good, and Cody Franson is garbage. The actions of David Nonis should never...ever...be a guidepost for accurately formulating opinions. Ever.

Do you find it even remotely ironic that the guy who supposed wants to "pretend the horrible Choice never happened" is also the same guy who won't shut up about it?

Good point. f*** this guy. He sucks.

Ok? Why would their free wheelingness be used as an excuse for why Franson scores, but overlooked when it becomes clear that nobody else on their team scores much? If their freewheeling offense inflates his numbers, why doesn't it inflate anybody else's? I'm not sure why everybody is trying to hard to make the guy out to be worse than he is. He was a good offensive player with Nashville (a non freewheeling team) and he's a good offensive player with Toronto. AND, not surprisingly, he's getting better with age. There are probably some reasons not to like his game, but suggesting he's not good offensively isn't one of them.

He plays on their second pair and runs their second power play. The EXACT same things he'd do here. I'm not sure what you think he does for them/what you think he'd be doing for us? If I'm following you correctly, you're suggesting that Cody Franson's points MAY be inflated because he gets powerplay time and plays with an offensively gifted player (Kessel). That's reasonable. But then it stands to reason that if powerplays and better offense inflate stats, his number would be better in Detroit...since we've got a better powerplay, better team offense, and a (currently) better individual goal scorer than Kessel.

You're making a few pretty dubious statements here. Firstly, saying "there's more to offense than points", while true, immediately discounts the MOST IMPORTANT part of offense...points. Sure there's more, but scoring points is the central part of offense. That's as silly as saying that there's more to defense than stopping points. Secondly, Filppula, J. Williams, Miller, Brunner, Snyder, Rafalski, and Hudler had their career high point totals in Detroit. Likewise, neither Bertuzzi or Alfredsson saw their points fall after coming to Detroit from other teams. Tomas Kopecky saw his production increase on a Stanley Cup team in Chicago (the same point I'm currently making about Franson coming to a better team), but it has since leveled off to the same production he had in Detroit. Weiss has been hurt so you can't really tell. The guys I can think of off the top of my head, whose production was worse in Detroit than elsewhere, were Kyle Quincey, Marian Hossa, Brad Stuart, Patrick Eaves, Ville Leino, and Robert Lang. So I'd say it's a mixed bag...at best. Thirdly, don't be too excited to reject standard offensive measures (point totals) for "other offensive measures". Cody Franson has better fancy stats than Kronwall too. His Corsi and Fenwick are higher than Kronwall's, suggesting that he has a greater influence on his entire team's offense than does Kronwall. Finally, who cares about Kronwall's defense? I didn't say Franson was a better player. I said he's better offensively than all of our defensemen accept Kronwall (but maybe Kronwall too). Between his points and fancy stats I'd say I"ve made the case that he's close to Kronwall (or slightly above) offensively. See above.

It's not that absurd. In their first 5 seasons, Kronwall score at .46 points per game, and Franson scored .41 points per game. That's a difference of 4 points over an 82 game season. My guess is, that this tiny difference in points can probably be attributed to the relative differences in the quality of the teams they've played for. Kronwall played on two Stanley Cup finalist teams and 2 other President's trophy winning teams in his first five years. And Cody Franson played for Nashville and Toronto.

Cody Franson isn't going to get 7 million per. This is exactly the same crap that the media said about Matt Niskanen. They literally said he'd get 7-7.5 million per. He didn't. He got 5.75 million. If Cody Franson gets 7 million per, I'll donate 500 dollars to a charity of your choice. If he gets 6 million, I'll donate 100 dollars to a charity of your choice. If he gets 5.5 million or less, I'll be right.

What are the odds that all three of our righty defense prospects are going to be as good as Franson? So why wouldn't you sign him and just get rid of the worst one of them? I get that we all like our prospects and that we shouldn't just throw them away, but when we're hanging on to them just for the sake of hanging on to them, it's pretty silly. Cody Franson is more offensively capable than any defenseman on our team other than Kronwall (though, maybe him too). He's 27 years old, and still seems to be trending up. You'd let him walk on the off chance that one of our defense prospects will one day be better than he is? I'll throw Nick Jensen down a well right now for a righty defenseman who can score 50 pts.

Why do people do the things they do? I'd sooner try to reach out and touch the moon than understand Frankgrimes' thinking.

Well, getting to play his natural side should help increase his production so we'll see. I sure hope it helps anyway. But I'm cautious. Both Quincey and Ericsson play their off sides and produce more, despite having a much more limited offensive skill set, and not playing much more 5 on5 (and no more power play).

I like it because it's kind of a catch all for all the rampant stupidity that dorks like us can find to talk about. It's like a catch-all for absurdity lest if spill into other areas. You can't be off topic in a thread that had no meaningful topic to begin with.

For me to be a believer, all he has to do is score. That's it. He has to do EXACTLY what he was drafted to do, and I'll like Brendan Smith. It's not like I'm being punitive by expecting him to score. For comparisons sake, I won't be impressed with Teemu Pulkinnen if he turns into a real good defensive forward and penalty killer.

I imagine Don Cherry's god spitting on minorities and not winning the Stanley Cup.

Well hell, if John Keating says it then I'm sold lol. Seriously, I love John Keating.

I'm not expecting Ken Holland to be the creator of all time, space, matter, and energy. Nor do I expect him to redeem my everlasting soul. But I'll reserve judgement until all the facts have come to light.

Dude, work is a long and lonely time. You can't expect me to not engage in shenanigans for 8 whole hours.

You don't get it. He's not judging them. He's "not expecting" them to do anything. You can't be in judgement of something through omission. Here, I'll show you. Not expecting someone to be innocent is not the same thing as judging them guilty. Not expecting a racoon attack is not the same thing as judging it unlikely. Not expecting Michael Bay films to be good is not the same thing as judging they'll be bad. Not expecting someone to say something meaningful is not the same a judging that their words are meaningless. See. It's a way to be in possession of two conflicting points of view at the same time. Because you've committed to neither. The obvious benefit, of course, is that you can never be wrong.