krsmith17

Nah. Sure.

I thought the Perlini trade was November, but you're right, Perlini in October, Fabbri in November. Who will be in December?

At least 2...

Lafreniere and Byfield are comparable, but as of right now, Lafreniere is the consensus number one pick, and for good reason. He has the potential to be elite. He's been dominating the Q, putting up close to Crosby numbers. We need to take the best player available, regardless of position. I wouldn't hope we land in the number two spot, just so we can take the center, and I certainly wouldn't pass on Lafreniere at number one because Byfield is a center...

It's a no on Krug for me... Unless he takes a huge discount to play in his home state...

I'm not sure if elite is still in the cards for Zadina (maybe), but I still think he'll at least be a high end top six winger, with top line winger upside... He's been a point per game player, and looking very good the past dozen games in the AHL. Just turned 20 yesterday. Still a ton of room to grow and develop as a player.

No matter how you slice it, 5 extra wins, 10 extra OT losses or somewhere in between, that's a significant improvement. And that's the low end in my opinion. I could easily see this team finishing with around 60 points this season, and upwards of 75 points next season. That's a pretty big upswing. Very few teams have a massive upswing (26 points) like Toronto did a few years ago. Exactly. Say what you want about this defense, but goaltending has not been close to good enough. Adding an upgrade between the pipes, could get us an extra 4-5 wins alone, and definitely keep games more competitive. Then you add a few (even if they're small) upgrades, in other areas, and I can see this team taking big strides next season. We're still not likely anywhere close to a playoff team, but I don't think it's as far away as some may think...

Appreciate it, but I don't even think I'm being overly optimistic here. It's not like I'm saying any of our players / prospects are going to be elite. In fact, I've acknowledged that we lack that elite talent. I do think we have a lot of high-end talent in the pipe though. I don't think we're close to being out of this rebuild yet, but I think we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

LOL Why are you arguing with me? I'm the one that originally says (in a few different threads), I think this is rock bottom, we should be much improved next season... And you say, "No", we're going to suck, we're three years away from the playoffs... To be clear, I'm not really putting a number on our position in the standings, because I have no idea which teams will progress / regress next season. I just think we will be one of the teams that will see progress by a significant margin (10*+* points). Who knows, if everything goes right, maybe it will be 26 points, and we will be on the bubble. Doubtful, but not out of the realm of possibility...

I'll ask again, is a 10+ point jump in the standings not a significant improvement? We're on pace to have 51 points, the worst season since '85-86 (end of the "Dead Wings" era) when we had 40 points. This is rock bottom. We will start to trend in the right direction next season. We'll likely still be bottom 5, maybe even bottom 3, but we will be a much better team on the ice and in the standings...

I think right now we're setup very similarly to the 2015-16 Leafs. Literally everything went right for them that offseason / next season though. I don't expect the same sort of turn around, but I do expect the turnaround to start next season. We're likely another couple years away from the playoffs, and another couple years after that before we're a legit contender...

Would you not consider a 10 point jump in the standings significant improvement? I would. Also, like @marcaractac said, next season should be a lot more like last season, than this season, with a lot more closer games, rather than these 5-2, 5-1, 6-0 blowout losses.

With potential of a big overhaul in the roster, I'd say there's a much better chance that we see improvement on the ice and in the standings, than stay exactly the same... Agree to disagree.

This is one area I could definitely see us addressing via free agency this offseason. Healthy DeKeyser (?). Addition by subtraction. Trade (?). I don't necessarily agree with this, but a new coach (?) could change this. This could honestly be a strength as early as next season. We may still lack the elite talent (unless we get a top 2 pick), but depth shouldn't be an issue. Lafreniere (if we're that lucky) could legitimately have a Matthews level impact on this team in his first season. The Leafs jumped 26! points after the Matthews draft.

I think we'll finish dead last (by a wide margin) this season with <60 points, and bottom 5-10 next season with >70 points *IF a lot of things within reason go our way this offseason... I think a jump of 10+ points is definitely reasonable expectations from this season to the next.

I agree that we need to get rid of Nielsen, but I don't think us improving depends on that. Improvement will come from within, and addition by subtraction on the back end. Yeah, I'm counting on drafting an immediate impact player in next year's draft (Lafreniere / Byfield). I'm also counting on Seider being a significant upgrade over any of our current defensemen, with the exception of Hronek (maybe DeKeyser). I also think one, maybe two of Rasmussen, Veleno, Zadina, Svechnikov will make the team, and be a significant upgrade over some of our current bottom six forwards. And finally, I think we can reasonably expect some trades made to upgrade this team.

We need to add to that group before we become a legit contender. I'd be okay with rolling with that next season though. But yeah, I can definitely see a trade at some point as well. So you don't think this team will make any improvement until 2022-23?

I wouldn't give up on Bowey yet. He's big, skates well, has a decent shot, and can make plays in the offensive zone. 8 points in 21 games for a defenseman that is getting bottom pair minutes and no power-play time is pretty solid production. I don't think he's terrible defensively either. 1-on-1 he's pretty solid. His positioning could use some work. He also coughs up the puck pretty easily when pressured. He's good for one awful turnover pretty much every game. If he can clean that up, and work on his positioning in the defensive zone, I think he can be a more than competent 3rd pairing defenseman.

I don't think there will be much of a change in the near future, aside from DeKeyser hopefully getting healthy soon. Next season, all of Green, Daley, Ericsson, McIlrath, Biega will likely be out, and Seider will be in. That alone should (in theory) be a pretty significant upgrade. I could see something like this next season... DeKeyser - Hronek Nemeth - Seider Cholowski - Bowey That's not a terrible defense (on paper), and I could still see Yzerman acquiring a defenseman via trade before next season as well, or perhaps another stop-gap UFA... I know some think next season will be just as bad or worse than this season, but I do believe this is rock bottom. I'm not saying we'll be a playoff team as early as next season, but I do think we'll be much improved...

Yes please... I've already received texts from 7 different ******* Leaf fans... including my ******* mother-in-law... Luckily my ******* wife isn't home... yet... Please Wings, win this game... or at least make it somewhat respectable...

No idea. All I know is our defense in a train wreck without DeKeyser and to a lesser extent Nemeth. I don't think Ericsson or McIlrath have been bad, and I'd take either of them over Biega or Hicketts right now...

I'm thinking maybe they thought Greener was closer to being ready to go...?

Yes, he was waived, but will remain with the big club until Green is ready to go...

Erne sucks, but the likelihood of a 4th round pick ever amounting to anything more than an Erne level player is slim, so whatever... I would have liked to have given up a lesser prospect than Regula in the Perlini trade, but he likely won't ever be anything more than a depth defenseman, so whatever. I really like Perlini, and think he should be given a much bigger role, playing with like-skilled players, to show what he can do. I think he could be a very good middle six winger (Mantha lite)...

LOL Imagine complaining about this trade... It was a massive win before Fabbri ever put on a Red Wings jersey... This "steve" guy legitimately complains about everything on Twitter. I'm glad no users on here are this dumb...