you’re scoring fine when Matthews is healthy

To everyone wanting to see Pesce (the current IT girl of internet hockey fans), what upside does he have? He's a very good defensive defenseman. That's what he is, and over his career he's shown pretty much no offensive upside. He's pretty big but not overly physical, skates well and doesn't make many mistakes. How many times has anyone ever said, "Wow Pesce's skill took over that game, or shift or TV interview for that matter?" Its never been said, not because he's a bad player, he's great but that's it. He'll give you a lot of good minutes that you'll say after a while, "Man Pesce is a solid defenceman" but that's it. Chris Tanev gets you the same and wouldn't cost Nylander.

Now speaking of Nylander, how do people talk about him? At his draft, some of the hockey insiders mentioned, Nylander could have had the most raw talent in his entire draft but wasn't able to put it all together. I'll take the guy with limitless raw talent over a defensive defenseman any day of the week.

Funny a couple years ago Edmonton traded a high scoring winger for a young defensive D-man on a reasonable contract.

You are ringing really hollow dude, The Leafs beat Winnipeg 3-2, then to Calgary where the Buds didn't really show up. After that they dominated Dallas but lost to a goalie in the zone who also got really lucky. What came after that? A 5-0 win over Pittsburgh. Seems like they can score period.

Brace for the Nylander is not even close to Hall comments. Which totally misses the point, offense is the hardest thing to find in the NHL and yet you still have tonnes of idiots saying the Leafs can't possibly win by outscoring their opponents. Which in case anyone wasn't clear on this fact, outscoring your opponents is pretty much the whole point of the game.

Nah, they cant score and NYI is best NHL team since they finally got rid of Tavares. Case closed.....

I don't think Carolina should move Pesce for that.

Maybe for Nylander and Liljegren.

Are you secretly Pesce's dad or something? You have an unreasonable amount of love for him.

why dump Hainsey. you are trying to improve your blue line. Surely he'd help. It's not like he's a liability back there.

leafs would be better off keeping his rights and him sitting for the year than trading him

Pesce is 23 and is already an extremely solid D man. defensive players like him don’t come into their prime until late 20s/early 30s. Leafs would be a much better team with Pesce then with nylander. Nylander is a 60 point player on Toronto playing behind guys like Matthews Tavares marner. There’s no need for him. Kappenen can be just as effective as nylander playing with Matthews. Pesce for nylander is a perfect trade. It’s not hall for Larson. Pesce> larsson, hall> nylander. Obviously leafs lose skill but they can afford to do that. RHD is probably the most valuable position in hockey (or centre) and nylander is just a RW.

I don't think anyone has said that. I think people have said (myself included) that teams don't win stanley cups by just scoring. All the good teams in the cup era, minus when Letang got hurt, have had a two way rock on their top pairing.

A few things to consider:
There is no number of goals you can score that guarantees victory, but if you allow zero goals, you will always win.
Scoring goes into slumps, it doesn't really happen that way defensively.
No team since the lockout has won trying to run and gun.

No human player comes into their physical prime in their 30's. List how many of the top defenseman in the NHL are in their 30's. Duncan Keith used to be the best and now he's good. Seabrook? Also declining. Weber? Also declining.

The number of players who get better in their late 20's or early 30's are almost always a product of their situation.

Pesce is 23 and you have seen what he can do, he's great defensively. That's it. Nylander has the potential to be utterly dominant. If I am moving a potentially dominant player, I'm wanting either a player with similar talents back or futures that can turn into that. Pesce is neither of those. He's a defensive defenseman who is very good but also extremely 1 dimensional.

Morgan Rielly is a two way stud on the top pair. Its a perfect example of the double standard people on here have for the Leafs. They need a stud so trade for Pesce, who is half of what Rielly is. Rielly is a better skater, more physical and far more gifted skillwise. Pesce would compliment him perfectly being a more stay at home guy but that isn't worth Nylander who has the potential to also be a top 20 scorer in the NHL.

To say that scoring goes into slumps but defensive play doesn't is ridiculous. If a team consistently generates high level scoring chances, they may not always score a tonne of goals but the same thing happens to teams who have a system that doesn't prevent many scoring chances, sometimes, bad bounces happen and you get scored on a lot. Boston had a stretch towards the end of the season where they had trouble keeping the puck out of their net. Not because they forgot how to defend, they just had a bad game or two and bounces went the other way.

You can't bend reality to fit your point of view, that is called delusion.

This is funny because in another thread, Logan, you just acknowledged that Pesce was 30th in even strength points among RHD last season, and tried to claim that Nylander, about 45th among forwards in even strength points, is more valuable if you compare him only to listed right wings, even though many NHL right wings are listed as centers.

Sure, bounces can happen, I don't think that was entirely my point.

Defensive play is more sustainable, and is less prone to being affected by variance. Team 1 is built on generating high end scoring chances. They're good at it, well, for four games in a short 7 game series, they face a hot goalie, and maybe a couple pucks that normally go in dont, and they hit a couple posts, and all of a sudden are on the golf course. Team 2 is built on preventing scoring chances. That structure doesn't just go away the way an offensive unit can get stagnant for a week or two. Chicago didn't win three cups because they let patrick kane dangle through everyone. They won those cups because their defensive structure was unrelenting and they had the talent to be opportunistic.

and no, Morgan Rielly is not a number one stud. he's a good player, but Pesce is probably a more sound option at this point in their respective careers. I'd like to see Rielly turn in a season without a dash next to his name before calling him a number one stud.

Nylander was 70th in scoring last year.
109th in goals.
90th in points per game.

I think you may be a slight bit too bullish on his offensive upside. He's a darn good player, but he isn't worth Pesce with that contract.

I encourage anyone to follow this link to see the whole conversation this guy just mentioned.

https://www.capfriendly.com/forums/thread/176093&post_id=623063

You'll find that this fellow like to use stats and in his words "logic" but doesn't use the same logic across all scenarios.

To sum it up, this guy said Pesce is 30th amongst right handed defenceman in even strength scoring last season. Which is correct. Then he said Nylander was 45th amongst forwards. I suggested that if he is going to use a specific parameter of RHD then Nylander should be compared to RW as that is what he played other than a few games at centre. When we did that, Nylander was tied for 9th in the entire NHL.

This gentleman then insulted me for using logic in my argument and said that Nylander should be compared to all forwards. So I did that, and also compared Pesce to all defenceman. The results are what should have been expected by anyone that doesn't have a hate on for the Leafs, Nylander was 44th out of 372 NHL fowards (I used that number based on 31 teams using 12 forwards), Pesce ranked 75th out of 186 (6 defenceman per 31 teams, I may be off on Pesce's ranking though. It was in the 70's somewhere)

He hasn't responded since my last point, presumably because he realized his argument lacked any fundamental proof to it.

Eh, he kind of reminds me of a way better version of Dennis Seidenberg. Certainly defense first, but it's not like he's a black hole where offense goes to die. He chips in. He can skate pretty well etc etc. Seidenberg came into his prime when he was about 29, and stayed there until he was about 32-33.

Take PP points into consideration on Nylander, he didn't get a nearly as much time on the PP as other top players. Which is why he was 44th at even strength but lower for total points. This year he'll still get less time than I think he'd like but he'll also have the whole second unit run through him which could help his personal numbers.

As for the whole defensive structure stuff you mention. I agree completely. You need a system that ultimately gives you consistently the better offensive chances differential. I don't care if you allow 10 chances or 20 chances a game, if you are earning 40 per game you are going to outscore the opposition. Toronto does that, as does Boston and most of the other good teams. Look at a team like Vancouver or Montreal, they allow way more chances than they produce and eventually they'll revert to a losing team. I don't see Toronto being the same situation.

I kind of agree that the Leafs style may not work in all situations. Against certain teams they'll have trouble. Teams with equal speed but a more conservative style of play have given TO troubles. But I if they matched up against someone like LA in the playoffs, I think it'd be a sweep for the Leafs. That's the beauty of the playoffs, different matchups can make other teams look better or worse than they are.

Would Seidenberg ever have been worth Nylander? Or Elhers or Pastrnak? No, so why is Pesce worth Nylander?

If you want to make this about me, that's fine, but I'm pretty confident that I explained there, and I'm happy to explain again, that the NHL is full of guys who played center in juniors, claim they still play center, but actually play wing.

Last year the NHL counted 271 centers (http://www.nhl.com/stats/player?reportType=season&seasonFrom=20172018&seasonTo=20172018&gameType=2&position=C&filter=gamesPlayed,gte,1&sort=points,goals,assists) but only 168 left wings (http://www.nhl.com/stats/player?reportType=season&seasonFrom=20172018&seasonTo=20172018&gameType=2&position=L&filter=gamesPlayed,gte,1&sort=points,goals,assists) and only 145 right wings (http://www.nhl.com/stats/player?reportType=season&seasonFrom=20172018&seasonTo=20172018&gameType=2&position=R&filter=gamesPlayed,gte,1&sort=points,goals,assists).

I lost an argument by trying to claim that Tom Wilson is one of the best right wings at even strength point production. You've just done the same thing, but with William Nylander. The data don't exist. Teams deploy one center, one left wing, and one right wing at a time, on each shift, but the NHL's data seem to reflect players ideas of themselves as they would like to be, not as they actually are. Your ad hominem attack is irrelevant. The numbers don't exist to compare Nylander to other right wings, so I compared him to forwards, and found that he's an average first liner, offensively, while Pesce is just barely a 1st pair right defenseman, offensively. I'm still taking your word that Pesce is very good, defensively. I happen to agree. But I'll take your word for it.

Well, about ten years ago, Seidenberg played top pair with Chara and helped the Bruins win a Cup. Years before that Seidenberg was traded for Petr Nedved. The Bruins traded away future all star defenseman Dennis Wideman (then not as good as Seidenberg) for Nathan Horton (then a blossoming power forward, largely considered the missing piece in Boston's championship hopes, but the Panthers still threw in Greg Campbell.

Why do you ask?

They’re first place. You can laugh, but they’re literally first. I’m in the right.

I am not sure where to go from here.

You say you can't find numbers to compare Nylander to other RW's. So you compared him to forwards. Fine, I am not going to argue that. So then why not compare Pesce to all defenceman then? You didn't because that is not good for your argument.

You put players on uneven playing grounds and then point to numbers that reinforce your stance. That isn't how real life works dude. You are essentially saying, this Apple is better than that Apple because Apple A is ranked 30th when compared to apples that are red, and named Spartan. While Player B is ranked 60th when you compare them to all other apples, as well as oranges and dinosaurs.

Here is the thing sir, if you want to compare the players, use the same methodology for both players. If you compare the defenceman to only RHD, then compare Nylander to only RW. If you don't want to do that because it makes your argument look dumb, which it totally does, then compare the players to all defenceman and forwards respectively. I was fair in all my posturing, never changing how I look at the player statistically.

That is why I battled you on this, you changed methodology between Pesce and Nylander making the whole exercise silly.

Who won the Horton trade?