Toronto Maple Leafs

[lucafen4]

21 - 1 goal losses last year for the Leafs. Zaitsev improves their D a fair amount. He's playing a really solid 2-way game for Russia in the WC. They win just 4 or 5 of those games rather than OT losses or push a couple into OT and they would have found themselves out of the bottom 5. They don't need to improve this year to improve this year. Just a second year under Babcock's system will likely do wonders.

That said, having possibly 7 rookies start the season, there will be headaches and growing pains. Not to mention how many other rookies will see ice time throughout the year.

I've predicted they'll end up 8-12 draft pick this year. That's a marginal improvement in performance over last year, maybe 10 points? I can't see them with a lottery pick this year, but in a year when there are no real expectations to win again, if they are down and out in March and flirting with bottom 3 - they'll pull the plug for that extra % chance.

Matthews, Zaitsev, Anderson are the three most important & biggest pieces they added to make this team immediately better this summer. time will tell if they'll have any affect, or it's one more year of bottom feeding.

[2014olympicgold]

Marner could very well be apart of that trio you mentioned.

[havanablast21]

Full Disclosure... This is simply me thinking out loud after having done some Analysis as a new Eichel Owner (but Passionate Leaf Fan). I'm likely long winded and you may want to disregard my ramblings as simply that... but should this initiate interesting discussion...

I keep hearing the "What If's" regarding Matthews, had he been a couple days older and part of the 2015/16 draft class last year...

While I honestly don't think either Eichel or Matthews come close to posting the career numbers McDavid is going to, for every top scorer in the league, there are 4 more that are considered the usual top 5, 9 more that round out the top 10 and 19 more that make top 20 and so on.

If McDavid is going to be the #1 scorer in the league this year a/o #1 ranked fantasy player, I'm very interested to see what people think about Eichel and Matthews and how they compare to each other and against the rest of the field ultimately from a real life value/ranking and how that may translate to Fantasy value.

I found it interesting to review Dobber's top 300 rankings of McDavid vs Eichel for the start, mid point and ending of last season.

McDavid started the 2015 season with a LOFTY #3 ranking, and them dipped to #12 (he was injured and simply not playing...) but bounced himself back up to #3 by the June 2016 ranking. That's pretty static despite missing nearly half the season.
Eichel, the defacto #1 had McDavid not been in that draft, started the 2015 season at #27 and then dipped to # 36 by the January 2016 top 300 Ranking. Still viewed to have had a very good Rookie Season, he managed to slide back up to #26 by the June '16

therefore, per Dobber -
McDavid #3, dropped 9 spots during the season only to return to his start of season prediction but season's end. Nice job Dobber.
Eichel (27), ranked 23 spots later than McDavid, also dropped 9 spots only to return to slightly better #26 ranking. Damn... once again.. nice work Dobber (and he played a full Rookie Season).

So while it's clear that Eichel and McDavid are really not in the same tier, McDavid assumes the #1 overall ranking and Eichel a respectful #11 (near top 10 per Dobber's Fantasy Rankings) to start this season.

Now I shift my attention to Matthews who has been compared far closer to Eichel than Eichel had been to McDavid last year and to start this season.

Dobber, (a self proclaimed Leaf fan...which really doesn't matter) has Matthews currently Ranked #43 in Sept 2016's most recent Rankings. That's 23 spots behind where Eichel is ranked to start his sophomore year and 16 spots lower than what Eichel was ranked to start his rookie 2015 season in Oct.

What this tells me is that while McDavid was viewed as a top 5 player and ended his Rookie Season as a top 5 player by Dobber's rankings, Eichel conversely was thought to be a top 25(ish) player and finished as such last year according to Dobber as well. This year Eichel situation has bettered enough to be considered a top 10(ish) player to start the year while McDavid... well...perfect is hard to improve on.

Turning my focus to Matthews (prior to Next Months' Oct rankings), Dobber seems to see Matthews as a top 50 player to start his Rookie season. With 3YP of 77 and Upside of 95 for Matthews, Dobber suggests a somewhat significant gap between he and Eichel's projections of 3YP of 80 and Upside of 110 which would be consistent with Matthews being ranked nearly 30+ spots below Eichel to start this year.

And yet I continue to read debates on the Forums here and other locations that Matthews and Eichel are far more the same than they are different (neither of which approach the McDavid's level).

So, while we wait for Dobber's Oct 2016 Rankings to be published, I'm interested to know from those who frequent this Leaf thread, where do you think Dobber will have Matthews officially ranked to start the season (following a very impressive WCoH run for the kid)? And from that, how do you guys project the 3-4 year trajectory for Matthews vs Eichel from a fantasy perspective? Why? Factors?

As of Oct 2016 (assuming Matthews has done nothing to drop in Dobber's ranking formula) do you think:
a) Matthews is Ranked 43 as he is now
b) Matthews is Ranked 30 or Higher
c) Matthews is able to crack the top 30 which would essentially put him in a comparable class to Eichel's Rookie Ranking ... thus further fueling the debate "Eichel vs Matthews"... who's better?

Thoughts?

(sorry to those who feel this entry served no value what so ever).

[2014olympicgold]

Eichel is the better fantasy player (will say I skimmed the last bit of your post). Babcock and his system do not breed top scorers, and the last time they had a high scoring player was Datsyuk in 2008-09 in a different NHL, or Zetts in 2010-11 with 80pts.

Matthews will be that 2-way force likely (just how I see it) lowering his point totals. As we all know a top end player doesn’t always have to put up 100pts, Toews and Kopitar for example.

Eichel will have ROR being that defensive forward, Matthews will likely be killing penalties, taking dZone draws, and asked to back check hard.

[AwkwardMongoose]

Eichel is the better fantasy player (will say I skimmed the last bit of your post). Babcock and his system do not breed top scorers, and the last time they had a high scoring player was Datsyuk in 2008-09 in a different NHL, or Zetts in 2010-11 with 80pts.

Matthews will be that 2-way force likely (just how I see it) lowering his point totals. As we all know a top end player doesn’t always have to put up 100pts, Toews and Kopitar for example.

Eichel will have ROR being that defensive forward, Matthews will likely be killing penalties, taking dZone draws, and asked to back check hard.

I agree 100%. In fantasy I would rather own Laine that Matthews, but Matthews is going to be an incredible player, just probably not top 5 in fantasy.

[2014olympicgold]

I agree 100%. In fantasy I would rather own Laine that Matthews, but Matthews is going to be an incredible player, just probably not top 5 in fantasy.

The way they played in the WCH tourney, I don’t think I’d be reaching in 1yr leagues for Laine. Just seeing the two play, Laine is too much of a “biggy-back scorer”. He needs others to help him score it seems, right now at least. He lead the Finnish team in SOG, but they were all pretty low chance SOG where he prolly got a good scoring chance in Europe, but that won’t happen here.

Auston Matthews played and created his own chances. Out of the gate, I think Matthews will play better, but Laine will get more ice time. It’ll be interesting what proves to be the Fantasy producer. A player who looks like he’s rushing his moves (Laine) but getting TOI, or the player comfortable but not getting that TOI right away (Matthews).

Also, I was meh on Laine but figured it was just me going into this yr thinking Laine is super hyped. But the WCH he disappeared. For the good of Canadian Team Hockey, I hope he does well.

[Mr. Guru]

Tonights roster.

Kerby Rychel Nazem Kadri Connor Brown
Colin Greening Brooks Laich Mitch Marner
Andreas Johnsson Byron Froese Kasperi Kapanen
Brandon Prust Marc Andre Cliche Trevor Moore

Left Defense Right Defense
Jake Gardiner Frank Corrado
Matt Hunwick Andrew Nielsen
Andrew Campbell Raman Hrabarenka

Goaltenders
Antoine Bibeau
Kasimir Kaskisuo

[2014olympicgold]

Marner wore #16 for those who care.

[The Black Panther]

Tonights roster.

Kerby Rychel Nazem Kadri Connor Brown
Colin Greening Brooks Laich Mitch Marner
Andreas Johnsson Byron Froese Kasperi Kapanen
Brandon Prust Marc Andre Cliche Trevor Moore

Left Defense Right Defense
Jake Gardiner Frank Corrado
Matt Hunwick Andrew Nielsen
Andrew Campbell Raman Hrabarenka

Goaltenders
Antoine Bibeau
Kasimir Kaskisuo

Curious to see how Trevor Moore does.

- - - Updated - - -

Im hearing whispers of Kadri b eing shifted to wing to play with AM. Anyone else hear that?

[2014olympicgold]

Kadri is a great 2^nd line shutdown center. Babcock has him turning into the next Kesler. There isn’t really a log jam at center for the Leafs.

Nylander, Matthews, Kadri, Marner, Gauthier are all their “Future” centers. Gauthier is a 4^th liner, prolly end up as a Legwand at BEST. However, Marner and Nylander are being shifted to the wing, but Nylander may be a “double shift candidate” that has him doubling as a C. Babcock likes using centers as wingers and having the ability to shift guys around.

Matthews C1, Kadri C2. And Nylander being about to shift from LW or RW where ever he may be to center to juggle up the lines mid game.

Switching Kadri to the wing after how he did vs Top Line Centers last yr would be strange to me. He did very well against top guys.

[The Black Panther]

Bozak 3rd line Center? Id think they might want to showcase him, no? Last year of contract.

[2014olympicgold]

Bozak 3rd line Center? Id think they might want to showcase him, no? Last year of contract.

Babcock said Matthews starts on the 3^rd line this yr. I was talking more moving forward.

Kadri will line up opposed to the other team’s top center. Bozak will have roughly the same TOI as Matthews, but Bozak will get more defensive zone starts, where Matthews gets more offensive or neutral zone starts. Matthews won’t start on the PP2 center, Bozak will, and Bozak will get PK time.

Kadri – 18TOI
Bozak – 16-17TOI
Matthews – 15-17TOI.

[havanablast21]

Is Matthews 34 not in the lineup tonight?

[2014olympicgold]

Is Matthews 34 not in the lineup tonight?

No he wasn’t in this one. They play today in Buffalo, then in Toronto vs Montreal on Sunday. My guess is he’s there for one of those games.

[2014olympicgold]

TSN at the end of their article of last night’s game said it’s planned Matthews makes his debut tonight @Buffalo.