Jonah Fleisher

Highest cap hits in NHL entering 26/27 season: Leo Carlsson - $18M #NHLDucks Kirill Kaprizov - $17M #mnwild Connor Bedard - $15M #Blackhawks Leon Draisaitl - $14M #LetsGoOilers Jack Eichel - $13.5M #VegasBorn Draisaitl, the only one who is NOT entering year 1 of contract

Thanks, Chris! Exactly that. I’d even go further to say that, ideally, contention windows don’t exist at all — rather, as the old core ages out, a new one should gradually supplant them, allowing them to gracefully scale back their roles and eventually glide into retirement. My argument essentially boils down to this: the notion that there is a contention window incentivizes managers to operate in such a way that they themselves create the contention window.

Beautiful post. If I understand correctly, what you meant initially was... teams could extend their contention window if they didn't blow futures by trying to open it as wide as possible in a finite number of years, so the self-fulfilling part is... they shorten their own window. Yeah?

Say you’re a young promising team (i.e 2016-17 Leafs, current Sharks). Managers get wrapped up in the notion that, given the presence of these franchise-caliber talents, they need to immediately go all in to expedite their ascent. They start trading future assets and walking their own players to UFA so that they can capitalize on their “window”(which they first view as the term of their ELCs and, later, their first post-ELC contracts). Teams begin to hemorrhage so many assets during this time frame that, unless they draft almost perfectly, by the time those players have signed their UFA deals, there’s no second wave of talent to support them. All the assets that could have been used to produce those support (or even core) players have been traded for rentals or allowed to walk out the door. Instead of having a stockpile of young players who can contribute to the team for the next 5-7+ years (in the case of Yzerman’s Lightning, look at Brayden Point, Nikita Kucherov, Anthony Cirelli, Ross Colton, etc.), they possess a severely limited cast of support pieces, which then necessitates that they continue to trade assets to shore up their roster with veteran rentals. With their core players now 27 or older and on their UFA, they can no longer afford to bide their time for 3-6 years for a new wave of draft picks to develop and join the fray, lest those core players age out or choose to leave in free agency. Rather, they are essentially forced to continue trading picks for more veteran talent — continuing to mortgage the future — until their core finally ages out, at which point they’ll have no other option to embark on a full-scale rebuild.

INSANITY: Tim Walz says we shouldn’t judge child molesters based purely on their decision to rape a child but on how they live their rest of their lives.

Ahokas lands in Colorado. He had A LOT of AHL interest.

Obviously the Stankoven add came in a bit of a roundabout way, but the fact that they were able to add him, Jarvis, Blake, Nikishin, and Miller, all while being a bonafide contender — continuing to import youth and not falling into the pitfalls of going “all-in” — is such a long-term boon to their franchise.

@jonah_fleisher Look at Carolina. Been good for years, finally broke thru without going all in. Did nothing at deadline before the cup. Have many key plays 25 and younger and all their picks. If you start at beginning of playoff streak the window could end up being 12+ years

@AustonsHairline Thank you!

@jonah_fleisher Very well said

@jdotknows They’re doing it well so far, as much as I don’t like that fact

Contention windows are a self-fulfilling prophecy

@danwass @Sandsy02 Yup. They’ve got a glut of future 3C prospects (Koblar, Holinka, Hopkins, Williams) but nobody who looks primed to fill that role. Unless they have plans for one of Knies or Cowan to transition to the right side, 2C and 2RW are key areas to address.

@jonah_fleisher @Sandsy02 although i think getting a 2C should be a huge focus, transitioning tavares to a top 6 winger or a 3C is vital

We could have had Mantha for basically the same contract as Sissons. Ugh. #Leafs

@danwass @Sandsy02 Not that the Leafs are in dire need of a centre right now. They’ve already got Matthews, Tavares, Paul, Sissons, Blueger, Roslovic, with Quillan and Haymes presumably waiting in the wings with the Marlies

@jonah_fleisher @Sandsy02 and he is not a C

The Leafs have one such matinee game: 1:00 on Monday, December 21, against Washington

@GoPats93 Paul - Sissons - Duhaime Pezzetta - Blueger - MacEwen bottom six 😂

@jonah_fleisher Duhaime can put belt to ass

Breaking News: Leafs to call up Zack McEwen and Michael Pezzetta on December 3, March 6, March 15, and April 1.

This deal is… quite rich, especially given the lack of term. Falls squarely in Zegras’ favour. Had a nice bounceback season, yes, but his career high in points is 67 points (which came with a career high in shooting percentage and 23 of those coming on the powerplay). And he’ll be a free agent again at 29 years old with a higher cap.

@CandCguy Ah shit, I read it as 10 powerplay goals and 23 powerplay assists. My bad

@jonah_fleisher 23 on the power play, not 33. Not an insignificant difference.

@Nate1028Alt Yeah he’ll be a UFA in 2030

@jonah_fleisher UFA right?

@FriedgeHNIC x.com/jonah_fleisher…

4 x $9.125M for Zegras

@SportsDataQuest Doubt they’d do that given that those two are probably their two best forwards in transition. Would be best to spread the wealth

@jonah_fleisher I think you run McKenna as Nylanders winger over Matthews. But I'm not against Cowan with Nylander and Tavares either.

With Patrick Kane out of the running with regards to the Leafs, that leaves Eeli Tolvanen as the last primary RW available on the market.