Leafs acquire and extend Kirill Marchenko

[leafsjunkie]

Great see see and hear from you here, Nik. Hope to see you around more often.

I had often wondered where Nik went.

 

[YYZ]

I had often wondered where Nik went.

Yes, we have certainly missed all those 10,000 word diatribes on why you and your post are stupid and wrong.

 

[L K]

Knies for Marchenko I think should have been an even trade straight up basically. Lorentz for Woods is probably advantage Columbus. Woods has 1 additional year left on his deal and carries a $1.15mil higher cap hit. Woods has more of a track record with producing in the NHL though. Then we take on Elvis with some retention, which feels like us doing Columbus a favour more than anything. I wonder if what the long-term play is there... so far nothing has really suggested he'll be on LTIR all year so do the Leafs hope to flip him at some point?

That leaves Andrae and a 2nd rounder feeling like they're just in a void somewhere. Really don't get why those were included.

I agree that I don't get why the 2nd was included.

Knies for Marchenko. We were talking about him being the centrepiece of a Werenski trade in the summer. Marchenko is the better player. Knies is signed long term at a great cap hit. He's not overpaid today and if he grows into his deal he's a steal.

Lorentz and Woods are both useless. We know Lorentz was a nice guy and could kill penalties. Woods carries a bigger cap hit and is slightly meaner but overall still useless.

Mrzliskins - doesn't help or hurt us but taking on LTIR money made more sense than trying to move more bodies out on both sides. I think this is just a nothing event.

Andrae and the 2nd. I don't really understand. If the Leafs felt Blankenburg replaced the value of Andrae I get it. If keeping Rielly made Andrae irrelevant I get moving him. If they really like Rifai's camp and like the potential in Danford I get making it more possible that the team can tap them on the shoulder, I get moving on. But his value should have been more than a throw in. The 2nd is the same.

Now as for Knies. He was disappointing last year. Hurt or not, his game stunk a lot of the time. He put up decent points but it felt like he wasn't fitting in. Knies should have been a who can do well in Berube's dump system and he was pretty quiet. I don't want to read too much into training camp games but he looked slow and like he wasn't fitting in.

Who knows what was going on behind the scenes. Trade rumours are one thing. The Montreal docuseries made it pretty clear just how close he was to moving. Then the Werenski rumours got going in the summer. I don't know how committed to Toronto I would be after that.

Hopefully Kirill gets here quick and is able to play tomorrow but we are a better team with him either way and ultimately while losing Knies sucks, we didn't lose anything of on ice value beyond that.