I've got a real post coming soon, but with the NHL season starting very soon, I'll take the opportunity to make a completely-ignorable post on hockey!
I'll focus on two teams - Montreal (because I love the team) and Toronto (because I love to hate the team). These are two teams in very different situations. Montreal has been sniffing at the door of contending for a few years now, while Toronto has been solidly in the draft lottery. Likewise, Montreal is hoping to go deep into the playoffs, while Toronto is in the midst of a complete teardown.
Yet, they're both facing a very similar problem: they've signed too many mediocre players.
Toronto's angle here is clear - to fill their ranks with cheap, potentially disposable players who might be flipped for draft picks at the trade deadline (if they perform at or slightly above expectations) or signed to a longer-term deal (if they drastically exceed expectations). It's a good strategy that they've employed effectively in the past, pretty much the only thing that's kept their prospect pool half-decent despite years of fairly horrible draft decisions. Unfortunately, they've overdone it. Not counting Nathan Horton, who is permanently injured, they have 14 forwards signed - most to 1-year or otherwise expiring contracts - plus 8 D-men. Even if they send a few down to the AHL, it's a pretty crowded roster.
The main problem with this strategy is that there aren't many opportunities for development for those not already on NHL contracts. Kadri, JVR, Gardiner, & Rielly will benefit from some added responsibility this year, but players like Nylander and Connor Brown, who are sniffing at the edges of making the main squad are going to get shut out. Even an injury or two won't open a spot for them. Rushing players into the NHL is a mistake the Leafs have made far too often, but preventing young players from playing in the NHL when they're ready can be equally damaging. A few roster players are going to get marginalized as well. I like the signings of Boyes, Arcobello, Panik, and Matthias, as well as the trade for Grabner. These players could be part of the future of the Leafs, or just as easily could be flipped for asserts. Not all of them are likely to get much chance to shine in the current Leafs logjam.
Maybe the Leafs are still looking to move a player or two - Bozak and Lupul remain on the trade block. Maybe the plan is to bring these younger players up in more prominent roles after the trade deadline, when at least a few players are guaranteed to be shipped out. There might be a longer-term logic here, but in the short term, I just don't see it yet.
Montreal's approach is just nonsensical - for the past few years they've been good on depth but light on high-end talent outside of a few key players (Price, Subban, Pacioretty). For the most part, all they've done this past year is added more depth that they don't need. Semin is the one exception - he's a bit of a gamble, but he's a cheap way to potentially gain a solid top-6 forward, which Montreal desperately needs.
Montreal also has 14 forwards signed (though that might rise to 15 if Fleischmann gets the contract he appears to have earned) and while they only have 7 NHL D-men, those D-men are also fantastically expensive and sitting ahead of a much deeper bench of prospects. Plus, those players aren't likely to be traded at the deadline for draft picks - at best, they'll be traded for other players, similar to what happened with the acquisitions of Kassian and Smith-Pelly.
This simply means too many players fighting for too little opportunity. Just as with Toronto, some of these players really won't be given a chance. More importantly, Montreal's prospects are getting completely shut out. Hudon and Andrighetto are getting close. Tinordi has been in the AHL too long - if he's not playing with the big team or traded to another organization soon, he's at risk of becoming a wasted high-end prospect.
I'm still baffled about the acquisitions of Torrey Mitchell and Brian Flynn. Not that either player is bad - they're both capable bottom-6 players - but neither is likely to improve much moving forwards and there are another 6 equally capable players in the system that have higher potential that could be filling those roles. So what's their point?! If they make the team better now, it's a very marginal benefit, and they're not going to make Montreal better in the future.
The defense isn't any better - Petry, Emelin, and Gilbert are all fine bottom-4 defensemen, but so are Beaulieu and Pateryn, who are much cheaper with higher potential (aside from maybe Petry). And why'd they get rid of Mike Weaver? He was the perfect bottom-pairing D-man, cheap but reasonably effective, especially on the PK. Petry/Emelin/Gilbert/Beaulieu as the bottom-4 is probably better than say, Emelin/Beaulieu/Pateryn/Weaver would be this year, but not by all that much, and there's a lot more flexibility moving forward with the second group, not to mention a price difference of about $6 million. The Petry signing was, frankly, a mistake.
Anyway, it's been clear from this off-season that there's a lot more talent out there than there is money to pay them or positions on rosters to take them all. Good teams seem to have developed a strong, reliable core of players, then used free agents (including rentals), trades, and well-developed prospects to fill in the holes in their line-up on an as-needed basis. Chicago did that to win their cups. LA did that too. Boston did that. Anaheim's doing it now, as is Pittsburgh. It seems to be working for them. Toronto needs to develop the core, which the current strategy is standing in the way of. Montreal has the start of a core, but has now cut themselves off from filling in the holes effectively. This lack of flexibility could come back to bite both teams in the end.
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