Toronto Maple Leafs Sign Oliver Ekman-Larsson: Why Everyone is Overreacting
welcome to downtown Sports my name is downtown Steven Brown and in today’s video guys I want to talk about the Tron and I belief signing defenseman Oliver acman Larson to a four-year deal worth $3.5 million per season and why I think this deal is a lot better than what people are giving it credit for I’m also not going to pretend like it’s perfect right what I mean when I say better than what most people are giving it credit for is I feel like a lot of people are acting like the maple Le signed one of the worst in the NHL to a contract that uh was for too much money and for too many years and you know what right off the bat I’ll give it to you he’s 32 turning 33 a 4-year deal is um not the greatest for this player but in a world where 1.2 billion dollars worth of contracts were handed out yesterday there was a lot of bad money flying all over the place for uh way too many years right and if you wanted to make your team better uh you know you’re going to have to bite the bullet a little bit right that’s why you got to draft well let’s snuff this out right now because a couple of seasons ago Oliver Ean Larson was bought out by the Vancouver Canucks and before they did that he had the reputation of being one of the most overpaid worst defenseman in the entire NHL and to get him from that to what we’ll see in about a minute or so uh all the Florida Panthers did was stop using him as their number one defenseman you know it’s not 2015 anymore the guy is not receiving Norris votes like he did perennially with the Arizona Coyotes all the Florida Panthers did was take this guy and stop using him as their number one defenseman and use him more appropriately to what he is at this point in his career which is uh a lowend number four defenseman or a higher end number five guy because these are the results that you get when you use Oliver Ean Larson as your number one defenseman which is what the Vancouver Canucks were doing the season before they bought him out but when you just dial his minutes back just a little bit and you use him as a number four or a number five guy uh pretty much all of the numbers do a complete 180 and this is a very useful player we mentioned this about a minute ago or so but I wanted to actually show you and then I wanted to make a bit of a statement because Oliver acman Larson played the fourth highest percentage of his ice time up against the other team’s best players among the Florida Blue liners this past season if you sorted by total time on ice up against the other team’s best players he’s still fourth but eblad played significantly less games so if eblad was healthier uh oel would be fifth on this list so they used him as a number four number five defenseman um playing special teams as well as ice time was a little bit higher than a third pair defenseman um and in that role you know it’s it’s not like they asked him to play lock it down defense or anything they uh played him uh in a role and they gave him minutes that were more catered towards what he’s good at they gave him some more offensive zone starts but it’s not they didn’t shelter him this isn’t a sheltered role um he’s just the number four number five defenseman on a Stanley Cup winning team and all that took was for the Panthers to stop using him as a number one defenseman like the Canucks were and I understand the Panthers were paying him $2.25 million compared to whatever the Canucks were paying him was something outrageous that the coyotes gave him that deal and then the canu traded for it and I understand there was there was a lot of there was a lot of pieces in that deal that Canuck shed a lot of money as well but to acquire that player was ridiculous but then to play him as your number one defenseman was even more ridiculous the Panthers didn’t do anything revolutionary here all they did was um sto using him as a number one defenseman and all of a sudden all the numbers did a complete 180 I think the results that he produced with the cans the last few years he was there says more about uh that management group and they fired all of those people really just not knowing what they were doing they still produced well offensively while being a good team defensively with all of R Larson on the ice and their power play was was actually slightly better with him compared to without him and this is another thing that I learned about this player while doing research for this video he played on Florida’s penalty kill last season and was actually pretty good at it now it’s not like he was out there all the time or anything like that but still he played over a 100 minutes on their penalty kill and the results were mostly positive if we’re looking at the Florida Panthers penalty kill with him compared to without him you know maybe he was out there on their second unit or playing up against other teams second units but still uh for how bad the maple leafes penalty kill was last season I’ll take him as an option when he was playing with the Arizona Coyotes and receiving votes for the Norris Trophy he was more known as an offensive defenseman than anything else but this past year with the Florida Panthers with the respectable results defensively playing on the penalty kill um and being a decent offensive contributor I would call him more of a two-way guy than anything else you know the M Leafs were second in the NHL in hits last season and his 105 hits would rank third on the map Leafs so at 6’2 and 200 lbs this isn’t a guy who’s just all offense and all flash he could lay the body he could block his shot sounds like a pretty good player like we pointed out at the beginning of the video uh I don’t like that this contract is four years in length you know he is he’s 32 turning 33 uh the 3.5 million doll capit is not super egregious but it’s enough money that when he does start to decline you’re going to notice it and you’re going to feel that and you’re going to wish that it wasn’t four years but at the same time like we also pointed out there were 1.2 billion dollar worth of contracts handed out on July 1st the reality was is that unless there was a player out there that so badly wanted to play for your team you were more than likely going to have to overpay or free agents and if you didn’t want to overpay based on uh the aav then you were going to have to tack on an extra year or two to the contract in order to spread that money out and make it a bit more manageable but also you know the cap is going to be increasing significantly over the next uh two three four years hopefully so I don’t I don’t I don’t I I like the player he played well last season like we pointed out um the poor results in Vancouver probably had more to do with how dumb that management group was and they fired all of them um I think he’s going to be just fine for the Toronto M beliefs and he’s going to be a versatile player like we said he could play on the penalty kill he could play on your power play um he wasn’t playing Super sheltered minutes for the Panthers last season this isn’t a guy that you got to worry about really you’re going to play him 18 minutes a night and he’s just going to be decent I haven’t had an opportunity to make a video or talk about yni hawpy yet but just very quickly here I like this player a lot more than what the average analytics card uh will lead you to believe and I’m not griping on analytics or anything like that I use a lot of them in my videos but when I do use them I try to Contex them as much as I possibly can um and I’m not saying that those cards don’t contextualize the numbers it’s it’s just it’s hard to read all the data unless you’ve read like the thesis paper behind it all um Yanni hakkaa is a much better player than what most people lead you to believe you know um when you play pretty much exclusively in the defensive Zone in tougher minutes of course the numbers aren’t going to look kind of course they’re not going to look kind and that’s Yanni hacka very good player very happy to have them as it stands right now the M Poli have eight defensemen on their roster they have four left-handed shooting defensemen and four right-handed shooting defensemen oh my God it’s beautiful I don’t think I I don’t think they’ve ever had that uh going into a regular season or at any point in an off season over the last number of years I don’t know you feel free feel free to correct me if I’m wrong but I think this defense is a lot better than what people will give it credit for at least before the season starts I think once they hit the ice obviously uh we’ll see the fruits of it so Morgan Riley Chris tanov um Jake McCabe maybe Jake mccab plays on the right side and you go with a familiar pairing here Simone benoa Jake mcab we know that that works we know that that works in a defensive role up against the other team’s best players maybe it’s Jake mccab on the right side with Oliver Ekman Larson sometimes maybe it’s Jake mccab with h Yanni Haw andpa I could see that working because Jake mcab does have a tendency while he is a good defensive uh defenseman he has a tendency to pinch a lot um and try to play up in the rush he’s a very aggressive player at both ends of the ice um and Yanni haw can be a little bit of a a sturdy a steady anchor for this player um Timothy lilligren if he’s able to take a step next season you know um they don’t need him to play top four minutes but it would be nice it would be nice because they’re paying him three million bucks like I pointed out in the video that I did talking about him yesterday you know it’s very difficult to trade a player who has a pending arbitration case uh maybe they do move on from him still I don’t know I like the player I hope he takes a step this year I hope it works out because you know they drafted him they’ve developed him they’ve spent a lot of time and a lot of effort we’ve spent several years caring about this player I want him to be good I want him to work out Conor Timmons Conor Timmons is Conor Timmons but the Leafs have other holds on their roster and I think they’ll probably move on at some point and you got seven defensemen here you know Simone benois does not deserve to be a healthy scrap but also you know the Maple Leafs haven’t been in a position to just have depth you know they’ve often been forced to just play guys who could probably use a rest and I like the idea of you know uh every four or five games you know give so and so the night off he blocked a shot last night in an awkward spot there’s no need to push it it’s November right I think this Decor is going to be much better than what a lot of people will give it credit for in the summer ultimately I’m just really happy that Morgan Riley finally has um a good defensive partner you know if you scroll through the list of guys who have played significant uh minutes next to Morgan Riley throut his career it’s depressing Chris tanov legitimately is probably the best right-handed shooting defenseman that the maple Lees have had I don’t know I Brian mccab Brian mccab is that how far we got to go back no idea how long this video is at this point but I enjoy chatting with you guys sometimes and I would like to do that more you know uh for the longest time I tried to make these videos like hyperfocused and you know if I could say something in 10 seconds as opposed to saying it in 20 go back and redo that clip but um sometimes just got a free ball a little bit don’t worry about it doesn’t have to be super um edited or anything like that and I ALS I also I would really like to say thank you to everybody in the comments section being like he’s back he’s back he’s back he’s posting videos uh and just being um welcoming me back here on this platform it’s it’s meant a lot I do I do really appreciate it I I wish maybe I will take some time maybe like at work you know when I’m at work and I don’t have anything better to do just kind of sit there on my phone reply to you guys talk to you guys for a little bit and say thank you um on my own time uh admittedly I have probably do not have time but if it’s on company time that’s different so thank you very much for for watching uh that’s give me it for this one make sure to like the video if you did like it and subscribe for more because more is always on the way and I’ll see see you again in the next one
In this video, I go over the Toronto Maple Leafs signing Oliver Ekman-Larsson and explain why this is actually a good and underrated signing. I use advanced metrics, salary cap data and contextual information to break it all down.
25 comments
Leafs have figured out that old players break down, and go on LTIR. The Leafs have Billions to spend so that is actually an advantage Toronto has over most clubs.
Good as always. I’d like to see a tutorial video on how to read those charts that you use.
These 4 adds are not going to move the needle. Yes…. they did get bigger and nastier but are they better to the point that they can get passed the 2nd round or the ultimate goal to win the cup? They are technically running this back for the 8th time. This is what happens when the core 5 take up 61.6% of your cap. They did what they could with the cap space they had. The problem here is that it's probably not enough.
Never really comment on videos. I'll just say this; We know you're busy at TSN. Thank you for taking the time to give us great content! Keep up the great work and remember.. We don't need fancy edits/jump cuts etc. We're here to hear your thoughts/opinions on what's going on with the Leafs! Anyways, enjoy your summer!
Why is it that every offseason, we forget how overmatched we were in the playoffs and then decide to just run it back again…? This is the definition of insanity.
Reilly best partner thus far was Hainsey
I want the leafs to go out and aquire Brandon Tanev at 50% retained. If they have to give up robertson to do it so be it he wants out anyways….
Free balling I'm righting that song would be a good man scape intro song
I agree that it's time to let Timmons go that cap space is just too important to leave tied up in a 8th dman
he's back!!!
I'm more concerned with them giving Liljegren 2 x 3M who was a healthy scratch in the playoffs. With the money they gave OEL and Liljegren they could have got Zadorov or Pesce.
Ill always watch your videos DTSB. Been here since very very early on. might have been under DJP before , but you have the best videos that actuallly make sense.. I watch some videos and i shake my head i was watching one the other day where theyre saying oh no the leafs HAVE to make aa trade now theyre over the cap… Its like do you do ANY research at all…. ANY? once youre not carrying 3 goalies and 9 defencmen theres actually room for the leafs to sign a depth forward. So welcome back@ wish you had more time for this. I realllllly think you coul ake it big.
We got 1 D man under 30 yrs old, the combined age of our D is over 180 yrs , that is an issue .
OEL is here for one reason. Reilly doesn't have a point shot on the PP. OEL does. PP gets stuffed in the playoffs b/c Reilly doesn't have a good shot. In the playoffs, you need a good hard shot from the point.
Better than the 8 or 9 mil Canucks were paying him.
3.5 is a steal compared to that.
@7:38 – That's actually the problem. He's a decent #4/#5 the exact same way that Liljegren is. But what the Leafs desperately needed was an elite #3 to push everyone down a notch. It should be 1. Rielly 2. Tanev 3. ___ 4. McCabe 5. Liljegren 6. Benoit/Jani. This is just my opinion. Should have signed a center or a top 4 D. We need Roy or Mountour. But all good. Cap world.
7:38 – that's actually the problem. OEL is a #4/#5 and we needed a #3 and now we're out of cap space.
Looking at this, Rielly is overpaid for what he produces. Most will say Tanev is a much better defenseman for the position and he's at 4.5mill. Rielly is basically an offenseman in a defenseman position and we don't need that.
If you actually watch defensemen on the Leafs during games, you will see that players like Benoit and McCabe are all over the ice losing their man while Connor Timmins understands who is dangerous and LITERALLY ALWAYS picks up the right man and eliminates the threat. Anyone who does not like Connor Timmins either has never had to play defense or they were awful at it. We need MORE Connor Timmins. Yeah, he occasionally turns over the puck but I will live with that if he can recover like he usually does, contributes offensively like he does, and will pick up the guys setting up for the backdoor one-timer instead of being a moron like most of the NHL by leaving the backdoor wide open.
btw your videos are the best by far. So many people just screaming at the screen for views (*cough steve dangle cough" . Very few like you who break things down.
Vote this comment if you want to see Steve shave his head again! 🙂
At this point any defensive improvement is good.
Hi Steven, perhaps a topic for future could be your analysis of the tax advantages for US/FLA teams vs CDN markets. Cheers
If there's something about OEL that I question it's this. Which version of OEL are we getting. The one that ended his tenure with the Vancouver Canucks when he regressed pretty badly or the bounce back season that he just had with the Florida Panthers. That's pretty much it. I'm happy he's a Maple Leaf but with any player. There's bound to be risk involved. Hope it pans out.
its been awesome to get your insight back on here, bud. hope youve been keeping well!