Toggle sidebar

Brad Treliving is doing a great job.

  • Xenforo Cloud will be upgrading us to version 2.3.5 on March 3rd at 12 AM GMT. This version has increased stability and fixes several bugs. We expect downtime for the duration of the update. The admin team will continue to work on existing issues, templates and upgrade all necessary available addons to minimize impact of this new version. Click Here for Updates
Hellcat said:
Tre was handed a ticking time bomb, he had what a week to decide what to do with Mitch, Willie and Marner, he then had very little time to figure out the draft and sign 7 UFA's. Was kinda handcuffed with Keefe. With that said it's not like he was on Mars for the last 50 years and had no clue who Reaves, Domi, Klingberg, Bertuzzi are/were. He's done piss poor in terms if UFA signings, maybe the coach has no clue what to do with new players, maybe the new players are just shit. On assessing Keefe, Tre's been able to watch from afar and as an outsider been able to assess Keefe high level, I think Tre failed when he kept Keefe. Maybe Tre wanted continuity to stop the chaos and decided to keep Keefe but IMO Keefe is a goner, it's just a matter of when not if. He is not a Tre type coach.

If we want to give Tre a Mulligan on this year, peace. I can see why fans would want to give him a pass and I can also see why fans are not happy with him so far.

For me this TDL is the first time we can as fans not give Tre an excuse, he knows this team, he knows the coaching staff, he knows his competitors in the East. The first victory for Tre would be if he does nothing this TDL but set himself up for a successful off season. If he can move some dead money like Bert and Reaves for picks prospects bonus, if he can pick up a deal like McCabe's, where a team eats some money and makes that player cheaper than he really is, big bonus.

This team is a ship without a rudder. We dont know what they are, they dont know what they are, their coach does not know what they are. Let this season be a reset season.
Click to expand...
As much as people like to shit on Dubas, he had built a team that could move the puck effectively and was overall playing good 2 way hockey. We were one of the best teams defensively last year. The problem with the teams he built was that the team had no balls. No pushback.

I'm all for giving Tre a chance and still am for now, but I was skeptical after his time in Calgary. He had what, 22M in cap space to work with this summer? He then replaced all the 2 way players we had with Bertuzzi, Domi, Klingberg and Reeves. All guys who are defensive liabilities. Now we've lost that identity that we had built (although some flaws)and like you said, are now a team without an identity. We are back to being a team that you don't know what youre going to get on any given night, like we had for many years.

Some of our downfall, you can't blame on Tre, like Brodie's game falling off a cliff, injuries, Sammy having a mental breakdown etc. But his roster construction was still pretty questionable, all for the sake of getting more pushback in the lineup.

I am excited for the future, with what Dubas and his scouting staff had been building the last several years. Pretty soon we will be adding the likes of Minten, Cowan, Grebenkin, Tverberg, Hirvonen, Holmberg etc. All guys that have a bit of Skill, physicality, tenacity and good defensive play to round out our roster and give us back that identity of a team that can play good 2 way hockey and bring some tenacity.

The problem with our pool though is we still lack Defense. Outside of Niemela, we don't really have a defense to really look forward to. Chadwick is having a great year and Koster, Kokkonen and Villeneuve are longer shots and are likely still a couple years away. Kokkonen might play next year. With those forward prospects I mentioned coming in on ELCS , we might have allocate our cap space to build our defense through FA.
 
  • Like
Reactions: William Johnson, Gary Nylund, Hellcat and 2 others
acrobaticgoalie said:
As much as people like to shit on Dubas, he had built a team that could move the puck effectively and was overall playing good 2 way hockey. We were one of the best teams defensively last year. The problem with the teams he built was that the team had no balls. No pushback.

I'm all for giving Tre a chance and still am for now, but I was skeptical after his time in Calgary. He had what, 22M in cap space to work with this summer? He then replaced all the 2 way players we had with Bertuzzi, Domi, Klingberg and Reeves. All guys who are defensive liabilities. Now we've lost that identity that we had built (although some flaws)and like you said, are now a team without an identity. We are back to being a team that you don't know what youre going to get on any given night, like we had for many years.

Some of our downfall, you can't blame on Tre, like Brodie's game falling off a cliff, injuries, Sammy having a mental breakdown etc. But his roster construction was still pretty questionable, all for the sake of getting more pushback in the lineup.

I am excited for the future, with what Dubas and his scouting staff had been building the last several years. Pretty soon we will be adding the likes of Minten, Cowan, Grebenkin, Tverberg, Hirvonen, Holmberg etc. All guys that have a bit of Skill, physicality, tenacity and good defensive play to round out our roster and give us back that identity of a team that can play good 2 way hockey and bring some tenacity.

The problem with our pool though is we still lack Defense. Outside of Niemela, we don't really have a defense to really look forward to. Chadwick is having a great year and Koster, Kokkonen and Villeneuve are longer shots and are likely still a couple years away. Kokkonen might play next year. With those forward prospects I mentioned coming in on ELCS , we might have allocate our cap space to build our defense through FA.
Click to expand...
Just curious, who were all the 2-way players the Leafs lost since last season?
 
  • Like
Reactions: usernamezrhardtodo, rumman, All Mod Cons and 1 other person
The Iceman said:
O'Reilly, Kerfoot, Bunting, Lafferty and Accairri
A good chunk really. 5 out of 12 forwards.
Click to expand...
Also Engvall and ZAR. And we kinda neutered Kampf with what we put around him. We also lost defensemen.
We also didn't address the loss of Muzzin in the first offseason after his injury, as we shed the surrounding support that helped us through that.
Plus, it's not even just getting rid of good defensive players. It's also replacing them with some of the worst defensive players in the league at the same time we're inserting rookies.
A recipe for defensive disaster.
 
  • Like
Reactions: The Iceman
acrobaticgoalie said:
As much as people like to shit on Dubas, he had built a team that could move the puck effectively and was overall playing good 2 way hockey. We were one of the best teams defensively last year. The problem with the teams he built was that the team had no balls. No pushback.

I'm all for giving Tre a chance and still am for now, but I was skeptical after his time in Calgary. He had what, 22M in cap space to work with this summer? He then replaced all the 2 way players we had with Bertuzzi, Domi, Klingberg and Reeves. All guys who are defensive liabilities. Now we've lost that identity that we had built (although some flaws)and like you said, are now a team without an identity. We are back to being a team that you don't know what youre going to get on any given night, like we had for many years.

Some of our downfall, you can't blame on Tre, like Brodie's game falling off a cliff, injuries, Sammy having a mental breakdown etc. But his roster construction was still pretty questionable, all for the sake of getting more pushback in the lineup.

I am excited for the future, with what Dubas and his scouting staff had been building the last several years. Pretty soon we will be adding the likes of Minten, Cowan, Grebenkin, Tverberg, Hirvonen, Holmberg etc. All guys that have a bit of Skill, physicality, tenacity and good defensive play to round out our roster and give us back that identity of a team that can play good 2 way hockey and bring some tenacity.

The problem with our pool though is we still lack Defense. Outside of Niemela, we don't really have a defense to really look forward to. Chadwick is having a great year and Koster, Kokkonen and Villeneuve are longer shots and are likely still a couple years away. Kokkonen might play next year. With those forward prospects I mentioned coming in on ELCS , we might have allocate our cap space to build our defense through FA.
Click to expand...
Sammy falling of a cliff added to our defensive issues.

Kampf has sucked this yr as well

We didn't have a great defense last yr our goaltenders bailed us out

Reilly
Brodie
Gio
Sandin
Ljiligren
Holl
Timmins
Mete
Benn

TDL
Mccabe
Schenn
Gustafsson

That is why dubas made a ton of trades at the deadline last yr.
 
  • Like
Reactions: usernamezrhardtodo and hotpaws
acrobaticgoalie said:
If we are counting deadline guys as well. O'Reilly, Kerfoot, Acciari, Lafferty, Engvall, Holl, Schenn.

Holl had his warts but he is a much better defensive player than this fan base gave him credit for.
Click to expand...
Not counting deadline- Kerfoot, Engvall, Holl.

Holl was bonehead at times, but his pk game was huge for us.
Kerfoot and Engvall were also very effective penalty killers, but more than that the impact of the defensive games and transition ability were hugely underrated.

We lost some of that transition ability when Engvall's minutes went to Acciari- but it was a fair trade off because we were getting another excellent pk er and defensive player- but with a better physical game and pushback- and still had Kerfoot's transition game in the bottom 6.

I count Bunting/Bertuzzi as a cap inefficient wash.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: acrobaticgoalie
acrobaticgoalie said:
If we are counting deadline guys as well. O'Reilly, Kerfoot, Bunting, Acciari, Lafferty, Engvall, Holl, Schenn.

Holl had his warts but he is a much better defensive player than this fan base gave him credit for.
Click to expand...
Holl and Schenn are not 2-way players. You can’t count trade deadline acquisitions as last years team, as they only played like 15 games. Most of these guys did not want to resign here either. So basically we lost Kerfoot and Bunting. Dubas traded Engvall.
 
  • Like
Reactions: usernamezrhardtodo, hotpaws, Lemontree and 1 other person
horner said:
Sammy falling of a cliff added to our defensive issues.
We didn't have a great defense last yr our goaltenders bailed us out
Click to expand...
Samsonov struggling added to goaltending concerns.
We had both good defense and goaltending last year.
 
The Iceman said:
O'Reilly, Kerfoot, Bunting, Lafferty and Accairri

A good chunk really. 5 out of 12 forwards.
Click to expand...
Kerf and Bunting had fished their limit and I struggle to call them two way guys as both need to be producing a lot of offense to justify their current salaries. In TO and now Pittsburgh Acciari seems to lack NHL level puck skills so more of the same and $2Mx3 is insane. I don't think Lafferty would be the same in TO as in Van but to me he is the real loss. I guess 2g in 19 games scared them off because prior to last season his ability to produce wasn't evident.
 
acrobaticgoalie said:
If we are counting deadline guys as well. O'Reilly, Kerfoot, Bunting, Acciari, Lafferty, Engvall, Holl, Schenn.

Holl had his warts but he is a much better defensive player than this fan base gave him credit for.
Click to expand...
A few of those guys walked as UFA, Engvall was moved out by Dubas, Benoit for Holl and Gregor for Lafferty seems like a wash.
I think the goaltending this year has a bigger effect and personally I would have kept Kerfoot over Domi.
 
  • Like
Reactions: al secord and William Johnson
GoonieFace said:
If we had such a great team last year, why did Dumbass turnover 25% of the roster at the trade deadline?
Click to expand...
Pieces were added at the deadline to give a further boost to a top team, to help support the loss of Muzzin, and to get cap efficient pieces that could help us beyond that year.
 
ACC1224 said:
A few of those guys walked as UFA, Engvall was moved out by Dubas, Benoit for Holl and Gregor for Lafferty seems like a wash.
I think the goaltending this year has a bigger effect and personally I would have kept Kerfoot over Domi.
Click to expand...
Engvall was moved out- but those minutes went directly to Acciari- another+ level defensive forward
Benoit brings some welcome snarl that Holl didn't, but as of yet can't handle the same minutes and not as big of pk impact
Gregor/ZAR is a fair wash -
Lafferty for Reaves/McMann isn't but I don't count that as Lafferty was a deadline add and not a true year over year change, pre deadline that 11/12F spot was a grab bag of Malgin/Simmonds/Robertson/NAK/Anderson.

But ditching Laff needlessly downgraded and left a spot that would be obvious weakness to be addressed at the deadline

Agreed on the bold.
 
  • Like
Reactions: acrobaticgoalie
  • Like
Reactions: Leterman and The Iceman
ACC1224 said:
A few of those guys walked as UFA, Engvall was moved out by Dubas, Benoit for Holl and Gregor for Lafferty seems like a wash.
I think the goaltending this year has a bigger effect and personally I would have kept Kerfoot over Domi.
Click to expand...
At $3.5M there is no way I am bringing Kerfoot back never mind with a raise. His value is distorted based on the time spent with high end offensive players and the fact he was once described as a center. A sub $3M talent IMO but if you have the cap room $3M isn't out of line. I am glad he is gone because when you spend almost all your budget on danglers you should bias the bottom 6 on players that show something different.

Domi at a glance looks like a good choice based on the cost and his production with the Hawks but his TOI is 2 minutes less than what Kerf was last year and below Kampf the last 2 years as well. That tells me either Keefe either doesn't know how to use him or just doesn't want to. He is well below his career average production and I am not sure that's entirely his fault but if he doesn't fit with the coach then they should consider making a change. At $3M he should be easy to move even with the NMC. However that might send a bad message to future UFAs they might want to lure in, because he isn't Ritchie bad.

As far as the choice to add Bert and Max, doesn't the fact they were both much better with their previous coaches kind of suggest they are not exactly what they seem to be as Leafs?

Edit - I would have kept Kerfoot over Kampf but not at $3.5M. O'Reilly is costing his new club $4.5M per so how does that make Kerf's current deal look?
 
  • Like
Reactions: usernamezrhardtodo
Jojalu said:
This is such a key point.
Seems like a lot of fans assume every UFA will be interested in signing with the team they support.
Click to expand...
It's a valid point, but it's unfortunately often used in invalid attempts to absolve Treliving's actions.
Would every player have been an option? No.
Would he have had a wide array of options much better than what he did? Absolutely.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Jojalu and hullsy47
GoonieFace said:
Holl and Schenn are not 2-way players. You can’t count trade deadline acquisitions as last years team, as they only played like 15 games. Most of these guys did not want to resign here either. So basically we lost Kerfoot and Bunting. Dubas traded Engvall.
Click to expand...
Holl could transition the puck and was a valuable PKer that blocked a lot of shots. He had his brain farts but was a much better defensive player than Klingberg and I would also say miscast as a top 4 guy. Schenn was a good defensive player.

Engvall was a solid defensive player, that we moved to make room for O'Reilly who was better at both ends.

Whether you want to count deadline acquisitions or not, we still went from a forward group that was solid defensively before and after the deadline to one that is not. Bunting, Kerfoot and Engvall are better defensive players than Bertuzzi, Domi and Reaves.
ACC1224 said:
A few of those guys walked as UFA, Engvall was moved out by Dubas, Benoit for Holl and Gregor for Lafferty seems like a wash.
I think the goaltending this year has a bigger effect and personally I would have kept Kerfoot over Domi.
Click to expand...
I liked the Gregor and Benoit signings.

Samsonov has been bad but we went from being 12th in the league in SA/GP last season to 21st this season. That's not on goaltending. We clearly have been giving up more scoring chances this year and more defensive breakdowns.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Dekes For Days and ACC1224
Menzinger said:
He's facing a difficult offseason, no disagreement there.

But ultimately the team needs a GM who can still find success in those situations, with those constraints
Click to expand...
I think it's safe to
The Iceman said:
O'Reilly, Kerfoot, Bunting, Lafferty and Accairri

A good chunk really. 5 out of 12 forwards.
Click to expand...
And that got us 5 more games lol
This core doesn't have synergy

Dekes For Days said:
It's a valid point, but it's unfortunately often used in invalid attempts to absolve Treliving's actions.
Would every player have been an option? No.
Would he have had a wide array of options much better than what he did? Absolutely.
Click to expand...
Tre is getting a d+ 51 percent
 
acrobaticgoalie said:
Holl could transition the puck and was a valuable PKer that blocked a lot of shots. He had his brain farts but was a much better defensive player than Klingberg and I would also say miscast as a top 4 guy. Schenn was a good defensive player.

Engvall was a solid defensive player, that we moved to make room for O'Reilly who was better at both ends.

Whether you want to count deadline acquisitions or not, we still went from a forward group that was solid defensively before and after the deadline to one that is not. Bunting, Kerfoot and Engvall are better defensive players than Bertuzzi, Domi and Reaves.

I liked the Gregor and Benoit signings.

Samsonov has been bad but we went from being 12th in the league in SA/GP last season to 21st this season. That's not on goaltending. We clearly have been giving up more scoring chances this year and more defensive breakdowns.
Click to expand...
Goaltending has been bad this year, maybe they are giving up more shots, but the number of garage goals given up I’m sure has went up as well.

Brodie and Gio have regressed significantly this year, that’s also a main reason.

I’m sure to an extent that the loss of forwards like Kerfoot have had an impact, but the significance is overblown.

The failures of Bert and Domi to contribute a little more offensively has been an issue, as well as the corpse of Tavares.

I hope Tre doesn’t trade any more assets at the deadline and figures out what he needs to do in the offseason. Than we can fairly judge him, but some have already made up their minds
 
  • Like
Reactions: Leterman
Dekes For Days said:
It's a valid point, but it's unfortunately often used in invalid attempts to absolve Treliving's actions.
Would every player have been an option? No.
Would he have had a wide array of options much better than what he did? Absolutely.
Click to expand...

It looks like BT decided that secondary scoring was an issue. So he signs Klingberg, Domi and Bertuzzi.

He could have went Cole and Soucy to deepen the back end like Van chose to do.

I will still reserve judgement until we see how they mesh in they playoffs
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Ad

Upcoming events

Ad

Top Bottom