Brad Treliving is doing a great job.

[TheDoldrums]

Ownership is rotten anyways. Rogers keeps exerting more control, Bell doesn't have the balls to stand up to them and might just get pushed out of MLSE, Larry getting out the game and selling his shares... we won't even be a financial powerhouse in the future, Rogers will run us like the Blue Jays and do just enough to get by. Sad scene.

 

[Martin Skoula]

Speak for yourself.

Foligno
Protecting Holl over McCann

Brutal contracts to Marner, Matthews(length), Tavares which have crippled our team and have us stuck in mediocrity at least until JT comes off the books.

Make no mistake about it, this is Kyles team with some patchwork around the outside.

How are the Pens looking btw?

So it’s not Tre’s fault all his adds look like shit because it’s mostly Kyle’s team but the Pens are 100% Kyle’s fault and not Burke/Hextall’s team.

 

[BrannigansLaw]

NHL is a pretty small world, everybody knows everybody so you can get away without exhaustive interviews.
(I'm not defending anything they did by pointing that out)

For sure but did they even talk to anyone else? There were “rumors” and names thrown around but it seemed like it was Treliving’s job before Dubas had even cleaned out his office.

 

[Peasy]

Speak for yourself.

Foligno
Protecting Holl over McCann

Brutal contracts to Marner, Matthews(length), Tavares which have crippled our team and have us stuck in mediocrity at least until JT comes off the books.

Make no mistake about it, this is Kyles team with some patchwork around the outside.

How are the Pens looking btw?

People been used to trash gming here for so long that they think Dubas was amazing and had the perfect vision to build a team lol.

 

[ACC1224]

For sure but did they even talk to anyone else? There were “rumors” and names thrown around but it seemed like it was Treliving’s job before Dubas had even cleaned out his office.

No idea, pretty sparse list of available candidates as I recall.

 

[TimeZone]

So it’s not Tre’s fault all his adds look like shit because it’s mostly Kyle’s team but the Pens are 100% Kyle’s fault and not Burke/Hextall’s team.

It appears that you've completely utterly missed the purpose of my comment.

That WAS my point in bringing up the Penguins, Dubas has made the significantly larger move(s) there, how are they doing?

You can't have it both ways.

 

[TimeZone]

People been used to trash gming here for so long that they think Dubas was amazing and had the perfect vision to build a team lol.

The bar is certainly low based on these comments.

 

[cyris]

Leafs played 13 game...

Whats happening this season is not about treliving work, its about Dubas with the team he left...

The defensive issue was there before treliving was there and sure you will cost pick or something to bring quality, its what happening when your 1st summer as GM, your only option to solve a huge defensive hole was depht D... hard to replace a real #2 D with 4-5-6-7th D. The #1 leafs need is a d #2... and yes you will need to give asset over 90-95% of the time to get it...

Get a #3 brodie as 2 is dubas
Get 4/5th d at best like top 3 in liljegren/mccabe... its dubas again

The only thing treliving did its take a guest seeing that same problem with pretty poor option available thats doesn't mean by exemple he can trade klinberg exemple in a deal to bring hanifin in toronto. Leafs are not in trouble because he took low risk one year deal

Leafs can still trade bertuzzi at 5,5 with only 1 year deal, same thing with domi and probably the same with klinberg despite the fact they having a pretty bad season until now. The mistake would be to give 3-4-5-6 years deal to those player. For me the only mistake he did is reaves.

How the hell can you say the defensive problems with this team are all on Dubas and not Treliving?
Dubas’s teams played strong defensively. We were in the top 10 in most defensive categories the last 3 seasons. Treliving gets here and his 4 big signings are 4 players known to be 4 poor defenders and now shockingly the team is one of the worst defensive teams in the league.

I liked and hated things Dubas did while he was here. I was okay with it when the team decided to move on from him in the summer even if I thought it played out incompetently. It’s a results based business and he hadn’t brought results. But he is gone you can’t keep blaming him for all the current problems. Especially for ones that weren’t a problem while he was here.

 

[cyris]

It appears that you've completely utterly missed the purpose of my comment.

That WAS my point in bringing up the Penguins, Dubas has made the significantly larger move(s) there, how are they doing?

You can't have it both ways.

Dubas took a team that missed the playoffs in Pittsburgh and turned them into a team that looks like it’s going to miss the playoffs.

Treliving took a team that finished 4th last year and turned them into a team that looks like it’s going to miss the playoffs.

Both are failures but both aren’t really the same.

 

[Jojalu]

View attachment 765406

5 teams in the Atlantic in the bottom half. Barn burners all season I guess.

 

[TimeZone]

Dubas took a team that missed the playoffs in Pittsburgh and turned them into a team that looks like it’s going to miss the playoffs.

Treliving took a team that finished 4th last year and turned them into a team that looks like it’s going to miss the playoffs.

Both are failures but both aren’t really the same.

Did you have this same attitude last year this time, when said fourth place team had a whopping 2 more points in the same amount of games played?

The reality is all Brad did was patchwork, this team is stuck in purgatory due to the contracts handed out from the previous GM's charity deals. This year, next year? Don't expect to compete, far too many holes and nowhere near enough space to address.

Make no mistake about it, the Klingberg and Reaves deals are ugly, but this team has significantly deeper issues than replacement level players.

 

[4thline]

The reality is all Brad did was patchwork, this team is stuck in purgatory due to the contracts handed out from the previous GM's charity deals. This year, next year? Don't expect to compete, far too many holes and nowhere near enough space to address.

He had 15.9 million (17 if you don't want Timmins and are willing to go with 22 man roster) to add 2 defensemen, and 5 forwards. Of the forwards, 2 were to be 4th line, 2 3rd line, and 1 complementary top 6 type. 17 was absolutely enough, we just had to sign the right guys.


We were a 110 point team last year with the same core contracts and a lower cap.
The expectation for this season is to be as good or better than the last two, and go deep in the playoffs.

It's still early, things might come together. All we can do is hope.

 

[thusk]

How the hell can you say the defensive problems with this team are all on Dubas and not Treliving?
Dubas’s teams played strong defensively. We were in the top 10 in most defensive categories the last 3 seasons. Treliving gets here and his 4 big signings are 4 players known to be 4 poor defenders and now shockingly the team is one of the worst defensive teams in the league.

I liked and hated things Dubas did while he was here. I was okay with it when the team decided to move on from him in the summer even if I thought it played out incompetently. It’s a results based business and he hadn’t brought results. But he is gone you can’t keep blaming him for all the current problems. Especially for ones that weren’t a problem while he was here.

1-boston was top 5 defensively before trading for Lindholm, thats doesn't mean they didn't had a hole for their #2 D... Fix this hole just make this team even better

2- im not telling its dubas fault by right now leafs d its dubas D. Thats different. The biggest problem with the D dubas built was something nobody could predict, injury of Muzzin. That part its not dubas fault but the fact he waste a lot of high pick for bottom 6 foward and depht D, repair their own mistake... and at the end limiting leafs choice to add a real solid D right now, maybe a little bit more

3- leafs dont become trash defensively because of 2-3 complementary player... yes leafs moved some defensive minded player and try to bring offensive from depht who was a huge problem but the real problem still the same. They can change everyone in their bottom 6 or in their depht in D, it will be pretty hard to take next step until #2 D will be resolve

 

[TimeZone]

He had 15.9 million (17 if you don't want Timmins and are willing to go with 22 man roster) to add 2 defensemen, and 5 forwards. Of the forwards, 2 were to be 4th line, 2 3rd line, and 1 complementary top 6 type. 17 was absolutely enough, we just had to sign the right guys.


We were a 110 point team last year with the same core contracts and a lower cap.
The expectation for this season is to be as good or better than the last two, and go deep in the playoffs.

It's still early, things might come together. All we can do is hope.

Is Samsonov included in that figure?

Who would you have personally signed to fit those roles? I'm personally not of the belief Domi and Bertuzzi are failures a mere 13 games in, we're sitting in an almost identical position as we were this time last year, a mere 2 less points.


Reaves, Klingberg, Kampf? That's another story. It wasn't exactly the most thrilling free agent crop, though.

 

[Peasy]

1-boston was top 5 defensively before trading for Lindholm, thats doesn't mean they didn't had a hole for their #2 D... Fix this hole just make this team even better

2- im not telling its dubas fault by right now leafs d its dubas D. Thats different. The biggest problem with the D dubas built was something nobody could predict, injury of Muzzin. That part its not dubas fault but the fact he waste a lot of high pick for bottom 6 foward and depht D, repair their own mistake... and at the end limiting leafs choice to add a real solid D right now, maybe a little bit more

3- leafs dont become trash defensively because of 2-3 complementary player... yes leafs moved some defensive minded player and try to bring offensive from depht who was a huge problem but the real problem still the same. They can change everyone in their bottom 6 or in their depht in D, it will be pretty hard to take next step until #2 D will be resolve

Also are the declines of Brodie/Gio somehow Brad's fault too lol?

 

[frog]

Problem with the reaves signing is we dont have guys that he can play with... Kampf and grogor arent enforcers.. Leafs need to get reaves going with giving him linemates like simmonds and clifford... An all out enforcer line would be terrifying and also great defensively since no team would want to touch the puck.

 

[cyris]

Did you have this same attitude last year this time, when said fourth place team had a whopping 2 more points in the same amount of games played?

The reality is all Brad did was patchwork, this team is stuck in purgatory due to the contracts handed out from the previous GM's charity deals. This year, next year? Don't expect to compete, far too many holes and nowhere near enough space to address.

Make no mistake about it, the Klingberg and Reaves deals are ugly, but this team has significantly deeper issues than replacement level players.

Brad added terrible defensive players to our 2nd, 3rd, and 4th line and one of the worst defensive defencemen in the league.
Is it surprising that the team now struggles to defend?

Dubas was fired and he deserved to be. But you can’t just blame him for all the problems. Despite his playoff failures that got him fired his teams were good in the regular season. Brad took a great regular season team and is on pace to miss the playoffs with them.

 

[4thline]

Is Samsonov included in that figure?

Who would you have personally signed to fit those roles? I'm personally not of the belief Domi and Bertuzzi are failures a mere 13 games in, we're sitting in an almost identical position as we were this time last year, a mere 2 less points.


Reaves, Klingberg, Kampf? That's another story. It wasn't exactly the most thrilling free agent crop, though.

That's with Samsonov and Holmberg (as 13th forward) signed to their current deals.

I don't think Bertuzzi and Domi are failures at this point, and hope they turn it around. But I do think that signing both was an overspend on offense 1st left wingers and the combo + Kampf makes it hard to put a cohesive top 9 together.

A lot of different ways to skin that cat. Do you want a shutdown line and a cheap offensive 4th, or a two-way 3rd line and a cheap defensive 4th?
If we were bound to spend 5m on a forward I would have like Compher to angle at 3 line team, but I probably would have tried to go cheaper to spread the money around. Acciari should have been brought back. Rodrigues and Duchene were great value. A Lafferty-xxx-C.Fischer line would be an absolute pain to play against. Tatar is a playoff ghost, but at 1.5m that's a great value regular season placeholder. On defense any pair of Soucy/Dumoulin/OEL/Kulikov would have made more sense than Klingberg, even accounting for having to play a lefty on the right.

Throwing a combo out, and assuming players would have signed for the same here

Knies-Matthews-Marner
Tatar-Tavares-Nylander
Rodrigues-Duchene-Jarncrok
Lafferty-Acciari-Fischer
Holmberg

Rielly-Soucy
OEL-Brodie
McCabe-Liljegren
Gio

16.125 on the bold would have left a 22 man roster with a ~870k in cap space to accumulate for the deadline, (more if you waive Tatar mid season to give Robertson a shot), a 4th line that you can trust defensively and bring an effective forecheck, a 3rdline that you can trust defensively plus bring secondary offense. A physical D partner for Rielly, and a reclamation project Swedish D that can find his own end for 50% of the price.

 

[Martin Skoula]

1-boston was top 5 defensively before trading for Lindholm, thats doesn't mean they didn't had a hole for their #2 D... Fix this hole just make this team even better

2- im not telling its dubas fault by right now leafs d its dubas D. Thats different. The biggest problem with the D dubas built was something nobody could predict, injury of Muzzin. That part its not dubas fault but the fact he waste a lot of high pick for bottom 6 foward and depht D, repair their own mistake... and at the end limiting leafs choice to add a real solid D right now, maybe a little bit more

3- leafs dont become trash defensively because of 2-3 complementary player... yes leafs moved some defensive minded player and try to bring offensive from depht who was a huge problem but the real problem still the same. They can change everyone in their bottom 6 or in their depht in D, it will be pretty hard to take next step until #2 D will be resolve

Weird how they were top 5 defensively without Muzzin last year. In fact, top 5 without Muzzin, Rielly, Brodie for stretches and both starting goalies injured.

Enough hand waving away this nepo baby’s dogshit decisions, signing the known two worst defensive players in the league and trading away one of our few remaining PKers to fit them in is directly responsible for the difference defensively between last year and this year. The difference between bottom 3 where we are now and #6 we were last year is literally Reaves + Klingberg’s combined minus + our PK being literally half as good as it was last year.

If Reaves was a -3 like the other 2 guys on his line, Klingberg was -3 like our next worst defenseman, and our PK allowed 6 goals per 60 like last year instead of 11 per 60 like this year, our goals against would be exactly where it was last year. The difference is squarely on the new adds/unreplaced departures.

I’m sorry that Treliving is massively incompetent and only got hired because of who his daddy knows, this is what you get with nepotism. You can still enjoy Boston Pizza, it’s ok you won’t get kicked out if you acknowledge that Brad’s direct choices have destroyed our defensive structure.

 

[TimeZone]

That's with Samsonov and Holmberg (as 13th forward) signed to their current deals.

I don't think Bertuzzi and Domi are failures at this point, and hope they turn it around. But I do think that signing both was an overspend on offense 1st left wingers and the combo + Kampf makes it hard to put a cohesive top 9 together.

A lot of different ways to skin that cat. Do you want a shutdown line and a cheap offensive 4th, or a two-way 3rd line and a cheap defensive 4th?
If we were bound to spend 5m on a forward I would have like Compher to angle at 3 line team, but I probably would have tried to go cheaper to spread the money around. Acciari should have been brought back. Rodrigues and Duchene were great value. A Lafferty-xxx-C.Fischer line would be an absolute pain to play against. Tatar is a playoff ghost, but at 1.5m that's a great value regular season placeholder. On defense any pair of Soucy/Dumoulin/OEL/Kulikov would have made more sense than Klingberg, even accounting for having to play a lefty on the right.

Throwing a combo out, and assuming players would have signed for the same here

Knies-Matthews-Marner
Tatar-Tavares-Nylander
Rodrigues-Duchene-Jarncrok
Lafferty-Acciari-Fischer
Holmberg

Rielly-Soucy
OEL-Brodie
McCabe-Liljegren
Gio

16.125 on the bold would have left a 22 man roster with a ~870k in cap space to accumulate for the deadline, (more if you waive Tatar mid season to give Robertson a shot), a 4th line that you can trust defensively and bring an effective forecheck, a 3rdline that you can trust defensively plus bring secondary offense. A physical D partner for Rielly, and a reclamation project Swedish D that can find his own end for 50% of the price.

Tatar would be a dreadful add, another soft forward who can't produce in the playoffs, big pass on him.

OEL is beyond washed, no interest in swapping out one Swedish bum for another, I wouldn't have touched either. Soucy would have been a solid add, as well as Duchene. Accari? Not at that price, another lousy Dubas contract.

I don't see any logical reason to believe Rodrigues would sign here at anywhere near the same price vs Florida, that's a signiricant reach.

The lineup you posted isn't all that different from what we're currently icing quite franking, just different depth pieces that may or may not have lead to slightly more/less regular season success.

 

[thusk]

Also are the declines of Brodie/Gio somehow Brad's fault too lol?

Exactly you can add this

Leafs d had open wound when treliving jump in with Band aid as only tool to fix it , he used itand some people look like they are surprise than the band aid is not strong enough and blame him to have tried to use band aid he had...

 

[TimeZone]

Brad added terrible defensive players to our 2nd, 3rd, and 4th line and one of the worst defensive defencemen in the league.
Is it surprising that the team now struggles to defend?

Dubas was fired and he deserved to be. But you can’t just blame him for all the problems. Despite his playoff failures that got him fired his teams were good in the regular season. Brad took a great regular season team and is on pace to miss the playoffs with them.

And now Klingberg is already scratched. You know who is a reliable two way forward? Jared McCann. Ring a bell?

Brad's band-aid patches on the open wound have certainly underwhelmed so far, he's open for criticism, but I'm not handing out banners for Dubas and his regular season success, miserable playoff failures either.

Gio is 75 years old and was destined to rapidly decline, Brodie has also significantly declined over the last season or so, we've had some of the most pathetic goaltending in the league through 13 games this Season, it's not as simply and pointing your finger in a single direction for whats transpired to date this season, the team has been mess due to multiple factors at play.

The reality is this team is stuck in purgatory until JT comes off the books, we aren't contending for a championship with 4 players taking up half of our cap, it simply isn't realistic, and we were put in this position by the previous guy.

I'm at the point where I'd rather the wheels fall totally off than be a team built for regular season success only to have complete and utter failure in the playoffs repeatedly.

 

[GoonieFace]

He had 15.9 million (17 if you don't want Timmins and are willing to go with 22 man roster) to add 2 defensemen, and 5 forwards. Of the forwards, 2 were to be 4th line, 2 3rd line, and 1 complementary top 6 type. 17 was absolutely enough, we just had to sign the right guys.


We were a 110 point team last year with the same core contracts and a lower cap.
The expectation for this season is to be as good or better than the last two, and go deep in the playoffs.

It's still early, things might come together. All we can do is hope.

Cap space didn’t matter much with the garbage free agents available. He opted to try and supplement the existing roster with stop gap measures without committing big dollars and long term contracts. He can now focus on the trade route, as they need significant upgrades on D

 

[Menzinger]

Tres story as GM of the Leafs isn't over yet and I'm still willing to give him time before I pass too much judgement BUT hard to deny that things have been a flop so far. Even going back to Tres time in Calgary, people seemed to try and explain why he made the bad decisions that he made rather than focus on anything good he did....

I was supportive of most hjs offseason moves (egg on my face) BUT people were at the time calling him out over the Reaves and Klinberg deals - and the critics were right (so far)

And I suspect most of us don't want to admit it but Holl and Kerfoot are better defensively than any of the off-season signs too lol

 

[4thline]

Tatar would be a dreadful add, another soft forward who can't produce in the playoffs, big pass on him.

OEL is beyond washed, no interest in swapping out one Swedish bum for another, I wouldn't have touched either. Soucy would have been a solid add, as well as Duchene. Accari? Not at that price, another lousy Dubas contract.

I don't see any logical reason to believe Rodrigues would sign here at anywhere near the same price vs Florida, that's a signiricant reach.

The lineup you posted isn't all that different from what we're currently icing quite franking, just different depth pieces that may or may not have lead to slightly more/less regular season success.

Tatar- cheap regular season place holder. Dont want him? Leave the spot for a Marlie and save more money. The point is not spending more than you need to in the top 6.
Acciari- fine contract. Great versatile bottom 6er thats solid defensively, physical, and works his ass off.
OEL no where near what he was, but at 2m is a nice 4-6 defender

Its light years better defensively, and way easier to effectively deploy.

The weakness of the group is theres no safe minute / matchup line outside of Matthews/Marner. If Bertuzzi/Domi really was plan A, fine, its workable IF the rest of that plan conceded that our 3rd line would likely need sheltering and focused on building defensively sound safeminute 4th line with a couple of plus level pk options.

Cap space didn’t matter much with the garbage free agents available. He opted to try and supplement the existing roster with stop gap measures without committing big dollars and long term contracts. He can now focus on the trade route, as they need significant upgrades on D

There were plenty of good depth options available in FA this year. We have our stars, we needed soldiers and complementary pieces.