How to fix the Leafs: Fan Edition

[SprDaVE]

lol those 3 guys (plus Fred) saved this franchise from missing the playoffs for another decade in a row.

If you want to jump ship after SEVEN GAMES in contrast to five years of owning the regular season, be my guest.

This entire place is going to look so stupid when the win streaks start.

Playoffs is the issue, not regular season. The Canes did not do anything special last night. The Leafs are beating up themselves. It's all either mental or a coaching change is needed because it's the same hockey they played before covid cut the season short i.e Everyone looks dead except Matthews and Nylander (this is important because everyone is crying for Hyman when he also looks garbage during these times). Matthews is clearly still in pre-season mode right now. When he hits season form that's a 4 game win streak right there before he needs one flop game for regular breath catching maintenance.

Get ready to look dumb. It's coming soon.

You're probably right. I have 2 parts to me right now that are fighting each other.

One side is telling me that there is no way this team keeps a shooting percentage that is that low and overall, most of the games haven't been THAT bad. The other side of me is telling me that this team can't be helped and they suck awfully bad at the core. Both are correct in some way.

The one thing here is that this isn't about the season only being Game 6... Game 7... Game 8... It's about this being Year 6 or whatever. There shouldn't be these bad excuses. Yes, cold/losing streaks happen to most teams in a season. Yes, this team can turn it around. But this team smells and I don't blame a single person right now calling them out rightfully so. These last 2 games were awful and they freaking sucked. If they turn it around, opinions are allowed to change.

 

[socko]

or didn't have a ref with good eyesight... FRASER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's all true. But I'm not sure that Montreal doesn't beat us anyway. I think we were better than Montreal that year (Detroit and Pittsburgh were the 2 best teams) but we had played 3 7-game series in a row at that point. And in the old days they really punished you for not finishing series early, only 1 day off between games and only 1 day off between series. So I believe we played like 21 games in 42 days. The team was spent, particularly the one and only Maple Leafs savior Doug Gilmour. We were robbed of the chance though, by Fraser.

 

[DraftSchmaft]

You're probably right. I have 2 parts to me right now that are fighting each other.

One side is telling me that there is no way this team keeps a shooting percentage that is that low and overall, most of the games haven't been THAT bad. The other side of me is telling me that this team can't be helped and they suck awfully bad at the core. Both are correct in some way.

The one thing here is that this isn't about the season only being Game 6... Game 7... Game 8... It's about this being Year 6 or whatever. There shouldn't be these bad excuses. Yes, cold/losing streaks happen to most teams in a season. Yes, this team can turn it around. But this team smells and I don't blame a single person right now calling them out rightfully so. These last 2 games were awful and they freaking sucked. If they turn it around, opinions are allowed to change.

I admit I jumped in here and dropped this comment too hot. I just looked for the first thread I'd be able to dump this comment in based on what I have been reading since last night. I hold firm majority here will be looking stupid. Playoffs is our enemy not regular season. They'll figure it out.

 

[Trapper]

I admit I jumped in here and dropped this comment too hot. I just looked for the first thread I'd be able to dump this comment in based on what I have been reading since last night. I hold firm majority here will be looking stupid. Playoffs is our enemy not regular season. They'll figure it out.

Regular season is our enemy too.
Not in the way you are thinking.
How you prepare, your habits your conduct, carry over to the next phase. That’s why Shanahan said you need mindset from the start.

So what we hear is the same tired phrases of starting on time, compete, Muzzin calling it out yet again. So the enemy here is expecting a different result from doing the same thing.

Doesn’t matter if we can beat up on Chicago and Detroit in the next couple of games. Are we focused and competing from puck drop or still not starting on time but got the win?

And if it continues like this (off and on, compete, win some, don’t care, etc) then for a 6th time, the same majority will be end up looking stupid as you put it.

 

[justashadowof]

I know the OP didn't ask for front office discussion but discussing the on-ice team like it's a few tweaks away from success is a tacit legitimization of the current front office regime. This regime formed its team of 3 $10M+ star forwards several seasons ago. The regime has the bones of the structure of a team it believes will flourish.

The tweaks we should be discussing is how to make the PP the best in the league, how to win in the later round of the playoffs, how to play against serious contenders, how to manage an 82 game season in preparation for the playoffs, etc. Instead we're supposed to discuss how to not get blown out against middling teams in the first month of the season and how to get the high-priced talent to produce like they're expected (required) to produce.

So, I'm not playing that game. I offer the simplest of moves to put the entire organization on notice: fire Brendan Shanahan in October 2021. This situation is his making. This situation is the exact opposite of what Shanahan said he expected the team to be: players playing like they want to be in Toronto. Firing Shanahan puts Dubas on notice and without free reign to muck up the situation any worse. On the trickle down it puts the coach and the players on notice as well. I'd hope for the new interim president to restrain Dubas too, make Dubas win with what he's got in the organization including coaches and prospects. If this is a regime to believe in and a team built to win and flourish, it's show me time. Win under a new president or you and your special hires are gone by season's end.

 

[JT AM da real deal]

Curious if you have picked up on some structural on ice things the Leaf can do to improve their play? I'm more interested in your X and O thoughts vs , fire Dubas, fire Keefe, trade every one.

A couple of things I've casually noticed:

• They can't pass for s#it, pucks in feet, pucks behind intended player they are passing too, pass to a ghost player, receiving the puck like they are playing with whiffle sticks, can't receive a pass for s#it.
• Possession, last year I remember a team that would die before they gave up the puck, this year I see a lot of just dump and curl away, it's like they are not interested in puck possession, which is odd because in the Cans game they had a 3 minute advantage at one point, 19min for Leafs, around 16 min for the Canes, but it sure didn't seem like the Leafs had the puck more.
• They look like a team that is living last years playoff demons today. If those guys grip their sticks any harder, the sticks will instantly combust into fire. I hate to say it but they need to forget about last years debacle and press the reset button. Thinking about past events wont change it. Yep they choked in epic fashion. Get over it. you can't change it.
• They have been out worked in every game, you cant tell me they have faced 6 harder working teams. Fr example last night I watched two Leafs go in to forecheck two Canes, wonderful I love a heavy forecheck, , Canes broke out and it was a 4 on 2 against the Leafs, how does that happen? Where was our 3rd guy? and how did one of the Canes who was in his own zone beat one of our forecheckers back into our zone? How does that happen?

Curious on your thoughts from a X and O perspective on what is wrong and how to fix it.

It won't be FIXED with X's and O's my friend .. roster overall is way too slow and losing foot races for loose pucks all over ice .. and then they get outworked in every tie too .. we need a RETOOL here with a new hockey guy GM ASAP

 

[socko]

I haven't seen this much denial since I watched that Titanic movie. That water is going to be mighty cold.

 

[usernamezrhardtodo]

I think you answered my simplistic question?

When Carolina was doing those Babcock stretch passes last night I was thinking, why don't we just clog up the neutral zone like Boucher did to us? Then the answer came to me... we don't know how to play different styles... the coach has not prepared this team to play more than one way.. that is either an oversight on the coach (either lacks the knowledge or desire to do so) or an indictment on the GM for not building the right team or perhaps both..

Well I can't really say we have a 'style' that we play. It seems we like to toodle around the outside cycling the puck just to take a bad angle shot...so if that counts for puck possession...then we are a possession team. We literally have no go-to identity and that falls on the coach. The only thing they do consistently is try to hang on to the puck...that isn't a strategy per se. It just seems we are so lost and the team has no faith in Keefe...nor should they. If you know your PP is a big problem for over 40games and you can't fix it besides putting MM in the bumper...then you really are out of your league as a coach.

We have a mismash of different players with no cohesion or identity except for supposed talent...we have lots of that apparently but these talented guys need to play with other talented guys because they can't make a lesser light on their line elevate their play.

 

[Niagara Bill]

We gave up speed and effort, Kapanen, Johnson, Brown, etc for mush that we have today. We pick an aging tough guy??? Simmons and have no young tough skaters to fill that role. We have 6'4" 4th line wingers like Egval who are afraid of their shadow, everyone one our developed dmen are weak physically, weak skaters and poor defensively, Dermott, Sandin, Liligren, Holl,
We overpaid for JT, we over rated Marner, we have not developed 1 center iceman, or goalie. We are neither fast nor tough. Our minor league guys are smurfs. The league is filled with young wingers, skaters who are willing to stand for their team.
There is no possible way anyone can support the job done by Dubas. There is change one.
Git er dun.
To TSN, Sportsnet, CBC, ESPN, NBC and MLSE, , I PLEDGE to not watch another Leaf game until change begins

 

[Marmoset]

The number one consistent problem with the Toronto Maple Leafs in the salary cap era has been the inability to draft and develop players outside of the top 10 picks in the draft.

Who is the last impact player the Leafs drafted and developed from outside the top 10? I'm not talking about a decent role player like Connor Brown - even then, there haven't been nearly enough of those. I'm talking about Kucherov/Point/Vasilevskiy. I'm talking about Kris Letang, PK Subban, Jeff Petry, Roman Josi, Shea Weber. I'm talking about basically ANY half decent goalie in the NHL. They haven't developed a legitimate NHL starting goalie since Felix Potvin! When you don't draft and develop you are at a significant disadvantage to everyone else. You have to trade for players or sign free agents - or, when you're capped out, you find yourself dumpster diving. We wouldn't need to hope and pray that Bunting, Kase, Ritchie, Kampf can produce if we had young players coming up through the system to fill those roles.

When I look at why this has happened, I think part of the problem has been various regimes following a fairly rigid guideline for what they want in a player. We had the 'giant' era of Korshkov, Gordeev, etc. from which I don't think a single one of those guys became a NHL player. Under Dubas it's been smaller and skilled (and usually non-Canadian for some reason). We don't know how it will play out with Dubas' picks since many are too early in their development to judge, but early returns aren't great. Again, the reason they had to bring in Ritchie and others is that no young forwards are close to being ready to play in the NHL. The one 'maybe' was Robertson and he needs more time. Sandin and Dermott are not looking ready to take on a bigger role right now. Liljegren is an unknown but if he was ready you would think they would play him over those guys.

Dubas has also returned to the Leafs tradition of trading away draft picks, which reduces the odds on your already low success rate. You can't rely on signing veteran free agents from Europe to replace the draft, even though it's a good thing that the Leafs are aggressive in trying to find talent this way.

There are lots of other problems with how the organization has operated, but if they could ever figure out the draft and development, so many of the other issues would simply disappear.

 

[Geardedandbearded]

Leafs retool:
The only way to get value out of that Tavares contract is to try to maximize him; he must be 1c. Your team has a lot of pieces but is imbalanced.

Step 1:
Trade Matthews. Carolina, NYR, Kings, knights,etc. Ideally this would be mostly futures and young players. I would expect the equivalent of three first rounders. Example: Laf+kravstov+chytil+1st for matthews and 2nd

Step 2:
Trade Morgan Reilly. Reilly is a useful defence man but you have, IMO, 2 identical players in Brodie and muzzling that won’t be easy to move who are still useful. This should be another futures trade. Blues should be your target. Equivalent of 1 first rounder and a good prospect. Example:
Neighbours + 1st for Reilly extended.

Step 3:
Trade for Hampus lindholm and extend him. This is where you parlay some of the futures acquired above. Example: blues 1st + kravstov for lindholm.

Step 4:
Trade for Manson and extend him. Don’t know your draft picks that well, any first would probably do.

Kerfoot-Tavares-marner
Laf-chytil-nylander
Ritchie-spezza-xxx
Xxx-xxx-simmonds

Lindholm-muzzin
Brodie-Manson
Dermott-holl

Campbell

This would be the bones I’d be working with for 1.5 year retool. Can probably find the 3rd line winger in the draft and trade for a long term 2c if chytil needs to be a 3c. The 2c won’t be a 1c playing 2c, but I think your team would be better balanced and you could get closer to 11 million worth of production out of Tavares.
I hate the leafs but you are the centre of the hockey universe so I been thinking about you bbg

 

[Carltons Cup]

One of the biggest things I've noticed so far this year is our lack of foot speed.

We used to be one of the fastest teams in the league with Willie, Kap, Mango etc.

Who do we have now with speed? Up front we have Willie, giraffe boy and to a lesser extent Kerfoot. That's it. On the backend we have Rielly and "maybe" Dermott.

We've gotten a LOT slower as a team (Tavares, Ritchie, Spezza, Simmonds, Bunting).

 

[Bluelines]

Well I can't really say we have a 'style' that we play. It seems we like to toodle around the outside cycling the puck just to take a bad angle shot...so if that counts for puck possession...then we are a possession team. We literally have no go-to identity and that falls on the coach. The only thing they do consistently is try to hang on to the puck...that isn't a strategy per se. It just seems we are so lost and the team has no faith in Keefe...nor should they. If you know your PP is a big problem for over 40games and you can't fix it besides putting MM in the bumper...then you really are out of your league as a coach.

We have a mismash of different players with no cohesion or identity except for supposed talent...we have lots of that apparently but these talented guys need to play with other talented guys because they can't make a lesser light on their line elevate their play.

I cant say I disagree with anything you posted. that 40 game stretch of a crapy PP with the Rocket Richard winner on your team defies logic.

 

[colchar]

Stop the effing drop pass when coming out of their zone!

 

[Bluelines]

One of the biggest things I've noticed so far this year is our lack of foot speed.

We used to be one of the fastest teams in the league with Willie, Kap, Mango etc.

Who do we have now with speed? Up front we have Willie, giraffe boy and to a lesser extent Kerfoot. That's it. On the backend we have Rielly and "maybe" Dermott.

We've gotten a LOT slower as a team (Tavares, Ritchie, Spezza, Simmonds, Bunting).

Noticed that too. What fixes slow foot speed? Quick , crisp passes. No skater can move as fast as a puck. Their passing this year has been Pee Wee level. I'm embarrassed for them that after 20+ years of playing hockey no one taught them how to pass the puck....

 

[Bluelines]

The number one consistent problem with the Toronto Maple Leafs in the salary cap era has been the inability to draft and develop players outside of the top 10 picks in the draft.

Who is the last impact player the Leafs drafted and developed from outside the top 10? I'm not talking about a decent role player like Connor Brown - even then, there haven't been nearly enough of those. I'm talking about Kucherov/Point/Vasilevskiy. I'm talking about Kris Letang, PK Subban, Jeff Petry, Roman Josi, Shea Weber. I'm talking about basically ANY half decent goalie in the NHL. They haven't developed a legitimate NHL starting goalie since Felix Potvin! When you don't draft and develop you are at a significant disadvantage to everyone else. You have to trade for players or sign free agents - or, when you're capped out, you find yourself dumpster diving. We wouldn't need to hope and pray that Bunting, Kase, Ritchie, Kampf can produce if we had young players coming up through the system to fill those roles.

When I look at why this has happened, I think part of the problem has been various regimes following a fairly rigid guideline for what they want in a player. We had the 'giant' era of Korshkov, Gordeev, etc. from which I don't think a single one of those guys became a NHL player. Under Dubas it's been smaller and skilled (and usually non-Canadian for some reason). We don't know how it will play out with Dubas' picks since many are too early in their development to judge, but early returns aren't great. Again, the reason they had to bring in Ritchie and others is that no young forwards are close to being ready to play in the NHL. The one 'maybe' was Robertson and he needs more time. Sandin and Dermott are not looking ready to take on a bigger role right now. Liljegren is an unknown but if he was ready you would think they would play him over those guys.

Dubas has also returned to the Leafs tradition of trading away draft picks, which reduces the odds on your already low success rate. You can't rely on signing veteran free agents from Europe to replace the draft, even though it's a good thing that the Leafs are aggressive in trying to find talent this way.

There are lots of other problems with how the organization has operated, but if they could ever figure out the draft and development, so many of the other issues would simply disappear.

Brown?

I was thinking today, you got a proteam that is under cap constraints playing poorly, you got a minor pro system in shambles... how is this franchise any better off then the Nonis days? Anyone think Matthews is goign to resign here after the Leaf experience? When he leaves who do we have?

 

[usernamezrhardtodo]

I cant say I disagree with anything you posted. that 40 game stretch of a crapy PP with the Rocket Richard winner on your team defies logic.

I think the problem with analytics is the cart before the horse syndrome. By that I mean this: Winning teams have great possession numbers...ergo possession is what made them a winning team but it's a lot more complicated than that. You can't just do part of the equation (keep the puck a lot) and automatically get the results (Winning) because they are by products of each other in a way.

I look at it as we don't have any single identity on anything we do well because we just think if we have the puck a lot...it means winning. The constant curl backs into our own end just because we don't want to give it up (which leads to Engval and Dermott doing stupid things) is borderline crazy when you consider most of the time we do this reload and then end up just chipping it in anyways. It would be one thing to keep reloading and gain the zone with possession at a really high rate...its another when you do part of the equation to just dump it in only to lose possession because your players can't win any puck battles.

We have no identity and that is on Keefe...he keeps saying we need to get to the front of the net yet preaches a style where they cycle around on the perimeter all night....it's borderline lunacy.

 

[Carltons Cup]

Noticed that too. What fixes slow foot speed? Quick , crisp passes. No skater can move as fast as a puck. Their passing this year has been Pee Wee level. I'm embarrassed for them that after 20+ years of playing hockey no one taught them how to pass the puck....

I agree that passing has been an issue.

I may get slammed for this, but why not sit Simmonds or Ritchie and give Ho-Sang a shot? The kid is hungry to prove himself and he looked good in preseason. He would add speed to the lineup, playmaking ability and a willingness to play hard to stick in the lineup. God knows Ritchie isn't doing much especially given his size.

 

[ACC1224]

I agree that passing has been an issue.

I may get slammed for this, but why not sit Simmonds or Ritchie and give Ho-Sang a shot? The kid is hungry to prove himself and he looked good in preseason. He would add speed to the lineup, playmaking ability and a willingness to play hard to stick in the lineup. God knows Ritchie isn't doing much especially given his size.

a) They would have to sign him to an NHL contract.
b) Bring him up with what cap space?

 

[Carltons Cup]

a) They would have to sign him to an NHL contract.
b) Bring him up with what cap space?

a) Don't we still have 3 or 4 contract slots available?
b) Good question but I'm sure the cap gurus can make it work since he'd be league minimum.....

 

[Rogue Leader]

Pick a LW (IMO Bunting) and staple them to Matthews. Both the RW's know how to play with him, and him with them so swapping doesn't impact as much But the 3rd wheel is by nature a lesser player, without the history or chemistry. I think Matthews and Bunting can compliment each other well, but they don't know each other yet and kept getting crossed up in small ways, making slightly off reads from each other.

So that used to be Hyman, right?

 

[Bluelines]

a) They would have to sign him to an NHL contract.
b) Bring him up with what cap space?

Ho Sang may not be the answer to all our problems but could he really be worse?

Something like waiving, Spezza, Simmonds, Amado would open space but does Dubas have the stones to waive a vet?

What are the normal things a Coach /GM does to get a struggling team going?

1) Bag skate? Players wont agree to that, I say that jokingly but sadly there might be some truth in that
2) Change the lines?
3) bench payers - who do you bench when Campbell, Nylander, Spezza have been the only decent players this year, you can't bench an entire team?
4) Make a trade or promote from the farm?
5) Fire coach/GM?
6) Hire Tortorella?

 

[ottomaddox]

Frank Seravalli believes that the only realistic shake up could be a major trade. Likely Marner, but fans had better accept the fact that his trade will be at a loss.

What does Dubas do realistically? Retain salary or trade for minor players?

 

[Bluelines]

So that used to be Hyman, right?

Who is this High-Man you speak of??

 

[ACC1224]

a) Don't we still have 3 or 4 contract slots available?
b) Good question but I'm sure the cap gurus can make it work since he'd be league minimum.....

I would think someone would need to be waived. Sending Sandin down should happen anyway.