Speculation: How would you go about a rebuild?

[Gary Nylund]

You just perfectly encapsulated the difference between an experienced GM and a fan.

So which are you?

 

[Menzinger]

The leafs trade history during the 2016/17 season was shuffling around picks and prospects with other teams. Anderson was 25 (I think?) when the leafs got him. It wasn't a "win now" trade. It was a "we found a long term goalie" trade.

The leafs only started doing "win now" trades (at the expense of picks and prospects) after the all rookie team snuck into the playoffs. The leafs winning that game against the Penguins in April 2017 was one of the worst things to ever happen to this franchise.

They didn't get Andersen to tread water. He was coming off a 43 game season with .919sv%. they got him as a longer term piece and also to start winning games immediately.

That's why Lou didn't trade any of the large number of vets like Gardiner, JVR, Bozak ect. They were looking for the quickest turnaround as possible

 

[egd27]

So which are you?

Just a fan........I freely admit I didn't realize what the drawbacks would be at the time of the Tavares signing.

Just like the inexperienced GM

 

[Gary Nylund]

Just a fan........I freely admit I didn't realize what the drawbacks would be at the time of the Tavares signing.

Just like the inexperienced GM

I get that with the benefit of hindsight people are dumping on the signing, I still think it was fine though. Firstly, nobody knew covid was coming and if that doesn't happen, the cap keeps going up and his cap hit isn't so bad. Paying Marner 11 instead of 9, that was the mega blunder.

There were many, many teams wanting to sign JT, I'm pretty sure it wasn't just the inexperienced ones.

The real problem with this team is that there is a lack of character and leadership at the top, and by the top I mean M&M. But who knew?

I broached the idea of trading Marner after losing to MTL in the playoffs. Had we done that and gotten the right return, things could be much different today. Of course getting the right return isn't a given, we basically need a Messier type who can light a fire under Matthews but no what what we got back for Marner, hard to imagine things being worse than they are now.

People were yelling at me for wanting to "get rid of him" which was not what I was suggesting, when you trade a guy with his resume, you get a ton back which is what I wanted. A 1st team all-star under contract for 4 more years, yeah we would have got a lot back in return. The only negatives were his salary and his playoff performance but still, many teams would have been very interested.

 

[Menzinger]

I get that with the benefit of hindsight people are dumping on the signing, I still think it was fine though. Firstly, nobody knew covid was coming and if that doesn't happen, the cap keeps going up and his cap hit isn't so bad. Paying Marner 11 instead of 9, that was the mega blunder.

There were many, many teams wanting to sign JT, I'm pretty sure it wasn't just the inexperienced ones.

The real problem with this team is that there is a lack of character and leadership at the top, and by the top I mean M&M. But who knew?

I broached the idea of trading Marner after losing to MTL in the playoffs. Had we done that and gotten the right return, things could be much different today. Of course getting the right return isn't a given, we basically need a Messier type who can light a fire under Matthews but no what what we got back for Marner, hard to imagine things being worse than they are now.

People were yelling at me for wanting to "get rid of him" which was not what I was suggesting, when you trade a guy with his resume, you get a ton back which is what I wanted. A 1st team all-star under contract for 4 more years, yeah we would have got a lot back in return. The only negatives were his salary and his playoff performance but still, many teams would have been very interested.

Any GM of the Leafs would have pitched hard at JT.

Folks forget that Lou and Shanny made a hard sell to Stamkos a couple season earlier when he flirted with free agency, they even brought in the Canadian Tire CEO and Toronto Mayor at the time.

 

[hamzarocks]

What are you talking about? Chicago didn't focus on defense, they drafted Keith and Seabrook yes, but they weren't the focus, nobody thought they would be what they became.

Kane and Towes were always the real focus

The Hawks began the rebuild with an emphasis on defense

Your forgetting they took Cam Barker 3rd OA in 2004 and he was supposed to be their franchise D with Seabrook and Keith after him

Toews + Kane came in 06 and 07

 

[Trapper]

It starts at the top. What is your identity?
Disney on Ice? All-Star skills competition?
Backstreet Boys?
Or Blue Collar, hard work. Skill with will and fight with bite.
No rebuild matters until then. You draft players that fit your identity. Or you try to build an identity around the inmates running the asylum, like now.

 

[Throw More Waffles]

Just a fan........I freely admit I didn't realize what the drawbacks would be at the time of the Tavares signing.

Just like the inexperienced GM

Same. I loved the JT signing at the time.


I didn't think a 30-35ish goal scorer and ppg player was worth 11 mil. But I rationalized that by saying he spent most of his career playing with stiffs on lousy teams. I thought that being surrounded by the young stars on the leafs and being sheltered behind Matthews getting all of the "shut down" players attention, I thought the first 5 or so years of that contract would be like his first season here. Well near 50 goals. That would be worth 11 mil for a ufa. Instead, he's been good but not "11 million" good. Other than 1 great season, he is the same 30-35 goal ppg center he's been his whole career.

I also didn't consider what it would do to internal cap structures. I don't think anybody saw the unprecedented dramatic overpayments coming. Even when the gm position was given to a rookie.

 

[conFABulator]

Simple. When was the last time a team made a UFA their highest paid player to play a 2nd line position?

[Bump. I replied to your question, maybe you missed it?]

I am not sure why you gave such an oddly specific circumstance to make your point. I don't know when the LAST time that happened, but I do know Chicago had a young core, signed UFA Hossa to be their highest paid player. He was their fifth highest scorer in the regular season and seventh highest in their cup run. They went on to win there cups after they signed him.

Why did you ask?

 

[egd27]

[Bump. I replied to your question, maybe you missed it?]

I am not sure why you gave such an oddly specific circumstance to make your point. I don't know when the LAST time that happened, but I do know Chicago had a young core, signed UFA Hossa to be their highest paid player. He was their fifth highest scorer in the regular season and seventh highest in their cup run. They went on to win there cups after they signed him.

Why did you ask?

Because not surprisingly there are limited funds in the cap era.

$11M for a player slated to be the #2C was and remains unprecedented (nod to @Throw More Waffles)

 

[conFABulator]

Because not surprisingly there are limited funds in the cap era.

$11M for a player slated to be the #2C was and remains unprecedented (nod to @Throw More Waffles)

What? Hossa was signed in the cap era too.

You asked for a precedent that a team has never signed a UFA who was not a top line player to be their top paid player. That was Hossa.

He was a UFA
He signed as their highest paid player
He was not one of their top 3 or 4 players.

They won the cup. Three times. Two differences. One, they were able to do a 12-year back diving deal to keep AAV down (still highest paid though), and two, the cap didn't go flat soon after due to a pandemic.

Is it just me or are you completely moving the goalposts on your position here? You basically just changed your parameters and took the exact specifics of the Tavares deal and said no one had done that exact thing before.

 

[egd27]

Is it just me or are you completely moving the goalposts on your position here? You basically just changed your parameters and took the exact specifics of the Tavares deal and said no one had done that exact thing before.

Hossa signed a 12 year back diving contract where his salary for the last 4 years was $1M.

And yes, I used the specifics of the Tavares because I was referring to....wait for it...... the Tavares deal in the previous posts.

 

[arso40]

What? Hossa was signed in the cap era too.

You asked for a precedent that a team has never signed a UFA who was not a top line player to be their top paid player. That was Hossa.

He was a UFA
He signed as their highest paid player
He was not one of their top 3 or 4 players.

They won the cup. Three times. Two differences. One, they were able to do a 12-year back diving deal to keep AAV down (still highest paid though), and two, the cap didn't go flat soon after due to a pandemic.

Is it just me or are you completely moving the goalposts on your position here? You basically just changed your parameters and took the exact specifics of the Tavares deal and said no one had done that exact thing before.

We was the first line winger wasn’t he?

 

[tokyoite]

too early to tank.
but let's do it anyway.

 

[Jimmy Firecracker]

Start a rebuild? Matthews already re-signed for medium term so rebuild is not an option. Leafs will go for it until Matthews decides to f*** off or his play drastically drops off.

Same. I loved the JT signing at the time.


I didn't think a 30-35ish goal scorer and ppg player was worth 11 mil. But I rationalized that by saying he spent most of his career playing with stiffs on lousy teams. I thought that being surrounded by the young stars on the leafs and being sheltered behind Matthews getting all of the "shut down" players attention, I thought the first 5 or so years of that contract would be like his first season here. Well near 50 goals. That would be worth 11 mil for a ufa. Instead, he's been good but not "11 million" good. Other than 1 great season, he is the same 30-35 goal ppg center he's been his whole career.

I also didn't consider what it would do to internal cap structures. I don't think anybody saw the unprecedented dramatic overpayments coming. Even when the gm position was given to a rookie.

JT signing is fine if not for the pandemic and if Dubas doesn't get absolutely rolled in contract negotiations by Matthews, Marner, and Nylander. Nylander contract ended up being the best of the bunch and a bargain but Dubas allowing it to drag on let Matthews and Marner's agents know blood was in the water and they pounced.

Can't do anything about the pandemic, but if Dubas had handled the contracts better and had Tavares as the ceiling then we'd have been a lot better off. Matthews should've never gotten more on a shorter term deal and Mitch shouldn't have sniffed double digit millions.

 

[Racer88]

You could start by not giving your RFA’s the key to the vault before they even won a single dam thing.
Dont sign a freakin UFA that has never won a dam thing to an insane contract
Treat goaltending as more then an afterthought

 

[Racer88]

I would have not lined my re-build up with a pandemic that brought an unprecedented and unforseen flat cap era. In the seven years prior to the pandemic the cap rose and average of 4.5% per year.

If that trajectory had continued we would now be at a cap of $97M. The Leafs would be a cap team and others would not, unlike now where the flat cap has brought everyone to the same level basically.

We wouldn't have had to let players walk in UFA and we could have had more to spend on additions to our team. How much better does this team look with Hyman, Mikheyev and Pietrangelo? How much better do our core four contracts look if the cap was at $97M today?

How would you add to a core of:

Matthews
Marner
Nylander
Tavares
Hyman
Mikheyev
Knies
Robertson
Kampf

Pietrangelo
Rielly
Brodie
Liljegren

Woll

With ~$19M to spare. This is not excuses, it's fact. We had a plan that was based on the cap growing like it had EVERY OTHER year. We signed four expensive pieces with this plan. The world changed overnight and no NHL team was hurt as much by this as the Maple Leafs.

I think everyone should answer the question as if they were managing a rebuild that would have the cap grow 4.5% every year and then tell us how they would have pivoted once it suddenly stopped increasing.

Every other dam team had to deal with the pandemic and some of them one a cup…….even Vegas a new franchise.
This Covid excuse is a lame one. The bottom line is Dubas tried to build a team in a style that has never been done before or since and he failed

 

[Stephen]

The Hawks began the rebuild with an emphasis on defense

Your forgetting they took Cam Barker 3rd OA in 2004 and he was supposed to be their franchise D with Seabrook and Keith after him

Toews + Kane came in 06 and 07

The Hawks rebuild was a failure for many years before they got their franchise finishing pieces up front. A close comparison might be CBJ, who are fully stocked everywhere but somehow are trash. Imagine they get Celebrini and the next guy and suddenly they’re major contenders.

What ended up hurting Toronto in the long run is they got out of their rebuild so quick they looked like something special. If they had emerged a little more slowly they may have added an impact player or two in 2017 and 2018, kept their RFA contracts lower and had a deeper team all these years. More scar tissue from clawing their way up than being princeling front runners.

 

[Racer88]

Start a rebuild? Matthews already re-signed for medium term so rebuild is not an option. Leafs will go for it until Matthews decides to f*** off or his play drastically drops off.



JT signing is fine if not for the pandemic and if Dubas doesn't get absolutely rolled in contract negotiations by Matthews, Marner, and Nylander. Nylander contract ended up being the best of the bunch and a bargain but Dubas allowing it to drag on let Matthews and Marner's agents know blood was in the water and they pounced.

Can't do anything about the pandemic, but if Dubas had handled the contracts better and had Tavares as the ceiling then we'd have been a lot better off. Matthews should've never gotten more on a shorter term deal and Mitch shouldn't have sniffed double digit millions.

If Dubas hadn’t signed Tavares the pandemic wouldn’t have mattered, just ask the teams that win the cup during the pandemic and since. It didn’t seem to bother them

 

[TMLBlueandWhite]

I would start by firing Brendan Shanahan.

It's so not cool ML$E having this moron use our favourite team as his training wheels. Shanahan is the exact same as all those other arrogant types who try to win in atypical fashion. He presents himself a genius who knows better than anyone else.

Then tries to do everything the hard way.

It's easy to see what's happened here. The Leafs smeared lipstick on a pig and tried to sell kisses at the county fair. Replacing Dubas with Treliving was a sideways move at best.

Those two are only symptoms of the real disease.

The Leafs could have an actual genius for GM and still be a bust so long as Shanahan is in charge. It's like a plane that's slowly losing altitude. Worrying which pilot to crash with is of secondary concern if ground control is giving them the wrong instructions.

The sooner they can get someone competent in charge the sooner they can start the "rebuild".

 

[Dreakmur]

What? Hossa was signed in the cap era too.

You asked for a precedent that a team has never signed a UFA who was not a top line player to be their top paid player. That was Hossa.

He was a UFA
He signed as their highest paid player
He was not one of their top 3 or 4 players.

1 out of 3…

He was a UFA.

He never was their highest paid player. Brian Campbell’s 7+ million dolllar contract was signed the previous summer. He was also lower than Chrisobal Huet.

He was at worst their 4th best player. Consistent 30 goal winger who plays Selke-calibre defence is pretty good…

 

[TheRumble]

Team is not rebuilding with Matthews on a 5 year deal unless he asks to be traded.

They might re-tool but if you think they're gonna do the slash and burn thing like they did with the Kessel era, it's not happening.

Things that COULD happen: The Leafs will have $28.5 million in cap space in the '24 off season.

1) A retool centered around free agents. The 2024 Free Agent Class isn't bad looking. Based on guys who I think would realistically leave their teams: Noah Hanifin and Elias Lindholm. If Nylander walks, Treliving could look to sign those two based on previous history.

2) A retool centered around the '25 free agent class: It's harder to project the cap space for the '25 off season because it's two years out but Marner and Tavares are both up that year. If the Leafs opt for this method that means they're giving Marner, Matthews, Nylander and Tavares two more kicks at the can.

 

[rumman]

Any GM of the Leafs would have pitched hard at JT.

Folks forget that Lou and Shanny made a hard sell to Stamkos a couple season earlier when he flirted with free agency, they even brought in the Canadian Tire CEO and Toronto Mayor at the time.

Centre depth wasn’t a issue when they acquired JT, so no, not every GM would have. The good one’s would have tried to improve what the team was lacking……..

 

[hullsy47]

Just a fan........I freely admit I didn't realize what the drawbacks would be at the time of the Tavares signing.

Just like the inexperienced GM

It's almost as if people don't realize tavarss has been inconsistent
The real truth mathews marner and Nylander were signed for way too much money for the length of term
Shanahan allowing this was a travesty
He hired a boy to do a man's job
Lol lamourello would have got this done I have no doubts
This defence and goaltending is just not good enuff

 

[hullsy47]

Don't hire a rookie GM to lead it.

Not sign every player to 11 million coming off entry level

Sadly you are not wrong but if Matty and Mitch do not have what it takes to push the ball over the goal line, it really does not make any difference whether they fast tracked the rebuild by signing Tavares. That has been the constant with this team and until they prove they can, they are the #1 reason IMO that they have not advanced past 1 win in round #2.

Tavares earned his ufa contract .he'd have gotten 10 at least to stay on the island
This core four needed to be coached by John Cooper and Keefe