I have serious concerns for next year (2023-24)

[Sypher04]

I mean it kind of does. Regular season success only matters to middle of the road teams nearing the end of a rebuild. No team with cup aspirations gives a shit about regular season performance as long as they're among the 16 that make the playoffs

The way I see it, you are conflating 2 different things. Whether regular season success is important objectively has nothing to do with player sentiment or fan sentiment toward the achievement relative to playoff success.

Based on history, in most cases cup winning teams had to have regular season success before they won it all. We shouldn’t obviously act like regular season success is a direct indicator of imminent playoff success (as that clearly isn’t true, and several teams are successful each year), but we also shouldn’t minimize the ways in which a strong season generally sets a team up for a strong playoff. Unless you’re the Toronto Maple Leafs that is

 

[JKG33]

You are conflating 2 different thing. Whether regular season success is important objectively has nothing to do with player sentiment or fan sentiment toward the achievement relative to playoff success.

Based on history, in most cases cup winning teams had to have regular season success before they won it all. We shouldn’t obviously act like regular season success is a direct indicator of imminent playoff success (as several teams are successful each year), but we also shouldn’t minimize the ways in which a strong season generally sets a team up for a strong playoff. Unless you’re the Toronto Maple Leafs that is

In what sense then is regular season success important? I get why it is for Matthews and Marner, since their paycheques clearly aren't relative to their playoff performance. But even to MLSE, I don't see them changing ticket prices much relative to where the team is in the standings.

Teams have won the Cup from all over the standings. Even a dogshit team like Buffalo, if they made it as an 8 seed next year and won the Cup, wouldn't be entirely surprising given how much parity this league has.

For every regular season powerhouse like Tampa who eventually won the cup, there's several other regular season powerhouses like San Jose, Nashville and Toronto who accomplish nothing outside the first 82 games. Ok well two of those teams went to the finals, but you get my point.

 

[ACC1224]

I’d prefer regular season success and playoff success. Outlandish, I guess.

 

[Sypher04]

I’d prefer regular season success and playoff success. Outlandish, I guess.

The goal unequivocally should be both.

In what sense then is regular season success important? I get why it is for Matthews and Marner, since their paycheques clearly aren't relative to their playoff performance. But even to MLSE, I don't see them changing ticket prices much relative to where the team is in the standings.

Teams have won the Cup from all over the standings. Even a dogshit team like Buffalo, if they made it as an 8 seed next year and won the Cup, wouldn't be entirely surprising given how much parity this league has.

For every regular season powerhouse like Tampa who eventually won the cup, there's several other regular season powerhouses like San Jose, Nashville and Toronto who accomplish nothing outside the first 82 games. Ok well two of those teams went to the finals, but you get my point.

Of course 8 seeds have won. No one is saying differently. They are the outliers however.

In the last 10 years:
20 teams have made the SCF (obviously)
17 finished top 3 in their division
2 finished wild card 2
1 was Montreal in the wonky Covid year
All 10 cups were won by the non-wildcard team

Everything a team does to prepare for the playoffs happens in the season. The idea that regular season success doesn’t matter is completely illogical.

 

[JKG33]

The goal unequivocally should be both.



Of course 8 seeds have won. No one is saying differently. They are the outliers however.

In the last 10 years:
20 teams have made the SCF (obviously)
17 finished top 3 in their division
2 finished wild card 2 (both lost)
1 was Montreal in the wonky Covid year
All 10 cups were won by the non-wildcard team

Yea, no argument here they typically finish top 3 in the division (I hate that stupid format, can't believe it's lasted 10 years and counting).

But I also wouldn't count a presidents trophy as any more successful than finishing 3rd in the division if they both result in playoff failure

 

[Sypher04]

Yea, no argument here they typically finish top 3 in the division (I hate that stupid format, can't believe it's lasted 10 years and counting).

But I also wouldn't count a presidents trophy as any more successful than finishing 3rd in the division if they both result in playoff failure

No argument. Ive mentioned in other posts here in this thread that I don’t think winning the presidents trophy or even the division particularly matters, but I think it’s fair to say a top 3 division finish is a successful regular season and finishing wildcard rarely pans out.

 

[Notsince67]

Interesting. I guess I would say that with the cap going up that much, considering that contracts mostly seem to based on regular season performance (so mostly ignoring Marner's disappointing playoff performances), and the fact that Marner has a couple of 1st all-star team selections on his resume, 12.33 for 8 years seems like a pretty decent estimate of what he's worth.

I would also say that it screams very loudly that his last contract for almost 90% of those dollars, but only a 6 year term and with a resume that at the time was obviously much less impressive than it is today was a MASSIVE overpayment.


When you deflect and obfuscate instead of answering a simple question, that's an answer in itself. Cheers.

I'm attempting minimal necessary force with you Gary in the hopes you learn something from it. I was wrong to have such lofty expectations.

 

[Gary Nylund]

The goal unequivocally should be both.

...

Everything a team does to prepare for the playoffs happens in the season. The idea that regular season success doesn’t matter is completely illogical.

I'm not sure anyone thinks the regular season "doesn't matter", after all you need some success there to even make the playoffs. For me though, when the season is over I'm judging the team mostly by how they do in the playoffs, I think most people feel the same and that's why people say the playoffs are "what counts".

The Florida example mentioned earlier is I think a perfect example - I believe most of their fans were happier with making the finals after barely making the playoffs than they were with a fantastic regular season followed by playoff failure.

I'm attempting minimal necessary force with you Gary in the hopes you learn something from it. I was wrong to have such lofty expectations.

Blah blah blah. You either answer simple questions or you don't. In this case you didn't and I'm pretty sure nobody cares much either way.

Regarding "force", I covered that earlier. It's the internet dude, not a little kids schoolyard and since bullying people doesn't work on the internet so you really need to stop with this "force" nonsense.

 

[Notsince67]

I'm not sure anyone thinks the regular season "doesn't matter", after all you need some success there to even make the playoffs. For me though, when the season is over I'm judging the team mostly by how they do in the playoffs, I think most people feel the same and that's why people say the playoffs are "what counts".

The Florida example mentioned earlier is I think a perfect example - I believe most of their fans were happier with making the finals after barely making the playoffs than they were with a fantastic regular season followed by playoff failure.


Blah blah blah. You either answer simple questions or you don't. In this case you didn't and I'm pretty sure nobody cares much either way.

Regarding "force", I covered that earlier. It's the internet dude, not a little kids schoolyard and since bullying people doesn't work on the internet so you really need to stop with this "force" nonsense.

Your responses are like always disagreeable. You position yourself as a pest but turn out to be gum stuck on a shoe.
Done with you.

 

[Gary Nylund]

Your responses are like always disagreeable. You position yourself as a pest but turn out to be gum stuck on a shoe.
Done with you.

Don't worry about it dude, no need to apologize. You make some pretty good posts now and then, if you can't answer a simple question this time around, that's nothing to get all worked up about. Cheers!

 

[Dekes For Days]

Exactly, and we have two players on $11M contracts that aren't worth the contracts, and we should be moving one if not both, but can't.

Neither of those things are true.

 

[notDatsyuk]

Neither of those things are true.

Ok, I take it back - you weren't right.

 

[Racer88]

Neither of those things are true.

Are so…….

 

[DutchHockeyGuy]

Something I beleive that is not exactly what you are saying, but I can relate to your point of view:

Enjoying a season in most sports comes down to 2 things:

1.) You win the championship
2.) you exceed 'expecations'

The tough part for the Leafs right now is the expectations with most fans are that they are 'good enough' in terms of talent to make/win the cup. So #2 is a tough thing to acheive anymore. They are in a 'win the cup or bust' mode and that is tough for many fans.

This an excellent post. It also tells us why it is wrong to say the mood is always bad if your team does not win de ultimate price. After we, in my opinion lucked into beating Tampa in de first round, our Leafs were kicked out of the play-off by a team that basically outwitted us. That was prepared to go further in order to win. That is what soured me on the season. Not the fact that they lost in de second round. The manner in which you go out, matters looking forward to the next season and estimating the chances of going further the next year.

 

[Twowingcantfly]

This is a very good team. On paper and on the ice. On paper and on the ice we have very good special teams. However Playoff special team is lousy On paper and on the Ice. The question is.... How do we fix it?

 

[mjd1001]

This is a very good team. On paper and on the ice. On paper and on the ice we have very good special teams. However Playoff special team is lousy On paper and on the Ice. The question is.... How do we fix it?

You just 'keep trying'. Sometimes something is a problem until it isn't. Peyton Manning for a long time was though of as 'not being able to win the big one' until he did. Mesi the same with the World cup. We had at least a few years of hearing Lebron couldn't win the title..until he and his team did.

 

[Maple Leaf]

This is a very good team. On paper and on the ice. On paper and on the ice we have very good special teams. However Playoff special team is lousy On paper and on the Ice. The question is.... How do we fix it?

You need to find hungry players that are gonna get down and dirty

 

[notDatsyuk]

You just 'keep trying'. Sometimes something is a problem until it isn't. Peyton Manning for a long time was though of as 'not being able to win the big one' until he did. Mesi the same with the World cup. We had at least a few years of hearing Lebron couldn't win the title..until he and his team did.

For every one of those there are a hundred "wait until next year" that never happened.

 

[mjd1001]

For every one of those there are a hundred "wait until next year" that never happened.

There are also likely many times when a change was made too early 'just because', and quite possibly the original team might/would have won a title, but management/the fanbase got too impatient and demanded changes, and the changes ended up being for the worse.

 

[notDatsyuk]

There are also likely many times when a change was made too early 'just because', and quite possibly the original team might/would have won a title, but management/the fanbase got too impatient and demanded changes, and the changes ended up being for the worse.

Of course, and the Tavares signing is a perfect example of that.

The point is that you can't know one way or the other about any transaction ahead of time. "This worked for player A or team B, so it will work for us" is a fools argument.

 

[Budz]

The fact is our Defense and Goaltending are not at elite levels.

Until they are fixed, we aren’t doing much.

 

[Jeffrey Pedler]

I don't like moves Treliving has made so far

I don't like MM is still on the team, he should have been traded

I don't like AM still doesn't have a contact (I really don't like how AM is so adverse to long term contracts)

I don't like the defense AT ALL

I'd say my biggest concern is this team is going to be too complacent and I think there is a real chance Toronto might actually miss the playoffs

I have never been this low on the team, at least when Toronto was tanking we could look forward to the future, what do we have to look forward to now? Toronto hasn't done ANYTHING with this core, why should I think this year will be any different?

Why would you keep Matthews over Marner? Marner is much tougher, while being 50lbs lighter.

 

[darrylsittler27]

What do we do? This organization has no idea what they are doing. Even the Dubas thing caught Shanahan offguard. We just lost a top prospect as well so our prospect pool wont save us and we have no picks in 2025. We have to trade one of the big 4 but wont. In a business sense we need young and cheap from a playoff standpoint we need defense and Woll to rise above expectations. So what we do, rehash. It will take yet another year for people to realize we need bigger changes. The wheels will fall off this gong show soon but it may take one more slap in the face to do it. These guys dont have another plan, so fake it one more year then fire Keefe and say we need a more playoff experienced coach. I just dont see Keefe and this four with Samsonov and a soft defense winning anything this year. Reg season who cares? Just ask Boston.

 

[Ianturnedbull]

What do we do? This organization has no idea what they are doing. Even the Dubas thing caught Shanahan offguard. We just lost a top prospect as well so our prospect pool wont save us and we have no picks in 2025. We have to trade one of the big 4 but wont. In a business sense we need young and cheap from a playoff standpoint we need defense and Woll to rise above expectations. So what we do, rehash. It will take yet another year for people to realize we need bigger changes. The wheels will fall off this gong show soon but it may take one more slap in the face to do it. These guys dont have another plan, so fake it one more year then fire Keefe and say we need a more playoff experienced coach. I just dont see Keefe and this four with Samsonov and a soft defense winning anything this year. Reg season who cares? Just ask Boston.

This is not a gong show. I can assure you that playoff futility is not as bad as the days when the owner wanted the head coach to wear a paper bag on his head.

The truth is it's really hard to win the cup. Even if you think you have everything, you still need to catch lightning in a bottle.

I think your post is rather harsh and powerfully jaded. You can't accuse this organization of not trying. The dream might come 4-6 years from now for all we know.

 

[WTFMAN99]

This is not a gong show. I can assure you that playoff futility is not as bad as the days when the owner wanted the head coach to wear a paper bag on his head.

The truth is it's really hard to win the cup. Even if you think you have everything, you still need to catch lightning in a bottle.

I think your post is rather harsh and powerfully jaded. You can't accuse this organization of not trying. The dream might come 4-6 years from now for all we know.

Yes - sometimes you think you can go all the way but another team just achieved it unfortunately. I think back to Vancouver...some great teams just kept getting taken out by Chicago and then when it seemed like it was gonna happen, Tim Thomas went legendary.

I haven't had that feeling with this group, the defense in particular is missing that 1 guy back there that will keep you at ease.

I also have no doubt that ownership / organization is trying or wants to win, they just might not be capable or have the right people in place to move this forward.