When I think how well this team came flying out of the gate in 2017, scoring goals at will and seeing where we are today
We're still scoring goals at will. The difference is now we actually have defense.
Hard to win when we are spending most in league on our forward group at over 53M CAP and only Jets and Caps are really in our ballpark.
That's not true. Tampa (you know, that team that just won the cup) spends the most on their forward group, and there are about 6-7 teams near us. This despite the fact that we just signed multiple franchise forwards over the last couple years. There is nothing unusual about our positional cap distribution, and unlike some teams, we actually get elite scoring from that spending.
Defense and tending win over a 100+ years of pro hockey.
Offense and goaltending have actually proven to be most important.
The name of the game is winning and it's hard to escape the conclusion that they were doing more winning under the previous GM.
Except they weren't. The only thing they were winning more of was shootouts.
The Keefe Leafs were allowed to free wheel while Babs tried to teach the kids what it takes to win in the playoffs.
This is not even close to true. We were better at pretty much everything under Keefe. If anything, Babcock sabotaged our playoffs with stupid decisions and a highly questionable system.
Dubas and Keefe's strategy is to clearly offence so I would hope that they score more goals per game over a season over a Babs' coached team.
There is no basis to claim that Dubas and Keefe's strategy is "to clearly offense". Unlike Lou, Dubas has actually addressed the defense quite significantly. Unlike Babcock, Keefe actually got good defensive results.
Question is, can that strategy work in the playoffs? So far, the answer is no.
Yeah, it's not like the best offensive team in the league just won the cup or something... oh wait.
Sparks over McBackup smelled bad. Learning on the job (i.e. toughness and leadership) was also not a good look. "We can and we will" and telling Nylander he would not trade him while he is GM left a scar.
-He made the logical choice for backup goalie, that every GM would have made. Neither would have played anywhere close to the 2017-2018 McBackup Vezina level. We now have a better backup than either of them.
-Dubas has always valued leadership and toughness.
-He could and he did sign everybody, despite difficult negotiations.
-Telling Nylander we had no plans to trade him helped him feel comfortable signing long-term, and everybody involved knows plans can change over time. Dubas is not limited by anything.
trade one of the best contracts in the league
Kadri was not "one of the best contracts in the league"...
2. The "new coach high" is a real thing.
There's really no evidence this is true. It's just something you've arbitrarily come up with, so you can exclude when the team was actually relatively healthy and completely
dominated.
Once we eliminate that, and start at, say... January 1st to the rest of the year.
Ah yes, I'm sure there's no reason you're starting at the point that our team got decimated by injury, and Andersen fell off a cliff...
For sure what I meant.
