Well that certainly isn’t the way you felt when you repeatedly advocated for Babcock to be run out of town when he had years left on his contract and millions of dollars owed in salary.
You put 100% of the blame for everything on Babcock.
That's just flat out not true. Not only did I not "repeatedly advocate for Babcock to be run out of town", but I also didn't "put 100% of the blame for everything on Babcock". Sounds like you're thinking about a different person. In fact, despite there being
way more issues with Babcock than Keefe, and an available improvement, it was really only the 2019 offseason when Babcock started getting heat, and even that was mild until Babcock's shenanigans and horrible results in the beginning of the 2019-2020 season, when some of his toxicity behind the scenes also started to come to light.
Babcock wasn't even the biggest issue for this early era, let alone 100% to blame. Lou alone was much more of an issue. Babcock's negative impact was at least confined to the moment. Not sure why any fan would care about the money/term Babcock had left.
And let’s just be clear here. At that time, this team was at the beginning of their development cycle. They were still bringing in young talent, developing them and planting the seeds of success that would likely take several years to pay dividends. Babcock was hard on some of these players, yes, it’s true. But he did so because he was showing them what it would take to win it all.
Let's actually be clear here. They were at the beginning of their development cycle, but also had some massive advantages. They weren't planting the seeds of success. More accurately, they harvested the entire previous crop, ate or improperly stored most of that harvest, and then improperly planted most of their seeds. And then left everything for the next guy to fix. Babcock's toxicity didn't serve any purpose, and didn't prepare them for what it would take to win it all. It just fed Babcock's ego. Keefe has helped them infinitely more than anything Babcock did.
And the result was that in many of those Babcock years, the Leafs were considered to have exceeded expectations at least at that time in their development cycle.
We lost, and did worse than we have since, despite the many advantages those teams had. Weird argument.
So let’s just be clear, you gave no similar considerations or allowances to Babcock. You expected nothing less than success in the playoffs or he should go.
Again, that's literally not true. I gave Babcock a ton of benefit of the doubts and considerations, and my feelings about him had little to do with the team's playoff outcomes, and had a lot more to do with his tanking of the 2019-2020 season, his personal actions/decisions in both the playoffs and regular season, and the toxicity he was displaying behind the scenes.
Your solution and antidote to Babcock was Keefe. Who you claimed was a player friendly coach that once installed, would institute a possession style of play in keeping with Dubas’ hockey philosophy and that the Leaf success would soon follow and that they would challenge for the cup in short order.
Keefe wasn't "my solution/antidote", and I didn't say any of the things you claim. Again, I'm not sure if you're confusing me for somebody else or just blatantly making stuff up. Keefe has been a massively better coach than Babcock though, no question.
you have defended Dubas with excuses like, “success isn’t linear”, you have blamed the NHL, the referees, the flat salary cap and concocted dozens of other creative excuses in an effort to defend your hero.
Dubas isn't my hero lol. He's just a really good GM who has had a positive impact on the team I cheer for, through some really difficult obstacles. I support that like any Leaf fan would. Acknowledging true facts and obvious impacting factors to things being discussed isn't defending anybody. It's discussing hockey. What we're supposed to be doing here, instead of just arbitrarily blaming individuals you dislike for outcomes you dislike.
You have repeatedly defended tying up half the salary cap in four players and advocated for “running it back” year after unsuccessful year.
If by that, you mean I support having good players that provide impact beyond their cap hits, and a good team, instead of throwing away everything that's been built out of misplaced anger.
You also repeatedly blamed Lamoriello
I have justifiably blamed Lou for things that Lou deserves to be blamed for, like I would for anybody.
To Lou winning GM of the year, you responded that it was a irrelevant, dumb award anyway.
It is a dumb, irrelevant award, and the same would be true if a Leaf GM won it. Most of these awards are stupid. Heck, every single Jack Adams finalist from just last year has already been fired.
now you proclaim “coaches get too much focus”.
I've had the same position that coaches get too much focus relative to their actual impact for pretty much my whole life, so not sure what you're talking about.
The same was even true for Babcock, who despite deserving focus, still got more than he should have relative to Lou.
