Leafs powerplay simply unacceptable given the amount of money on it

[thewave]

Blaming the things that are actually responsible. What a crazy idea, eh?

Nobody is blaming Reaves for his PP contributions. People are blaming Treliving for wasting cap and roster spots on useless players like Reaves that are incapable of contributing to a PP, which limits the alternative options we could have to try and fix the 2nd PP unit.

B. Saad was just waived. 4.5m. What do you think of dumping Reaves and another dead weight contract and bringing him over 2m retained.

Frees up a contract spot as well before deadline.

 

[Dekes For Days]

B. Saad was just waived. 4.5m. What do you think of dumping Reaves and another dead weight contract and bringing him over 2m retained.

Saad is expensive, struggling, signed for next year, and I don't think he'd help the PP much. He hasn't been very good on the PP through his career, and he has just 2 PP points this year in 46 minutes.

 

[Fogelhund]

Saad is expensive, struggling, signed for next year, and I don't think he'd help the PP much. He hasn't been very good on the PP through his career, and he has just 2 PP points this year in 46 minutes.

Just agreed to mutual termination. I agree, he's not going to help the PP, but if he is willing to sign cheaply, we could try and slot him in LW2, and give him some opportunity to earn a new contract elsewhere next year.

 

[wingman75]

This team, right now, is actually playing worse than they ever have in the Matthews era. We decided that we wanted some of those "radical changes", and all it did was make us worse. Surprise, surprise. Thank god for our core and goaltending carrying us and our special teams, or we'd be in real trouble.

This is way under-recognized imo!

 

[Captain Crunch]

Playing a style that suits you doesn't guarantee you a cup. It's just better than playing a style that doesn't. And while Keefe's system was better and more suited to his team, he quite frankly didn't always stick to it the best in the playoffs. Far too often we let the opponent dictate the style, and we'd try to match their style instead of committing to ours. Instead of pushing the pace, attacking offensively, and trying to control the game like a Colorado, we'd often get too comfortable playing a "safer", slower, lower event, more dump/grind-heavy game, and while we often outperformed the opposition in their style, it still made each goal more consequential and we'd end up losing by one goal on the goalie battle. Now we're tripling down on the parts of our past that worked the least for us.

There are no " inmates running the asylum". Building the best team means striking a balance between the present and future, much like we did. You need to give yourself the best chance you can when you have a great team, without fully depleting internal development. We traded some picks in our best years, but we also got some picks back, drafted well with the picks we had, and supplemented well with undrafted free agents.

By "far too often", you mean the 5 years that Keefe was the coach? So was it Keefe's fault, management's fault, or the players' fault for allowing that to happen for 5 straight years? Do you see something wrong here? I sure do.

Come hell or high water Matthews and Marner play together, and to top it off, when Knies goes down they move McMann up to the 1st line even though he and Nylander had been playing well together. If Matthews and Marner are so good, please tell me why they would need the team's best LWer (since Knies got hurt) to be moved up to play with them? You're telling me that M&M, who combined make around $24 million, need McMann to play with them? Again, do you not see something wrong with that??? But no, the inmates aren't running the asylum! Wake up and smell the coffee, Dekes! Lol

 

[ACC1224]

By "far too often", you mean the 5 years that Keefe was the coach? So was it Keefe's fault, management's fault, or the players' fault for allowing that to happen for 5 straight years? Do you see something wrong here? I sure do.

Come hell or high water Matthews and Marner play together, and to top it off, when Knies goes down they move McMann up to the 1st line even though he and Nylander had been playing well together. If Matthews and Marner are so good, please tell me why they would need the team's best LWer (since Knies got hurt) to be moved up to play with them? You're telling me that M&M, who combined make around $24 million, need McMann to play with them? Again, do you not see something wrong with that??? But no, the inmates aren't running the asylum! Wake up and smell the coffee, Dekes! Lol

Are you suggesting the players are setting the lines?

 

[Captain Crunch]

Are you suggesting the players are setting the lines?

Only Matthews and Marner. Willy doesn’t say much, he just plays with whoever is on his line. It’s sad when you think about it. Two players each making over $10 million, yet neither of them apparently are able to drive their own line. Also, have either of them been benched when they make a boneheaded play (and I don’t mean just one time, how many times have we seen Marner attempt to make a lazy pass on a PP which often gets picked off and sent down the ice, forcing them to bring the puck back up ice and try to regain the offensive zone, killing valuable seconds to do that)?

 

[ACC1224]

Only Matthews and Marner. Willy doesn’t say much, he just plays with whoever is on his line. It’s sad when you think about it. Two players each making over $10 million, yet neither of them apparently are able to drive their own line. Also, have either of them been benched when they make a boneheaded play (and I don’t mean just one time, how many times have we seen Marner attempt to make a lazy pass on a PP which often gets picked off and sent down the ice, forcing them to bring the puck back up ice and try to regain the offensive zone, killing valuable seconds to do that)?

ok

 

[Dekes For Days]

By "far too often", you mean the 5 years that Keefe was the coach?

No, by "far too often", I mean more than I'd like to see from my coach in important games. He had a good system, and he stuck to it most of the time, and he even executed the systems that didn't fit us in a more effective way. But he had a tendency to change things up and play it too safe in important games. I get the instinct, especially in a toxic place like Toronto with the growing weight of the losses, and it's something a lot of coaches do, but it was the wrong thing for our team. We thrive when we play to win; not when we play to avoid a loss. It was one of the reasons that I was okay with moving on from a good coach, but all we have done is move onto a coach that deploys the wrong system for our team all the time, in a not very effective way.

Come hell or high water Matthews and Marner play together, and to top it off, when Knies goes down they move McMann up to the 1st line even though he and Nylander had been playing well together. If Matthews and Marner are so good, please tell me why they would need the team's best LWer (since Knies got hurt) to be moved up to play with them? You're telling me that M&M, who combined make around $24 million, need McMann to play with them? Again, do you not see something wrong with that??? But no, the inmates aren't running the asylum!

Matthews and Marner play together because they are effective together. There have been quite a few different combinations with their depth players, but the reason you would move a McMann up isn't because Matthews and Marner need it. It's because you generally want to put your next best winger in the best situation to succeed, and give them the minutes and chance to convert on the setups of our best playmaker. And whether or not you agree with those decisions, they are the decisions of the coach, not the players.