Yet his performance and how easily he gets pushed off the puck say different
Nothing about his performance or play suggests otherwise. He's put in hard work to become one of the best players in the world.
At least this time around it didnt cost the leafs two top 10 first rounders.
Based on the fact that we already had a competitive team, and we were both keeping own rentals and making trade deadline acquisitions for playoff runs. Pretty obviously not a rebuilding team.
So does that mean they were right? Lou and Dubas (and Shanahan) mistakenly thought we were further along than we were. Lou giving away 2nds like they were going out of style. Then signing Tavares for that long and that amount, when we already had our franchise center. And having Nylander sit out for the season rather than give in to him may have made a difference on Marner’s negotiations. But they had done away with trying to continue the rebuild.
I guess one needs to decide if they want to be “one of the best in the world”, but only during the regular season, or be a difference maker come playoff time. And yes, it would be simply marvellous to be both.
Agreed. He is far from one of the best in the world. He performs when the going is easy but disappears when the games get tougher, more important and pressure filled. he basically has a crappy shot, no physicality and no real speed and he certainly cannot handle pressure
What are you talking about? Matthews showed up in ridiculous shape this past season after training with McDavid and has IMPROVED his insane shot by adding a killer one timer.
It’s crazy how you don’t understand that lifting weights = body development. He’s obviously not training for aesthetics but his program consists of Olympic lifts that if he was completing at high volume and intensity you would see growth in his upper body
I really hope they switch Marner back to jt. It made us more balanced. JT is much more willing to go to the net and relies on his shot much less than matthews does, it makes Marner play more engaged. Whereas when he plays with Matthews he can feed him cute high slot passes and let Matthews do the work. Nylander seems to produce with either centre so no issue there.
I mean, that's an entirely different discussion. Whether or not each individual thing was the right or wrong move, the rebuild was unquestionably stopped before any of those contracts.
For the record, center was organizationally one of if not our weakest position, and having two franchise centers has never been a bad thing.
Nylander is the one who "gave in", and extremely, extremely unlikely it would have had any impact on Marner - who had reached a much higher level and importance. If anything, it likely would have made us lose Nylander for a disappointing return, throw away a season, and create an even more hostile relationship with our stars than what Lou/Babcock had fostered. All over a contract that's pretty reasonable.
Not nearly as different as many people like to think, and you aren't in a rebuild if you are either.
Uhh.. In case you haven't noticed, our defense was heavily remade, and we went from one of the worst teams in the league defensively to one of the best, in a very short time.
Just because you're not spending ridiculous amounts on your bottom six, it doesn't mean your bottom six is bad. We have a pretty good bottom six. Bottom six forwards are where some of the worst contracts are given, and people always think other team's bottom sixes are amazing, when they aren't. The fact that we have an amazing top six also matters.
They quite obviously want to be both.
Great breakdown, and I'd likely agree that we should stick with the pairings, but it should be noted that these results may be impacted by these pairings largely representing different points of development for Matthews/Marner/Nylander.
Unfortunately that’s who I am talking about……..it’s starting to look like he is all sizzle and no steak
In your first paragraph, thank you for agreeing with me that they abandoned the rebuild.
