HamiltonNHL
Resigning Marner == Running it back
- Jan 4, 2012
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There sure is.
Speculation: Leafs rushed the rebuild
- Thread starter Leafs87
- Start date
There sure is.
TMLBlueandWhite
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- Feb 2, 2023
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There's a standard model to rebuild that teams like the Penguins, Tampa, and Chicago follow which have allowed them to bottom out and win again before the Leafs have so much as even contended.
The Leafs just haven't figured it out yet.
1. Trade high-priced and valuable players for picks.
2. Reduce team payroll as much as possible.
3. Monetize excess cap space by taking on bad contracts in exchange for even more draft picks
4. Finish bottom of standings to acquire lottery picks
5. Draft the highest skilled most promising prospects
6. Build from net out ensuring a diverse prospect pool
7. Effectively develop prospects in the minor leagues.
8. Identify and acquire character players to help younger teammates transition successfully
9. Take a prudent approach when extending players aways keeping the salary cap in mind
10. Stay away from unrestricted free agency until ready to contend
The Leafs missed out on steps 3, 6, 9, and 10.
A good rebuilt team builds up a massive pool of assets and roster talents on their way down. They add the core pieces once they hit rock bottom. The Leafs just tanked and drafted MNM.
Signed Tavares and instantly went "all-in".
So the Leafs started with the core. One whiff of the playoffs and they started spending all their assets propping up the roster. That's why pushing them forward so fast was a mistake.
They should have been selling for a year or two more.
Building the depth and asset pool. Then going ahead full steam. The Leafs tried to rush the rebuild by skipping steps and have now stagnated as a result.
It's an indictment on everyone who sat at that table and decided there was a short cut to success.
The Leafs just haven't figured it out yet.
1. Trade high-priced and valuable players for picks.
2. Reduce team payroll as much as possible.
3. Monetize excess cap space by taking on bad contracts in exchange for even more draft picks
4. Finish bottom of standings to acquire lottery picks
5. Draft the highest skilled most promising prospects
6. Build from net out ensuring a diverse prospect pool
7. Effectively develop prospects in the minor leagues.
8. Identify and acquire character players to help younger teammates transition successfully
9. Take a prudent approach when extending players aways keeping the salary cap in mind
10. Stay away from unrestricted free agency until ready to contend
The Leafs missed out on steps 3, 6, 9, and 10.
A good rebuilt team builds up a massive pool of assets and roster talents on their way down. They add the core pieces once they hit rock bottom. The Leafs just tanked and drafted MNM.
Signed Tavares and instantly went "all-in".
So the Leafs started with the core. One whiff of the playoffs and they started spending all their assets propping up the roster. That's why pushing them forward so fast was a mistake.
They should have been selling for a year or two more.
Building the depth and asset pool. Then going ahead full steam. The Leafs tried to rush the rebuild by skipping steps and have now stagnated as a result.
It's an indictment on everyone who sat at that table and decided there was a short cut to success.
Jimmy Firecracker
They Fired Sheldon!
I still don't think signing JT was a mistake. This team was just disastrously managed during his prime and we wasted the window to contend with him as a marquee player. There's a lot of things that added up to our failure to capitalize on Tavares' prime with the team. Handing the keys to this talented core to a rookie GM and then a rookie coach to start. Bad trades like the Foligno deal, Kadri for Kerfoot and Barrie, Marchement for Malgin, and a 1st (Jarvis) to get rid of Marleau. Choosing to prioritize the wrong personnel on this team like letting Hyman walk instead of doing whatever it took to make it work (trade Kerfoot), choosing to protect Holl over McCann, thinking Kapanen and Johnsson were keepers which led to the necessity of paying to dump Marleau, trading Martin and letting Komarov walk leading to this team losing physical heart and soul guys, and choosing Sparks and Pickard over McElhinney which led to the Moore trade for Campbell out of necessity.
Poor drafting leading to few reinforcements coming from the farm. This was a Hunter and an early-mid Dubas tenure problem that's only just started to have been corrected and is now looking promising. Poor free agent signings like career loser and bad influence Thornton, useless Ritchie, awful Mrazek which led to another 1st round pick out the door. We've also had tragic misfortune, chief among them the loss of Amirov. Muzzin's injury troubles also hurt us as he retired at least two years too early. And lest we forget Tavares himself was the victim of an unfortunate "accident" in 2021 that cost him and us a playoff run with him near his prime.
But what screwed this team most of all were the terrible contract negotiations and results for our three stars that led to the cap crunch and had a butterfly effect of terrible moves. If Matthews, Marner, and Nylander sign for reasonable numbers like any other bloody ELC star does and did on their second contracts we likely don't lose Hyman, don't have to deal a 1st to dump Marleau, could've signed an actual goalie like Ullmark, and who knows what else. It all comes back to Dubas getting rolled by blood-sucking agents and having to dance around that for years. No reason it should've taken until December to sign Nylander, no reason Marner should've been making over $10 million, and no reason Matthews should've made more than Tavares, least of all on a less than maximum term contract.
People will argue that the Leafs could've kept that cap space open for say Pietrangelo but that was two years down the line and who knew the Blues would be dumb and let him walk? When elite talent is available and you're in "win now" mode you gotta go for it. Could be argued that the Leafs shouldn't have been in that mode then but they made the playoffs in back to back years, gave the Bruins all they could in a 7 game series (as early 20 somethings when "lessons" and "experience" weren't a punchline), had a Vezina calibre goalie, and adding Tavares gave them a 3-headed monster down the middle of him, Matthews, and Kadri.
It was a fine move, but in typical Leafs fashion it went as wrong as it possibly could've.
Poor drafting leading to few reinforcements coming from the farm. This was a Hunter and an early-mid Dubas tenure problem that's only just started to have been corrected and is now looking promising. Poor free agent signings like career loser and bad influence Thornton, useless Ritchie, awful Mrazek which led to another 1st round pick out the door. We've also had tragic misfortune, chief among them the loss of Amirov. Muzzin's injury troubles also hurt us as he retired at least two years too early. And lest we forget Tavares himself was the victim of an unfortunate "accident" in 2021 that cost him and us a playoff run with him near his prime.
But what screwed this team most of all were the terrible contract negotiations and results for our three stars that led to the cap crunch and had a butterfly effect of terrible moves. If Matthews, Marner, and Nylander sign for reasonable numbers like any other bloody ELC star does and did on their second contracts we likely don't lose Hyman, don't have to deal a 1st to dump Marleau, could've signed an actual goalie like Ullmark, and who knows what else. It all comes back to Dubas getting rolled by blood-sucking agents and having to dance around that for years. No reason it should've taken until December to sign Nylander, no reason Marner should've been making over $10 million, and no reason Matthews should've made more than Tavares, least of all on a less than maximum term contract.
People will argue that the Leafs could've kept that cap space open for say Pietrangelo but that was two years down the line and who knew the Blues would be dumb and let him walk? When elite talent is available and you're in "win now" mode you gotta go for it. Could be argued that the Leafs shouldn't have been in that mode then but they made the playoffs in back to back years, gave the Bruins all they could in a 7 game series (as early 20 somethings when "lessons" and "experience" weren't a punchline), had a Vezina calibre goalie, and adding Tavares gave them a 3-headed monster down the middle of him, Matthews, and Kadri.
It was a fine move, but in typical Leafs fashion it went as wrong as it possibly could've.
CDN24
Registered User
- Jun 17, 2009
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You could argue they missed most of step 1 too.
Yeah they got a 1st for Kessel and a 2nd in the Phaneuf deal but they let other guys walk to free agenct (JVT/Bozak/Gardiner) etc. Had they not tried to accelerate the rebuild those 3 should have been traded out too for prospects/picks. They would have had more assets to buy with when the time came.
The spent more assets on acquiring Babcock (a 3rd) acquiring Lou (another 3rd ) and getting rid of marleau (a 1st) than the got selling off high priced veterans almost.
HamiltonNHL
Resigning Marner == Running it back
- Jan 4, 2012
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It most certainly was.
It absolutely stupidly accelerated the rebuild and inflated contracts for many reasons.
He prevented alot of these steps from happening.
TMLBlueandWhite
Registered User
- Feb 2, 2023
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I feel like the character guys they brought in over the years were the wrong guys too.
Marleau, Thornton, Spezza, Giordano, and Tavares have won as many Stanley Cup as I have. Nice guys who can teach these kids how to be responsible mega-millionaire hockey players but don't know a damn thing about winning. I'm sick of seeing losers teaching other losers how to lose graciously.
Time to bring in some real cup hounds who hate losing more than I hate my life.
Nothing was rushed. The skill was there, and they should've been ready to take the next step. But instead management coddled and overpaid players who were already showing signs of being divas.
Hellcat
Registered User
- Jul 13, 2022
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There is a bad time when it F-ed your cap for 8 years and we had a fine 2nd line center in Kadri. You can't pay your 2nd line center 1st line center money.
Who are these people?
There certainly is, and we found it.
Signing Tavares was a mistake, but is mostly a defensible one. Adding an elite #1C for nothing more than cap space WAS a coup and it WAS supposed to start the parade of good ol' Toronto boys wanting to come home. The follow-on effect of it completely destroying our cap structure and inviting the overpayments of Matthews and Marner can be somewhat attributed to Tavares, but should mostly be left on the shoulders of Dubas.
The real crime, however, was in assigning him the Captaincy. JT does not give off any indication of being able to lead a book club, much less a team in an extremely competitive environment. This was always Matthews' team and putting the C on the blandest of bland is where I think we really went off the rails. Captain Uninspiring and Dubas caving on contracts led this to be a team about Marner and Matthews' egos, first and foremost, and once Babcock was turfed for a player-favourite coach who was made to apologize publicly every time he breathed a negative word about Marner, the course was set.
There were other management wins and losses along the way, but most teams deal with that sort of thing. Where we really lost is that we crowned the boys king before they ever pulled the sword from the stone or slew the giant. I suppose that counts as rushing the rebuild.
The real crime, however, was in assigning him the Captaincy. JT does not give off any indication of being able to lead a book club, much less a team in an extremely competitive environment. This was always Matthews' team and putting the C on the blandest of bland is where I think we really went off the rails. Captain Uninspiring and Dubas caving on contracts led this to be a team about Marner and Matthews' egos, first and foremost, and once Babcock was turfed for a player-favourite coach who was made to apologize publicly every time he breathed a negative word about Marner, the course was set.
There were other management wins and losses along the way, but most teams deal with that sort of thing. Where we really lost is that we crowned the boys king before they ever pulled the sword from the stone or slew the giant. I suppose that counts as rushing the rebuild.
Menzinger
Kessel4LadyByng
I'd definitely imagine most fans would, in retrospect, preferred the team to have gone down a different path now that we have the luxury of hindsight. There are many things this team could and should have done differently.
But there's few teams that would have passed on gambling that they could have made things working given the opportunity to sign a player like this. There's a reason why the overwhelmingly majority of fans and commentators were supportive/happy with the decision (and more than a bit amusing that a few folks are pretending they felt otherwise)
barilko05
People...they're the worst!
- Jan 28, 2011
- 1,173
- 935
All this hue and cry over "JT bad signing, muh muh, herp derp" is all 20/20 hindsight. The signing wasn't bad...until COVID. That messed EVERYTHING. Schedules, seasons, cap, the whole 9 yards. Dubas signed him with the expectation the cap would go up every year of the deal as it had since its implementation, giving us room to play with. Now, after that didn't happen, he admittedly did a lousy job trying to fix it. And he caved to M&M. That's the real reason our cap has been a mess and we've had no depth to speak of.
Trapper
Registered User
- Nov 21, 2013
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I don’t know if rushing it is correct.
If our stars played the game anyway similar to Boston/Florida or produced playoff time like McDavid/Draisaitl it would be a different story.
They don’t. So for me it wasn’t so much rushing as it was allowed to go on too long. Things should have been done before the NMC kicked in.
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hotpaws
Registered User
- Nov 21, 2009
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The goal shouldn't have been to add a big name that wasn't needed but to build a team , if we had spent big money on a stud num 1 RH D as a ufa instead on an overrated/overpriced num 2 C the rebuild would have been advanced instead of stalling .
now all that's left is a few fans who are still making excuses why he should have been signed when it obviously was a mistake which should have been clear from the start
now all that's left is a few fans who are still making excuses why he should have been signed when it obviously was a mistake which should have been clear from the start
Menzinger
Kessel4LadyByng
I'd agree that 'rushing' isn't necessarily the best way of describing it either. Various mistakes were obviously made, and under performances at times didn't help though either. Bad luck too.
But this team wasn't going to stay in the bottom 10 of the league for an extended period of time until it got the perfect combination of players. No team is every fully built like that.
socko
Registered User
Tavares isn't even a great net front player. Prime JVR was a much better net front guy. Tavares's best use on the PP is probably as a passer from behind the goal line. Stamkos isn't a playoff guy either, but I would have much preferred him. First of all, he can skate. And he would add another shooter to the PP which is much needed. Tavares sure gets overrated. He's just not all that.
That's because most leaf fans are hypocrites and overly emotional. They didn't have the maturity to want to stick with what they whined about wanting for a decade and immediately folded as soon as this team was set for the playoffs.
They did rush it. They should have traded JVR and Bozak in their final year. AM or Morgan(my choice) should have been named Captain. They shouldn’t have signed JT. And they wasted so many picks and signed bad contracts all in the name of adding vets garbage. Marleau was so bad on many fronts.
They were going to name Matthews the captain but then he was immature in the off-season and hid his arrest from the organization. Agreed they should have traded Boxak and JVR
thewave
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- Jun 17, 2011
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The own rentals were a dagger in us. JT was a bad signing for sure and the contracts would not have been so bad if no JT.
The own rentals lead to a mortgage the future scenario for Dubas. Now we are stuck and cant move forward.
Ianturnedbull
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- Jun 11, 2022
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Ianturnedbull
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I agree with much of what you're saying, but how do you know they didn't try to move Bozak/Gardiner/JVR? Perhaps they were give pennies to the dollar trade proposals. Maybe they felt like these players could mentor the young pups.
Edit also with all due respect the trade went down like this:
Dion Phaneuf, Cody Donaghey, Casey Bailey, Matt Frattin, and Ryan Rupert to the Ottawa Senators in exchange for Jared Cowan, Colin Greening, Tobias Lindberg, Milan Michalek, and a 2nd round pick in the 2017 NHL Draft.
A lot of garbage from ottawa really.
rumman
Registered User
- Sep 10, 2008
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yes there is, just look at the guy in your avatar, Burke didn't even have the team properly made (cake not baked) and he blew his wad on getting Kessel who imo is icing on the cake, it resulted in putting the team back years. Trade Kessel (icing) to a fully baked cake (Pittsburgh) and you have a wonderful dessert.........
I feel like they should have still been sellers with Bozak, JVR, etc. since those teams weren't going to go far in the playoffs but we let assets walk out the door for no return instead of getting picks or prospects and continuing to stock the cupboard.
Even if we had missed the playoffs those couple years it would have been worth it in the long run.
Even if we had missed the playoffs those couple years it would have been worth it in the long run.
TheGreenTBer
JAMES DOES IT NEED A WASHER YES OR NO
- Apr 30, 2021
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Bingo.
If half our cap were taken up by Nikita Kucherov, Cale Makar, Connor McDavid/Leon Draisaitl and Igor Shesterkin then who cares about the damn depth because those guys carry teams both in the RS and the playoffs.
Unfortunately, none of our 4 come anywhere close to doing both. But they didn't leave any meat on the bone with which to assist them on the ice, and management didn't make the right decisions with the cap space they did have.
So here we are. In f***ing purgatory. Anyone that thinks this team is anywhere else is lying to themselves.
