Name a former Leaf that people generally liked, but you hated.
- Thread starter deltamachine
- Start date
Phil Kessel. Just everything about him from a hockey standpoint. The trade that brought him here. His lazy play on the ice. Toxic attitude on and off it. Was literally addition by subtraction the moment the Leafs traded him.
mmalady
Registered User
I hated him until the Boston series in the shortened season. He really changed as a player and was a standout in what would you would think would be a series that exposed him. I get that Kessel personality wasnt social or anything, but he really was asked to do to much here with so little. Team and management were so desperate to be a good team at the time and we were trash. Kessel took a lot of heat he didnt deserve, and then he finally gave up
Can't really think of any former leafs in recent years that i hated and everyone liked except Dion Phaneuf, for his entire tenure. I know people originally loved him. Never liked him and pretty much signified everything wrong with that era including Kessel. Burke built one of the most obviously bad team compositions.
Honorable mention to Luke Schenn, sucked and everyone spent his rookie season coddling him because we wanted him to be better than Myers
ottomaddox
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Leafidelity
Existentially Drifting
James Reimer and the cult of personality that surrounded him
- Oct 9, 2019
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supermann_98
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- May 8, 2002
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Cujo, for never being able to win a big game, getting outplayed by Arturs freakin Irbe as an example ... and then leaving via free agency which in hindsight was great because Belfour who replaced him was miles more consistent and stable in net.
Judas Tavares
S2S (Sundin2Sandin)
- Feb 9, 2007
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lebdafor norris
sleepy
- Mar 14, 2011
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I forgot the general consensus of for J.M. Liles during his time here, but personally, I was pretty disappointed since I actually though he would only be a slight downgrade to Kaberle when the Leafs traded for him. Not to mention, heading to the 2011 trade deadline, Bruins fans here were hyping Liles up because they didn't want Chia to pay a premium for Kaberle, so that kinda affected my expectations for him.
LeafalCrusader
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67Cup
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- Sep 16, 2005
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Tie Domi. The smirk, the useless fights, the way he would fall over after he would body check somebody even though was the short, squat guy.
incoming!!!
incoming!!!
James Reimer, HE blew game 7, and HE lost 8 in a row the next year, a good goalie doesn't allow that.
James Reimer is not a good goalie
James Reimer is not a good goalie
Martin Skoula
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- Oct 18, 2017
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I liked Kadri's game but you can tell if the hockey thing didn't work out for him he'd be trying to upsell you a car you don't need at a dealership and getting the math wrong on the "great discount" he got you.
danron1376
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- Jan 3, 2011
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i remember cujo said in an interview that one of the main reasons he left toronto was that we didn't sign bobby holik (who eventually was overpaid by another team)
This changed over time obviously but JvR at first. Was a big Schenn fan back then and thought Lupul-Bozak-Kessel was too good to break up.
613Leafer
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- May 26, 2008
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Same.
I realize to an extent it's unfair - it's not Phil's fault that he was traded here, and it's not his fault that he was expected to be "the" guy here. But at the end of the day, we traded two unprotected 1sts, at a time when our #1 goalie options were Gustavsson/Toskala, our #1C was Stajan, and our #1D was Kaberle, plus we had bad depth. Cue the shocked Pikachu face by management when we finished near the bottom in those two years.
It was just such a terrible time to make a trade like that.And then what did we get in the trade? We mortgaged the future for a soft one-dimensional winger, who while very skilled, is not the type of player you build a franchise around. If I'm thinking of who I'd want to build a franchise around, it's a C, D, or G way ahead of a winger, unless it's an Ovechkin/Kucherov calibre winger.
There was also zero accountability, in that he was allowed to just coast defensively and never really fight for loose pucks for years, and just continue to get rewarded with top icetime, top PP time, big contract, etc. As the biggest name player on the team, and the one who eventually got the biggest contract on the team, he was a key guy young players would look up to, whether he liked it or not. So beyond the trade being terrible, I didn't think he was a good role model for our younger players, and I think our coaching/management didn't do anything to hold him accountable or try to set expectations for the team as a whole.
I think there are some rose coloured glasses where people look back fondly, and laugh about some of his jokes and interactions with the media, but it was a truly terrible stretch of time for the Leafs, and pretty much the entire time he was here I wanted the Leafs to hit reset on their terrible plan and just commit to a rebuild through the draft.
Subway Schenn
Registered User
Reimer. I guess hate is a strong word (and he seems like a nice dude) but I thought he was dog shit as a goalie.
Trunz05
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- Dec 2, 2010
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Roman polak. Loved gunnarsson and thought polak was a pylon before he was a leaf. Confirmed he was a pylon after playing for us.
