Re-tooling For One More Run With This Core

[Drugstorecowboi]

"One more run with this core"...only in Toronto

 

[A1LeafNation]

I think Tavares has an NMC, and it would be hard to imagine the Leafs asking him to waive it. He's probably here until the end of his contract.

Since I'm just a fan -- and not management -- I'm allowed to play favorites. I really like John Tavares and I can't stand Evander Kane. Kane is much better than Tavares on the ice, but I don't think I would get too wound up cheering for him.

To each his own.

It's hard to move Tavares for sure, but no amount of skirting other issues which really aren't that bad takes away from the fact that we are doing it bc he is the problem.

Address the issue head on as hard as it may be.

 

[Sypher04]

You absolutely run it back. Maybe you tinker with the core at absolute most.

The Leafs got zero goals from a forward not named Matthews, Tavares or Nylander in games 4-7. The core showed up. Nobody else did.

 

[DuklaNation]

There's a pile of guys round the league that could help our bottom 6.

Long-shots, but should be cheap:
Max Jones, Wade Allison, Mackenzie Entwistle, Eetu Tuulola

Solid bottom-6 guys:
Auston Watson, Christian Fischer, Keegan Kolesar, Nathan Bastian

Middle-6 guys:
Max Comtois, Nicolas Roy, Lawson Crouse, Jordan Greenway, Pavel Zacha, Miles Wood, Yakov Trenin

SOme good choices in here. Dubas has unfortunately ruined his flexibility even beyond the top 4 forward issue.

 

[Nylanderthal]

id be shocked if they looked to move marner but i get what you are saying. I think though you start with nylander and kerfoot. nylander is not a playoff guy and plays with no force. We need to start there. Lets see if Dubas has any balls

Nylander has been the best of the bunch the last three post seasons. Moving off a 6.9aav ppg guy who takes it up a notch in the post season isn’t the way to get playoff success.

 

[Leaffan1991]

Nylander has been the best of the bunch the last three post seasons. Moving off a 6.9aav ppg guy who takes it up a notch in the post season isn’t the way to get playoff success.

Look at the whole picture besides points. He was the worst of the four when it came to the complete game

 

[Willchel Marlynder]

If we run it back let's do something drastic. JT on Matthews wing Nylander and Marner with a FA centre. Yes Matthews won't score 70 goals and yes Mitch might not break 100 points, but it gives the team 2 legit 1st lines and you really do have to pick your poison.

Will obviously never happen as Marner and Matthews are tied to the hip, but it would be nice for Keefe or whoever the new coach will/should be to actually experiment more with having your two best players drive their own line (like other teams who have done far more then we have in the playoffs have done). Especially when the team has pieces like JT and Nylander to play with as well.

 

[Nylanderthal]

Look at the whole picture besides points. He was the worst of the four when it came to the complete game

Was he tho?

 

[Willchel Marlynder]

Look at the whole picture besides points. He was the worst of the four when it came to the complete game

So what sub $7M player do you bring in that will have a more complete game than Matthews, Marner and Tavares (All players making 8 figure salaries by the way)

 

[Nylanderthal]

If we run it back let's do something drastic. JT on Matthews wing Nylander and Marner with a FA centre. Yes Matthews won't score 70 goals and yes Mitch might not break 100 points, but it gives the team 2 legit 1st lines and you really do have to pick your poison.

Will obviously never happen as Marner and Matthews are tied to the hip, but it would be nice for Keefe or whoever the new coach will/should be to actually experiment more with having your two best players drive their own line (like other teams who have done far more then we have in the playoffs have done). Especially when the team has pieces like JT and Nylander to play with as well.

This is creative, I like it.

 

[Leaffan1991]

So what sub $7M player do you bring in that will have a more complete game than Matthews, Marner and Tavares (All players making 8 figure salaries by the way)

JT Miller

 

[Nylanderthal]

SOme good choices in here. Dubas has unfortunately ruined his flexibility even beyond the top 4 forward issue.

No he hasn’t. There’s plenty of cap to move around. You can make 20m in cap space by shuffling out/not extending mrazek Campbell Holl muzzin kerfoot Kase mikheyev. You have internal replacements on the back end ready to go in Sandin and liljegren who might take 1-2m in raises from that pool, and you have to expect one of Steeves Anderson Robertson Abruessezze or someone else is ready to make a jump and steal a spot on the team at some point. So that leaves 17m for the goalie situation and some scoring depth.

 

[Dreakmur]

Didn't have to play there best hockey or was unable to play like they want to? If youre still thinking toronto was too soft this season, your clearly didn't watch the same serie of me. Its not because they lost than you are too soft.

Too win in playoff
-you need to play hard : they did it
-You need your goalie giving you a shot to win: campbell did it
-You need to be ready to pay the price and go on traffic, blocking shot, getting hit, playing hurt and whatever : they did it
-And during a serie flip coin, you need luck too: they dont get him at all

Ghost Call on kampf game #6 change everything. If they dont call it, the way leafs was playing... probably this serie is over in 6.

Call on tavares for interence but uncall the same kind of thing on paul 2nd goal and puck bouncing : matthews of spezza deflected the puck 2 inches short of the net...

Toronto did everything they need to win this series but still loose. It was happening when maybe the best 2 team in eastern playing against each other round 1. Im pretty sure if leafs was playing any other eastern team playing the same exact way they did, they would be in round 2, and i dont have any doubt about it.

It was a combination of both - us trying to go to the net more certainly made it harder for Vasilevakiy. We didn’t do anything to make Kucherov not work hard and just float around.

They played a hard as they could and it wasn’t good enough… because they were too weak and soft. That’s part of the reason we took so many penalties - players that didn’t really know how to play physical hockey were trying to force it.

 

[notbias]

It was a combination of both - us trying to go to the net more certainly made it harder for Vasilevakiy. We didn’t do anything to make Kucherov not work hard and just float around.

They played a hard as they could and it wasn’t good enough… because they were too weak and soft. That’s part of the reason we took so many penalties - players that didn’t really know how to play physical hockey were trying to force it.

Kucherov was trash outside of the powerplay

Your opinion on why it wasn't enough is laughable.

We were the tougher team, I saw Tampa as the weak team.

 

[Dreakmur]

You absolutely run it back. Maybe you tinker with the core at absolute most.

The Leafs got zero goals from a forward not named Matthews, Tavares or Nylander in games 4-7. The core showed up. Nobody else did.

Rielly scored, but I count him as part of the core anyway. Those guys make up 60% of the cap next year, so it their offence isn’t enough, we’re in trouble.

No he hasn’t. There’s plenty of cap to move around. You can make 20m in cap space by shuffling out/not extending mrazek Campbell Holl muzzin kerfoot Kase mikheyev. You have internal replacements on the back end ready to go in Sandin and liljegren who might take 1-2m in raises from that pool, and you have to expect one of Steeves Anderson Robertson Abruessezze or someone else is ready to make a jump and steal a spot on the team at some point. So that leaves 17m for the goalie situation and some scoring depth.

The problem with all those internal changes is they aren’t really changes. It’s just a bunch of new soft/small skill.

 

[ryno23]

I run this team back minus a few players. Took 2x cup champ to game 7 and outside of horrendous officiating in game 6 probably would have won the series in 6 games and we wouldn't be having any of this talk.

Kerfoot, Holl, Marazek all moved to free up cap space. Re-tool the 4th line with younger players and keep Spezza as the 13th forward who plays half 3/4 of the games to stay fresh for the playoffs.

 

[ACC1224]

It was a combination of both - us trying to go to the net more certainly made it harder for Vasilevakiy. We didn’t do anything to make Kucherov not work hard and just float around.

They played a hard as they could and it wasn’t good enough… because they were too weak and soft. That’s part of the reason we took so many penalties - players that didn’t really know how to play physical hockey were trying to force it.

This is a recording.

 

[Sypher04]

It was a combination of both - us trying to go to the net more certainly made it harder for Vasilevakiy. We didn’t do anything to make Kucherov not work hard and just float around.

They played a hard as they could and it wasn’t good enough… because they were too weak and soft. That’s part of the reason we took so many penalties - players that didn’t really know how to play physical hockey were trying to force it.

That’s simply not true. The Leafs had been playing a physical brand most games since before the trade deadline and penalties were nowhere close to the issue they became in the first round. It didn’t seem like anything was being forced at all. Hell most of the penalties were stick infractions. The weak and soft narrative continues to be horsecrap

This is a recording.

And yet it’s still not true

 

[Dreakmur]

Kucherov was trash outside of the powerplay

Your opinion on why it wasn't enough is laughable.

We were the tougher team, I saw Tampa as the weak team.

I’ve been saying Kucherov was bad all series. He didn’t even try. Toronto didn’t make that happen is my point. It was a gift that they failed to capitalize on.

Guys like Kerfoot and Blackwell tried to play hard but they were just too weak to accomplish much physically. 5’9” vs 6’4” is a tough road to take…

 

[notbias]

I’ve been saying Kucherov was bad all series. He didn’t even try. Toronto didn’t make that happen is my point. It was a gift that they failed to capitalize on.

Guys like Kerfoot and Blackwell tried to play hard but they were just too weak to accomplish much physically. 5’9” vs 6’4” is a tough road to take…

Why would someone not try?

Isn't Tampa smaller than the Leafs? At most they are similar size, so ya, not sure what that has to do with anything.

Also, refs said no to rough stuff starting game one.

 

[Dreakmur]

That’s simply not true. The Leafs had been playing a physical brand most games since before the trade deadline and penalties were nowhere close to the issue they became in the first round. It didn’t seem like anything was being forced at all. Hell most of the penalties were stick infractions. The weak and soft narrative continues to be horsecrap

If you think that was even close to physical hockey, I don’t know what to tell you. The leafs are the epitome of soft skill. I’ll give them credit for trying to play tough, but they just couldn’t because they aren’t built that way.

The penalties were stick infractions because guys were trying to play a tougher style that they didn’t really know how to play.

 

[Sypher04]

Rielly scored, but I count him as part of the core anyway. Those guys make up 60% of the cap next year, so it their offence isn’t enough, we’re in trouble.

I do too, though to be fair, I said forwards. The cap is nearly always heavily skewed toward the core players, and was for Tampa too. They still got more from their rest. Their third line in particular. Mikheyev and Engvall had excellent seasons this year, looked to have taken a step and ghosted us in the playoffs. They absolutely should have been factors. There was still enough up front we should have been able to count on some help for the big guns

 

[ACC1224]

That’s simply not true. The Leafs had been playing a physical brand most games since before the trade deadline and penalties were nowhere close to the issue they became in the first round. It didn’t seem like anything was being forced at all. Hell most of the penalties were stick infractions. The weak and soft narrative continues to be horsecrap



And yet it’s still not true

Don't know what to tell you, watch better.
Sure they played somewhat more aggressive this year than prior years but not enough, too many passengers.

 

[Dreakmur]

Why would someone not try?

Isn't Tampa smaller than the Leafs? At most they are similar size, so ya, not sure what that has to do with anything.

Also, refs said no to rough stuff starting game one.

There are reports coming out that Kucherov is sick, which makes more sense. I have no idea why he wouldn’t try, but he was useless and it was mostly because he wasn’t skating hard and making really stupid plays.

If you go down the list, they might be as tall, but weight is part of it too. Playing style combined with size is what really matters though.

Look at Tampa’s blueline - of the 6, Hedman is the least physically aggressive, though it seems to be him conserving energy to play 30 minutes and he just picks a few spots to send messages. After him, McDonagh and Cernak are absolute monsters in battles. We all know what Bogosian brings… and he’s the only guy under 215 lbs. Sergachev is hot and cold in battles, but he’s 6’3” rat and likes to hurt people. Then they have 6’4” rookie Cal Foote.

Toronto’s blueline has poke-checkers like Rielly and Brodie. Big-for-nothing Justin Holl. Giordano is feisty, but he’s on the smaller side. Muzzin tries, but he just can’t get around the ice well enough anymore. Lyubushkin would fit into Tampa’s blueline, but he stands out in Toronto.

 

[Sypher04]

Don't know what to tell you, watch better.
Sure they played somewhat more aggressive this year than prior years but not enough, too many passengers.

Watch better… what an asinine response.
The Leafs could have been more physical, it tapered off a bit as the series wore on from where it started, but they did not play soft or weak. And it wasn’t why they lost