keonsbitterness
Registered User
If he shows no interest in re-signing and the Leafs trade him by June 30, 2023 before his NMC kicks in, so be it. But I don't see it.
How was this 2021 "re-tooling" different from the multi-player turnover most teams go through every off-season due to free agency, trades, retirements, performance, cap issues, etc?See last summer we went into re-tooling and identified Hyman, Bogosian, Thornton and Freddy Andersen etc as the problem the core didn't win, and replaced them with Bunting, Kase, Nick Ritchie (who became Ilya Lyubushkin) and Petr Mrazek and got the same result. While the players they deemed expendable are still playing and on rosters now in the second round with their new teams.
Hyman for example who has 4-2-6 playoff points, has as many goals as Auston (4) and more than Marner (2), Nylander (3) and Tavares(3) of Leafs core in this years playoffs. He was blamed because he couldn't put Matthews and Marner over the top, and into round #2 last year, but not the case getting McDavid and Draisaitl moving on.
Hyman wanted a raise so Leafs replaced him cap wise with Bunting, Kase and Ritchie thinking 3 for 1 was better for the goal of longer term playoff success. Ritchie already long gone, Kase an RFA with multiple injury filled season and questionable to return, while Bunting took Hyman's spot on the top line beside AM & MM and while he had a good regular season his 1 goal playoff resulted in the same 1st round loss for the team.
Bogosian goes from TB (Stanley Cup) to ---> Toronto (out in round #1) --> back to Tampa (Stanley Cup ? TBD)
Freddy Andersen for $4.5 mil cap puts up 35 wins in reg season helping Carolina to 1st in the Metro, his replacement Mrazek for $3.8 mil saving $750k cap plays in 20 games and wins 12 for Toronto and now Leafs want out of that contract. Freddy Andersen deemed the problem in Toronto in game #7's the reason Leafs didn't advance in prior years, so his playoff replacement Jack Campbell also now 0-2 in series clinching games the 2nd best goalie in the game.
So this years Hyman, Thornton, Bogosian and Andersen appear to be identified as Mikheyev, Spezza, Lyubushkin and Jack Campbell all UFA and deemed expendable so Leafs can bring back the same core group again swapping out a few spare parts and run it back..
Lets hope this year's big trade like Kadri for Kerfoot and Barrie turns out more successful than last one for Leafs. Where Kadri blamed for past playoff losses, and now Kerfoot and Barrie more recent ones. Of course ex-Leafs Kadri and Barrie are now still playing in round #2, while the current one Kerfoot directly responsible and can be pinpointed to for a loss and exit, and earmarked to GO in trade this year,
After rinsing and repeating this process now for the past 4 unsuccessful years, Leafs current management trifecta, believe lucky #5 is the charm, and plan once again to tinker & re-tool around the edges with the process, when apparently its not the players being swapped out, but rather the players and management team staying that is the constant denominator in the Leafs losing in round #1. Pretty obvious you can't blame Hyman nor Kadri nor Barrie nor Freddy Andersen for the Leafs struggles in this years playoffs.
How many playoff teams/likely playoff teams do that? Most try to add at the deadline. GMs are notoriously greedy for success. Why would ours be any different?
Domi -- probably not after his rookie year.
Tucker -- probably a lot. He wasn't feared like Domi was.
