Confirmed with Link: Shanahan, Dubas, Keefe all staying

[Nineteen67]

Because after making the playoffs two years in a row, it was clear that we weren't going to be doing more rebuilding by tanking and so they saw an opportunity to add a game breaker for nothing but money and cap space?

Whether they signed Tavares or not, their picks wre going to be in the late teens/early 20's for the forseeable future,.

They could have stayed the course and used the picks to add players when they were ready to contend. Maybe they could have signed a Cup winning #1 D?

 

[Racer88]

They could have stayed the course and used the picks to add players when they were ready to contend. Maybe they could have signed a Cup winning #1 D?

Or picked up a contending goalie……..but we will never know

 

[Racer88]

$40 mil in 4 forwards is a flawed strategy to start.

Tampa Bay has it right ....

1) All-Star Conn Smythe MVP Goalie ($9.5 mil),& 2) Norris and Conn Smythe MVP Dman Hedman ($7.8 mil) + 3 X offensive forwards Kucherov, Stamkos and Point leading the offense as the next 3 cap usage players for $42 mil.
vs
Toronto where AM + JT + MM + WN = $40.5 mil

Leafs have their forwards covered for the same cap usage 1/2 cap, too bad were only missing the 2 most important pieces the All-World Goalie and the Norris Dman.

It’s mind boggling how few posters here understand the concept of balancing the skill among all 3 basics position.

 

[LilySmoov]

The Raps might have been lucky...but Luck is where preparation and opportunity meet.

We are not more prepared than others and thus our team doesn't get the benefit of the bounces. Dubas thinks it just flukey luck....if you keep thinking that...you will end up on the wrong end more often than not.

"Luck is where preparation and opportunity meet" is cliche material, not actual factual insight. How do you measure or identify preparedness? Because you appear to be committing the same fallacy mentioned in the post you quoted - you're starting from your conclusion and working backwards. "We lost, therefore we weren't prepared" even though, as has been demonstrated, the difference between winning and losing is sometimes nothing more than luck. Your assessment here seems to be based largely on the what rather than the how, the results rather than the method. What happens if we get that lucky bounce in game 6? Would that have made us more prepared in your eyes? Would your perception of the team or the management group radically change? Because if yes, then that exemplifies the problem I'm talking about. But if no, then you acknowledge how superficial this level of analysis is.

I'm astonished how hard your trying to spin one shot which wasn't lucky into the focal point of why the Raps won FOUR ROUNDS and a championship even though you keep denying you are .

and yes if the shot didn't go in and the Raps lost in o/t and didn't win a title of course they would have been viewed much differently , why wouldn't they ? you don't get a parade for getting respect after losing while shaking hands

i'll put it this way , the Bills went to 4 consecutive Super Bowls , do you not believe they would have been viewed differently if Norwoods field goal went through the uprights or if they managed to win a few other times they got there ?

I also didn't give any reason why we lost again so i have no idea why you rambled on about that but i guess you needed to invent something to argue about .

This has been explained to you now repeatedly - nobody is making that shot the "focal point" of their victory. It's meant to illustrate the part luck can play in the creation of narratives.

Except we know for a fact that team was a championship caliber team, yet we can imagine a perfectly feasible scenario where a team so well-constructed loses in the semis. So shouldn't the takeaway here be that no matter how great a roster is constructed, there's enough variability and unpredictability in the moment-to-moment ongoings of certain sports that it's not always as simple as "Team lose therefore worse, other team win therefore better"?

Of course they would have, but the point is the narratives surrounding those losses aren't necessarily reflective of the reality surrounding those losses. I don't know enough about those Bills teams or the specifics of why they lost, so no further comment aside from this question betrays the exact same fallacy I've pointed out multiple times now.

It was a general example of a common cliched criticism. I also qualified it with "whichever narrative you prefer" for a reason. The point remains the same regardless.

 

[Dekes For Days]

He has 50% of his cap tied up in 4 similar forwards……….nobody else in the league has done that so I would say that qualifies as reinventing the wheel

1. That "50%" thing wasn't so much a choice as it was a situation brought on by a once-in-a-lifetime global pandemic heavily and unexpectedly stagnating the cap.
2. The 4 forwards are not very similar other than the fact they are forwards.
3. Teams allocating a significant portion of their cap to their top players isn't new.

We have bargain basement goalies and that’s what you get

Neither of Andersen or Campbell are "bargain basement" goalies, and the cap you spend on a goalie really doesn't say much about the quality of goaltending you're going to get, especially during that specific small sample. Should we have paid 10m for Bobrovsky to watch him get swept? Should we have signed recent Vezina finalist Markstrom for 6m, so we could have watched him implode with the worst series performance of the playoffs? Maybe Dubas could have invented a time machine, gone back to 2014 before he was GM, and convinced Nonis that the 14th drafted goalie that year was going to be a superstar?

 

[Mess]

Which begs the question: why did they signed Tavares that early in the rebuild?

You already had a franchise #1C in Matthews, why not wait a year and then sign Stanley Cup winning and #1Dman Alex Pietrangelo as a UFA and bring the GTA born kid home and start building up the defense core.

Pietrangelo is pretty close to a Norris Level dman and a top pairing of Rielly -- Pietrangelo make a pretty good top pairing defense. on a Cup winning team

You don't have to just draft players, you can sign them as UFAs and trade for them also.

When the Leafs did sign Tavares many in Leaf nation said then now trade Marner or Nylander for a top pairing Dman, because you can't afford everyone now and you need to invest that cap more wisely in goaltending or defense. A new GM to address Leafs cap situation would likely attempt just that of moving a higher priced forward contract for a help in goal or on defense.

PS. not all players are taken in the top 10 of a draft either, there are more rounds and more picks.

Leafs drafted William Nylander #8 overall in 2014, while the Stanley Cup winning Lighting draft Brayden Point 3rd round 79th overall, and he lead the playoffs in goal scoring in 2020 and 2021 on the way to both Cups. While Igor Shesterkin was drafted in the 4th #118 OA in the same draft as Nylander. Leafs had multiple picks between Nylander and both those player from that draft class. Nobody is claiming the nonsensical BS of reaching in a draft you can still draft Nylander and then trade him to address other needs.

 

[Racer88]

1. That "50%" thing wasn't so much a choice as it was a situation brought on by a once-in-a-lifetime global pandemic heavily and unexpectedly stagnating the cap.
2. The 4 forwards are not very similar other than the fact they are forwards.
3. Teams allocating a significant portion of their cap to their top players isn't new.

Neither of Andersen or Campbell are "bargain basement" goalies, and the cap you spend on a goalie really doesn't say much about the quality of goaltending you're going to get, especially during that specific small sample. Should we have paid 10m for Bobrovsky to watch him get swept? Should we have signed recent Vezina finalist Markstrom for 6m, so we could have watched him implode with the worst series performance of the playoffs? Maybe Dubas could have invented a time machine, gone back to 2014 before he was GM, and convinced Nonis that the 14th drafted goalie that year was going to be a superstar?

It was a choice. He did not need Tavares when he had 3 young forward stars in the line up.
yes teams allocate significant portions of their cap to top players but what teams do it with 4 forwards.
yes while it is true that spending big money on goaltending is not a guarantee of great performance im betting the odds are better then bargain basement guys or the other possibility is that Dubas simply can’t identify good goal tending

 

[hotpaws]

This has been explained to you now repeatedly - nobody is making that shot the "focal point" of their victory. It's meant to illustrate the part luck can play in the creation of narratives.

Except we know for a fact that team was a championship caliber team, yet we can imagine a perfectly feasible scenario where a team so well-constructed loses in the semis. So shouldn't the takeaway here be that no matter how great a roster is constructed, there's enough variability and unpredictability in the moment-to-moment ongoings of certain sports that it's not always as simple as "Team lose therefore worse, other team win therefore better"?

Of course they would have, but the point is the narratives surrounding those losses aren't necessarily reflective of the reality surrounding those losses. I don't know enough about those Bills teams or the specifics of why they lost, so no further comment aside from this question betrays the exact same fallacy I've pointed out multiple times now.

It was a general example of a common cliched criticism. I also qualified it with "whichever narrative you prefer" for a reason. The point remains the same regardless.

and the end goal of your argument is what exactly ? our discussion started when i replied to another poster we need to find a luckier GM/Coach and you took offense to that but here you are saying how much luck plays into winning and losing

at the end of the day your argument is worthless since it's now been 4 straight years of failure under Dubas even when we got "lucky" enough to face weak opponents in the first rd

it's up to mgmt to dissect the season and plot a course to improve , the problem is Dubas handcuffed himself by handing JT an 11m dollar deal and a full nmc which means all he can do is shuffle the bargain bin deck chairs and hope for the best while coming up with new excuses if he falls short again to keep his job

 

[hotpaws]

Which begs the question: why did they signed Tavares that early in the rebuild?

wanted to make a big splash just like Burke did when he traded the picks for Kessel

both those moves doomed their tenure here as it was just starting

It’s mind boggling how few posters here understand the concept of balancing the skill among all 3 basics position.

they understand fine they just can't admit Dubas f***ed up and ruined our rebuild

 

[Racer88]

what to make a big splash just like Burke did when he traded the picks for Kessel

both those moves doomed their tenure here as it was just starting


they understand fine they just can't admit Dubas f***ed up and ruined our rebuild

Ya, there’s that. Lol

 

[Dekes For Days]

You already had a franchise #1C in Matthews, why not wait a year and then sign Stanley Cup winning and #1Dman Alex Pietrangelo

We already had a #1C and a #1D, and we were actually very weak organizationally at center behind Matthews. Pietrangelo hadn't won a cup yet, FYI, and he wouldn't be UFA for 2 years at that point, and the chance that he wouldn't be signed by St Louis and would want to come to the Leafs at a reasonable price was very small. You don't pass up a chance at a player like Tavares for that. There's also a lot more risk involved with signing a soon-to-be 31 year old for 7 years vs. a soon-to-be 28 year old.

A new GM to address Leafs cap situation would likely attempt just that of moving a higher priced forward contract for a help in goal or on defense.

Thankfully, we had a GM who instead was able to build up a top defense without sacrificing our top-end forwards.

 

[francis246]

If the Leafs got their picks right but are forwards as you say why hasn’t Dubas turned at least 1 of them into a stud at goaltending or defence


If that is the case then the GM’s who acquired these stud reasonably priced goalies must be smart but it still begs the question as to why Dubas hasn’t addressed this issue

Because the right deal hasn’t presented itself. What goalie are you realistically trading Nylander or Marner for? If they ain’t Vasi or Igor in NYR I wouldn’t make that move.

You don’t trade top superstar players for the sake of trading them.

Think of any #1 dmen.. yup you probably have 3-5 in mind. Guess what they ain’t moving because teams aren’t just trading #1 defenseman lmao.

It’s a simple formula. Unless you get lucky in UFA and sign one. You have to get some luck and draft and develop one

 

[Racer88]

We already had a #1C and a #1D, and we were actually very weak organizationally at center behind Matthews. Pietrangelo hadn't won a cup yet, FYI, and he wouldn't be UFA for 2 years at that point, and the chance that he wouldn't be signed by St Louis and would want to come to the Leafs at a reasonable price was very small. You don't pass up a chance at a player like Tavares for that. There's also a lot more risk involved with signing a soon-to-be 31 year old for 7 years vs. a soon-to-be 28 year old.

Thankfully, we had a GM who instead was able to build up a top defense without sacrificing our top-end forwards.

I’m just curious. exactly what has Tavares accomplished with the Leafs so far either from a personal level or team that says you don’t pass up a very expensive free agent

Because the right deal hasn’t presented itself. What goalie are you realistically trading Nylander or Marner for? If they ain’t Vasi or Igor in NYR I wouldn’t make that move.

You don’t trade top superstar players for the sake of trading them.

Think of any #1 dmen.. yup you probably have 3-5 in mind. Guess what they ain’t moving because teams aren’t just trading #1 defenseman lmao.

It’s a simple formula. Unless you get lucky in UFA and sign one. You have to get some luck and draft and develop one

I’m not sure what goalie you trade for because we as fans have no idea who might be had but that doesn’t change the fact that other teams get good goalies thru varies means so why not us.
i just don’t feel that we can continue to dump all the money into these 4 guys when it’s been shown that none of they can rise above and move us on to the next level………none of them are game breakers in the Playoffs

 

[Nineteen67]

I’m just curious. exactly what has Tavares accomplished with the Leafs so far either from a personal level or team that says you don’t pass up a very expensive free agent


I’m not sure what goalie you trade for because we as fans have no idea who might be had but that doesn’t change the fact that other teams get good goalies thru varies means so why not us.
i just don’t feel that we can continue to dump all the money into these 4 guys when it’s been shown that none of they can rise above and move us on to the next level………none of them are game breakers in the Playoffs

There are not many teams that have an $11 million 2nd line C.

There we’re lots of people that questioned the signing and said the Leafs would be in this predicament. That was even before the bigger mistakes they made when signing the RFAs, which has compounded the issue.

 

[deprw]

Not only does that not indicate a lack of preparedness, but for the record, in the 7 game series with Tampa, we outshot them 3 times in the 1st period, they outshot us 3 times in the 1st period, and we tied 1 time in the 1st period.

I always hate this starting on time statement put under not prepared tag. It can be also over preparing and pushing too much information and gameplan to players that they can't comprehend or process. Which leads to over thinking. I think this is one thing that experienced coach understands.

Until you know which one is it you're going to guess.

 

[killer1980]

I think it is more than clear that Dubas has no idea about the financial implications of what he has done. Heck, my kids can't muliply 4x4 without a calculator and they're about his age. Had he not blown all that money on a #2 center, he could have kept Kadri, arguably a much better #2 man than JT. Then he would have had room for either Hyman or Brown. Don't care about Kadri's past indiscretions. He has proven he could overcome that in the proper environment. We have seen the value of the supporting cast as these playoffs drag on.

Just like in television and business it, ultimately, is the supporting cast that puts you over the top. The Leafs have none.

 

[francis246]

I think it is more than clear that Dubas has no idea about the financial implications of what he has done. Heck, my kids can't muliply 4x4 without a calculator and they're about his age. Had he not blown all that money on a #2 center, he could have kept Kadri, arguably a much better #2 man than JT. Then he would have had room for either Hyman or Brown. Don't care about Kadri's past indiscretions. He has proven he could overcome that in the proper environment. We have seen the value of the supporting cast as these playoffs drag on.

Just like in television and business it, ultimately, is the supporting cast that puts you over the top. The Leafs have none.

I'm not the biggest Dubas fan but even I can rationalize that he made the Tavares signing under the Salary Cap projections all NHL teams had at that time. I don't know what people want Dubas to do. Go back in time and prevent Covid from happening? It's absolutely shitty that it happened but it's really dumb to assume he could have foreseen that, but before covid the new TNT/ESPN deal was supposed to boost the cap a lot. Prior to covid there was no reason to believe that the cap projections (that are given by the NHL) weren't going to come to fruition.

 

[SeaOfBlue]

"Luck is where preparation and opportunity meet" is cliche material, not actual factual insight. How do you measure or identify preparedness? Because you appear to be committing the same fallacy mentioned in the post you quoted - you're starting from your conclusion and working backwards. "We lost, therefore we weren't prepared" even though, as has been demonstrated, the difference between winning and losing is sometimes nothing more than luck. Your assessment here seems to be based largely on the what rather than the how, the results rather than the method. What happens if we get that lucky bounce in game 6? Would that have made us more prepared in your eyes? Would your perception of the team or the management group radically change? Because if yes, then that exemplifies the problem I'm talking about. But if no, then you acknowledge how superficial this level of analysis is.



This has been explained to you now repeatedly - nobody is making that shot the "focal point" of their victory. It's meant to illustrate the part luck can play in the creation of narratives.

Except we know for a fact that team was a championship caliber team, yet we can imagine a perfectly feasible scenario where a team so well-constructed loses in the semis. So shouldn't the takeaway here be that no matter how great a roster is constructed, there's enough variability and unpredictability in the moment-to-moment ongoings of certain sports that it's not always as simple as "Team lose therefore worse, other team win therefore better"?

Of course they would have, but the point is the narratives surrounding those losses aren't necessarily reflective of the reality surrounding those losses. I don't know enough about those Bills teams or the specifics of why they lost, so no further comment aside from this question betrays the exact same fallacy I've pointed out multiple times now.

It was a general example of a common cliched criticism. I also qualified it with "whichever narrative you prefer" for a reason. The point remains the same regardless.

Very well said, but I have been pushing this for a long time and it doesn't matter. There is a large portion of this fanbase which either cannot comprehend, or simply refuses to believe, this concept.

 

[Gabriel426]

If AM, MM and JT played like they are being paid, which are top 8 Salaries in the league thus top 8 players in the league. I think their AVV is not a problem.
Sad thing is all 3 have not perform as a TOP 8 players in the playoffs.

 

[LilySmoov]

and the end goal of your argument is what exactly ? our discussion started when i replied to another poster we need to find a luckier GM/Coach and you took offense to that but here you are saying how much luck plays into winning and losing

at the end of the day your argument is worthless since it's now been 4 straight years of failure under Dubas even when we got "lucky" enough to face weak opponents in the first rd

it's up to mgmt to dissect the season and plot a course to improve , the problem is Dubas handcuffed himself by handing JT an 11m dollar deal and a full nmc which means all he can do is shuffle the bargain bin deck chairs and hope for the best while coming up with new excuses if he falls short again to keep his job

The end goal is to hopefully contribute to people saying less dumb things. I realize the odds of that happening is essentially 0, but I felt compelled nonetheless. And to be perfectly clear, while a number of people are acknowledging luck is an ever-present factor, it was you who grossly misrepresented SeaOfBlue's post as implying winning is "all" based on luck. Like you literally just misrepresented your own misrepresentation.

Indeed it has. So wouldn't it be nice to actually understand why we failed so we can avoid failure in the future?

How do you differentiate between an excuse and a legitimate reason?

 

[Gabriel426]

"Luck is where preparation and opportunity meet" is cliche material, not actual factual insight. How do you measure or identify preparedness? Because you appear to be committing the same fallacy mentioned in the post you quoted - you're starting from your conclusion and working backwards. "We lost, therefore we weren't prepared" even though, as has been demonstrated, the difference between winning and losing is sometimes nothing more than luck. Your assessment here seems to be based largely on the what rather than the how, the results rather than the method. What happens if we get that lucky bounce in game 6? Would that have made us more prepared in your eyes? Would your perception of the team or the management group radically change? Because if yes, then that exemplifies the problem I'm talking about. But if no, then you acknowledge how superficial this level of analysis is.



This has been explained to you now repeatedly - nobody is making that shot the "focal point" of their victory. It's meant to illustrate the part luck can play in the creation of narratives.

Except we know for a fact that team was a championship caliber team, yet we can imagine a perfectly feasible scenario where a team so well-constructed loses in the semis. So shouldn't the takeaway here be that no matter how great a roster is constructed, there's enough variability and unpredictability in the moment-to-moment ongoings of certain sports that it's not always as simple as "Team lose therefore worse, other team win therefore better"?

Of course they would have, but the point is the narratives surrounding those losses aren't necessarily reflective of the reality surrounding those losses. I don't know enough about those Bills teams or the specifics of why they lost, so no further comment aside from this question betrays the exact same fallacy I've pointed out multiple times now.

It was a general example of a common cliched criticism. I also qualified it with "whichever narrative you prefer" for a reason. The point remains the same regardless.

You are keep spinning.

This past series was different from the past few years actually it reminded me of our 2nd Series where the team seemed to be more prepare. You can't honestly sit here and state the team was as prepared as this past series as in Game 5-7 against the Habs or Game 4-5 against BJs. Results matters but just watched those games again and watch this past series and you could clearly see which Leafs team was more ready to play from the get go.
These preparation might not just be the Xs and Os from coaches, they could also be the mentality of the players.

I think comparing the Superbowl or football playoffs to the other BIG 3 playoffs are different in that football is a one off game while the other three are a series, where luck plays less of a factor.

Also, the unlucky part of getting TB or any other teams, this is the playoffs and the goal is to win the Cup and not a round. Winning the Cup means beating great teams, you cannot take comfort in, we made it tough for this great team....The boys need to beat these great teams and win the Cup.

The current Leafs is not a bad team and they could beat any teams in the playoffs, but the question is Can they do it? Would having someone like Trotz helps bc he led his team to TWO Conf Finals and a Cup the past few years, definitely.
Would getting someone like Marchand or Toews or Malkin help, I can't see why not since all three of them actually won a Cup and knows what it takes to win a Cup plus they can still play on a high level.

Look at the Leafs, and beside Muz and Hanisey, I really can't name anyone who won the Cup or played a major role in winning the Cup. Heck only JT, Muz and Willie were part of a team that won something for their Country.

The talents are there, their work ethic are there as this past playoffs had shown, the last part is their mentality. If a coaching change would help, I really don't see why not.

 

[Menzinger]

Maybe you're both over thinking some basic comments to the media? Feels like both coaches were just trying to manage the mentality of their teams, I wouldn't read any more in to it

A major problem is folks act like one off media quotes are things edged in stone.

You'll still see quotes brought up years later as if the person who said them didn't forget they made them the very next day...

 

[Menzinger]

An ironic thing about this goaltending discussion over the past few pages is that Tampa gave up more goals against during the series than the Leafs.....

 

[TorMapleJays]

I liked the Muzzin deal

 

[Lightsol]

I always hate this starting on time statement put under not prepared tag. It can be also over preparing and pushing too much information and gameplan to players that they can't comprehend or process. Which leads to over thinking. I think this is one thing that experienced coach understands.

Until you know which one is it you're going to guess.

The irony being that apparently a bunch of people have forgotten this has been a problem since Quinn was the HC. Maurice, Wilson, Caryle, Horachek, Babcock and Keefe all struggled to get the team to start on time.

Maybe the issue isn't that they don't start on time, it's that fans have this unrealistic expectation that every team except the Leafs start on time every game when even winning teams periodically fail to get going right away?