Confirmed with Link: Shanahan, Dubas, Keefe all staying

[killer1980]

Do people that post this nonsense forget we had one of the most experienced coaches and GMs working and failing together?

I get it now! It is much better to have an inexperienced GM & Coach that fail as opposed to experienced ones that fail. At least they fired Babcock and LL. The current losers should be treated no differently.

 

[zeke]

If they can‘t sign a goalie this off season, missing the playoffs is not unrealistic.

Leafs just finished 4th in the league with the 22nd ranked goaltending.

 

[Dreakmur]

Babs and Lou inherited the best group of ELC talent in hockey, and completely, utterly, wasted it.

They were building towards a winner, not leading one while they were there. Not every team can be managed and coached the same way.

Or that the back-to-back Cup champs are GMed and coached by rookies.

Not all rookie coaches are bad, but Keefe is.

 

[zeke]

They were building towards a winner, not leading one while they were there. Not every team can be managed and coached the same way.

Building what exactly?

Here's what Lou added to the org his entire time here:

F.Andersen
C.McElhinney
R.Hainsey
P.Marleau

That's it.

And here's what Babs coaching built for them defensively:

Yr1: #15 xga/60
Yr2: #28 xga/60
Yr3: #24 xga/60
Yr4: #25 xga/60
Yr5: #28 xga/60


A complete, utter waste of the best group of ELC talent in hockey.

 

[Dekes For Days]

Not all rookie coaches are bad

Yep, dismissing or mocking a coach, GM or anybody just because they didn't have prior NHL-based experience in their current position is ridiculous. In many cases, "rookies" have shown themselves to be far superior to much of the "old boy's club" - like Sakic and Bednar in Colorado, or Brisebois and Cooper in Tampa, or Dubas and Keefe in Toronto.

 

[Dekes For Days]

What? A Player agent said the opposite on Leafs Lunch.

Not sure what you think you heard, but UFA contracts are not comparables for post-ELC contracts, and they never have been. The premise doesn't even make sense, since if Matthews/Marner were using Tavares as a comparable, they would have gotten a lot more than they did, instead of contracts that are consistent with the history of post-ELC contracts.

 

[ACC1224]

What? A Player agent said the opposite on Leafs Lunch.

Of course, it's common sense. There are no rules that say you can't compare to other contracts, that's absurd.
Agents will use whatever means necessary to get their players the best deal. People are lying to themselves if they don't think Marner and Matthews used Tavares as an internal comparable.

 

[Dreakmur]

Building what exactly?

Here's what Lou added to the org his entire time here:

F.Andersen
C.McElhinney
R.Hainsey
P.Marleau

That's it.

And here's what Babs coaching built for them defensively:

Yr1: #15 xga/60
Yr2: #28 xga/60
Yr3: #24 xga/60
Yr4: #25 xga/60
Yr5: #28 xga/60


A complete, utter waste of the best group of ELC talent in hockey.

He added veterans to mentor the young guys. That’s what he was building, a core to later put pieces around…

Yep, dismissing or mocking a coach, GM or anybody just because they didn't have prior NHL-based experience in their current position is ridiculous. In many cases, "rookies" have shown themselves to be far superior to much of the "old boy's club" - like Sakic and Bednar in Colorado, or Brisebois and Cooper in Tampa, or Dubas and Keefe in Toronto.

Ignoring incompetence in one rookie coach just becaus a different rookie coach is good is foolish. Keefe isn’t bad because he’s a rookie, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t bad for other reasons.

 

[Dekes For Days]

There are no rules that say you can't compare to other contracts

Of course you can compare to other contracts, but only when they are comparable contracts. Using a UFA contract as a comparable for a post-ELC contract would be like a goalie trying to use a forward contract as a comparable. It's illogical, and you'd be laughed out of the room.

Ignoring incompetence in one rookie coach just becaus a different rookie coach is good is foolish.

Yes, not all rookie coaches can be good like Cooper, Bednar, and Keefe, but they should be evaluated based on their coaching, not based on their prior experience.

 

[francis246]

Once you sign Tavares and the RFAs are better than him, he’s the contract they can point to and say I want that much.

And guess what? The team can say no, sit your ass down. Why? Because you’re an RFA, we hold your rights. So it’s up to you; take what we have and not play or sign an offersheet and go to a shitty team we’ll take 4 first rounders. The only player they should have given into is Matthews. They let all 3 of them tell the organization what they have to do. How bad do you have to be to allow that to happen when you’re in a position of leverage. Again we are going in circles, if you can’t understand that, I can’t help you. It doesn’t matter what the players wanted, the team COULD have and SHOULD have said no. Saying no to them is completely different than saying no to Tavares from every standpoint. Contractually and optically.

 

[Racer88]

They negotiate for a percentage of the cap at time of signing, but except during this global pandemic and resulting stagnant cap that occurred right after all of our signings, the percentage of the cap they take up drops as the cap rises throughout their contract. We didn't get this benefit with all of our players that pretty much everybody else has got throughout the cap era. For example, Tavares signed for 13.84%, but if the cap had risen as it was projected to, he'd be sitting at about 12% of the current cap right now.

The young guns asked for what they were worth, not for "the moon", and the Tavares contract had absolutely nothing to do with anything - he was a UFA contract and not a comparable for a post-ELC contract.

You do not know that. Actually, all signs point to us being in a much, much worse spot, based on how Lou historically handles the type of situation we had.

He would have signed those deals, or he would have lost the players, and we'd be infinitely worse off. This fantasy of Lou signing them to better contracts is just so wildly unrealistic.

So we didn’t get the benefit with all of our players that pretty much everyone else did because of Covid. So Dubas and the Leafs are almost the only ones who got burned, doesn’t that kind of fall on Dubas’s shoulders. What are the odds that 30 other GM’ navigated through ok but only the Leafs got burned.
I know that you can say it’s not his fault because no one could predict Covid however he is the only one who bet on continued increase in the cap. He bet on something that was not for sure and he lost. I can’t stress enough that he is the only one who made that bet and I can only guess it’s because he thinks he is smarter then everyone else.

 

[Dreakmur]

Yes, not all rookie coaches can be good like Cooper, Bednar, and Keefe, but they should be evaluated based on their coaching, not based on their prior experience.

One of these things is not like the others…

 

[francis246]

Tavares was optional not mandatory and it was his record setting contract at the time of $11 mil that set up Leafs internal pay-scale to escalate the ELC contracts of Leafs own players up to his. The moment the Leafs signed JT I said it was going to act as magnet and draw AM and MM salaries up to his.

This was a self inflicted wound, not simply the hand the Leafs GM was dealt here, as his name is on all 4 of those contracts that add up to 1/2 the teams Salary Cap.

In a Salary Cap World, under Dubas' plan the Leafs are trying to win a Cup while having 3 of the 7 highest cap hit AAV players all making $11 mil on the same team. The results show Dubas is 0-4 for even winning a single playoff round and now the Leafs hold the distinction of the ONLY NHL team (other than expansion Seattle) to fail to win a single playoff round since the Cap was instituted in 2005. That points a finger directly at Salary Cap mismanagement, and just because Toronto has the money they appear to spending Harder and not Smarter. IMO

I showed you that TB who are building a dynasty (successful team building formula) going for 3 Cups in a row, have a Vezina goalie and Norris Dman includied in their same Cap consumption as Leafs 4 forwards. for $40 mil. That goalie and that Dman also won the Conn Smythe playoff MVP trophies, and despite significant contribution from the forwards (Kuch leading the playoffs in points, and Point the payoff in goals) it was not the main reason they won, because "Defense wins Championships".

#1G + #1D + 3 X Top line forwards >>>>> 4 X top line forwards for approxmately 1/2 your cap consumption is 2 very different team building strategies.

The point is mess Tampa’s way of acquiring those players were through the draft. So you trying to hammer the point that Toronto should be built like them is irrelevant. Toronto drafted the best possibly options with their 1st round picks. So did Tampa. One team ended up with a #1C, #1D and a #1G. One team ended up with a #1A/B RW, #1RW & a #1C. It’s luck of draw, someone already explained it but the next options in terms of defenseman and goalies for some of the leafs picks are not even key players for their own teams so I’m not sure what you want the leafs to do. Tampa got lucky in terms of their draft position and who was available those years in the draft.

Maybe Toronto should have taken Vasa instead of Rielly in 2012. That’s about it.

 

[Racer88]

Leafs just finished 4th in the league with the 22nd ranked goaltending.

And lost in the first round for 6 years in a row and are planning on running it back with the same loser staff and core

 

[Dreakmur]

And guess what? The team can say no, sit your ass down. Why? Because you’re an RFA, we hold your rights. So it’s up to you; take what we have and not play or sign an offersheet and go to a shitty team we’ll take 4 first rounders. The only player they should have given into is Matthews. They let all 3 of them tell the organization what they have to do. How bad do you have to be to allow that to happen when you’re in a position of leverage. Again we are going in circles, if you can’t understand that, I can’t help you. It doesn’t matter what the players wanted, the team COULD have and SHOULD have said no. Saying no to them is completely different than saying no to Tavares from every standpoint. Contractually and optically.

You’re arguing a totally different point. The RFAs were a debacle, but Tavares contract was also a mistake. Yes that’s with hindsight, but this whole debase is based on hindsight. Looking back, it was clearly a mistake.

 

[zeke]

He added veterans to mentor the young guys. That’s what he was building, a core to later put pieces around…

So you agree - he intentionally wasted the core's ELC years.

 

[Dekes For Days]

So we didn’t get the benefit with all of our players that pretty much everyone else did because of Covid. So Dubas and the Leafs are almost the only ones who got burned, doesn’t that kind of fall on Dubas’s shoulders.

We're not the only ones who got burned, but we definitely got burned the most with all of our big signings coming directly before the cap went stagnant due to the pandemic. I'm not sure how we could blame Dubas for doing what everybody does, just because a once-in-a-lifetime global pandemic happened to stagnate the cap at the worst possible time for us.

I know that you can say it’s not his fault because no one could predict Covid however he is the only one who bet on continued increase in the cap.

Every single GM in the history of the cap has followed cap projections and bet on a continued increase of the cap - at least until the cap recently stagnated.

 

[ShaneFalco]

And lost in the first round for 6 years in a row and are planning on running it back with the same loser staff and core

And Jack was light's out for the first part of the year so those stats are skewed

 

[Dekes For Days]

One of these things is not like the others…

You must be referring to the fact that one coaches a Canadian team, and the other two coach American teams.

 

[Metroid]

Not taking a stance with this tweet but just showing that being told your job is safe, isn't always the case

 

[ACC1224]

One of these things is not like the others…

More time for golf?

 

[francis246]

You’re arguing a totally different point. The RFAs were a debacle, but Tavares contract was also a mistake. Yes that’s with hindsight, but this whole debase is based on hindsight. Looking back, it was clearly a mistake.

Again in your opinion! I’m of the opinion this team is not better without Tavares. I’m not convinced that they sign better players that form a better team without him. The odds are pretty bad with UFA signings in general. So if you think that an 11 million Tavares who still gets 75-80 points is horrible, 2 or 3, 4.5 to 6 million players who score 30-40 points is even worse. Even just by looking at the UFA pools in the years that follow there hasn’t been much quality and there is no guarantee you sign a Pietrangelo. So to say that 100% they would be better is false, there is no way of knowing that they actually would.

It’s also not reasonable to think that in a hypothetical realm where we don’t have Tavares here that Nylander, Marner and Matthews wouldn’t still ask for the same contracts. I personally think they would because they asked for a percentage of the cap so regardless those would have been their demands. I will concede that it may have been easier to convince them to take less if we don’t have Tavares. But I’m not sure their initial demands are lower regardless of if we signed Tavares or not.

 

[Dreakmur]

So you agree - he intentionally wasted the core's ELC years.

Only if you think we should have gone all in to try to win with a teenage core.

I think Dubas jumped into win-now mode too quickly. Lou doing it would have been insane.

 

[Stephen]

Or that the back-to-back Cup champs are GMed and coached by rookies.

You would probably be surprised to learn Julien Brisebois has been working in NHL front offices since the early 2000s and was AGM in Tampa for their entire build beginning in 2010. But sure, “rookies.”

 

[Nineteen67]

Not sure what you think you heard, but UFA contracts are not comparables for post-ELC contracts, and they never have been. The premise doesn't even make sense, since if Matthews/Marner were using Tavares as a comparable, they would have gotten a lot more than they did, instead of contracts that are consistent with the history of post-ELC contracts.

I heard Nylander’s agent talking about the internal cap structure as being the primary basis for negotiating the contract and he didn’t care as much about comparables around the league.

Of course, it's common sense. There are no rules that say you can't compare to other contracts, that's absurd.
Agents will use whatever means necessary to get their players the best deal. People are lying to themselves if they don't think Marner and Matthews used Tavares as an internal comparable.

100% they did.