Confirmed with Link: Shanahan, Dubas, Keefe all staying

[notbias]

Lou could have added to the D in 2018 but did not for what ever reason. His two biggest mistakes were the Z and Marleau contracts which pale in comparison to the boy genius' mistakes. Cap hell was never heard of here until the boy genius worked his magic.

If cap hell is what we have, I'll take it.

We can start the year without signing any of our RFAs and still have 5.5 million in cap space.

Bunting - Matthews - Marner
Robertson - Tavares - Holmberg
Kerfoot - Kampf - Nylander
Clifford - Abruzzese - Anderson

Rielly - Brodie
Muzzin - Holl
Gio - Niemela

Mrazek
Kallgren

That's only a 77 million dollar roster and would make the playoffs.

I really think Kerfoot will be out the door after July first, so that will be 9 million to work with.

That is enough to upgrade in goal (Mrazek is likely going out if we bring someone in), resign Liljegren and Sandin (I think either Holl or Sandin are gone), resign Engvall, resign Kasemand sign at least one depth piece.

 

[Lightsol]

He should have held back Marner 1 more year and scratched Nylander more often in 2017

And you don't think the NHL would have come up with something to nail us for this display of intentional tanking? Especially leaving Marner in the minors another year. "Yeah, Mitch, great that you were the OHL regular season MVP, the OHL playoff MVP, and the Memorial Cup MVP, as well as leading your team in scoring in the regular season, the playoffs and the Memorial Cup tournament, but despite that we have no choice but to send you back for another year because we're not ready to start winning yet!"

At that point, burying Marner and Nylander in the minors would just have underlined that the Leafs were intentionally taking for another high draft pick.

 

[francis246]

And that's exactly what Dubas tried to do with Nylander... Until it came down to the last day and the question became, was Dubas wiilling to risk flushing a season in which Taravres and Marner were scoring like crazy and Matthews was doing great down the drain?

I was of the opinion at the time they should have traded him to send the message to the other two that they weren't going to hand out blank cheques, but when the decision not to trade Nylander was made, then it became signing him vs. letting him sit for a year... And then having all three be up at the same time.

I still firmly believe letting him sit would have been the best thing. It would have sent the right message

 

[ACC1224]

I still firmly believe letting him sit would have been the best thing. It would have sent the right message

100%. Caving sent this whole thing to cap hell.

 

[notbias]

100%. Caving sent this whole thing to cap hell.

Didn't Nylander cave?

 

[Nineteen67]

If cap hell is what we have, I'll take it.

We can start the year without signing any of our RFAs and still have 5.5 million in cap space.

Bunting - Matthews - Marner
Robertson - Tavares - Holmberg
Kerfoot - Kampf - Nylander
Clifford - Abruzzese - Anderson

Rielly - Brodie
Muzzin - Holl
Gio - Niemela

Mrazek
Kallgren

That's only a 77 million dollar roster and would make the playoffs.

I really think Kerfoot will be out the door after July first, so that will be 9 million to work with.

That is enough to upgrade in goal (Mrazek is likely going out if we bring someone in), resign Liljegren and Sandin (I think either Holl or Sandin are gone), resign Engvall, resign Kasemand sign at least one depth piece.

They’ll ice a team, that’s a given, however, at this stage you’d like to a little less uncertainty going into a season.

 

[Dekes For Days]

Didn't Nylander cave?

Yes, but some refuse to acknowledge it because Dubas holding firm to a reasonable contract that works for the team doesn't fit the narrative.

 

[Nineteen67]

Didn't Nylander cave?

His agent said that it was fair considering the team cap structure.

 

[notbias]

His agent said that it was fair considering the team cap structure.

I remember it coming down to the wire and Nylander calling, that sounds like he caved to me

 

[keonsbitterness]

Perhaps not, we'll never know but it never needed to be one or the other anyway.
I didn't want any of them to take over(or Hunter either).

Once MLSE put the kibosh on Dubas going to Colorado, it was always going to be Dubas.

 

[ACC1224]

Once MLSE put the kibosh on Dubas going to Colorado, it was always going to be Dubas.

Once Shanahan brought Lou in to mentor him it was his job.

 

[Nineteen67]

I remember it coming down to the wire and Nylander calling, that sounds like he caved to me

It’s called negotiation. He accepted the offer on his timeline. I’m not privy to any of the numbers or term so I cant say who “caved”.

I do remember that WN called and accepted the offer near the deadline on that Saturday.

 

[Lightsol]

I still firmly believe letting him sit would have been the best thing. It would have sent the right message

I agree, but I can see it from Dubas' perspective. The Leafs just signed Tavares, and were expected to take a big step forward that year. Letting Nylander sit would likely have angered the fanbase, which is why I said then they should have traded him if he wouldn't come down.

 

[Nineteen67]

Once Shanahan brought Lou in to mentor him it was his job.

That young GM that won with the damned Red Sox or Cubs got this new wave of “kid“ manager started.

 

[Dreakmur]

Not really.

He didn't have 20 years, and some of the years he did have were just as director of legal affairs in an entirely different era. Dubas has also been in hockey for a while, and like Brisebois, was a Calder Cup winning assistant GM prior to becoming a full NHL GM. Both had more management experience and accomplishments than Sakic, so maybe he's the outlier?

Quite frankly, calling any of these guys "rookies" is pretty silly, and is only meant to demean somebody they dislike - it really says nothing about their abilities or performance.

He had 18 years, which is almost 20. He was director of legal affairs for a couple years. He had like 15 years of “real” hockey executive experience.

So you agree that Lou didn't bother trying to win with the best group of ELC talent in the league?

Yes. It would have been moronic for him to do so.

 

[Racer88]

Tavares filled an organizational weakness, and was a big add to our team at a reasonable UFA cost for no expended assets. He knew Matthews was going to get a big contract, and while he may not have expected Marner to break out to the ridiculous extent he did in 2018-2019, that AAV range still would have been budgeted for. Whatever constraints you think we have are a result of the pandemic-induced stagnant cap, not the contracts themselves, and it's not Dubas' job to magically know when a once-in-a-lifetime global pandemic is going to hit and turn everything upside down.

How many other teams have 3-11 million dollar forwards including every cup winner since the beginning of the NHL
what has Tavares accomplished with the Leafs

 

[Racer88]

If cap hell is what we have, I'll take it.

We can start the year without signing any of our RFAs and still have 5.5 million in cap space.

Bunting - Matthews - Marner
Robertson - Tavares - Holmberg
Kerfoot - Kampf - Nylander
Clifford - Abruzzese - Anderson

Rielly - Brodie
Muzzin - Holl
Gio - Niemela

Mrazek
Kallgren

That's only a 77 million dollar roster and would make the playoffs.

I really think Kerfoot will be out the door after July first, so that will be 9 million to work with.

That is enough to upgrade in goal (Mrazek is likely going out if we bring someone in), resign Liljegren and Sandin (I think either Holl or Sandin are gone), resign Engvall, resign Kasemand sign at least one depth piece.

That’s a lot of AHL players in your line up……..sure hope it works out

 

[LilySmoov]

I never implied it was "all luck'' , that's something you made up to try to have a reason why my response to a another poster seems to have upset you .

Hahahahahahahaha

since winning seems to be all based on luck in your opinion maybe we should fire Dubas/Keefe and find a luckier GM/Coach ?

So what was that about me making it up?

I agree we need to understand why we failed so we can avoid it in the future but how can we avoid having the ''bad luck'' element you keep stating as being partly responsible for our loss ?

We can't. That's how luck works. The point isn't to avoid bad luck, the point is to not wrongly attribute our results to things that either have little to no explanatory power (i.e. "killer instinct" or "preparedness") or are in fact predicated on luck. This is why I keep asking, what if we got lucky in that game 6 overtime? Are we suddenly a better team because of a wild bounce that ended up being the game and series winner? Of course not, we'd be the same team regardless, with the same strengths and the same weaknesses. The point is to acknowledge when and how luck manifests and to then be careful to not make decisions based on it.

It's been 4 years of first rd losses under the current GM and 2 of them against mediocre opponents so it's easy to see that your argument is just another excuse and not a legitimate reason .

That quite decidedly wasn't even close to an answer. So I'll ask again: what's the difference between an excuse and a legitimate reason? And I'm also not making any excuses - my argument is not nor ever has been that luck was a major (or even minor) factor in our losses.

now if you want to discuss improving the team then there's zero reason to discuss how much ''luck'' is involved into winning the cup

It's worth discussing to ensure our losses aren't being mistakenly attributed to immaterial factors.

 

[Dreakmur]

Yes, but some refuse to acknowledge it because Dubas holding firm to a reasonable contract that works for the team doesn't fit the narrative.

7.5 on a 6 year deal was on overpay regardless of who caved.

 

[deprw]

I agree with you in the sense that you make the best of what you’re given and throwing cash at Tavares represented one aggressive way to dramatically get better in a short amount of time. But it was clearly a flashy deal over methodical building.

Over time I guess the hindsight takeaway is he’s not quite the best fit for their vision of how they want to play, but it’s also on the organization for having not correctly identified the type of line mates he needs to be optimized, and the fact they’ve prioritized Matthews and Marner over what worked well in 2018-19.

I think interesting question would be that could we have done that slower build properly with our youngsters leading the way. Though I think we dropped the ball 2017 if that was the right way to do it. We could have traded Bozak and JVR generation away for picks and gun for more prospect depth. Though Hunter was on helm of that, so it might not have changed anything...

For decade we had problems getting proper centers to come here or acquiring them trough draft. Tavares gave us one more elite player for free. It would be interesting scenario to know how this rebuild would have gone with slow approach or without Tavares. Could we have replaced his cap dollars with more suitable players. We never know.

With slower build we might have gone to that Edmonton or Buffalo route, where our youngsters fail to succeed or in some case we end up on no mans land and can't draft real elite talent. Churning away good years for contending being on middle ground.

 

[ShaneFalco]

What a load lol

 

[BackPassChampions]

Your opinion is not fact

It’s a fact whether you like it or not. Sorry kiddo.

Jon Cooper showed his lack of respect in his comments, then followed up with a different tune to his comments with the next team.

Whether or not he’s “managing” his team mentality, his words were lacking respect. Period.

 

[BackPassChampions]

Jon Cooper's main focus would typically be to put agency in his team to play better. I find the only times your team is going to get credit is when you've been knocked out and the other team is being gracious, or you've beaten the doors off them. Typically that kind of external validation isn't worth much.

I agree with you. This really isn’t a huge deal, but I was trying to point out that it’s funny Keefe mentioned how much respect possibly was shown during a hand shake but Jon Cooper showed a lack of respect with his words during the series making those comments. Nothing more, this doesn’t need to be dragged out and discussed on multiple pages.

 

[ACC1224]

7.5 on a 6 year deal was on overpay regardless of who caved.

Did sitting out cause Nylander to lose anything?

 

[hotpaws]

Hahahahahahahaha


So what was that about me making it up?


We can't. That's how luck works. The point isn't to avoid bad luck, the point is to not wrongly attribute our results to things that either have little to no explanatory power (i.e. "killer instinct" or "preparedness") or are in fact predicated on luck. This is why I keep asking, what if we got lucky in that game 6 overtime? Are we suddenly a better team because of a wild bounce that ended up being the game and series winner? Of course not, we'd be the same team regardless, with the same strengths and the same weaknesses. The point is to acknowledge when and how luck manifests and to then be careful to not make decisions based on it.


That quite decidedly wasn't even close to an answer. So I'll ask again: what's the difference between an excuse and a legitimate reason? And I'm also not making any excuses - my argument is not nor ever has been that luck was a major (or even minor) factor in our losses.


It's worth discussing to ensure our losses aren't being mistakenly attributed to immaterial factors.

i'll repeat again the reply of mine you quoted wasn't to Sea of Blue which started our conversation it was to you who's endlessly going on about how unlucky we are so i'll ask you again to stop making stuff up to argue against and the only reason some keep bringing up our supposedly bad luck is to make an excuse for Dubas for another early exist