The Core Has To Go

[ToneDog]

Here's hoping Matty resigns July 1st and we have a great summer.

 

[LeafGrief]

What I'm unsure about from Matthews is whether he needs a leader or a running mate. He disappeared in game 3 as bad as the rest and this is HIS team. The question I have is whether he needs someone that he looks up to (JT ain't that lol) or whether he just needs the anchor that is playoff Marner gone.

Fundamentally, this is a very big question, because if Matthews needs to be a follower, the list of guys he will follow is probably about five names long and all of them have NTC's. Do we need to bring in Sidney Crosby for Matthews to get in line? There really is no way that we retool the core around Matthews and create a leadership group that he can buy into, he's the top dog and has been winning awards here for seven years. It doesn't matter if you sign ROR, and trade Marner for Connor+Morrisey, that new core is still Matthews' team and if he's part of the problem, then we're stuck where we were.

If we're trading Marner and keeping Matthews, that is a bet that Marner is the entire problem. Not a bad bet, but are we willing to give Mattews 13m and term off the back of that bet? Are we even willing to bet on this team and this core at all any more?

 

[ToneDog]

What I'm unsure about from Matthews is whether he needs a leader or a running mate. He disappeared in game 3 as bad as the rest and this is HIS team. The question I have is whether he needs someone that he looks up to (JT ain't that lol) or whether he just needs the anchor that is playoff Marner gone.

Fundamentally, this is a very big question, because if Matthews needs to be a follower, the list of guys he will follow is probably about five names long and all of them have NTC's. Do we need to bring in Sidney Crosby for Matthews to get in line? There really is no way that we retool the core around Matthews and create a leadership group that he can buy into, he's the top dog and has been winning awards here for seven years. It doesn't matter if you sign ROR, and trade Marner for Connor+Morrisey, that new core is still Matthews' team and if he's part of the problem, then we're stuck where we were.

If we're trading Marner and keeping Matthews, that is a bet that Marner is the entire problem. Not a bad bet, but are we willing to give Mattews 13m and term off the back of that bet? Are we even willing to bet on this team and this core at all any more?

Pretty sure Jets won't give up Connor and Morrisey (or Helley) even up for Marner. As for Matty, I'm thinking he can turn this choking around. If he wants to stay, and does not have a chronic wrist injury you gotta roll the dice and resign him but given all the failure, I might offer a show me shorter term deal around $12m.

 

[4thline]

The powerplay is always going to help inflate his numbers because he is very good there. But PP numbers don't say anything about where a player falls in the even strength lines pecking order. As an everyday player, he's in serious decline.

Tavares' rankings in 5v5 Pts/60 among the 124 (31X4) centers with most minutes:

2019: 2nd. Undoubtedly a top-line star caliber center.

2020: 63rd. Exactly average. As in, definition of a middle-sixer.

2021: 16th. Average 1st line center.

2022: 35th. A very good 2nd line center.

2023: 38th. A pretty good 2nd line center.

We can say 2019 is ancient history and 2020 was a strange outlier, but the last three years show pretty much what it looks like on the ice, and also seem to indicate the kind of decline we all expected at this age.

And those are ok numbers for a 2nd line center so far but he can't skate and his downward slide is very likely to continue. If he was a ROR type player who could win the matchup game against 2nd lines then that would be acceptable. But his defensive performance has averaged out to... well, average in his time here.

I appreciate posts with effort and insight behind them, but a few things to counter

On the pure stats side
A. unless you did a lot of manual adjustment a ranking is going to underestimate a pure C, in any given year there will be all of: improperly listed C's, lesser role/ minute C's, C's having anomaly years
B. even ignoring that, 35 and 38 isn't "ok numbers" for a 2nd line centre in a 32 team league, they're among the best
C. a ranking very much distorts individual performance given the noise injected from point A. Things can be changing around the player rather than the player changing. Example JT's 2014-15 P/60 5v5= 2.18, 17-18 = 2.02, the last two seasons= 2.1 and 2.09. He had a massive spike his first year here, but other than that pretty consistent in the 2-2.2 band

There's a link to the foundational article within this post from a couple years ago. Don't have time to really dive in but it looks like he's out performing both the aggregate production model and the average /60 model.


Then on the conjecture side of things
A. the above suggests the true degree of the slide is overstated, with no strong trend that points to sure fall to a 4th line level player the end of the contract
B. any trend doesn't account for the relative effectiveness boost from a shift to LW
C. PP goals count, and the 2nd link showed that PP scoring is much more age resistant.

Could he be a 4th line player that needs to be shoehorned into the lineup? Sure. Is there a really strong case for that? Not really.

 

[hoglund]

I think they should keep most of the core and trade 1 maybe Marner. The Leafs made the same mistake that Boston did this year, they didn't do enough of load management and rest their core, they clinched a playoff spot months ago. Look at Boston they were trying so hard to beat the record for most points and didn't rest their stars and it cost them a 1st round exit.

 

[Peace Frog]

The core has to go is much easier said, than done. The GM and coach would be let go first, I would imagine. They would have to be replaced AND the new GM would have to make the trades BEFORE July 1st!

I can’t imagine things would move that quickly. Nope, I think we’re going to be stuck with this core. A new GM and coach are going to have to find a way to shuffle the supporting cast deck, and magically make it work. Good luck with that!

 

[4thline]

What I'm unsure about from Matthews is whether he needs a leader or a running mate. He disappeared in game 3 as bad as the rest and this is HIS team. The question I have is whether he needs someone that he looks up to (JT ain't that lol) or whether he just needs the anchor that is playoff Marner gone.

Fundamentally, this is a very big question, because if Matthews needs to be a follower, the list of guys he will follow is probably about five names long and all of them have NTC's. Do we need to bring in Sidney Crosby for Matthews to get in line? There really is no way that we retool the core around Matthews and create a leadership group that he can buy into, he's the top dog and has been winning awards here for seven years. It doesn't matter if you sign ROR, and trade Marner for Connor+Morrisey, that new core is still Matthews' team and if he's part of the problem, then we're stuck where we were.

If we're trading Marner and keeping Matthews, that is a bet that Marner is the entire problem. Not a bad bet, but are we willing to give Mattews 13m and term off the back of that bet? Are we even willing to bet on this team and this core at all any more?

I've been thinking about this exact same premise, and the side that I've come down on is that if AM is willing to sign at a reasonable number long term you have to do it. The margin of error to maintain a window is just so much better with him on the team, big 1C is such a foundational building block.

Basically my thinking right now is (assuming Matthews will commit)
Miracle come back- all 4 stay
take it to 6-7- one of Nylander/Marner gone
swept or 5- both Nylander and Marner gone

 

[therealkoho]

That was a fun board.

Yes it was Fries, and then some numb skull made the so called lawyer a moderator

 

[57 Years No Cup]

That may very well happen, and I'm not trying to imply that it won't happen.

All I know is that we have less than 8 weeks until Auston Matthews has a No Movement Clause. By that time, we need to KNOW that he's extending with us. I'm sure Dubas has told him that. If we don't know for sure that he's extending here, then this is our only remaining window to trade Matthews without him being able to veto absolutely any trade he wants to veto. He could even decide that what he wants is to stay in Toronto for one more playoffs but then leave, and then we literally can't trade him and are forced to watch him walk away next summer.

We can't let Matthews have all the power here. He's either staying or he's not. He knows that he has to decide before July 1st. He's probably known that for months and months and months. Nobody is rushing him to make a decision. He's had all season to decide.

He's leaving. I've thought that for years.

 

[therealkoho]

The only good thing about this thread is that it helps me put more people on the ignore list.

The vast majority of the people trashing the team will be forefront of the bandwagon come next season, or if the Leafs win 2 games....

Are you new, it's never ever been any different with LeaFland and Im going back to a "news group" I was a member of called "the Quote Zone" in the late 1990s. Always all kinds of angst at seasons end, heartfelt vows to never cheer on the Bud's ever again. The players were stupid, the manager and coach were stupid, the league was stupid and stacked against the Leafs. Sound familiar?

*News Groups" were an early form of this type of board

 

[LeafGrief]

I've been thinking about this exact same premise, and the side that I've come down on is that if AM is willing to sign at a reasonable number long term you have to do it. The margin of error to maintain a window is just so much better with him on the team, big 1C is such a foundational building block.

Basically my thinking right now is (assuming Matthews will commit)
Miracle come back- all 4 stay
take it to 6-7- one of Nylander/Marner gone
swept or 5- both Nylander and Marner gone

I'm hopeful that Matthews is part of the answer rather than part of the problem. He's had his big moments for us and at least he doesn't give the puck away all night when it's a big game. I've had him on a pedestal for such a long time that it's hard seeing clearly right now. As for what a reasonable number is, I don't think he gets much in the way of a raise.

Even if there is a miracle comeback, it's time for this core to be broken up. No if's, and's, or but's. They always make it harder on themselves than they need it to be, and that's not a recipe for long term success. This isn't a rope-a-dope team, this is a bunch of dopes who are far worse than the sum of their parts when it truly counts. A miracle is a miracle, but team building decisions should be based on knowledge rather than the miraculous. The writing has been on the wall for years now, buying into any hope for this core is a mistake, no matter how far they go this year. It's time to move on from Marner, no matter what the series outcome.

 

[CantLoseWithMatthews]

I think Dubas kept the core together for longer than anyone else reasonably would have with the hope that once they finally broke through the first round, they'd be golden. This is his reward. A #2 wildcard team was as good of a matchup as you could hope for and they've done absolutely nothing. If they can't win now, it would be ridiculous to believe they can ever win. Drastic changes need to be made

 

[ShaneFalco]

I think Dubas kept the core together for longer than anyone else reasonably would have with the hope that once they finally broke through the first round, they'd be golden. This is his reward. A #2 wildcard team was as good of a matchup as you could hope for and they've done absolutely nothing. If they can't win now, it would be ridiculous to believe they can ever win. Drastic changes need to be made

Yep he bet his job on the core, gave them everything they wanted, tried to surround them with leadership, grit, killer instinct, defended them at every turn and every years tells us how much they care, and how much he believes in them. He wasn't willing to pivot and for that alone he should be fired. That and keeping his buddy Keefe around

 

[CantLoseWithMatthews]

Yep he bet his job on the core, gave them everything they wanted, tried to surround them with leadership, grit, killer instinct, defended them at every turn and every years tells us how much they care, and how much he believes in them. He wasn't willing to pivot and for that alone he should be fired. That and keeping his buddy Keefe around

Yeah like calling criticism of Marner idiotic, or passing on a great coach like Cassidy because he believes Keefe is a future legend. What a chump. Hope and wishful thinking are no way to run a team, and that's how they play too. They run around hoping that the other team will let them win instead of making it happen

 

[therealkoho]

That may very well happen, and I'm not trying to imply that it won't happen.

All I know is that we have less than 8 weeks until Auston Matthews has a No Movement Clause. By that time, we need to KNOW that he's extending with us. I'm sure Dubas has told him that. If we don't know for sure that he's extending here, then this is our only remaining window to trade Matthews without him being able to veto absolutely any trade he wants to veto. He could even decide that what he wants is to stay in Toronto for one more playoffs but then leave, and then we literally can't trade him and are forced to watch him walk away next summer.

We can't let Matthews have all the power here. He's either staying or he's not. He knows that he has to decide before July 1st. He's probably known that for months and months and months. Nobody is rushing him to make a decision. He's had all season to decide.

There is just no way the new GM/board is going to approve anything over what he's making now. They might approve a 2 year deal at that number just to complete the 7 year UFA cycle if you get the inference that the Leafs paid him like he was a UFA.

I believe sincerely that the Leafs have to remove 2 of the 4 contracts and need to be thinking about moving Brodie as well.

The team will easily see 9 or 10 new faces next year and that doesn't include the coach and GM

 

[Wiseguys]

My thoughts are that Shannahan will extend Dubas for 2 more seasons, with a new coach in place. I'm pretty sure Shannahan is aware that the Taveras contract is a deterrent as how far the team can progress. So it's pointless hiring a new Gm, until that contract expires, and just run with the core 4

 

[therealkoho]

Pretty sure Jets won't give up Connor and Morrisey (or Helley) even up for Marner. As for Matty, I'm thinking he can turn this choking around. If he wants to stay, and does not have a chronic wrist injury you gotta roll the dice and resign him but given all the failure, I might offer a show me shorter term deal around $12m.

We usually see eye to eye on stuff but not on this. I don't think Matthews any different than Marner when it comes to his feelings on the media, he's one of the snippiest interviews on the team, and its my belief that he would probably love to go to a US market where hockey isn't life and death and he can lead a fairly normal life.

 

[Trapper]

We usually see eye to eye on stuff but not on this. I don't think Matthews any different than Marner when it comes to his feelings on the media, he's one of the snippiest interviews on the team, and its my belief that he would probably love to go to a US market where hockey isn't life and death and he can lead a fairly normal life.

You can still be a star around town in California as a hockey player if you are a solid talent. Run in various circles. The beach, acting, etc. Minus all the questions or the intense city desire to win. They want to win but not like Toronto/Montreal.

 

[57 Years No Cup]

You can still be a star around town in California as a hockey player if you are a solid talent. Run in various circles. The beach, acting, etc. Minus all the questions or the intense city desire to win. They want to win but not like Toronto/Montreal.

Bingo.

 

[therealkoho]

Well, fair enough, valid opinion. I see it different, all good.

I just don't think he's the problem. I watched last night and heard myself over and over again saying "Mitchy, what are you doing?" I mean I like Marner because I'm a stupid Leaf fan, but yesterday was the first time I was thinking "Marner.. man we might have to move him, it's just not working in the playoffs". AM I wasn't muttering to myself about. Please pot those two golden chances but at least he got them.

JT.. I mean not a great contract at this point. It's not as bad as it's getting made out in the last 24h's but you'd love to get out of it.. won't.

Nylander.. I think he is probably out the door, someone is going to pay him more then we will. Might as well start there and recoup some assets.

AM I'd keep, one hundred times out of one hundred. I don't think he has failed, I think the Leafs have failed despite him.

So 14 schmill sounds about right? Not a snowballs chance in "h-e double hockey sticks" as they used to say.

You can still be a star around town in California as a hockey player if you are a solid talent. Run in various circles. The beach, acting, etc. Minus all the questions or the intense city desire to win. They want to win but not like Toronto/Montreal.

I've been saying SoCal for awhile, I'm not sure I like the talent that they can return east. I'm pretty sure though LA is where he wants to be, his best buddy lives there, lots of glitz, glamour, sun and surf and they'll pay and pay him.

 

[usernamezrhardtodo]

We usually see eye to eye on stuff but not on this. I don't think Matthews any different than Marner when it comes to his feelings on the media, he's one of the snippiest interviews on the team, and its my belief that he would probably love to go to a US market where hockey isn't life and death and he can lead a fairly normal life.

I noticed that about AM as well. He really doesn't like the media when it comes to scrutinizing why they lose...but he loves them when they show him in a new suit as he walks to the arena....something is not right in that scenario.

 

[Trapper]

So 14 schmill sounds about right? Not a snowballs chance in "h-e double hockey sticks" as they used to say.

I've been saying SoCal for awhile, I'm not sure I like the talent that they can return east. I'm pretty sure though LA is where he wants to be, his best buddy lives there, lots of glitz, glamour, sun and surf and they'll pay and pay him.

Determine if he plans to re-sign here.
If he says no, if he delays that equals no and offer him to Anaheim for the 2nd overall and whatever best package you can get.

 

[therealkoho]

Determine if he plans to re-sign here.
If he says no, if he delays that equals no and offer him to Anaheim for the 2nd overall and whatever best package you can get.

I really prefer that they don't

There were a few incidents early this season that I was pretty much disgusted with. The first was when he came off the ice and yelled/screamed at a team mate and the second was when Keefe was made to apologize after he called the "soft play" out which was directed at one player who'd had a pretty poor start and a few listless games in a row and that listless play had started spreading though the team

I have never seen any player ever do that on the bench ever, yes I've seen team mates fighting in practice, but never on the bench

When Wendel was a kid and first up he asked one of the vets who the toughest guy on the team was and was told that it was Bob "Big Daddy" McGill. Wendel fought him everyday for 5 days and didn't lose once! Afterwards they became close friends. I don't think the guy Matthews screamed at ever felt warm and fuzzy with him again.

 

[The Management]

It's inexplicable to me at this point. I just can't figure it out.

I remember somebody on one of the Leafs podcasts saying you can't just tape grit onto the hockey team with depth acquisitions, it has to come from your core guys.

And there's maybe some truth to that. Marner, Nylander, and Matthews, and to some extent Tavares, are all extremely talented, but there's something missing in each of them. It's fine to have one or two guys like that, but our "core" all seem to share a common trait of not playing their best hockey when the moment calls on them. Call it nerves, call it a lack of killer instinct, whatever it is, it's a problem.

Then you look across the ice at the Florida Panthers, who won the president's trophy last year (great regular season) only to get schooled by the Lightning in the second round. They immediately move out a skill guy in Huberdeau, pick up a jar of piss and vinegar in Tkachuk, and look like a worse regular season team and a better playoff team. They changed their identity and found a guy who wants to play in big games. And you can see how it rubs off on guys like Duclair and Reinhart.

Pieces of this core may be fine, but collectively, they're somehow less than the sum of their parts.

 

[Stinger8]

You find out if Matthews will sign an extension July 1st.
If yes, what you said.
If no, trade them both.

BINGO