The insanity needs to stop this offseason barring a miracle.

[Leafsfan74]

There are a number of reasons Lou should have moved on from Toronto and the Leafs gone in another direction. Yet, he has won 7x as many playoff rounds as this team has in the last nine years. Could anyone at Sportsnet or TSN had seen this discrepancy coming when they encouraged the "sign at all costs" decision on Nylander in his final RFA year?

I was thinking today of all of the pearl clutching by fans, especially younger fans I'm sure, who are losing their minds over the status of certain players in the offseason.

The best outcome for the Leafs is to let them walk, build the forward group as Brad has built the back end and move into a new, re-tooled era around two offensive stars in Matthews and Nylander. The Leafs now have two young forwards in McMann and Knies who can play in the top six, so Leafs would have plenty of cap space to fill in those two positions AND far more cash to build depth on lines 3 and 4 if they choose to go in this direction, and they should, barring a real deep playoff run.

Crafty veteran Lou went to NYI and despite not having the 4 superstar core players, he has won 7 rounds. The Leafs have won a...single...round....in...ten...years...

Put this into perspective, your beloved Maple Leafs have won a single playoff series in 21 years! If I hired a monkey and asked that monkey to randomly pick some players out of the entire league, altered it for cap compliance, would that monkey have done worse than this franchise?

Please, mercilessly, move on from this failed formula, it's been nine years. Dictate your decisions solely on their success this postseason. Solely.

 

[al secord]

Title tl;dr

 

[TMLegend]

Ownership only cares about money. They're gonna re-sign Tavares, they'll re-sign Marner if his asks are in any shape or form reasonable, and the show will go on as a perennially good, but not great team and a playoff underachiever.

One just has to look at the Jays across the street to see what future await the Leafs. The Jays have been a mostly irrelevant club since they took over in 2000.

 

[thewave]

Ownership only cares about money. They're gonna re-sign Tavares, they'll re-sign Marner if his asks are in any shape or form reasonable, and the show will go on as a perennially good, but not great team and a playoff underachiever.

One just has to look at the Jays across the street to look at what futures await the Leafs. The Jays have been a mostly irrelevant club since they took over in 2000.

I seriously hope you are wrong about that. The Jays have been a total mess for decades.

 

[darrylsittler27]

There are a number of reason Lou should have moved on from Toronto and the Leafs gone in another direction. Yet, he has won 7x as many playoff rounds as this team has in the last nine years. Could anyone at Sportsnet or TSN had seen this discrepancy coming when they encouraged the "sign at all costs" decision on Nylander in his final RFA year?

I was thinking today of all of the pearl clutching by fans, especially younger fans I'm sure, who are losing their minds over the status of certain players in the offseason.

The best outcome for the Leafs is to let them walk, build the forward group as Brad has built the back end and move into a new, re-tooled era around two offensive stars in Matthews and Nylander. The Leafs now have two young forwards in McMann and Knies who can play in the top six, so Leafs would have plenty of cap space to fill in those two positions AND far more cash to build depth on lines 3 and 4 if they choose to go in this direction, and they should, barring a real deep playoff run.

Crafty veteran Lou went to NYI and despite not having the 4 superstar core players, he has won 7 rounds. The Leafs have won a...single...round....in...ten...years...

Put this into perspective, your beloved Maple Leafs have won a single playoff series in 21 years! If I hired a monkey and asked that monkey to randomly pick some players out of the entire league, altered it for cap compliance, would that monkey have done worse than this franchise?

Please, mercilessly, move on from this failed formula, it's been nine years. Dictate your decisions solely on their success this postseason. Solely.

Let's not forget Leafs like to give away assets for vets while their players, own rentals walk for free. Their ineptitude is epic in any sport. Even the Cubbies won.

 

[The Shadow]

And many more first round losses to come. This team was exposed against Las Vegas and Colorado and the worst team in the league San Jose

 

[Leafsfan74]

Let's not forget Leafs like to give away assets for vets while their players, own rentals walk for free. Their ineptitude is epic in any sport. Even the Cubbies won.

This is why he needed to be traded. Even if all they received were two first rounders and a B class prospect.

Incompetence doesn't even begin to explain. They are cutting off their nose to spite their face, every time. Letting the players run the roost.

The team value would increase by 33% if the team won a Cup. By Cup Finals, they could charge 10x the price of regular season tickets and sell them out.

This team has been owned, run and "advised on by unobjective media talking heads" for decades.

A Crown Corporation that it shouldn't be. It needs to be run, guided and lead with a small business mentality with the hiring of hungry employees who just want to succeed so that they can win in the marketplace.

It's time to walk from this failed experiment. They tried to reinvent the Penguins run on a sugar rush which was an extreme anomaly for a number of factors.

 

[Leafsfan74]

And many more first round losses to come. This team was exposed against Las Vegas and Colorado

Well, we should expect a better effort on Thursday against Florida, right?

Convince the GM he made the right decision for the 9th year in a row in mortgaging their future (against the advice of some of us...yet again...)

 

[thewave]

Well, we should expect a better effort on Thursday against Florida, right?

Convince the GM he made the right decision for the 9th year in a row in mortgaging their future (against the advice of some of us...yet again...)

He has term on his players. He can flip and retool.

 

[BraveCanadian]

TLDR, tried to skim it.

Never ceases to amaze me that the solution to our problems is to run our best player out of town and “rebuild” around a couple of losers just because they signed first.

 

[1specter]

TLDR, tried to skim it.

Never ceases to amaze me that the solution to our problems is to run our best player out of town and “rebuild” around a couple of losers just because they signed first.

Okay Paul

 

[PaulD]

There are a number of reason Lou should have moved on from Toronto and the Leafs gone in another direction. Yet, he has won 7x as many playoff rounds as this team has in the last nine years. Could anyone at Sportsnet or TSN had seen this discrepancy coming when they encouraged the "sign at all costs" decision on Nylander in his final RFA year?

I was thinking today of all of the pearl clutching by fans, especially younger fans I'm sure, who are losing their minds over the status of certain players in the offseason.

The best outcome for the Leafs is to let them walk, build the forward group as Brad has built the back end and move into a new, re-tooled era around two offensive stars in Matthews and Nylander. The Leafs now have two young forwards in McMann and Knies who can play in the top six, so Leafs would have plenty of cap space to fill in those two positions AND far more cash to build depth on lines 3 and 4 if they choose to go in this direction, and they should, barring a real deep playoff run.

Crafty veteran Lou went to NYI and despite not having the 4 superstar core players, he has won 7 rounds. The Leafs have won a...single...round....in...ten...years...

Put this into perspective, your beloved Maple Leafs have won a single playoff series in 21 years! If I hired a monkey and asked that monkey to randomly pick some players out of the entire league, altered it for cap compliance, would that monkey have done worse than this franchise?

Please, mercilessly, move on from this failed formula, it's been nine years. Dictate your decisions solely on their success this postseason. Solely.

Great post.
A must read for every leaf fan .....and Shanahan.

 

[PaulD]

TLDR, tried to skim it.

Never ceases to amaze me that the solution to our problems is to run our best player out of town and “rebuild” around a couple of losers just because they signed first.

worked well for the Panthers.
( traded 115 point Huberdeau after losing in 2nd round to Bolts)
Then immediately went to Cup finals both seasons since as a direct result of the trade.

 

[BraveCanadian]

worked well for the Panthers.
( traded 115 point Huberdeau after losing in 2nd round to Bolts)
Then immediately went to Cup finals both seasons since as a direct result of the trade.

Can’t trade him

 

[TheGreenTBer]

TLDR, tried to skim it.

Never ceases to amaze me that the solution to our problems is to run our best player out of town and “rebuild” around a couple of losers just because they signed first.

The core are all losers together. They are all guilty.

 

[Dekes For Days]

Then immediately went to Cup finals both seasons since as a direct result of the trade.

Bobrovsky wasn't part of the trade.

 

[Commander Clueless]

The rebuild starts next year!


...oh wait...

 

[TheVision]

On the bright side, letting Marner and Tavares walk will free up 20-22M in space. Could you get Bennett, Marchand, and Ehlers for that? The felxibility will be worth letting them walk. I have ZERO confidence this team will go any further than they have the last 7yrs.

 

[Leafsfan74]

TLDR, tried to skim it.

Never ceases to amaze me that the solution to our problems is to run our best player out of town and “rebuild” around a couple of losers just because they signed first.

If you can't win more than 1 playoff round in 9 years with your "best player" what does that suggest?

There are certain sports and moments within those sports where talent means little. You cannot replace mental and physical strength and commitment with any other aspect. This isn't a game of chess where the GM is always going to beat the IM, in hockey the GM loses often to the more daring players. Just ask TB when they were upset by Columbus after a record season, or Boston who lost to FLA after an even better record season.

Talent decreases significantly when every inch of ice is fought for and the talented player(s) shrivel like violets.

 

[thewave]

Great post.
A must read for every leaf fan .....and Shanahan.

Not really. The best option was to trade Marner after the MTL bs. That would have got us a haul and a half. We could have fixed the D etc. Fired Dubas then as well.

 

[Commander Clueless]

On the bright side, letting Marner and Tavares walk will free up 20-22M in space. Could you get Bennett, Marchand, and Ehlers for that? The felxibility will be worth letting them walk. I have ZERO confidence this team will go any further than they have the last 7yrs.

Flexibility is good of course, but only if you have things you can do with it.

There's a lot of teams with cap this offseason with a huge cap jump, and more big jumps projected. Lots of buyers, and not a ton of high end players available. It's certainly possible we get left without a chair when the music stops.


Will be a very interesting offseason.

 

[Tie Domi Esquire]

They made Auston Matthews the highest paid player in the league and only got 4 years of term in return. And this city celebrated, except a small handful. There is no hope.

 

[Leafsfan74]

worked well for the Panthers.
( traded 115 point Huberdeau after losing in 2nd round to Bolts)
Then immediately went to Cup finals both seasons since as a direct result of the trade.

Look at Colorado, they didn't like the number Rantanans team was asking and to his horror he is traded. it's that simple. "We own the team, not you".

Luka is traded to the Lakers, everyone is shocked and in a sport in which one player is FAR more important than in the NHL, they made a suicide pact and traded him. They decided for a number of reasons they didn't want to risk the max contract for him. Right or wrong, it's their team assessment, not his.

Pietroangelo asked for too much for the Blues tastes, they wouldn't offer him the NMC which he wanted, they had their captain walk for nothing, but at least it was AFTER they won a Cup, so mission accomplished. "No hard feelings, all the best." They didnt wait 9 years...

They own the team, not the player. A player I thought the Leafs should have picked up rather than re-signing Reilly.

If Leafs were genuinely focused on winning, they would have made the right moves long ago. They aren't truly. They are running it solely as a business and taking the path of least resistance which allows them to print money and selling merchandise is more palatable to them than making the tough decision which COULD lead to a Cup but risks short term guaranteed profits from advertisers who like flash and squishy, wholesome players.

The risk of winning a Cup and increasing value is not worth jeopardizing the sure revenue. So here were are 58 years later.

 

[-DeMo-]

don't understand the fascination with Lou just because we've been pour as an organization over the last 7 years doesn't mean Lou's time in NYI has been a success because it hasn't.

 

[The Shadow]

The core are all losers together. They are all guilty.

Matthews is a big time loser. He’s a rich loser but still a loser. What kind of captain ever says ‘I guess we expected an easier night’ after being pummeled by Las Vegas - a perennial contender????

How dumb do you have to be to expect an easy night against a contending team.

He should never have been captain. You need someone who has that win at all costs mentality like a Brady Tkachuk who despite having never won a cup anyone can tell this guy has the passion and will to do whatever it takes and I would bet any money he will win at least a cup or two in his career. He was just dealt a bad hand by being drafted to a terribly run team