The "Team" Is Broken

[TakeTheBody]

Christ.

You know it aint easy, you know how hard it can be. The way things are going.....

 

[Gabriel426]

How many professional titles did you win?

Playing sports my teams did the same, but it didn't change how we played. Teammates are teammates, I got closer to them in the locker room than at the bars.

Two lower divisions titles and four grand championships titles.

Hanging out after the game is not the be all end all. And I am 100% sure a lot of teams hang out together and didn’t win anything but like I said, it is a bit odd for Keefe to made that comment as he has been the coach for like 4 playoffs. Which means they didn’t have a group dinner for 4 years during the playoffs.

Now would group dinners mean they win the Cup, probably not but if whatever you are doing is not getting results, maybe time for a little change that might help.

 

[Ianturnedbull]

I would argue that the team is not broken because Reaves is here (in the nick of time).

 

[Gabriel426]

We spending 1.3mil to make our parties/60 go to #1 in the league

As long as they win the Cup, lol

From the interview it seemed it's what he was told by the front office during signing negotiations. In the tsn (or Sportsnet?) Interview on July 1 he flat out described the room as quiet. Must have gotten told that from somewhere

And also he followed it up with he doesn’t know anyone at the Leafs. To me I really think Treliving probably told him, he expects Reaves to be the locker room guy and bring some noise.

 

[notbias]

Two lower divisions titles and four grand championships titles.

Hanging out after the game is not the be all end all. And I am 100% sure a lot of teams hang out together and didn’t win anything but like I said, it is a bit odd for Keefe to made that comment as he has been the coach for like 4 playoffs. Which means they didn’t have a group dinner for 4 years during the playoffs.

Now would group dinners mean they win the Cup, probably not but if whatever you are doing is not getting results, maybe time for a little change that might help.

So 0... It didn't make your team the best in the world.

I have a feeling bonding will lead to 0 more production on the ice.

I'd change a whole lot of things before thinking this was the issue.

And also he followed it up with he doesn’t know anyone at the Leafs. To me I really think Treliving probably told him, he expects Reaves to be the locker room guy and bring some noise.

Treliving could only tell Reaves what he heard, not experienced, so would seem weird to state it as fact.

 

[hamzarocks]

I’ve been banned while silently reading another teams board before.

How lool?

I was reading the bruins game 7 loss pgt today due to being bored.

Their mods called out any leaf fans posting on the pgt but were not as salty as oiler fans who ban you even for liking posts

 

[justashadowof]

I would argue that the team is not broken because Reaves is here (in the nick of time).

I remember when the affable Peter Horachek was brought in to work as a bridge between the players and its head coach. I'm getting old, I can't quite remember how that went exactly but it seemed like it was the right move at the time.

 

[BLONG7]

These kinds of things always come back to one thing, the vets.............the vets have to show the way to the entire team. Are the Core Four a tight group? If so, then there should be zero issues, if not well there you go.............

Some people mesh, some don't..........a hockey team has to have the mentality of going through a wall for each other.............the leafs have not had that....yet?

 

[LastOne2100]

I think he focus on not losing all his talents he still scored 24th since he signed out of all players in the league and he's no longer top 10 so if he's around 14th paid now he's really not that overpaid. I assume he's in the gym with a body like that you don't just have it. So yah he's working behind doors you can't see. Not everything leafs is a window.

You can work extremely hard and still be a bad captain.

 

[Sypher04]

How lool?

I was reading the bruins game 7 loss pgt today due to being bored.

Their mods called out any leaf fans posting on the pgt but were not as salty as oiler fans who ban you even for liking posts

Honestly I have no idea. I can only assume the list of users in the thread, that someone was just clicking names and looking at posting history.

 

[Ianturnedbull]

When Reaves, Domi, and Bertuzzi score their first goal for the Leafs the fans are going to go nuts. That will create a great team culture. Entertainment, winning, playoff wins, and happy fans are a recipe for success.

 

[Nineteen67]

I wasn’t shocked when I heard that considering Tavares is the captain.

Reaves said on the first interview I heard that he’s going drag them into being a team. I bet he doesn’t achieve it and ends up hating them after awhile.

 

[TheGreenTBer]

ROR has always been a money chaser going back to his Colorado days. Clearly he doesn't care to win anymore since he got his one cup.

Not like he was going to win here, come on. These guys don't have it.

 

[Stephen]

The Reeves July 1st interviews seemed to suggest the dressingroom was fairly quiet and in deed of a shakeup. A guy like Tavares as captain, is obviously respected, but he has a very quite personality, - at the very minimum things needed a shakeup to some extent. How that comes to the team remains to be see.

That said, I'm a bit over folks trying to use ROR as some ultimate character judge. The guy will have played for at least 5 different teams by the time his career is over and signed an offer sheet as an RFA - none of that makes him a villain, but he's hardly a team loyalist or an ultimate judge of anything, he's a mercenary.

The reality is the Leafs are an underachieving and disappointing team, and a lot will be made of the culture that either produces these results or are more symptoms of a deeper dysfunction. Defenders will try to suggest that outward behavioral traits have nothing to do with success and failure... around and around we go.

What ROR thinks about the Leafs also needs to be taken with a grain of salt. When we saw a bearded Gud Pro Ontario Guy come home and basically be asked to do John Tavares' whole job, fans were very quick to project many good things onto him (myself included). We have to remember he's got his own career goals, preferences and also wasn't exactly the final word on success in this league up until the 2019 run.

Leafs do genuinely seem to have some less than perfect culture looking for a distance, but I don't think it can be summed up by ROR not having buddies to go out to dinner with.

 

[ER89]

JT was always a shit captain choice.

The dude has zero energy, zero charisma.

JT as the C is the equivalent of seasoning food with just salt and pepper.

 

[Stephen]

I wasn’t shocked when I heard that considering Tavares is the captain.

Reaves said on the first interview I heard that he’s going drag them into being a team. I bet he doesn’t achieve it and ends up hating them after awhile.

Tavares seems more suited to be the quiet guy who wears an A who people can look to for quiet leadership by example, but not an inspirational, emotional leader alpha. Seems like the project has always been to try and import these alpha guys to provide up lift.

 

[Gabriel426]

So 0... It didn't make your team the best in the world.

I have a feeling bonding will lead to 0 more production on the ice.

I'd change a whole lot of things before thinking this was the issue.



Treliving could only tell Reaves what he heard, not experienced, so would seem weird to state it as fact.

Am I saying having team dinner will make them Cup Champs?

I stated it is odd that they didn’t had team dinner during the playoffs till now.

By the way, those championships and titles were professional titles as I was getting paid to play the game.

 

[Gabriel426]

The reality is the Leafs are an underachieving and disappointing team, and a lot will be made of the culture that either produces these results or are more symptoms of a deeper dysfunction. Defenders will try to suggest that outward behavioral traits have nothing to do with success and failure... around and around we go.

What ROR thinks about the Leafs also needs to be taken with a grain of salt. When we saw a bearded Gud Pro Ontario Guy come home and basically be asked to do John Tavares' whole job, fans were very quick to project many good things onto him (myself included). We have to remember he's got his own career goals, preferences and also wasn't exactly the final word on success in this league up until the 2019 run.

Leafs do genuinely seem to have some less than perfect culture looking for a distance, but I don't think it can be summed up by ROR not having buddies to go out to dinner with.

I think some here are looking at this dinner thing as not a thing to worry about and are attacking people who think it is a factor.

To me it is just odd that it happened.

As for ROR, you can’t just dismiss what he said bc he is someone who seen a lot. Now should we take his opinions as the Bible, that’s another story

 

[Stephen]

Am I saying having team dinner will make them Cup Champs?

I stated it is odd that they didn’t had team dinner during the playoffs till now.

By the way, those championships and titles were professional titles as I was getting paid to play the game.

I don't think a team can lose a Stanley Cup by having anti-social dining habits, or win one with a big party scene, but I take the whispers as meaning they aren't as cohesive a group that tightly knit championship teams tend to be.

I don't know if this is necessarily an indictment on the group though. Seems fairly self explanatory that we have a highly paid core group of players who have job security, media coverage and responsibilities to perform, an outer group of good friends and a revolving cast of filler players and mercenaries whom the previous GM has sold on coming in to "bet on yourself." Between that, they sprinkle in the random greybeard Foligno, Thornton, Spezza, Giordano, ROR for cohesion. No wonder it's basically an NBA starting 5 and a bench.

 

[Jimmy Firecracker]

Tavares seems more suited to be the quiet guy who wears an A who people can look to for quiet leadership by example, but not an inspirational, emotional leader alpha. Seems like the project has always been to try and import these alpha guys to provide up lift.

The closest alpha guy on the core is Rielly and when it came to the captaincy they passed him over in favour of Tavares and very likely Matthews if he hadn’t f***ed up with the underpants incident. For the most part the Leafs haven’t had many “alphas” on the roster for the past few seasons. Or if they did they were only here for a cup of coffee or too old to be much of a factor.

A guy like John can work as captain so long as he’s surrounded by warriors, like with Sundin no one would say he was a “rah rah” guy but he had a veteran crew of Roberts, McCabe, and Domi as leaders to go along with a take no guff cast of Tucker, Corson, Belak, etc. Who wears the A’s for us? Rielly and Matthews and Marner who rotate. Only one of those guys is comfortable mixing it up or standing up for themselves when shit gets heated.

 

[Gary Nylund]

Lets see.

As of July 12th 2023

The teams opening night top 6 is better than it's been in 20 years.

The overall winger depth is better than it's been in 20 years.

The defense is more talnted and deeper than It's been in 20 years.

The goaltending is more talnted and deeper than It's been in 20 years.

That's not to say there aren't issues specifically 3rd line center.

But overall this team is stronger than it's been since 2003-2004

LOL.

Who cares about opening night? The team as of right now seems clearly worse than the one that just got the shit kicked out of them by Florida and we've spent so many futures, it's not like we're in a good position to add much at the TDL. We're also over the cap and resolving that one way or the other isn't going to make us stronger.

We'll probably cruise to the playoffs as usual so if making the playoffs is enough to make people happy, great be happy. If you're like me though and are more interested in going deep in the playoffs then in whether we finish 4th or 14th in the regular season, what counts is that we're not in a better position than we were this spring, and where we were has been nowhere near good enough for many years now.

 

[BayStBullies]

Can you provide the direct sourced quote where ROR said that? Or do you believe everything you hear? Newsflash, maybe the media is a big problem in this city.

 

[justashadowof]

Reaves said on the first interview I heard that he’s going drag them into being a team. I bet he doesn’t achieve it and ends up hating them after awhile.

I say the odds are good that Ryan Reaves is traded mid-season at his request after discovering this is a different sort of team than he has ever experienced.

 

[tuckerintensity]

First of all, this is all ridiculous.

Secondly, The Athletic had an article on Tavares where they interviewed other Leafs about him. And they love him. Further, as part of that, multiple teammates mentioned that he brings his own olive oil on road trip trips to have the chef use it when they are cooking his food when they are out for team dinners.

Lastly, look at Keefe's timeline. No effing s it's the first time they've done many team dinners in the playoffs. Y'all remember a global pandemic? Most of his tenure was either in a bubble or if you tested positive you had to isolate. Not exactly conducive to team dinners.

 

[Martin Skoula]

I have a hard time believing hyper-corporate MLSE wouldn’t target team culture immediately, team building lunches and leadership retreats seem like the exact kind of thing their army of consultants target to buy themselves time to massage data into looking like they delivered tangible results.

You’re really going to tell me Dubas didn’t have endless meetings with our 30 VPs and consultants about synergy and alignment trying to moneyball off-ice advantages.