Toronto Sports Media Discussion Thread - v7 (2022 Edition)

[francis246]

Did we or did we not acquire Giordano at the trade deadline?
He was our steadiest defenseman going into the playoffs and really helped improve the game of Liljigren.

If I give you $5, you can want to buy a Ferrari as much as anyone ever wanted anything in history, but you're not going to because you can't do so from a financial point.

Do you guys think that the cap goes away at the trade deadline or something?

We also could have LTIR’d Muzzin and had even more cap space but Dubas didn’t want to, which to me proved to be another bad decision on his part.

 

[TheRumble]

Nobody would be against a nylander for tkachuk trade, that's not a risk.

This is a hilarious trade.

There's a pretty large and vocal contingent of the fanbase that thinks Nylander is a playoff choker even though he's been a PPG player the last two seasons so they advocate to trade him for a playoff performer.

So they decide to trade for known playoff performer Matthew Tkachuk who has put up consecutive playoff performances of 3 and 2 points just because he appears to play a playoff friendly style of game.

This year he has been a complete third wheel on a line led by Gaudreau and Lindholm in the post season.

 

[Nylanderthal]

Bourne and Kyper are saying this failure goes back to signing Tavares, and I agree with them.

Imagine:

Bunts - Matthews - Marner
Nylander - Kadri - Hyman

and a better bottom 6 or a good defenceman.

No thanks, glad to move off Hyman & kadri had to go not because of JT but because of his own actions

 

[pcruz]

Who got us into a tough cap spot, again?

Drafting superstars and acquiring another superstar free agent centre with some term.

Unlike the NBA, a single player is unlikely to be the tipping point for a franchise, so going crazy on rentals is almost never a sound solution, and if a player with the caliber of the best rentals becomes available, and willing, you sign them to a good contract with term.

This gives you a solid window of time to succeed.
Also, drafting a player who scores 40 goals as a rookie tends to cost you a lot of money.
Drafting a player who scores 90+ points and plays solid on the PK also costs you a lot of money.

Also, an extremely deadly and contagious disease flared up 2 years ago which has caused businesses to shut down all over the place and caused devastation throughout the world. IT caused the NHL to lose a lot of revenue so the salary cap, which is directly tied to revenue, has not gone up in 2 years.

Maybe Dubas should have foreseen financial ruin for the whole world, but he was most likely basing his prediction on the salary cap increasing 5% per year or so for the foreseeable future. In that alternate reality, Matthews, Marner and Tavares' contracts are digestible or actually good, Nylander's is really good value, and the team goes into every year with their core locked up and a little bit of spending money in the periphery.

If you added $5 or $6 million to the cap, the team is doing just fine, n'est pas?

 

[Nylanderthal]

He thinks winning is all luck. He doesnt recognize the sacrifices it takes to win the Cup.

Hockey is the sport that is influenced the most by random chance & luck. There are lots of things you can do to improve your odds but it’s 100% the most unpredictable of the big 4 sports where the line between failure and success is a bounce here or a stop there, he’s not wrong

 

[Tufted Titmouse]

Drafting superstars and acquiring another superstar free agent centre with some term.

Unlike the NBA, a single player is unlikely to be the tipping point for a franchise, so going crazy on rentals is almost never a sound solution, and if a player with the caliber of the best rentals becomes available, and willing, you sign them to a good contract with term.

This gives you a solid window of time to succeed.
Also, drafting a player who scores 40 goals as a rookie tends to cost you a lot of money.
Drafting a player who scores 90+ points and plays solid on the PK also costs you a lot of money.

Also, an extremely deadly and contagious disease flared up 2 years ago which has caused businesses to shut down all over the place and caused devastation throughout the world. IT caused the NHL to lose a lot of revenue so the salary cap, which is directly tied to revenue, has not gone up in 2 years.

Maybe Dubas should have foreseen financial ruin for the whole world, but he was most likely basing his prediction on the salary cap increasing 5% per year or so for the foreseeable future. In that alternate reality, Matthews, Marner and Tavares' contracts are digestible or actually good, Nylander's is really good value, and the team goes into every year with their core locked up and a little bit of spending money in the periphery.

If you added $5 or $6 million to the cap, the team is doing just fine, n'est pas?

Weird that he seems to be one of a very select few who were affected.

Sakic somehow got Rantanen and Makar locked into good value contracts.
Sweeney got McAvoy signed to a nice fair deal.
Hell, even Bergevin seemed to do better with Aho.
Barkov is on a nice deal, wouldn't you say?
I wouldn't mind Point at around 9m - a C with a 40g season and multiple deep cup runs.
Kucherov and Stone both at 9.5m with no or almost no RFA years left, weird.

I am not even someone who thinks we have bad contracts, but we overpaid in almost every comparison, and we also have 3 guys over 10m. Of course we can't compete with a team like Tampa who has managed their cap allocation so much better than we have.


Seems like everyone else just somehow avoided all this hardship. Every team was hit with the cap crunch. It's not an excuse.

 

[Nylanderthal]

Also it's strange how there's always more vicious pushback against criticism of the team's GM than the team's star players.

Largely because the GM has assembled teams that were expected to succeed, the players on the ice failed in execution.

 

[francis246]

This is a hilarious trade.

There's a pretty large and vocal contingent of the fanbase that thinks Nylander is a playoff choker even though he's been a PPG player the last two seasons so they advocate to trade him for a playoff performer.

So they decide to trade for known playoff performer Matthew Tkachuk who has put up consecutive playoff performances of 3 and 2 points just because he appears to play a playoff friendly style of game.

This year he has been a complete third wheel on a line led by Gaudreau and Lindholm in the post season.

it has nothing to do with being a playoff choker, it has everything to do with Nylander's contract is the most trade-able. Also Nylander just isn't a physical guy and gives up on plays, he's an amazing player. But I rather have someone who's motor just never stops and is after it every shift.

 

[Nylanderthal]

100%. One of the best moves we can make would be moving Tavares to the wing.

Bourne and Kyper talked about how you can't do that because JT is so good defensively...that line, despite good starts in the OZ, was our worst line for GA/60. Nylander was #1, Tavares #2.

A duo which takes up nearly 20% of the cap can't be our worst line for GA/60 with plenty of OZS.

Tavares to the wing, and trade Nylander to bring some depth to the 2nd and 3rd lines so we can match up properly against the TBays and Colorados of the league.

You don’t dilute talent like Willy to patch lesser holes. You fill those holes with other means.

There’s lots of cap that can be manipulated to change a good chunk of the roster without having to take away from the top end.
35 36 3 8 15 25 47 65 account for 21m of cap space and you have sandin & Lilly who for sure need spots next year, and have to expect one of Robertson Anderson or Steeves to compete for a spot.

it has nothing to do with being a playoff choker, it has everything to do with Nylander's contract is the most trade-able. Also Nylander just isn't a physical guy and gives up on plays, he's an amazing player. But I rather have someone who's motor just never stops and is after it every shift.

He’s also the most consistent playoff performer of the group and has a great cap hit for a team apparently short on cap space

 

[usernamezrhardtodo]

Drafting superstars and acquiring another superstar free agent centre with some term.

Unlike the NBA, a single player is unlikely to be the tipping point for a franchise, so going crazy on rentals is almost never a sound solution, and if a player with the caliber of the best rentals becomes available, and willing, you sign them to a good contract with term.

This gives you a solid window of time to succeed.
Also, drafting a player who scores 40 goals as a rookie tends to cost you a lot of money.
Drafting a player who scores 90+ points and plays solid on the PK also costs you a lot of money.

Also, an extremely deadly and contagious disease flared up 2 years ago which has caused businesses to shut down all over the place and caused devastation throughout the world. IT caused the NHL to lose a lot of revenue so the salary cap, which is directly tied to revenue, has not gone up in 2 years.

Maybe Dubas should have foreseen financial ruin for the whole world, but he was most likely basing his prediction on the salary cap increasing 5% per year or so for the foreseeable future. In that alternate reality, Matthews, Marner and Tavares' contracts are digestible or actually good, Nylander's is really good value, and the team goes into every year with their core locked up and a little bit of spending money in the periphery.

If you added $5 or $6 million to the cap, the team is doing just fine, n'est pas?

I don't agree with the "Cap going up" solves all our issues. Mainly because the flat cap has caused all non super star salaries to stagnate somewhat. Do you think you're picking up Kampf and Bunting for as little as you did this off season if the cap was at $90M? That is the flaw in the plan no matter what happen with covid and a flat cap. The players want a % of the cap and that means the $$ will go up just because of math. The flaw is having a 2nd line center making 2-3x what we should be paying for. That submarines the whole thing no matter what the cap is.

 

[stickty111]

Hayes is literally the person who said Leafs are not better off in this era than the Clarkson era. These people should be ignored all together.
To compare it to the Raptors, he started attacking the Raps for not trading Lowry a year ago, and said it doesn't matter if you made a bad trade, you should have traded him. Yet someone we are supposed to take guys like him as knowledgable?

 

[usernamezrhardtodo]

Weird that he seems to be one of a very select few who were affected.

Sakic somehow got Rantanen and Makar locked into good value contracts.
Sweeney got McAvoy signed to a nice fair deal.
Hell, even Bergevin seemed to do better with Aho.
Barkov is on a nice deal, wouldn't you say?
I wouldn't mind Point at around 9m - a C with a 40g season and multiple deep cup runs.
Kucherov and Stone both at 9.5m with no or almost no RFA years left, weird.

I am not even someone who thinks we have bad contracts, but we overpaid in almost every comparison, and we also have 3 guys over 10m. Of course we can't compete with a team like Tampa who has managed their cap allocation so much better than we have.


Seems like everyone else just somehow avoided all this hardship. Every team was hit with the cap crunch. It's not an excuse.

I remember Dubas saying after he overpaid Marner that this was the new reality and teams are going to have to start paying the RFA's from now on. That "now" - lasted about 1 month before other teams got good deals on their players. Once again...Dubas tried to reinvent hockey in some way and got burned.

 

[Lilou]

Hayes is literally the person who said Leafs are not better off in this era than the Clarkson era. These people should be ignored all together.
To compare it to the Raptors, he started attacking the Raps for not trading Lowry a year ago, and said it doesn't matter if you made a bad trade, you should have traded him. Yet someone we are supposed to take guys like him as knowledgable?

I stopped listening to hayes, O'Neil and McLennan during the Kessel years. I finally got tired of listening to the kadri bashing and never listened again. Mclennen especially couldn't resist taking shots at kadri. Then once he was traded to Colorado they have nothing but nice things to say about him. I get they'll say anything for ratings but they have some of the worst takes.

 

[francis246]

You don’t dilute talent like Willy to patch lesser holes. You fill those holes with other means.

There’s lots of cap that can be manipulated to change a good chunk of the roster without having to take away from the top end.
35 36 3 8 15 25 47 65 account for 21m of cap space and you have sandin & Lilly who need spots next year.


He’s also the most consistent playoff performer of the group and has a great cap hit for a team apparently short on cap space

most consisten? definitely a bit of a stretch.. All the numbers between Matthews, Marner and Nylander are around the same. Nylander doesn't even lead the group in playoff points.

Mitch Marner - 33 points
Auston Matthews - 33 points
William Nylander - 30 points

The point being is you keep Nylander if there's not a deal available. You don't make a trade for the sake of making a trade, but if there is a hockey deal that brings in a player with a higher compete level while also not giving up much offense, I'm all for it, I think you do it.

For example. If you can get JT Miller + additional assets for Nylander, I think you have to think LONG and hard about it. I'm not saying you do it. But the Leafs have to listen. Or some how we can acquire Filip Forsberg through UFA or trade and have to move someone out for cap space, I'd be okay with moving Nylander.

He's probably my favourite of the group of our forwards but I also think moving him if they decide on moving on from someone is always going to be the most logical choice.

 

[Nylanderthal]

most consisten? definitely a bit of a stretch.. All the numbers between Matthews, Marner and Nylander are around the same. Nylander doesn't even lead the group in playoff points.

Mitch Marner - 33 points
Auston Matthews - 33 points
William Nylander - 30 points

The point being is you keep Nylander if there's not a deal available. You don't make a trade for the sake of making a trade, but if there is a hockey deal that brings in a player with a higher compete level while also not giving up much offense, I'm all for it, I think you do it.

For example. If you can get JT Miller + additional assets for Nylander, I think you have to think LONG and hard about it. I'm not saying you do it. But the Leafs have to listen. Or some how we can acquire Filip Forsberg through UFA or trade and have to move someone out for cap space, I'd be okay with moving Nylander.

He's probably my favourite of the group of our forwards but I also think moving him if they decide on moving on from someone is always going to be the most logical choice.

I agree with your premise, but would be more inclined to try and add that piece to the group as opposed to removing someone. I meant most productive over the last three sorry.
Throw whatever futures are needed to add JT Miller at 50% instead.
I think that forsberg is going to cost a lot more than Willy and might push up closer to Mitch territory, a buddy of mine from LA and I were talking and he suggested that the kings are horny for Filip and the number is probably 9-9.5m x7

 

[francis246]

Hayes is literally the person who said Leafs are not better off in this era than the Clarkson era. These people should be ignored all together.
To compare it to the Raptors, he started attacking the Raps for not trading Lowry a year ago, and said it doesn't matter if you made a bad trade, you should have traded him. Yet someone we are supposed to take guys like him as knowledgable?

In the end he was right about Lowry. The decision not to trade him a year prior was stupid. His value was way higher. We would have gotten more for him at that point compared to what we got for him a year later. There's no if's and's or but's about it. You can't honestly sit here and say that Miami deal they got for him was better than the year in the Orlando bubble. It was a mis-step by the Raptors and I believe if you asked Webster and Masai in a candid moment, they probably would have moved him earlier in hindsight.

We get it you hate Bryan Hayes, you hate the Toronto media, but not all his takes are bad. You tend to over exaggerate things said by the media.

 

[stickty111]

I stopped listening to hayes, O'Neil and McLennan during the Kessel years. I finally got tired of listening to the kadri bashing and never listened again. Mclennen especially couldn't resist taking shots at kadri. Then once he was traded to Colorado they have nothing but nice things to say about him. I get they'll say anything for ratings but they have some of the worst takes.

Thank you. As someone who still has a soft spot for Kadri, it's embarassing how he was treated by the media here and now how it's the worst trade in sports history. Double standard for sure.
Those three love criticizing Nylander yet if he were to get traded, Hayes and Jeff would attack Dubas for trading him and it was an awful trade. The hilarious thing is Noodles suggesting trade him for a gritty 60 point guy which is fine, but yet if that happens, they will attack the team and say Nylander has 70 points so it's bad a trade for Toronto. All of a sudden now points is the main thing that matters.
Noodles takes shots at Engvall for no reason, yet he would adore him on the Oilers.

 

[francis246]

I agree with your premise, but would be more inclined to try and add that piece to the group as opposed to removing someone. I meant most productive over the last three sorry.
Throw whatever futures are needed to add JT Miller at 50% instead.
I think that forsberg is going to cost a lot more than Willy and might push up closer to Mitch territory, a buddy of mine from LA and I were talking and he suggested that the kings are horny for Filip and the number is probably 9-9.5m x7

I also agree with you in the sense that, the Leafs can also take that approach as well. I think regardless they need to change or add to the core. Something new that can shake up that locker room a bit. I would have loved to see Dubas go all in the past trade deadline. Get a Max Domi to shore up the left wing and PP. One thing is for sure it's going to be an interesting off-season. Who graduates from the Marlies, who do they sign, do they even make a trade?

 

[hockeywiz542]

Former Leafs defenceman Frank Corrado would have "choice words" for Mike Babcock

After a couple of rocky seasons in Toronto, 'Francesco from Woodbridge' is back on the scene and still around the game he loves.

theathletic.com

Despite the rebuild, Corrado was forced to make a home in the press box as a healthy scratch.

“Even the fact that you’re going up for game No. 22, and you haven’t played, and you’re like, ‘What am I going to do? Eat another bag of popcorn? This is ridiculous,’” he said. “Sometimes I would go up and sometimes I would stay in the room and watch the game.”

It was even more difficult for games on the road. Sometimes, he would be the only healthy scratch on the roster. Teammates would leave the hotel on a chartered bus at 4:30 p.m., and he would check out a bit later, making his own way to the arena. He would try to stay out of everyone’s way as they prepared for the game, then work out quietly on his own.

“I’m there,” he said, “but I’m not exactly there.”

Fans picked up his plight.

“It was weird to go on Twitter after a game and see that my name was trending,” he said. “I’m like, ‘I’m not even the next guy in the lineup. I’m two guys out of being in the lineup,’ and my name was trending.”

Mike Babcock was the head coach. Even now, Corrado said he cannot be certain, but he always felt the attention he got for being a healthy scratch only hardened the coach’s resolve to keep him out of the lineup.

“No player is entitled to play,” said Corrado. “But for things to have dragged out as long as they did, I think that’s where I take issue with it. If you knew it was never going to happen, we should have cut ties much earlier than letting it drag on that way.”

The Leafs fired Babcock in November 2019, just as reports were surfacing about his mistreatment of one young player on the roster. (It was reported that, when Mitch Marner was a rookie, Babcock had asked him to list which players he thought were the hardest-working, then shared the list with players Marner had identified as being near the bottom. Babcock later conceded he made “a big-time mistake.”)

“I’ll tell you straight up: If I ever saw him again, I would have some choice words for him,” said Corrado. “I just feel like it was only a matter of time until his antics caught up to him.”

Corrado is not sure if he will step back into a professional hockey uniform. He has not given his agent, Joe Resnick, the green-light to start searching for new offers. He already has one important date on his calendar: After getting married in 2020, he and his wife, Jessica Laurenza, are finally able to hold their wedding reception in June.

 

[Brobust]

No thanks, glad to move off Hyman & kadri had to go not because of JT but because of his own actions

It's ridiculous that people here don't realize that if Kadri hadn't been so dumb, the leafs wouldn't be the punching bag of the NHL.

That we wouldn't be in this special sports hell of cheering for a great team that can't make it out of the 1st round.

 

[Brobust]

I remember Dubas saying after he overpaid Marner that this was the new reality and teams are going to have to start paying the RFA's from now on. That "now" - lasted about 1 month before other teams got good deals on their players. Once again...Dubas tried to reinvent hockey in some way and got burned.

You mean Matthew Tkachuk, who now has a $9M QO and is 1 year away from UFA status.

Or Brock Boeser, who put up 40 points and has a $7.5M QO.

Of the guys who signed long term, Mitch makes about $1M than Rantanen and is arguably more impactful player.

So where exactly is the issue?

 

[usernamezrhardtodo]

You mean Matthew Tkachuk, who now has a $9M QO and is 1 year away from UFA status.

Or Brock Boeser, who put up 40 points and has a $7.5M QO.

Of the guys who signed long term, Mitch makes about $1M than Rantanen and is arguably more impactful player.

So where exactly is the issue?

Seriously? Tkachuk just got 100 pts and is playing for $7.5 or something close to it for a few years. You think saving for a couple of years is stupid because you finally have to pay them when they are almost UFA's? Ok then...

 

[Brobust]

Seriously? Tkachuk just got 100 pts and is playing for $7.5 or something close to it for a few years. You think saving for a couple of years is stupid because you finally have to pay them when they are almost UFA's? Ok then...

If they took that path with him, he'd be at $8M or so and probably demanding $12M+ for next season. Would that put Toronto in a better cap situation?

 

[Stigma]

You mean Matthew Tkachuk, who now has a $9M QO and is 1 year away from UFA status.

Or Brock Boeser, who put up 40 points and has a $7.5M QO.

Of the guys who signed long term, Mitch makes about $1M than Rantanen and is arguably more impactful player.

So where exactly is the issue?

To be fair, Brock Boeser was trending toward a 30 goal/60-70 point guy before this season. He had a difficult year with his father's illness and all.

 

[Brobust]

To be fair, Brock Boeser was trending toward a 30 goal/60-70 point guy before this season. He had a difficult year with his father's illness and all.

Even so, if he maintained his production, the negotiations for a 60-70 player would start at $7.5M this offseason. The current reality is that Vancouver has a player that they're desperate to trade but can't because they won't get any value because of his inflated QO.

On Matthew Tkachuk, I imagine any negotiation for his is tied to whatever Gaudreau demands as a UFA.