What happened to the Toronto Maple Leafs?

[WarriorofTime]

Yes I imagine GM tend to be but they added Beauchemin-Phaneuf-Kessel, i.e. the 2 biggest minute D and what they thought the biggest minutes forward addition to their team.

Komisarek as well, that was in part a mis-evalution of impact player would have good, how good they really were, but expecting very different result with that much change is not crazy. Gettting Phaneuf-Kessel, that was getting 2 high draft pick in a sense.

Like you say the guy had giant success after success, throwing haymaker (The Sedins was seen as quite the move by now, Ducks had the cup), , building around Phaneuf, that Kessel trades, they were big move, they type that if they work make up for middle of the road drafting history.

The overall strategy was sound I think, just bad execution, Komisarek at 4.5 in that time, that was just bad, I think way worse than taking a chance on a Kessel potential game breaking talent. In a cap world that type of contract can tie you more than loosing what should have been middle of the roads picks...

Phaneuf was traded for on January 31, 2010 fwiw, so wouldn't have been around at the time they traded picks for Kessel (9/18/2009). Think in general the "quick fix" approach of trying to build a new core via UFA/Trades doesn't really work too well which is what Burke tried to do. Inevitable to have to go for a Draft foundation, and then from there can go with making the sort of savvy moves that earn (non-amateur scout heavy) GMs their money. Skipping ELC often means capping out the ceiling of players you get (Boston/Calgary made Kessel and Phaneuf available when they were still under team control, which says something) and you get them in their RFA years without developing the org foundation to support them in what would often be their best surplus value years to begin with. Once players in UFA years, really want to be able to be in a spot where you can afford to be continuously aggressively because you're supplementing a great core in their prime years, so if you are using your future capital to manufacture new salary cap (you sign old guy to term because who cares about back half, you trade away your 1st at deadline because it makes player you acquired a pro-rated cap hit, you use trade capital for the retention), etc. it's fine because you have good chance to win Cup and will deal with consequences of it next decade.

Hard to say even with best case scenario with Burke moves the Leafs not just ending up in middle for a while anyways. Seems hard to envision a team in salary cap era that had success in what should have been the start of their tank cycle in an attempt to "speed it up". Result is more often than not just delaying inevitable.

Suck for some time (usually 5+ years), collect high draft picks, collect a bunch of excess picks, build prospect pool, build young/cost-controlled players, get aggressive once team shows 'organic' growth has really been the name of the game in Salary Cap era and almost all teams with runs of success have followed a similar pattern, including now Toronto in Matthews era. Biggest exception is Vegas who never had a drafted foundation, starting with their "Misfit" expansion foundation that massively overachieved all expectations and basically been "all in, every year" since then which has lead to a lot of favorable aggressive moves that panned out well.

 

[The Panther]

I love Wendel Clark's stories about Ballard c.1985-86, when he was still running the club as if it was 1946.

If I'm remembering this correctly, the Leafs trainer / "doctor" in the mid-to-late 1980s was some friend of Ballard's, who did not have an M.D. or any official medical training.

 

[vikash1987]

Harold Ballard set the franchise back by a couple generations. But since then, it’s been the lack of a consistent, long-term strategy and vision; roster depth issues; and mental fragility come playoff time.

 

[Fenway]

Steve “Dangle” Glynn is a Canadian sports analyst, author, and internet personality best known for his hockey-focused YouTube channel. He started the channel in 2007 and has uploaded a video after every Toronto Maple Leafs game since the 2007–2008 season, including his popular series “Leaf Fan Reactions” (LFRs).

The Maple Leafs' no-show in Game 5 broke him. At 37, he has no memory of the Harold Ballard years.



It is absurd that the NHL has 3 teams in Metro New York and 2 in Los Angeles, but only 1 in the Golden Horseshoe of Ontario.

 

[WarriorofTime]

It is absurd that the NHL has 3 teams in Metro New York and 2 in Los Angeles, but only 1 in the Golden Horseshoe of Ontario.

They should have added a 2nd team in that area 45 year ago imo

 

[The Panther]

Count me in as perplexed there has never been a 2nd NHL club in SW Ontario, or even just the Toronto area. It's actually crazy.

Meanwhile there have been two failed franchises in Georgia...

 

[CharlestownChiefsESC]

Count me in as perplexed there has never been a 2nd NHL club in SW Ontario, or even just the Toronto area. It's actually crazy.

Meanwhile there have been two failed franchises in Georgia...

I do always wonder how the Montreal Maroons would have faired if not for the depression. Hamilton has tried numerous times but the league wouldn't do it

 

[Sergei Bure]

Count me in as perplexed there has never been a 2nd NHL club in SW Ontario, or even just the Toronto area. It's actually crazy.

Meanwhile there have been two failed franchises in Georgia...

Hamilton deserves to have a team in the NHL...

 

[daver]

Is the OP about their last game or their past three games?

 

[McGarnagle]

They should have added a 2nd team in that area 45 year ago imo

Buffalo blocks it too because they draw fans from across the border

 

[MadLuke]

Maybe Buffalo try but does it has the power ? Not on politician of the region, not much on Canadian sport broadcasting, single vote on a now 32 teams voting block.

The Leaf could have Detroit-Buffalo vote of course, maybe even Ottawa do not mind voting with them, but it must little weight throw around versus the Leafs, specially outside the vote.

 

[jigglysquishy]

The Golden Horseshoe, comparable in area to Chicagoland, is about 11,000,000 people now, up from about 6,000,000 in the early 90s when Hamilton was serious considered for expansion.

9/11 made it dramatically harder to cross the border. Trump made millions of Canadians refuse to cross.

Not only has the pie almost doubled in size, but it's become a lot logistically harder to share.

 

[Staniowski]

Hamilton deserves to have a team in the NHL...

Toronto, not Hamilton, is easily the best spot for a 2nd team in Southern Ontario. Hamilton might work decently well, but TO is much better.

I think the ideal location is on the Yonge Street corridor (and on the subway line) somewhere around the 401 - between Sheppard and York Mills.

Could also put the team downtown. If outside the city, probably York Region would be best.

Hamilton doesn't offer any real advantage compared to Toronto. People coming from Kitchener - Waterloo - Cambridge, Guelph, and further in London, Chatham, and Windsor, can get to Yonge & Sheppard almost as easy as Hamilton anyway. Only the Niagara Region really favours Hamilton. And that doesn't make up for Durhan Region, York Region, Barrie, and further afield (Peterborough, etc.).

Plus Toronto gets substantially more tourist traffic, plus the concentration of population in Toronto itself and Peel.

 

[JianYang]

Toronto, not Hamilton, is easily the best spot for a 2nd team in Southern Ontario. Hamilton might work decently well, but TO is much better.

I think the ideal location is on the Yonge Street corridor (and on the subway line) somewhere around the 401 - between Sheppard and York Mills.

Could also put the team downtown. If outside the city, probably York Region would be best.

Hamilton doesn't offer any real advantage compared to Toronto. People coming from Kitchener - Waterloo - Cambridge, Guelph, and further in London, Chatham, and Windsor, can get to Yonge & Sheppard almost as easy as Hamilton anyway. Only the Niagara Region really favours Hamilton. And that doesn't make up for Durhan Region, York Region, Barrie, and further afield (Peterborough, etc.).

Plus Toronto gets substantially more tourist traffic, plus the concentration of population in Toronto itself and Peel.

The leafs would never allow it.

If they fiercely opposed Hamilton, they are definitely not going to be supportive of Toronto #2

 

[SharksFan1992]

They should have added a 2nd team in that area 45 year ago imo

Yep. Too late now. Leafs would never allow it even though Toronto hockey fans desperately need an alternative to elitist Leafs games almost nobody can afford to attend.

 

[SharksFan1992]

The leafs would never allow it.

If they fiercely opposed Hamilton, they are definitely not going to be supportive of Toronto #2

Both Sabres and Leafs would block any Hamilton team. I think a 2nd Toronto team would work best being located outside the inner city, out in the suburbs (Markha, Richmond Hill, Vaugh, etc.). Games could be cheaper and attract fans not wealthy enough for Leafs games or hate commuting downtown.

In Europe, a city Toronto's size would have 6+ teams.

 

[The Panther]

The leafs would never allow it.

If they fiercely opposed Hamilton, they are definitely not going to be supportive of Toronto #2

But why would they not allow it?

There's zero-chance of another GTO team limiting Leafs' sell-outs or (obviously) priority position in the local fanbase, which wouldn't be seriously challenged for at least 100 years.

In other words, I'm just wondering, do you think the Leafs' org thinks they would suffer a financial handicap from it...?

 

[JianYang]

But why would they not allow it?

There's zero-chance of another GTO team limiting Leafs' sell-outs or (obviously) priority position in the local fanbase, which wouldn't be seriously challenged for at least 100 years.

In other words, I'm just wondering, do you think the Leafs' org thinks they would suffer a financial handicap from it...?

I think they dont want to give up the scarcity that they have a monopoly on in that particular market.

Of course, they will do fine with or without a 2nd team in the region, but they do lose some command over their lucrative market, and no for profit entity wants to do that.

 

[Staniowski]

The leafs would never allow it.

If they fiercely opposed Hamilton, they are definitely not going to be supportive of Toronto #2

Yeah, I know that the Leafs wouldn't want a 2nd Toronto team....just stating that it would be the best location for another team (from the perspective of the 2nd team), and specifically the Yonge/401 area.

 

[Nerowoy nora tolad]

But why would they not allow it?

There's zero-chance of another GTO team limiting Leafs' sell-outs or (obviously) priority position in the local fanbase, which wouldn't be seriously challenged for at least 100 years.

In other words, I'm just wondering, do you think the Leafs' org thinks they would suffer a financial handicap from it...?

if Toronto 2.0/Hamilton had existed for the last decade of leafs ineptitude 2006-2017 or so, the loss of market share for the leafs would have been huge.

Its just not the same situation as the Oilers over the same period, or the way the New York market reacted to the Islanders eclipsing the Rangers for a while in the 80s. The leafs have had so many different negative storms of image and publicity around them for so long a lot of serious hockey fans in southern ontario would love to migrate to a new fanbase.

 

[Quatre Vingt Treize]

I did a similar thread about Montreal long time ago, the Canadiens haven't won the Stanley Cup in 32 years, but contrary to Toronto they were able to have some success in the "modern era" before things started going wrong in the 90's with the lost of identity, because of bad decisions, bad GM's, bad drafting, and the Roy trade being the icing on the cake. Toronto on the other hand haven't won the Stanley Cup in almost 60 years, and they haven't reached a final since their last triumph in 1967 against the Montreal Canadiens. What happened to this franchise, it was just a total inability to adapt to the modern era? Which funny enough, started with the expansion of 6 teams after the Maple Leafs won their last cup...

This might be Toronto's year. Hard for a Canadian team to win a Cup.

 

[kaiser matias]

It is a bit ironic that back in the early 1990s when the NHL started their expansion process, Hamilton was a serious candidate with a bid backed by Ron Joyce (of Tim Hortons). However the sticking point was Joyce did not want to pay the $50 million expansion fee up front, but wanted it spread out over time, which the NHL balked at. Instead they awarded teams to the only two groups who had no issue with that payment: Ottawa and Tampa Bay. And of course both of those ownership groups (Bruce Firestone and Phil Esposito/the Japanese "investors") ended up not being able to make such payments, and ended up selling within a few years as a result.

You have to wonder how things would have been if Ziegler, Wirtz, et al wouldn't have been so stubborn about Joyce's offer, and what having Tim Hortons so intimately involved with the league at that time (much more than they would become even) could have done for the league.

 

[MadLuke]

sell-outs

I am not sure that the bar they would look at, TV contract, enterprise suite, etc... smaller arena of course but the Jets did sell out for a long time with for a while some of the most expensive ticket and where still apparently bottom tier in revenues.

I think Montreal blocking Quebec (or not actively helping them) or Toronto blocking Toronto 2, Hamilton, etc... can be shortsighted, sure you have RDS-TVA sport fighting for the same TV rights and juicing your price and so on.

But the energy and grow from a direct rivalry make a large pie to split and the math is not necessarily obvious

 

[JianYang]

Harold Ballard set the franchise back by a couple generations. But since then, it’s been the lack of a consistent, long-term strategy and vision; roster depth issues; and mental fragility come playoff time.

The playoff fragility is something particularly unique to this toronto core, but I think they aren't the only Canadian team that struggles with the lack of long term strategy.

In montreal, for example, I dont ever recall the habs ever going through a dedicated multi year rebuild plan until after the 2021 finals run. It was usually about trying to fill holes to get to the playoffs year after year since the 90s.

What is the result? It's a team that has never missed the playoffs for more than 3 years in a row in their franchise history, but also a team that would never be labeled as a serious threat for the cup (aside from 2009 which ended up being a disaster anyways).

I live in the Vancouver area and I can tell you for sure that Canucks fans will never equate their owner to having a long term strategy either.