When did you know it was over for this group?

[genk]

Leafs simply can't prove they can WIN in the PLAYOFFS during the regular season, So it really doesn't matter what happens in the 82 games that all teams play.

You are the most disingenuous poster here. You say it “really doesn’t matter what happens in the 82 games that all teams play” which is complete horseshit, since you take a jab at the team for every regular season hiccup. You can’t have it both ways.

What’s even more baffling to me is if watching this team makes you such a miserable and insufferable person, and you can’t even enjoy the successes of the regular season, why don’t you just stop watching? Cheer for another team? Better yet, move on from the sport altogether? Stop wasting your life complaining about literally everything.

 

[Dekes For Days]

There was a lot of “will they extend him or let him go” chatter when Lou was in his final season.

No there wasn't. Everybody knew he was done as GM here, including Lou. That was literally what they all agreed on from the start. Then Lou would shift to senior executive position.

 

[Americanadian]

No there wasn't. Everybody knew he was done as GM here, including Lou. That was literally what they all agreed on from the start. Then Lou would shift to senior executive position.

We seem to have different memories from 2018.

 

[Cleetus]

I knew it was over when they took over second place in the NHL in GAA with their top-2 D out.

Imagine being so butthurt at all your fails (ie - previous post) that you can't even enjoy this?

im enjoying lol

 

[Dekes For Days]

We seem to have different memories from 2018.

I'm not sure how anybody could remember or expect anything different when that was literally the plan from the start and everybody involved and the public knew it.

 

[Fonzieleaf]

At this point it's just poor asset management to not extend Dubas before the offseason. It's not like any coach/GM contract should prevent a firing if necessary, letting Kyle get this close to free agency seems unnecessarily risky.

Make no mistake the interest in him leaguewide would be massive. In the macro sense our organization is doing extremely well. Players want to come here at all levels (ECHL, AHL, NHL), I think Dubas has largely done good things and I'm not letting him go because we keep losing close Game 7's.

If he got canned today, he would have a job tommorow.

Tons of teams would love to have him.

 

[slozo]

There is 100% a difference between an excuse and a reason. The job entails figuring out what the reason is you lost and figure out how to rectify it.

That we will not know until April. I don't blame anyone for being skeptical. I would wager every fan has the fear of another 1st round loss swimming in the bavk of their head.

You would also have to be willfully blind not to see a difference in their style of play and commitment to what is described as winning hockey.

Colour me blind then.

That's not really telling the whole story.

Columbus had the same number of points as us despite considerable injury impacts and we played in an abnormal 5-game series in a crowd-less bubble in the middle of August.
Tampa had 110 points despite missing their best player for half the year and were the back-to-back Cup champs.
We were favourites against Montreal, but both teams were also much different teams in the playoffs relative to the regular season. Montreal went from sub-0.900 to Vezina-quality goaltending, and the Leafs were without Tavares, and later Muzzin, and had Matthews with a surgery-requiring wrist injury. Those things have an impact on the gap between the teams.

The only team to beat every single one of those teams was the Cup champs - two times in the Cup final. You can't argue that playoff outcomes are all that matter and then dismiss cup finalists because they got whatever points in the regular season. We stretched every series to the limit, outplayed the opponent in all of them, and outscored the opponent in 2 of the 3. We unfortunately faced 3 of the best playoff goaltenders of the past 3 years, and have received some bad luck and goaltending in critical moments, which has left people drawing ridiculously incorrect conclusions about our performance and potential to win moving forward.

What exactly is the "core"? We didn't have Tavares for one of them. Matthews was playing injured for one of them. We didn't have Muzzin for two of them. We may not have Muzzin going forward either, but are Sandin and Liljegren working their way into our core group? We also had different goaltending for all of them, which is pretty notable considering their impact on the end outcome. And considering that the core hasn't really been the issue, and the tiny margins we've lost by, I'm not sure why you'd dismiss the impact of changes to the complimentary group.

Treating the core as this unchanging factor also ignores how core players can evolve, learn, grow, etc.

great excuses . . . sounds like the kind of stuff that gets kids through the minors.

 

[slozo]

Like.

I know, right? I read this and laughed out loud, it's just so ridiculous. The fact that people can post nonsense like this with a straight face, it's just hilarious, not much else to say.

We almost beat the powerhouse TB team as it is, thinking we need a "totally different group" to beat them if we were to play them again makes no sense at all. The fact is that if that series were to be played over, it would likely be close again and we could easily win. Thinking we need to make changes to beat them, that's a legit opinion and may or may not be the case. Stating it as if it was a fact, that's not rational, period. The past never dictates the future so you're 100% wrong.

Yeah, right on eh?
We almost beat those guys!!! YEAHHH!!!!!

This is a young Leafs fan. Bless your heart.

 

[willmma]

NHL was booming when Dubas signed the big four.
Cap was supposed to continue to go up by $3M a year.
No one saw a pandemic coming.

The cap would have been around $90M now. Dubas managed to balance the team with the cap as is today, and would have had more flexibility if he had an extra cap space to play around with.

Top 4 wouldnt have been 50% anymore. The would be around 40%.

But never mind all that.
I can accept that having more money to spend gives a team more flexibility to adjust. But the salary does not indicate who's going to win.

Doomers like Waffles blame the top 4 salary for our loss. As if to say if they got paid less we would have won more. The correlation is not there.

Before the cap, leafs where one of the top spenders in the league. No cap. If we didn't like a player we could get another. Money was no issue. We could sign anyone who was willing to play here. How many cups did we win?

I did a quick google search and found this: Kansas City Chiefs won the superbowl with the lowest salary total in the league. How? But how could they win when they dont have money to pay players? Waffles told us it's all about the salary. He knew it was over the moment we signed those salaries.

Are you saying we got to game 7 in every series and where an inch away from winning, but didn't because of how much Marner got paid?

And doomer Slozo tells us that we will not win future playoffs because we didn't win previous playoffs . Slozo knows because he learns from the past. Brilliant.

Spoiler: okay doomer

 

[Maple Leaf]

I jave sseenn this story ebdroe bedore. Lets see if they xan do something

 

[Phion Keneuf]

I jave sseenn this story ebdroe bedore. Lets see if they xan do something

Pour me a shot too

 

[Gary Nylund]

Yeah, right on eh?
We almost beat those guys!!! YEAHHH!!!!!

This is a young Leafs fan. Bless your heart.

This post is a nonsensical waste of time. Maybe start by reading your post that I was responding to, then read my post again, then make sure you understand what you're reading before responding.

 

[Spargon]

We seem to have different memories from 2018.

Lou literally said in the press conference "if Dubas isn't leading this team in 3 years (when his contract ended) I didn't do my job"

He was brought in to groom and train Dubas to take over. So if you don't remember that it is on you

 

[Americanadian]

Are you saying we got to game 7 in every series and were an inch away from winning, but didn't because of how much Marner got paid?

I think the argument is the Leafs can’t afford depth because they overpaid at the top. If Marner gets 9M, Matthews 10.5 and Nylander 6M you’re looking at an additional 5M to spend on someone who can score a goal in a game 7.

Lou literally said in the press conference "if Dubas isn't leading this team in 3 years (when his contract ended) I didn't do my job"

He was brought in to groom and train Dubas to take over. So if you don't remember that it is on you

I remember that in 2015 but I also remember in 2018 he didn’t want to leave and there was a choice made between him, Dubas and Hunter.

 

[Dekes For Days]

great excuses . . .

It's not excuses. It's the important context you left out, to misrepresent what actually happened. Plus a complete dismantling of your argument.

 

[GoonieFace]

It's not excuses. It's the important context you left out, to misrepresent what actually happened. Plus a complete dismantling of your argument.

Your are right, the Leafs are the only team in the history of playoffs that have dealt with injuries. We outplayed every team as well, where’s their participation medals.

 

[Steve]

it was the Nylander signing for me. He had no leverage at all and he's definitely not overpaid, but he's earning more than he should have been coming off his ELC. I belive that b/c this worked Marner and Matthews got their massive deals. These 3 deals while all area performing very well and are worth their dollars, the leverage we had coming off ELC's could have put another couple pieces around them vs finding value through random signings.

I think Dubas was handed a golden ticket from Lou and he shot himself in the foot almost immediately. The team is still very good and the core is fantastic, we just aren't as deep as we could/should be.

EDIT - Dubas has done a good job in finding value in some contract too so I'm not crapping on him necessarily, just trying to answer the question.

 

[leafs in five]

lol good time to make your first contribution to the When did you know it was over for this group? thread

 

[The Podium]

it was the Nylander signing for me. He had no leverage at all and he's definitely not overpaid, but he's earning more than he should have been coming off his ELC. I belive that b/c this worked Marner and Matthews got their massive deals. These 3 deals while all area performing very well and are worth their dollars, the leverage we had coming off ELC's could have put another couple pieces around them vs finding value through random signings.

I think Dubas was handed a golden ticket from Lou and he shot himself in the foot almost immediately. The team is still very good and the core is fantastic, we just aren't as deep as we could/should be.

EDIT - Dubas has done a good job in finding value in some contract too so I'm not crapping on him necessarily, just trying to answer the question.

How in the hell did Nylander make more than he was worth.

His contract fell right in between Ehlers and Pastrnak for cap hit %, who were his 2 biggest comparables at the time

 

[al secord]

I jave sseenn this story ebdroe bedore. Lets see if they xan do something

Only a couple a drinky pooh's, Barb.

it was the Nylander signing for me. He had no leverage at all and he's definitely not overpaid, but he's earning more than he should have been coming off his ELC. I belive that b/c this worked Marner and Matthews got their massive deals. These 3 deals while all area performing very well and are worth their dollars, the leverage we had coming off ELC's could have put another couple pieces around them vs finding value through random signings.

I think Dubas was handed a golden ticket from Lou and he shot himself in the foot almost immediately. The team is still very good and the core is fantastic, we just aren't as deep as we could/should be.

EDIT - Dubas has done a good job in finding value in some contract too so I'm not crapping on him necessarily, just trying to answer the question.

The best value contract did it for you?

 

[Dekes For Days]

Your are right, the Leafs are the only team in the history of playoffs that have dealt with injuries.

Nobody said anything close to that.

We outplayed every team as well, where’s their participation medals.

Nobody wants participation medals, but if you're using past playoff history to predict future playoffs, you're not going to get any valuable information by ignoring everything other than just the series outcome. It doesn't do anybody any good to misrepresent what happened, what we faced, and how and why we lost.

 

[GoonieFace]

Nobody said anything close to that.

Nobody wants participation medals, but if you're using past playoff history to predict future playoffs, you're not going to get any valuable information by ignoring everything other than just the series outcome. It doesn't do anybody any good to misrepresent what happened, what we faced, and how and why we lost.

If I was a betting man and used their playoff performances over the last 6 seasons as a gauge for future playoff success, I would some sweet cash. Am I more optimistic this year? Yes I am, but I will continue to not tell myself that

 

[The Podium]

If I was a betting man and used their playoff performances over the last 6 seasons as a gauge for future playoff success, I would some sweet cash. Am I more optimistic this year? Yes I am, but I will continue to not tell myself that

Put your money where your mouth is goonie face

 

[willmma]

I think the argument is the Leafs can’t afford depth because they overpaid at the top. If Marner gets 9M, Matthews 10.5 and Nylander 6M you’re looking at an additional 5M to spend on someone who can score a goal in a game 7.

Yes, the rest of my post was basically arguing that the point you're making here doesnt really make sense. It seems like you only read after half a sentence in the middle of my post and missed the rest.

 

[Mess]

For some Leaf fans this is enough, and for others they've had enough !!!.

For some long-term suffering Leaf fans that haven't seen the Leafs win a playoff round in 18 years since 2004 its no longer enough. Excuses fall on deaf ears.

Trust is earned, and how can anyone believe this core and this team with this management group has provided evidence beyond making the playoffs.

Even when the team is the favourite in a series and has home ice advantage including game #7, they always come up short.

For Leaf fans HOPE is all we have to cling to, when reality has left you nothing else.

Toronto has heard all the jokes and comments "Respect in the handshake line". The team knew what was at stake and what lay ahead if the team failed yet again to advance yet again against TB — and as the final buzzer sounded on another disappointing season, reality set in that the nightmare continues.