Where do the Leafs go if they blow it yet again?

[WetcoastOrca]

What happens if a when Florida smashes Carolina in 5 games and wins the cup again?

Are the leafs really that far off?

Yes.

 

[Fatass]

I'm telling you no player in the league is looking at those guys and saying "they just didn't care enough".

Players know which guys have the gumption to compete. Imo its a given amongst the league players that Matthews, Marner, and Nylander will play soft if pressured physically.

 

[Mr Nogatco]

Does the rain assault you when there's a downpour? Cringe and ridiculous take bro.

Paul Marner out here having a full blown meltdown

 

[RedHawkDown]

Matthews is so much more useless than Marner yet Marner gets all the hate. I genuinely don’t get it. Watched every single Leafs game this playoffs and didn’t see Matthews make a single dangerous play the whole time. He’s opportunistic as hell but barely drives play at all.

If I was toronto I’d get rid of Matthews and Tavares, re sign Marner, make Rielly the captain, and add Bennett in UFA. The player you get back from Matthews trade should be a decent 1/2C, or just try Nylander at C.

 

[goflyakite]

Should have never traded Kadri. Signing Tavares for that term set their franchise back at least 5 years. Tavares is a career loser.

Kadri may have been the single biggest reason the Leafs' year ended two (?) times. He's talented, but he was lucky to find success with the Avs (aka clean up his game long enough on a good team to win a Cup). He didn't leave the Leafs with much of a choice when he kept handicapping the team in the playoffs.

 

[Fatass]

Matthews is so much more useless than Marner yet Marner gets all the hate. I genuinely don’t get it. Watched every single Leafs game this playoffs and didn’t see Matthews make a single dangerous play the whole time. He’s opportunistic as hell but barely drives play at all.

If I was toronto I’d get rid of Matthews and Tavares, re sign Marner, make Rielly the captain, and add Bennett in UFA. The player you get back from Matthews trade should be a decent 1/2C, or just try Nylander at C.

This is actually exactly what the Leafs should do if wining was in their future. Please delete your post before Leaf management gets wind of this.

 

[Fatass]

Kadri may have been the single biggest reason the Leafs' year ended two (?) times. He's talented, but he was lucky to find success with the Avs (aka clean up his game long enough on a good team to win a Cup). He didn't leave the Leafs with much of a choice when he kept handicapping the team in the playoffs.

Leafs were incredibly foolish to move on from Kadri. He’s a playoff performer along the lines of Bennett. Huge mistake by the Avs too losing him.

 

[Gil Gunderson]

Is there another team sport where a large portion of players try to escape media pressure as much as possible?

 

[Rob]

Imagine if Marner had another year left on his contract? Oh the drama!

 

[Sysreq]

I think we all need to calm the f*** down.

They lost to what is likely the best team in hockey at the moment having dragged them to 7 games. They looked like DOG SHIT in 3 of the 4 games they lost but look at Washington. Look at Vancouver...Winnipeg. Lots of teams have fallen far short of where they should be.

I'm relaxed.

Ehh. I think there is a bigger issue at play here. It was about as close to a reverse sweep as you can get without actually being a reverse sweep. Up 2. Lose 3. Win 1. Lose 1. Not a good look. It's indicative of some larger structural problem - both in terms of strategy (coaching) and execution (players).

I'm not a Leaf's fan, so I don't watch too many of their games, but watching this one it was clear that they were avoiding 50/50 battles. You watch their feet, and more often than not they are watching the play, waiting to act instead of trying to impose their will. They were giving the Panthers so much time and space, never really seemed to be in the fray and weren't willing to pay the price in front of the net. That is what people mean when they describe them as 'soft'. I think you have a decent group, I certainly wouldn't tear it down to the studs and rebuild, but I do think you need to bring in some fresh blood. You don't need more talent, honestly. You need dudes that realize they suck and are only going to succeed through effort and will power. It's not even about size, it's about taking away time and space, it's about being willing to get hit, it's about being in it and not waiting for the puck to land on your stick.

 

[Fatass]

I think we all need to calm the f*** down.

They lost to what is likely the best team in hockey at the moment having dragged them to 7 games. They looked like DOG SHIT in 3 of the 4 games they lost but look at Washington. Look at Vancouver...Winnipeg. Lots of teams have fallen far short of where they should be.

I'm relaxed.

You do realize the Leafs will lose Marner for nothing, are likely to lose Tavares, have an extremely old and immobile D core, and have few top picks left right?

 

[Alexei Yashvalev]

Leafs were incredibly foolish to move on from Kadri. He’s a playoff performer along the lines of Bennett. Huge mistake by the Avs too losing him.

He wasn't a playoff performer in Toronto though, he cost the team badly multiple times at the worst moments.

The trade got him to change his game but no guarantee that would've happened in Toronto.

 

[Toby91ca]

Almost certain he signed a 4 or 5 year extension about 3 months sgo.

Right, so an asset they control for which they can trade....seems obvious to me that he isn't going to get them anywhere. I get he's the back up, but I wouldn't have confidence if the starter goes down like this year. I know that isn't their only problem, but that's a big one in my mind, I can't help but wonder how the series would have gone had Stolarz not got hurt.

 

[RedHawkDown]

I'm telling you no player in the league is looking at those guys and saying "they just didn't care enough".

Jones essentially said so in his post game interview. Players aren’t stupid. If we can see the issue in toronto is the core choking and not playing it on the line in playoffs, why in the world would the players be unable to see it lol?

 

[Crow]

Jones essentially said so in his post game interview. Players aren’t stupid. If we can see the issue in toronto is the core choking and not playing it on the line in playoffs, why in the world would the players be unable to see it lol?

Jones has a big mouth, and doesn’t back it up himself. He’s probably projecting after years of slacking off. He’s a huge hypocrite.

Great game for him though.

 

[Erik Alfredsson]

Jones essentially said so in his post game interview. Players aren’t stupid. If we can see the issue in toronto is the core choking and not playing it on the line in playoffs, why in the world would the players be unable to see it lol?

The Panthers players so pretty much said Toronto is a brutal hockey market to play in that makes winning more difficult than it should be. If they're thinking it, then why aren't players around the league thinking it? I think it's pure cope from Leaf fans think that this brutal end to this era of the Leafs isn't going to impact the appeal of Toronto as a market for the next little while.

 

[SeanAveryTheGreatOne]

The Leafs had a winning record this post-season... this is a good core

 

[Hockey4Lyfe]

I’d start with a new FO and GM. Seems they aren’t attracting the right people to properly construct a winning roster.

 

[notbias]

The Panthers players so pretty much said Toronto is a brutal hockey market to play in that makes winning more difficult than it should be. If they're thinking it, then why aren't players around the league thinking it? I think it's pure cope from Leaf fans think that this brutal end to this era of the Leafs isn't going to impact the appeal of Toronto as a market for the next little while.

Canada in general sucks to live in and play in.

I'd only go to Vancouver if I had the choice, even then, there are about 10 other teams I'd go to first.

This is coming from someone who lives in Toronto.

And yes, I think the Leafs are increasingly becoming a place no one wants to play in.

If I had no affiliation to Toronto, I'd choose Vancouver, Montreal, and Calgary over it.

 

[Voight]

In hindsight this is completely wrong. The JT signing will be studied in sports management classes for years.

He performed well during the contract, it only "looks bad" because the league had a flat cap for most of it due to a massive decline in revenues.

 

[RedHawkDown]

The Panthers players so pretty much said Toronto is a brutal hockey market to play in that makes winning more difficult than it should be. If they're thinking it, then why aren't players around the league thinking it? I think it's pure cope from Leaf fans think that this brutal end to this era of the Leafs isn't going to impact the appeal of Toronto as a market for the next little while.

Why do you think that everybody who disagrees with you is a leafs fan lol? What about my “trusting the yzerplan” and Raymond pic makes you think I give a f*** about toronto ?

The argument is that for all the guys that don’t want to play in toronto bc of the media/ pressure, there’s a good chunk that do because a massive amount of hockey players are from Ontario. That one province provides 20% of the players in the entire NHL, the same as Sweden, Finland, Slovakia, and Czechia combined. Tavares went to toronto as a top FA simply because it’s home. It’s not some illogical argument to say guys might want to go play for their home team lol, or otherwise could be drawn to fame and notoriety. It stands to reason that the players in Florida may have chosen that destination because they’re low profile there, so naturally they might have the opinion that being in a low pressure market is better…

I guarantee you if the Habs were crushed 9 years in a row in the playoffs in increasingly heartbreaking fashion, those fans would be lining up to attack the players that gave zero effort like Matthews et al. This isn’t a toronto issue, it’s a big market issue. Vancouver is the same - they lit the f***ing city on fire after a SC loss. The only way to avoid the same fate is to win/give it your all, or play in a US city that doesn’t care about hockey. Not all players want to do that. NHL players aren’t a monolith.

 

[The don godfather]

Imagine marchy and marner sign in Boston and that 2026 pick is top 10. This isnt a longshot prediction folks. Donny knows marner well from 4 nations and marchy always is a bruin inside. Leafs might implode this season with all the drastic changes thats my thinking and hoping.

 

[Voight]

Everyone had to deal with the pandemic, the leafs aren’t special.

Any time you build an extremely top heavy team you are sacrificing organizational agility. Whether it’s injuries, cap restrictions, etc, the team with most of their cap tied up in 4 guys will struggle to adapt… but that’s the risk they assume when they construct their team that way

It hurt them more than most teams.

 

[Nothingbutglass]

I think the whole FO gets blown out. They have more departments and staff than any team in the league, and it hasn't done shit that other teams don't do much cheaper. MLSE is going to weed out the rest of the Dubas bloat and entitlement culture and give the reigns to Tre and Berube to decide how to rebuild this tire fire.

 

[Fatass]

It hurt them more than most teams.

How in the world did the Covid pandemic hurt the Leafs more than any other club? They actually got to play in the Canadian division and had only to get through a weak group to get to the Cup. If anything the pandemic set up the Leafs and they failed.