The Official 2026 Off-Season Thread: Revenge of the Nerds
- Thread starter MindzEye
- Start date
Preston
MBow30 alt account
I think out of everything he said, that part of it made the most sense to me. How many good, solidly impactful d are there in their late teens or even early 20s?
Schaeffer is obviously a unicorn, but no one in this draft is on that level.
Hutson was a unicorn too, but he played 2 more years of college after he got picked (similar to what Chase Reid is likely to do).
Jake Sanderson played 2 more years of college but admittedly was pretty good after that
Faber played 3 more years of college, but was good right away
Luke Hughes played 2 years of college
Owen Power played 1 more year of college before stepping in, and he was the #1 pick
So maybe in a perfect case, one of those d play a couple more years in junior or college and then are immediately a top 4 guy in their rookie year. But I'm not sure you can really expect that with anyone in this class. May take a bit longer than that for them to get really going, if at all. I would have taken the D because they really fucking need one, but I wouldn't be ecstatic about the realistic timeline.
LeafGm
Well-known member
He’s also going to want them to lay out how they’ll be executing Craig Berube, one would think.
LeafOfFaith
Well-known member
The thing is, trading away McKenna and potentially finding out soon after that he turns out to be crazy elite in his first year while the dman takes two years to cook and then turns out to be the next Klingberg, or even Carlson, is the surefire way to get yourself fired and destroy the rest of the Matthews era (and lose Matthews). In fact, if McKenna is amazing right out of the gate, you may not even be around to see the dman make his NHL debut. No one is going to be so risky to chance such an outcome. It'll be McKenna and there's not really much point in bothering to debate other scenarios.
leafman101
Well-known member
Speaking about draft picks and long timeline, the Leafs actually have a great opportunity to restock the system over the next two years with a #1 pick, and a full draft this year, and 8 picks next year including a 1st and 2 2nds and a nerd at the helm.
If they actually follow the data you could be looking at a real good young core around McKenna, Knies, Cowan in a few years.
Obviously I’d be willing to trade picks for help now, but getting good at drafting now would be huge for the long term window of this team.
There are second round skilled midget dmen in this draft too,
If they actually follow the data you could be looking at a real good young core around McKenna, Knies, Cowan in a few years.
Obviously I’d be willing to trade picks for help now, but getting good at drafting now would be huge for the long term window of this team.
There are second round skilled midget dmen in this draft too,
worm
Well-known member
Yep. Happens every year
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
Yeah, the order of operations here is pretty simple you'd think
1) Replace Berube with a more forward thinking coach who prefers speed and transition play
2) Add puck moving on the blueline to support that
If we achieve both and go into the season with that direction, Auston is at least going to give it a chance to work out and see what happens. This talk of him simply not coming back is the usual Toronto media disaster fapping they live to fabricate.
worm
Well-known member
Ya. I love the stuff where they are like this great player but also does XYZ!
LeafGm
Well-known member
It would be super nice to go back to actually drafting and developing good players again, instead of annually firing all our picks out of a cannon at the deadline in exchange for twice-retained rental senior citizens.
Easily, for me, the most disappointing part of what Dubas turned into here.
worm
Well-known member
Nah. That all started at the world juniors. Laine won it
LeafOfFaith
Well-known member
I don't believe any of this Matthews stuff with him saying he might not come back next year.
If this was next year at this time and he wasn't signing an extension, different story. I'm sure all that has been said is that both sides want to talk and air out their thoughts on the future direction of the team.
If this was next year at this time and he wasn't signing an extension, different story. I'm sure all that has been said is that both sides want to talk and air out their thoughts on the future direction of the team.
worm
Well-known member
Aka new coach
CH1
The Artist Formerly Known as chiggins.
That’s what Adam thought when he bit into that apple
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
Eh, I don't think that's a good way to look at it because there's generally more than 1 tier of #1's to consider. The actual generational guys (Sid, Connor, Mario, Gretzky, Orr) are kind of their own thing. But there's a whole category of consensus #1/franchise cornerstone types that almost always do end up the best player in their draft. There are other drafts entirely where there really is no consensus #1 franchise type prospect though, and yeah, agreed that those are a crap shoot. When there is a standout franchise level prospect in the draft though, but who isn't considered "generational" (Matthews, Stamkos, Kane, Mackinnon, etc) they almost always end up delivering more career value than anyone else in their draft class and usually by a pretty solid margin.
McKenna is probably in that tier of franchise #1 prospects (and yes, I was saying this before we won the lottery, feel free to check my receipts)