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The Official 2026 Off-Season Thread: Revenge of the Nerds

Preston said:
For me it's a stylistic shift as much as anything else. You want to watch an entertaining brand of hockey? This is your guy. He will let his stars be stars and not obsess over digging in. Not much else I can ask for out of a coach tbh. Let your roster determine the style you play.
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Not a bad reason. I'd very much enjoy watching this team play entertaining, offensive maybe even Pat Quinn-style hockey next year. I'd prefer it be with a coach who brings that style plus a more impressive resume with him. But that'll at least be a bright side if Woodcroft is the pick.
 
LeafGm said:
Fair enough about him likely getting sunk by horrible Oilers goaltending, rather than "driving them into the ditch".

Though I still don't see a convincing reason to get excited about a guy who coached the Oilers for a hot minute and then was immediately eclipsed in both regular season and playoff results by Connor McDavid's junior coach.
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Is there someone you can think of you’d be optimistic about?
 
LeafGm said:
Fair enough about him likely getting sunk by horrible Oilers goaltending, rather than "driving them into the ditch".

Though I still don't see a convincing reason to get excited about a guy who coached the Oilers for a hot minute and then was immediately eclipsed in both regular season and playoff results by Connor McDavid's junior coach.
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It's not getting excited about him, it's his approach. As others have mentioned, skill and speed will be back on the menu. Fwiw, if you're looking for the main difference between the Knoblach Oilers and Woodcroft, it's the Bouchard breakout. Tyson Barrie was the best puck mover Woodcroft had to work with. Bouchard just happened to break out the following season (and was mid breakout when Woodcroft got fired, 11 points in 12 games).

I'm way more interested in the ideas and philosophies we move forward with than specific lines on resumes at this point. We need a complete rethink on how we do everything. Woodcroft has a strong AF nerdies track record, which puts him at the front of the line imo.
 
LeafGm said:
If “underlying numbers” say you’re playing elite hockey when you’ve got a 3-9-0 record, what that mainly tells me is that those “underlying numbers” aren’t worth shit as an evaluation tool.

But anyways, I get it now. The argument in favour of this frightening ventriloquist dummy-looking mf’er is mainly that nerd stats loved him during his tenure in Edmonton. The Pierre Engvall of coaches.
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And the Preston mizzi of posters.
 
Preston said:
I struggle to get excited about any coach tbh. They only have so much control. Just hire someone who doesn't hold the roster back (Berube) and I'm happy.
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They're wear items. Break pads, wiper blades. When they start to squeak, replace them.

Way more important is that they're intune with an organizational philosophy of skill, puck possession, puck moving, speed on and off the puck, etc.
 
hockeylover said:
Is there someone you can think of you’d be optimistic about?
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I'm not knowledgeable enough about the hockey world at large these days to really give you a list of specific names. But this time around I really don't want a retread, or someone who's been around the NHL for a long-time. Someone who's fresh, an outsider.

I don't think it's a coincidence that we've had the most success in the Auston Matthews era---and saw them play their most entertaining hockey---under the coach who most closely matches that description.
 
Sheldon was only an outsider because he has been excommunicated from the OBC and used "forward thinking" as his way to get back into the league with his buddy Dubas. You see what someone is when they face adversity, and as soon as there was a bump in the road Sheldon was yelling his own version of "dig in".
 
LeafGm said:
I'm not knowledgeable enough about the hockey world at large these days to really give you a list of specific names. But this time around I really don't want a retread, or someone who's been around the NHL for a long-time. Someone who's fresh, an outsider.

I don't think it's a coincidence that we've had the most success in the Auston Matthews era---and saw them play their most entertaining hockey---under the coach who most closely matches that description.
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Carle is the other main name out there that fits that I’d suppose.
 
LeafGm said:
I really don’t understand our interest in the guy who drove the Oilers into the ditch and then got chucked overboard right before the coach who replaced him turned them right around & took them on two finals runs.

What is the appeal here, exactly?
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He made so many players on Edmonton to have astronomical numbers. He got completely sewered cuz of goaltending.

I already said, If I'm Chyka, I find out about the relationship of Woodcroft and McDavid, and I am sure that Mcdavid has told matthews all about Woodie.

Word is McDavid loved him. If he's the coach maybe Mcdavid wants to come home.

I also think Woodcroft had a lot of influence on Anaheim's game. Quennville is great, but he hasn't worked with this specific generation of talented players. Woodcroft probably coached a lot of that offense and style of play.

I like the idea of Carle, but maybe thats a guy that would probably prefer the LA route. He seems like a good fit to replace the old out of LA and build that team up in the USA.

Woodcroft is my choice for the Leafs for certain. He will be able to coach Auston back into a goal scorer if the body is okay. Willy will explode, Knies could be a younger Hyman... and McKenna and Cowboy would do well with a former NHL coach and a successful Assistant

I trade Stolarz to Edmonton. I just don't think his body can hold up. I ain't too confident in Woll either, but at least he's younger and generally more fit. I liked Hildeby
 
MindzEye said:
I hate all of this shit. Multiple things can be true at once.

1) Marner had a bad mental makeup for Toronto. This can be blamed on whatever you personally want to blame it on. Fanbase angst? Sure, fill your boots. A fuckwitted clickbait media core constantly searching for the next gotcha bullshit for ad revenue? Absolutely. A conflicted front office that couldn't figure out what they wanted this team to be and didn't support the kids properly? Yeah, 100%. But the kid said dumb shit after dumb shit for years and either pouted or threw a tantrum whenever accountability for poor play was required. Fixing any of the things previously mentioned doesn't change that the shit apple doesn't fall far from the shit tree and we know the level of twat his old man is.

2) #1 is not Marner's fault. This is a tough and awesome place to play, but it does require a certain ability to ignore the noise or else the shit will impact your mental health in the social media era. Whatever it was during previous eras, it's that on crack now. But the rewards of winning here are unlike the rewards of winning anywhere else. You either understand the trade off your making and live with it, or go away.

3) Moving on from Marner was the right thing to do, but we did it very, very poorly. There were multiple red flags along the way that the organization should have taken way more seriously.

4) He's a fabulous hockey player and free from the expectations of Toronto while being surrounded by veteran leaders who have won (instead of the fake ass leadership we surrounded him with over the years), free of the defensive oriented role we jammed him in every spring, he's playing spectacular hockey in the playoffs. He's played this level of playoff hockey for us in short bursts too, don't let the revisionists gaslight us on this.

5) What happened happened and couldn't have happened any other way. The previous regime wasn't going to find a way to win. We needed a complete rethink of the way we looked at the sport and that required us bottoming out. The courage to make bold moves would never have existed without us bottoming out. We fluked the fuck out into a player who will most likely be a better to much better version of Mitch immediately upon bottoming out. Whatever feelings I had about losing a player the quality of Mitch (even setting aside my dislike for how he carried himself in Toronto for years), I'm fucking over it now and we all should be. McKenna > Marner and there would have been no McKenna if Marner had kept his pouty bullshit here for the rest of his career.
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Marner was done in Toronto once he was carjacked. His behavior since then, and last night, is purely his own doing.
 
MindzEye said:
I hate all of this shit. Multiple things can be true at once.

1) Marner had a bad mental makeup for Toronto. This can be blamed on whatever you personally want to blame it on. Fanbase angst? Sure, fill your boots. A fuckwitted clickbait media core constantly searching for the next gotcha bullshit for ad revenue? Absolutely. A conflicted front office that couldn't figure out what they wanted this team to be and didn't support the kids properly? Yeah, 100%. But the kid said dumb shit after dumb shit for years and either pouted or threw a tantrum whenever accountability for poor play was required. Fixing any of the things previously mentioned doesn't change that the shit apple doesn't fall far from the shit tree and we know the level of twat his old man is.

2) #1 is not Marner's fault. This is a tough and awesome place to play, but it does require a certain ability to ignore the noise or else the shit will impact your mental health in the social media era. Whatever it was during previous eras, it's that on crack now. But the rewards of winning here are unlike the rewards of winning anywhere else. You either understand the trade off your making and live with it, or go away.

3) Moving on from Marner was the right thing to do, but we did it very, very poorly. There were multiple red flags along the way that the organization should have taken way more seriously.

4) He's a fabulous hockey player and free from the expectations of Toronto while being surrounded by veteran leaders who have won (instead of the fake ass leadership we surrounded him with over the years), free of the defensive oriented role we jammed him in every spring, he's playing spectacular hockey in the playoffs. He's played this level of playoff hockey for us in short bursts too, don't let the revisionists gaslight us on this.

5) What happened happened and couldn't have happened any other way. The previous regime wasn't going to find a way to win. We needed a complete rethink of the way we looked at the sport and that required us bottoming out. The courage to make bold moves would never have existed without us bottoming out. We fluked the fuck out into a player who will most likely be a better to much better version of Mitch immediately upon bottoming out. Whatever feelings I had about losing a player the quality of Mitch (even setting aside my dislike for how he carried himself in Toronto for years), I'm fucking over it now and we all should be. McKenna > Marner and there would have been no McKenna if Marner had kept his pouty bullshit here for the rest of his career.
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This was always the marner camp's #1 gripe. There was an article years ago with Paul blasting off about how "it drives us crazy" that Marner was never considered for captaincy and Matthews was. His "camp" was obsessed with comparing himself to Matthews and I'm convinced some of it got in his head at times.


View: https://x.com/i/status/2059730048794411382
 
Preston said:
This was always the marner camp's #1 gripe. There was an article years ago with Paul blasting off about how "it drives us crazy" that Marner was never considered for captaincy and Matthews was. His "camp" was obsessed with comparing himself to Matthews and I'm convinced some of it got in his head at times.


View: https://x.com/i/status/2059730048794411382
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It also why he insisted on the salary he did and it was leaked that his camp used Matthews as a comparable.

His entitlement was always off of the charts.
 
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