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For Borje - The Toronto Maple Leafs 2023 Stanley Cup Champions Thread

Preston said:
(I still don't see the Kerfoot vs McCann thing.. It was Holl vs McCann)

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This is where I get my "so the fuck what?" attitude regarding people talking about the Nerd leaving.

I don't think he's done the type of job to worry about losing at this point. I consider the Tavares signing a whiff, not a terrible one, John has been fine but obviously not the leader we needed and obviously not worth the 11 million in cap space to date. His best players 1-5 on his roster were all inherited. His goaltending choices have been a mix of ugly, hit & miss. I want to give him credit on the blueline for Muzzin before he died, Brodie and now McCabe. Those are varying levels of lovely to have but then I have to look at his failure to promote playing Sandin & Lilly, and his deep affection for the Holl's, Bogo's, Schenn's, etc.

I just don't think he's done a good job at what he was supposed to be smarter than everyone else at. If Bunting was from Burnaby instead of Scarborough, his best dumpster dive by a whole fucking lot would have never signed here.
 
MindzEye said:
This is where I get me "so the fuck what?" attitude regarding people talking about the Nerd leaving.

I don't think he's done the type of job to worry about losing at this point. I consider the Tavares signing a whiff, not a terrible one, John has been fine but obviously not the leader we needed and obviously not worth the 11 million in cap space to date. His best players 1-5 on his roster were all inherited. His goaltending choices have been a mix of ugly, hit & miss. I want to give him credit on the blueline for Muzzin before he died, Brodie and now McCabe. Those are varying levels of lovely to have but then I have to look at his failure to promote playing Sandin & Lilly, and his deep affection for the Holl's, Bogo's, Schenn's, etc.

I just don't think he's done a good job at what he was supposed to be smarter than everyone else at. If Bunting was from Burnaby instead of Scarborough, his best dumpster dive by a whole fucking lot would have never signed here.
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Really is remarkable at how badly he’s failed at filling out the roster.

That failure is compounded by the fact that he tries to fix it every mid-season by launching draft picks and futures into the sun. And the majority of those attempts end up being failures as well.
 
Biggest mistake was paying the big guns like they'd done something.

...and while I am sure Dubas had planned to play to the cap limit which would have been, what, ten mill more without covid?...he didn't work himself out of the mess in the best way possible.
 
leafman101 said:
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Based on that behind the scenes show from a couple years ago, this is something that the organization REALLY stressed as important. They wanted to be a team that scored a higher rate of screened/deflection/rebound goals. As per their own data that they cited on the show, they were at the bottom of the league in that category for years.
 
MindzEye said:
Auston
.
.
Mitch
Willy
.
Rielly
.
ROR
Tavares
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The talk of the town at the moment is Tkachuk and how well he has performed this year. Clutch, playoff performer fap fap fap but lets not forget the stink he carried of being a perennial playoff choker until now.

A lot of Mitch hate stems from watching him on an nighty basis so we focus on the small details of his game that are annoying but he is a hell of a hockey player so if they plan to move him it better be for something of equal value
 
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Bleedsblue&white said:
Biggest mistake was paying the big guns like they'd done something.
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Eh, disagree.

What if he goes and gets a 5-6 million dollar centre maybe not as good as Tavares but close enough (Schenn, Trochek, etc, etc, etc), doesn't trade Kadri and spends the Kerfoot and wasted money on say, Toffoli & McCann( or any 2 similar wingers for 8-9 million combined) Then add Bunting for nothing, then add Knies and internal draft kids, or any of the other smart decisions you make along the way.


Bunting-Matthews-Nylander
McCann-Kadri-Marner
Knies/whoever-Schenn/Trochek level-Toffoli


Then go ahead and blow your brains out at the deadline on what you feel like you need to put you over the top. ROR's and such.


I'm definitely sensitive to the argument that if you're going to overpay someone, it's okay to overpay your elite guys. But you've gotta make sure it's an actually an elite guy and not an 7-8 million dollar player in disguise.

Paying Matthews 11.5 and having him turn into the best goal scorer in the world since the ink was dry or signing Mucho to his deal and having him turn into a 100 point Selke finalist winger isn't what hurt us. It's the big coin on the 4th wheel, and the wasted coin on the passengers that hollowed us out imo.
 
LeafGm said:
Yeah, I can remember a few of us (myself, you, ME) being against signing him to superstar money long-term in the first place.

When the post-mortem of this era is done, that very well may be the one moment you can point at where everything started to go wrong.
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Oh man. Not the Kadri trade, the McCann fuck up, or all the old bums that staffed the bottom six, or the shitty dmen that played over blue chips, or Keefe and his stupidity and particular ineptitude in coaching to postseason success...

Tavares. 400 points in 5 seasons Tavares. That was the bleak turning point. Sheesh.
 
Wayward DP said:
wow this is even uglier than I imagined. gross.
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This is exactly what I was saying after game 2. Not nearly enough chaos around the net. The kerfoot goal had as much to do with kampf jamming up two d as it did with kerfoot scoring the goal.

i think a big part of the problem is that their zone entries are slow as shit. It’s not because they aren’t fast - it’s because so much of their offense is centred around finding the trailer in the high slot drifting towards the net.

Marner always enters and pulls up then tries to catch Matthews coming in behind him; nylander works the puck deep with speed but then looks to cycle up and either sneak into the slot for his own chance or lion cross ice for the pass around the face off circle.

Matthews and Tavares have gotten a ton of looks from the high slot in but nobody is at the net, battling d and either opening up ice for second chances or creating noise for the goalie.

they need speed off the puck on their zone entires with guys moving towards the net. On the pp too. Vegas and Edmonton love the swing back as much as the leafs. Except they both have the far side winger break the zone with speed to accept the pass across (vs marners soft touches to the near side), which opens up a ton of ice and easy retrievals.
 
They need to fucking shoot. I swear, they'll string off 4 straight if they just stop trying to create that perfect play.

How many perimeter passes on the PP until one of them just decides to fucking shoot it already? Do that 10 seconds in, not 40 seconds in when it becomes a last option.

Keeping it simple wins tight games. That's what I hope to see today.
 
Also, we needs Bob and his posts' luck to run out, and instead of Matty's shot pinging out to start the game, ping in off the post instead. Simplified game, some just non-bad luck, and the Leafs should be able to knock them down.
 
I'm not going to backtrack like every single one of you and pretend we weren't fine with seeing Kadri go after his second straight suspension (we also forget he did it again right away with his new team)

We can argue the return, even though it seems like Kadri fucked us.

I can see Paying your first round pick...except you need the full deal, don't be handing him the keys to the place two years early.

After that, you're supposed to get the payday after you've done something.

We all want to believe all of these guys would rip their hearts out for us...I mean the team...but maybe some guys are content with a fat payday regardless.
 
Bleedsblue&white said:
I'm not going to backtrack like every single one of you and pretend we weren't fine with seeing Kadri go after his second straight suspension (we also forget he did it again right away with his new team)

We can argue the return, even though it seems like Kadri fucked us.

I can see Paying your first round pick...except you need the full deal, don't be handing him the keys to the place two years early.

After that, you're supposed to get the payday after you've done something.

We all want to believe all of these guys would rip their hearts out for us...I mean the team...but maybe some guys are content with a fat payday regardless.
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Trading Kadri was probably still the right move, unfortunately, since it’s clear George Parros was determined to never let him finish out a playoff series so long as he was a Leaf.

Would’ve been nice if our GM didn’t get completely hosed on the deal, though. And repeatedly double-down on keeping and overpaying one of the shitty players he got in return.
 
I was on record of liking the trade until I looked deeper into Barrie's nerdies. But the idea was that they needed a d, Kadri was being wasted on the 3rd line and he was their best trade chip. All good reasons to trade him. The logic was there. The execution was not very good, however. He got the asset evaluation wrong in the return, but I'm not sure he didn't know these weren't high caliber players either. Seems like he had 2 semi decent packages available to trade Kadri for and Naz nixed the Flames deal so option B it was.

Flames deal would have been fine but not much would have changed. They ended up with the 2 "best" assets in the trades anyway in Kerfoot and Brodie.
 
kadri was extremely mediocre for a couple years prior to the trade, no doubt.

though at $4.5m was probably not a guy to move.
 
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