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The 2019-2020 MotherFucking Season Thread

LeafOfFaith said:
I do feel for the guy, even though he tortured me all season long. He must be in a world of pain right now.
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Meh. Career earnings of 7.7m USD to be a bad NHL goalie. He makes the same amount of money (700K USD) to play for the Marlies as he did to be bad for the Leafs. As long as he doesn't suck epic dick for the Marlies, Dubas will probably re sign him to the same contract to be the Marlies starter next season too (and our 3rd goalie in the system). His NHL career was only not entirely dead because Garrett Sparks shit the bed last season. He had played a total of 7 NHL games over the 2.5 seasons prior to our grabbing him from Florida. He had already played his way out of the league.
 
I mean, yeah, Michael Hutchinson's problems are the first-worldest of first-world problems, and nobody should feel sorry for him. But I can definitely see how it'll be tough for him to look back on his career and think about this blown opportunity.

That said---I'm very glad to see him go and I hope Dubas doesn't even bring him back next year. I realize he'd only be our third string goalie and that he's generally a pretty good goalie in the AHL (which the Marlies could use with the trash goaltending they've gotten this year). But it'd be nice if Dubas could fill that role with someone who has at least a sliver of NHL upside.
 
LeafGm said:
That said---I'm very glad to see him go and I hope Dubas doesn't even bring him back next year. I realize he'd only be our third string goalie and that he's generally a pretty good goalie in the AHL (which the Marlies could use with the trash goaltending they've gotten this year). But it'd be nice if Dubas could fill that role with someone who has at least a sliver of NHL upside.
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It's a tough line to toe, but yeah I don't disagree necessarily. Problem is that there aren't a lot of goalies who are going to be 1) available & 2) are better than Hutch. Anything with a functioning pulse is probably going to be signed to a legit NHL job. The group of goalies I'm seeing as maybes are

- Alex Lyon
- Garrett Sparks
- Louis Domingue
- Keith Kinkaid
- Laurent Broissoit

Domingue and Broissoit have both had tragically bad seasons but have NHL track records of success as backups. I'd be surprised if someone doesn't give both of them guaranteed NHL jobs. Lyon, Sparks, and Kinkaid aren't any better than Hutch.

From an organizational standpoint, unless there's a clear upgrade, I'd rather just roll with Hutch. One of our competitive advantages is that we can afford to sign a lot of guys to those guaranteed money contracts as pure depth (Aberg, Agostino, Hutch, etc). It's not Hutch's fault that he was bad in the NHL for us this season, we knew when we signed him that he was a bad goalie. He was a #3 who was asked to be a legit #2. That's on Dubas, not on Hutch. As an emergency starter, he's fine. I don't want to see us sour on these depth veterans we bring in because they can't carry water in a role they weren't brought in to fulfill. If last year I had told you that Hutch was going to play 15 games of .880 goaltending next season for us (in the first ~50 games of the season), you would have been rightfully livid at management.

So sure, if Domingue or Broissoit fall through the cracks, pay them the max that can be buried in the AHL without a cap penalty and let Hutch walk, absolutely. But odds of someone with a recent .910+ NHL season going without a full time job are pretty slim imo.
 
I think there’s less than a zero chance Dubas brings him back. The stain is too deep, he can’t continue in the organization, even though they probably like the guy and definitely feel bad for him.
 
What stain? A 3rd string calibre goalie was brought in to the organization and played like a 3rd string goalie.

There's no stain. By all accounts he's acted as a professional the entire time. The stain is only in the minds of asshurt Leaf fans. Our organization hires a bunch of veterans every year to ensure we have necessary depth to handle injuries and such. Hutch would just be one of those.
 
The only thing I sorta feel bad for re: Hutch is those games at the beginning of the season where he played every single second of a back to back against teams like Boston, Washington, Tampa... because even though I don't think he's an NHL caliber goaltender I think that'd be a challenge for most backups.
 
MindzEye said:
What stain? A 3rd string calibre goalie was brought in to the organization and played like a 3rd string goalie.

There's no stain. By all accounts he's acted as a professional the entire time. The stain is only in the minds of asshurt Leaf fans. Our organization hires a bunch of veterans every year to ensure we have necessary depth to handle injuries and such. Hutch would just be one of those.
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Nah, totally disagree. He has the stench of losing, potentially costing the entire team a playoff berth all by himself, having his confidence crushed by the fans, the media, and then by the team finally replacing him. You can't bring a guy like this back to the organization. I said something similar when Sparks ran his mouth. Mark my words, Hutchinson may be dealt away before this season is over, but if not, he will never pull on a Leafs jersey after this year.
 
Leafs were also looking overseas for goaltending depth, either for this season or likely next.
 
LeafOfFaith said:
Nah, totally disagree. He has the stench of losing, potentially costing the entire team a playoff berth all by himself, having his confidence crushed by the fans, the media, and then by the team finally replacing him. You can't bring a guy like this back to the organization. I said something similar when Sparks ran his mouth. Mark my words, Hutchinson may be dealt away before this season is over, but if not, he will never pull on a Leafs jersey after this year.
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Way too emotional. The guy was a .894 in total during his time as a Leaf and a .915 for the Marlies. Perfectly functional as a 3rd string goalie. All that fan and media narrative stuff is silly.

Sparks got run out of town because he was a jackass and the coach was an abusive prick. Hutch has been a model professional, just one who shouldn't be more than an emergency spot starter. Good #1 for the Marlies (who have struggled with horrific goaltending for most of the season, which fucks heavily with development) and allows us to fire Kaskisuo out of a cannon. Hutch can mentor the kid (and we only have one kid at the moment) and act as our #3. Easy peasy. Leave the stupid Overdrive fan narratives to the idiots.
 
He's clearly not an NHL goalie, but he may actually help the Marlies make the playoffs. He's a career .919 goalie down there. That would erase any stench.

But still there is little reason to bring him back. Ideally they can find better. Organizationally the goaltending just hasn't been good enough this year.
 
I doubt they have a chance at Askarov, but they need to start consistently drafting goaltending. Goaltending is voodoo but you can't find them if you don't try.
 
BG said:
Leafs were also looking overseas for goaltending depth, either for this season or likely next.
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I'm sure we're looking everywhere. The issue that we have now though is that Campbell is signed for 2 more years after this at 1.6m. So if we bring over a Euro (Ivan Bochurov, for example is putting up similar numbers, is similar in age and size to heavily hyped Ilya Sorokin), we don't have a NHL job to guarantee them. If they do agree to come over to compete for the backup job, and they win it in camp...do we take the risk of trading Campbell? If we don't trade him and we try to sneak him through waivers and he clears, we have 600-700K in dead cap space. If this random Euro doesn't get the job, most of these guys negotiate a release clause because they would rather go home than play in the AHL...so he triggers that clause and goes home...Woll (.890 in the AHL this season) is now you're starting goalie in the AHL and your kids are going to lose a whole, whole lot.

Bringing in Campbell gave us a bit more runway to find goalie solutions for the future (for the backup position anyway), but imo it closed off avenues like bringing in high performers in the Euro leagues.
 
leafman101 said:
Ideally they can find better.
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That's my issue though...who is better as a #3 goalie? I've looked at the UFA market and maybe we fluke into Domingue or Broissoit, if so great. But failing either of those two, there's no one else better available who won't have a guaranteed NHL job next year.

If we just look in our division, Boston's #3 is Maxime Lagace. Last time he was seen in the show he put up a .867 for Vegas. Tampa's is Scott Wedgewood (.895 in the AHL this season, .893 in 20 games for the Yotes a couple of years ago). Montreal's is a weird pick'em for 2-3 between Primeau, Lindgren, and Kinkaid. None of them are demonstrably better than Hutch at the moment. Florida has Montembeault, who has put up a .890ish SV% over the last 20 or so game he's played for Florida.

Ideally they can find better, but I'm struggling to put a name to it. Just about everyone better than Hutch in any real way, has a full time NHL job or is really likely to get one.
 
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