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The Fucking Offseason Thread - Why bother waiting?

If anyone here is tempted to despair, remember the Oilers. They have perhaps the two best players in the world and were swept out of the first round by the Jets. I don’t think the Oilers or Leafs should give up at all or stop building around their core. Eventually, the playoff success should come.
 
Joe Thornton is fine as a 12th forward. Expecting anything more is pure lunacy and we had him on our fucking TOP PP UNIT. Fuck sake
 
If anyone here is tempted to despair, remember the Oilers. They have perhaps the two best players in the world and were swept out of the first round by the Jets. I don’t think the Oilers or Leafs should give up at all or stop building around their core. Eventually, the playoff success should come.

Leafs are different , your best complete team in years .......and still shit the bed with a gift handed to you

Losing is fine if you played hard and core produced to expectations

5 straight years now , no more excuse on youth , etc....

Simply put your effort and will dont match your skill on a regular season spreadsheet

16 and 34 are paid to be your JT/Kane or Point/Kuch........this is getting embarrassing getting outplayed every year

You need to play at 3 extra levels , not sure 16 especially can be that guy
 
Joe Thornton is fine as a 12th forward. Expecting anything more is pure lunacy and we had him on our fucking TOP PP UNIT. **** sake


Playoffs

1. Marner 24:43 ($10.9)
2. Matthews 23:53 ($11.6)
3. Hyman 22:51 ($2.3)
4. Tavares 2:53* ($11.0)
5. Nylander 18:21 ($7.0)
6. Kerfoot 17:11 ($3.5)
7. Foligno 14:11 ($1.4?)
8. Mikheyev 13:22 ($1.7)
9. Simmonds 12:15 ($1.5)
10. Engvall 12:01 ($1.3)
11. Spezza 11:44 ($0.7)
12. Galchenyuk 11:33 ($0.6?)
13. Thornton 10:51 ($0.7)
14. Brooks 9:57 ($0.7)
15. Nash 9:56 ($0.0?)
 
If the top lines of two good/great teams are equals, it is then up to the other lines and special teams to be the difference.

The Leafs ended the season as a one-line team - and a powerplay that was BRUTAL.

You can shame Marner/Matthews for their lack of 5on5 production, but the lack of PP production was the real issue IMO.

Continue to look for the right mix on line 3 and 4, and solve the damn problems on PP.
 
Leafs are different , your best complete team in years .......and still shit the bed with a gift handed to you

Losing is fine if you played hard and core produced to expectations

5 straight years now , no more excuse on youth , etc....

Simply put your effort and will dont match your skill on a regular season spreadsheet

16 and 34 are paid to be your JT/Kane or Point/Kuch........this is getting embarrassing getting outplayed every year

You need to play at 3 extra levels , not sure 16 especially can be that guy
Every player and team develops differently and Matthews and Marner are 23/24 years old. They’re not 28 or 29. You can learn from failure and sometimes you need to learn a lesson more than once. Stay patient and keep building the team around them the best you can. They are 2 of the best players in the world and they and the team will over time probably find a way to win. You can’t give up when the big 3 is just entering its prime—we’ve spent all these past years waiting for them to grow and develop. Their best days are ahead.
 
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Who are some UFA names for the third line centre positions.

Do you think Florida walks away from Alexander Wennberg

Some interesting names on the UFA market:

Wennberg

Bonino
Granlund
Janmark
Getzlaf???

wingers: What about trying to pick both Coleman and Goodrow from Tampa
Saad
Nosek.

I'm trying to find players that might not be able to resign with their teams and have experience winning with some size and skill.

Fill the bottom half of the roster and a few of the wing with some of our young prospects and roll with that.
 
I get shitting all over the Leafs for the last couple years, deserved. But this “5 straight years in the playoffs” stuff is pretty disingenuous. It just doesn’t make any sense to me to lump the Leafs coming off a last place finish against the 118 point Presidents Trophy winners where a rookie Matthews scored 4 goals in 6 games in with the last two rather embarrassing series. Even the next year vs the much better Boston, Marner had 9 points in our 7 game series. They need to be way fucking better or we’re going nowhere to be sure, but including the first couple years really waters down the argument, IMO.
 
Yeah the Caps series was a longshot, first Bruins series was a long shot, second Bruins series was a coin flip. The last two years were just straight up bad tho. Woulda been nice to have the second Bruins series but the last two are the ones they've got no excuse for. Especially considering how poorly their top dogs played in them.

Tldr: for me it's 2.5 years of failure, not 5. Which is still a lot for this core but yeah, not quite as bad as folks are making it out to be.
 
Every player and team develops differently and Matthews and Marner are 23/24 years old. They’re not 28 or 29. You can learn from failure and sometimes you need to learn a lesson more than once. Stay patient and keep building the team around them the best you can. They are 2 of the best players in the world and they and the team will over time probably find a way to win. You can’t give up when the big 3 is just entering its prime—we’ve spent all these past years waiting for them to grow and develop. Their best days are ahead.

Good luck
 
Agreed. Its really the last two years that are actual disappointments. And last year was just a complete shit show, write off of a season all around.

This was their best, most promising season by far, and the only year they had realistic, earned expectations of competing. Sure they face planted before the finish line. But they also showed the most promise that they've shown any other season over the last 5 years. Probably 50 years.
 
But I still entirely expect him to sign a retirement deal with Toronto. Getting rid of marincin is not THIS easy.
 
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