The Mother-fucking goddamn Off-season Thread

[MyNameIsJonas]

Chuck Fletcher needs work and I think his old man still has an unplugged rotary phone in an MLSE broom closet

 

[MindzEye]

Eh, or did we get outcoached and outplayed by a 92 point team?

I mean, I'm kind of done with digging into the minutae and finding the excuses for why we didn't go deep into the playoffs. 5 years into Dubas' tenure and it's been embarassing failure year after year.

At this point he owns every player on the roster, every player in the organization. It's all him now and here we are.

 

[MyNameIsJonas]

Are Jets fans blaming Chevrolet Day Off for their situation?

 

[Montana]

Eh, or did we get outcoached and outplayed by a 92 point team?

I mean .901 goalie of 92pt team….or .945 goalie of 4-1 series.

I mean, I'm kind of done with digging into the minutae and finding the excuses for why we didn't go deep into the playoffs. 5 years into Dubas' tenure and it's been embarassing failure year after year.

respectfully because you’re one of the last ones to do so….but that’s just explaining it’s an emotional decision versus a logical one.


edit: and I blame NO one, for emotionally wanting change with the hopes something different would work. I get it.

At this point he owns every player on the roster, every player in the organization. It's all him now and here we are.

agreed.

 

[thehabhater]

This assumes that Nylander would have scored later and that Florida would have played the rest of the third the same way.

And where was all this outrage when Point had a good goal waved off in the first round? One could argue that the Leafs only made it to the second round because Tampa got screwed.

Go back to whining about the Gretzky high stick. You lost for the same reason you lose every year: because your team is a fraud. It is designed only to win largely meaningless regular season games. It has never had what it takes to win when it matters which is why it doesn't win when it matters. If the Reilly goal had stood the Leafs would just have found another way to fail because that's who they are. That's who they've been for 7 years.

Blow. It. Up.

Sweet heart. I have never whined about the Gretzky call. Ever.

 

[Preston]

They weren't good enough. They were very close last year and dubas abandoned his data driven process and did things to make their team worse. They were a worse team this year when they had an opportunity to be better.

It's not why they lost necessarily... Big boys should have given them way more. But Kyle had a very poor year and frankly it was pretty much over with him once he clearly started doubting his own vision and doing things contrary to that fresh, data-driven progressive mindset that we all wanted early on. By the end of it the "do not dump and chase mindset" turned into Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner dumping every time they had the puck in the neutral zone. That's an organization that lost their way by letting prior results impact their decision making far more than they should have.

You talk about emotions making decisions... Well Kyle did just that. Speed and skill went by the wayside in this rosters final form and that is very sad.

 

[MindzEye]

respectfully because you’re one of the last ones to do so….but that’s just explaining it’s an emotional decision versus a logical one.


edit: and I blame NO one, for emotionally wanting change with the hopes something different would work. I get it.

Nah, this ain't it.

I'm done with seeing us move away from the plan and having it end in failures that suggest we're not even close to winning the only thing that matters. We continue to make decisions that I vehemently disagree with and it keeps ending in embarassing failure. Logic and emotion aren't inherent opposites. Emotional reaction can be based on a logical framework.

The core issue you and I are going to have is that I disagree with a significant amount of the constituent decisions that make up our current macro (as we've explored today in another conversation) and you don't. The only rebuttal I care about putting forward at this point is simply pointing out that our macro results suck, and even our constituent process driven results took a step back this year. Simply put, we're not close and we're not getting closer. I've been calling this out all year now, you're mistaking my emotional fatigue at finally seeing the expected wreckage as reactionary and emotionally driven desire for pure change. That's just not it.

 

[MyNameIsJonas]

I

Nah, this ain't it.

I'm done with seeing us move away from the plan and having it end in failures that suggest we're not even close to winning the only thing that matters. We continue to make decisions that I vehemently disagree with and it keeps ending in embarassing failure. Logic and emotion aren't inherent opposites. Emotional reaction can be based on a logical framework.

The core issue you and I are going to have is that I disagree with a significant amount of the constituent decisions that make up our current macro (as we've explored today in another conversation) and you don't. The only rebuttal I care about putting forward at this point is simply pointing out that our macro results suck, and even our constituent process driven results took a step back this year. Simply put, we're not close and we're not getting closer. I've been calling this out all year now, you're mistaking my emotional fatigue at finally seeing the expected wreckage as reactionary and emotionally driven desire for pure change. That's just not it.

I understand all of this but I guess my question is why you still have faith in Shanahan?

Is it mostly because the alternative is a level of grim you simply don’t want to go to?

 

[Montana]

Nah, this ain't it.

I'm done with seeing us move away from the plan and having it end in failures that suggest we're not even close to winning the only thing that matters. We continue to make decisions that I vehemently disagree with and it keeps ending in embarassing failure. Logic and emotion aren't inherent opposites. Emotional reaction can be based on a logical framework.

The core issue you and I are going to have is that I disagree with a significant amount of the constituent decisions that make up our current macro (as we've explored today in another conversation) and you don't. The only rebuttal I care about putting forward at this point is simply pointing out that our macro results suck, and even our constituent process driven results took a step back this year. Simply put, we're not close and we're not getting closer. I've been calling this out all year now, you're mistaking my emotional fatigue at finally seeing the expected wreckage as reactionary and emotionally driven desire for pure change. That's just not it.

im replying to the fact you said you were done digging into the data….and are sick of the streak of results.


to me that just says emotional decision. Like you explained emotional fatigue basically.


I’ve no problem with you & PM also taking issue with him going away from his data driven decision making (that aligns with the public data anyway)….but that wasn’t what my comment was in response to.

 

[Preston]

Best part about Kyle for me is his cap management. He has done a fabulous job essentially extending the window as long as possible. But it has come at the expense of making some bold moves and results in him doing things like acquiring mediocre talent like Jarn and McCabe with term. Years of control and sweet spot of shared risk type stuff. It's shatkins-ish. Not the worst thing in the world as long as you also improve the team and address the shortcomings but it appears his philosophy has gone backwards.

 

[Montana]

I

I understand all of this but I guess my question is why you still have faith in Shanahan?

Is it mostly because the alternative is a level of grim you simply don’t want to go to?

I love Shanny in part because he’s trusted the process and held firm….I would hope he wouldn’t turn away from analytics to more old school thinking he heard while playing that did have success. Like I’m not even 10000% sure that the moves people had dis for this year, wasn’t coming from someone like Shanny who wanted us to try something else.

 

[MindzEye]

im replying to the fact you said you were done digging into the data….and are sick of the streak of results.


to me that just says emotional decision. Like you explained emotional fatigue basically.

Looking for small sample stuff to cling to in individual playoff series gets old after a while. On macro, this was a team that was underperforming for most of the 2nd half and had taken a clear step backwards compared to 21/22.

 

[Montana]

Best part about Kyle for me is his cap management. He has done a fabulous job essentially extending the window as long as possible. But it has come at the expense of making some bold moves and results in him doing things like acquiring mediocre talent like Jarn and McCabe with term. Years of control and sweet spot of shared risk type stuff. It's shatkins-ish. Not the worst thing in the world as long as you also improve the team and address the shortcomings but it appears his philosophy has gone backwards.

except Marner deal which I still have a real issue caving to unless he signed for 8 years….and taking money on the Kessel deal. Those two still really irk me.

 

[MyNameIsJonas]

The Matt Murray deal sure was a choice too

 

[Montana]

Looking for small sample stuff to cling to in individual playoff series gets old after a while.

small sample matters if we wanted to project forward how we’d play based on these two series, but we’re not. We’re using them to describe what occurred in those games.

we played well, generated tons of xG, and ran into a .945 brick wall, along with some insane ref fuckery.

 

[MindzEye]

Best part about Kyle for me is his cap management. He has done a fabulous job essentially extending the window as long as possible. But it has come at the expense of making some bold moves and results in him doing things like acquiring mediocre talent like Jarn and McCabe with term. Years of control and sweet spot of shared risk type stuff. It's shatkins-ish. Not the worst thing in the world as long as you also improve the team and address the shortcomings but it appears his philosophy has gone backwards.

I would even attach most of his Justin Holl love affair to cap management. Instead of "why the fuck is Justin Holl expected to be a shut down defender on a contender" it's "where else am I going to find this much value for 2 million?"

Both of those thoughts are completely right...Holl should be a #4-5 on a contender, but he's absolutely worth more than 2 million dollars and someone is probably going to surprise us with a 4-5 million per year offer on him in free agency. But we definitely should have been looking for a higher end defender to go with Rielly & Brodie in the top 3 and not settling for Holl's and McCabe's because cap management. Want to manage the cap? Produce kids ready to play on ELC's and fucking play them.

 

[Preston]

except Marner deal which I still have a real issue caving to unless he signed for 8 years….and taking money on the Kessel deal. Those two still really irk me.

But since then he hasn't really signed a single bad contract or taken much of a risk in doing so outside of fairly short-term deals. The Matt Murray thing is a short-term headache, jarnkrok has a large enough playoff sample that he's absolutely garbage but at 2.1m who cares, Brodie was obviously dynamite, Muzzin was excellent up till the very end, etc. There has not really been a disaster contract in their depth.

As long as I'm tossing grenades in Kyle's direction, I have to acknowledge he put this teams balance sheet in a very good and healthy spot for years and years and moving forward. Do I wish he was a bit more bold and aggressively took on an Ekholm type? Absolutely. He could have easily done that if he made some other moves. But there was risk the contract could age poorly and decided to tack on a cost controlled 4/5d instead in the hopes of extending the window at almost no risk.

Not saying Kyle's approach is wrong on a net basis but there's a time and place for everything I think. Sometimes the pros far away the risks when going aggressive.

 

[MindzEye]

small sample matters if we wanted to project forward how we’d play based on these two series, but we’re not. We’re using them to describe what occurred in those games.

we played well, generated tons of xG, and ran into a .945 brick wall, along with some insane ref fuckery.

Okay, that's one of 5 failures. If this series existed in a vacuum, I'd be more generous....like I've been for every other failure until now.

 

[MyNameIsJonas]

I would even attach most of his Justin Holl love affair to cap management. Instead of "why the fuck is Justin Holl expected to be a shut down defender on a contender" it's "where else am I going to find this much value for 2 million?"

Both of those thoughts are completely right...Holl should be a #4-5 on a contender, but he's absolutely worth more than 2 million dollars and someone is probably going to surprise us with a 4-5 million per year offer on him in free agency. But we definitely should have been looking for a higher end defender to go with Rielly & Brodie in the top 3 and not settling for Holl's and McCabe's because cap management. Want to manage the cap? Produce kids ready to play on ELC's and fucking play them.

Hard to do with a 11M 3LC/2LW

 

[Montana]

Who do you guys hope for as coach?….is there a number of guys that would excite you, as there are with GMs?

anything structurally you’d love to see a new coach install?