The Mother-fucking goddamn Off-season Thread

[MyNameIsJonas]

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?

I think they should hire Laviolette.

he seemed to really get a lot out of Ovie

 

[Preston]

I think they should hire Laviolette.

he seemed to really get a lot out of Ovie

No

 

[MyNameIsJonas]

No

Gerard Gallant seems to interview really well

 

[Montana]

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.

I think Ekholm is a really astute line that may have been just too much of a risk for Dubas, that I agree I’d love to have seen taken.

but I do think that Dubas philosophy of protecting the long term (many chances) at the risk of a big one year gamble that could blow up future ones, is the smarter choice to winning a Cup overall.

that said, this far in, go ahead and take that swing.

 

[Preston]

I think Ekholm is a really astute line that may have been just too much of a risk for Dubas, that I agree I’d love to have seen taken.

but I do think that Dubas philosophy of protecting the long term (many chances) at the risk of a big one year gamble that could blow up future ones, is the smarter choice to winning a Cup overall.

that said, this far in, go ahead and take that swing.

The premise is to increase the window as long as possible in the hopes of getting lucky enough to finally break through in at least one of those years. Kyle has said as much in one of his interviews long ago. And I agree with it. But sometimes rules are meant to be broken if it means acquiring the elite. Teams win cups because of the # of truly elite players they have on their team, not their cost controlled #4/5d. The difference between Ekholm and McCabe is monumental enough to take on a risk like that. And he's done so much and so well to keep their cap situation extremely clean that he deserved to take a stab at a player like that. They could have gotten away with it. Just had to trim some of the edges on the roster and largely run it back next year.

 

[wiseguy1]

Maybe

Or maybe Shanny got cold feet and insisted on toughness and experience and Dubas has been holding down the fort clinging to the last shreds of discernible skill based hockey that he could

Why are there no wingers on the Leafs in the mold of the player Shanny was? Maybe he shou;ld look in the mirror and the rings on his finger.

 

[MindzEye]

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

Somewhat depends on personel we add

- Would like to see a mix of forecheck types. It really seems like we lack speed on the forecheck and quickly settle for sending 1 guy deep and then basically trapping the NZ if we can't establish pressure quickly. Florida gave us fits with sending multiple forecheckers with speed, Tampa gave us problems with establishing a heavy forecheck. For a team that doesn't score a lot of transition goals anymore, it really seems that we don't put enough of an emphasis on generating playoff offence with an overpowering forecheck. If you're going to live and die on ozone possession dominance, cool, but then go balls out trying to establish it and live with the 2v2 & occasional 3v2's going the other way with speed.

- More controlled zone entries, less dump and chase. But you need the players who can carry the puck with speed to make the defenders give up the blueline. We have like, 3 who can do this. Moar.

- More one time point shots from between the dots and fewer defenders being given the green light to "release" down the boards and look for skill plays. Not everyone needs to have the autonomy to overhandle the puck. Most teams collapse to the middle and concede the perimeter anyway, a fair number of point shots get deflected to the perimeter or miss the net and ricochet around the perimeter and become fairly easy retrievals. I don't want to see us become point shot dependent of course, but if that's what we're being given go to the fucking net for rebounds and tips more often.

- In general just more flexibility in tactics and lineup choices.

 

[Volcanologist]

The reality is that Dubas has made a few good moves and the rest have been, in terms of truly improving the team into a champion, somewhere between ineffectual and downright shit. His handling of the game's most important position being a prime example. Overall it's mostly been a constant churn of players who, by and large, haven't made a real difference or moved the needle anywhere.

Dubas thought Keefe(hired without even looking at alternatives) to be an elite coach in the mold of Trotz, he thought Tavares would make us a nightmare matchup, and he thought after numerous playoff disappointments that the Small 5 was an elite core group you can win a Cup with. He has been disastrously wrong on all those points...not just some...all.

there are too many macro mistakes here to continue with him as GM.

The entire Shanahan era has been a colossal waste. If I could think of a byline for this chapter of the Leafs, it would be "success without success". You just can't square the arrogant pressers these guys put on every spring, this confident air they have, with an organization that has produced one playoff series win(in which they were outplayed, of course) in 9 years. There's no humility, and there's no real accountability for failure or even acknowledgement of it -- beyond these vague recycled vanilla remarks about "learning lessons" and "killer instinct". This goes right down to the players. "I need to be better" has never come out of Auston or Mitch's mouth, and I'm not holding my breath for that to change.

 

[Habsy]

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

This is correct but highly misleading

 

[MindzEye]

This is correct but highly misleading

But it's not. We can have a discussion about whether Florida is better than your typical 92 point team, but it was still a 92 point team with ~.900 goaltending.

Yes, they were a good nerdies team that have a incredibly bad 1st half but were still only a 101 point pace team from January 1st onward.

 

[zeke]

So, after dumping Murray, and leaving us room for a 22 man roster (i.e. two press box players), plus assuming Knies on the team for sure, probably Robertson too, and a cheapo gritty 4th line W of some type (zar/mcmann type), the Leafs have almost exactly $18m to sign 3 forwards and 1 goalie. One of those 3 forwards would be a 4th line C, so less than $2m.

So comfortably $16m+ to sign a goalie + one top-9 center + one top-9 winger.

I think ROR is probably the best C on the market. Though Compher, Monahan, and J.Staal might be interesting options.

Bunting is one of the better W on the market, though I'd probably have Bertuzzi and Tarasenko ahead of him.

Sammy is probably the best bet in net, though Jarry, Andersen, Hill might be interesting options.

Would be fairly simple to go into next year looking something like:

Knies --- Matthews --- Marner
Bertuzzi --- Tavares --- Nylander
Robertson --- O'Reilly --- Jarnkrok
McMann --- Acciari --- Lafferty
xxxxx


Rielly --- Brodie
McCabe --- Liljegren
Giordano --- Timmins
xxxxx

Samsonov
Woll
​

 

[LeafOfFaith]

Murray is tradeable if we're willing to take someone else's contract mess

But he's going to get LTIR'd

If he was on the bench ready to play that last game, I don’t know how you can say this with any confidence.

 

[LeafOfFaith]

He led the team in expected goals (6.5) and xG per 60 (1.8)….behind only Nylander in shots per 60 (12.82), led the team in face off % (63.1)….led in high danger unblocked shot attempts (11)….high danger xGoals, second behind Matthews in on ice shot attempt % (58%)….on ice goals% 59%)…. etc etc etc.


im not stating where he ranked, but it doesn’t just need to be because of an OT goal.

There you go. The guy was one of the few who was consistently dangerous, putting in maximum effort, and hit several posts that could easily gone in instead of out. He was also critical on key clutch plays.

“Oh but he looks slow” - coming from a guy who takes 15 minutes to get from one side of his couch to the other.

 

[Preston]

“Oh but he looks slow” - coming from a guy who takes 15 minutes to get from one side of his couch to the other.

 

[LeafOfFaith]

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.

Something changed with Dubie at some point and we don’t know why. Was it a mandate from above? Would be logical that he didn’t just fall in love with scrubs suddenly. Is he catering to Keefe and thinking he has no choice but to give the coach the type of players he wants, otherwise he won’t do his job properly being on a different page? I think this is more likely than Shanny interference.

Or did he simply decide he needed to go down this path because the plan kept getting us ousted in one round? If this is it and he’s sticking to it, especially since we finally advanced this year, then he should go. If he strayed and will go back to trusting the kids and focusing more on skill than brawn, he should stay. Just don’t know what we’ve got here.

 

[LeafOfFaith]

So, after dumping Murray, and leaving us room for a 22 man roster (i.e. two press box players), plus assuming Knies on the team for sure, probably Robertson too, and a cheapo gritty 4th line W of some type (zar/mcmann type), the Leafs have almost exactly $18m to sign 3 forwards and 1 goalie. One of those 3 forwards would be a 4th line C, so less than $2m.

So comfortably $16m+ to sign a goalie + one top-9 center + one top-9 winger.

I think ROR is probably the best C on the market. Though Compher, Monahan, and J.Staal might be interesting options.

Bunting is one of the better W on the market, though I'd probably have Bertuzzi and Tarasenko ahead of him.

Sammy is probably the best bet in net, though Jarry, Andersen, Hill might be interesting options.

Would be fairly simple to go into next year looking something like:

Knies --- Matthews --- Marner
Bertuzzi --- Tavares --- Nylander
Robertson --- O'Reilly --- Jarnkrok
McMann --- Acciari --- Lafferty
xxxxx


Rielly --- Brodie
McCabe --- Liljegren
Giordano --- Timmins
xxxxx

Samsonov
Woll
​

Make Lafferty the 13th and have Holmberg be 4C.

 

[MindzEye]

If he was on the bench ready to play that last game, I don’t know how you can say this with any confidence.

You're right, he would be the first technically healthy player ever to get buried on LTIR. Robidas was actually injured, he just happened to remember that he was injured immediately after Lou was hired and asked him how he was feeling.

Murray is busted. This is not a new thing, we're just the latest team to find out about it.

But here's the overall scenario. The Leafs have 3 NHL goalies ready to go at the beginning of next season. Sammy (RFA that they probably want to re sign), Woll (is no longer waiver eligible, so if he doesn't make the team out of camp, he's on another team) and Murray who is paid 8 million in cash next season and has been busted for a long time now to the point where he's getting concussions on plays we don't even realize he's been hurt on and is at least on concussion 5 in his career now, probably more.

So the organization has to make a choice on which 2 goalies they're moving forward with and the choice is fairly obvious. Murray is the odd man out. The most expensive as well as the least reliable due to injuries. That Murray (allegedly healthy and ready to go) was the one who sat despite his 2 cup rings as a starter, in elimination games so that a kid with like 8 days NHL experience could play tells us alot about what the org thinks going forward.

So this leaves the organization with a few avenues.

Trade: This would be ideal as long as it doesn't end up too punitive to get the deal done. Would sting a little bit more given the fact that this would be 2 yrs in a row we'd be firing assets out the door (or eating cap we can't really afford to eat) to move him. The trick here is that you need a dance partner. There might be interest here, there might not be. His contract makes shit complicated to move without retention because of the 8 million in cash owed. The usual (cheap) suspects aren't likely to be interested in paying Murray 6 million next year on 25% retention. That's a lot of budget for poor teams.

Buy Out: This is our ace in the hole in trade negotiations, but also might be why it's hard to move him when cap retention comes up. This would carry a cap hit of .687 this season and 2 million the following season. So it's not nothing, but it's something that might stop us from being willing to throw 50% retention at the problem. Also, Murray won't be super horny about this either as he takes a hit in a buyout, going from 8 million in salary to 5.33. Now, he would recoup some of the money with his next contract, but I can't see a big lineup to spend money on a guy who has struggled to stay healthy and worst case scenario he ends up with no guaranteed money at all and only offered PTO's or some shit. There's risk here for him if it goes down like this.

Robidas: Murray gets all of his money, the Leafs get salary cap relief and he spends the season getting as healthy as possible and he'll be looking at a similar situation in summer 2024 (looking at 1 year show me's or PTO's) as he would be in summer 2023 if we just bought him out. Also has the longshot possibility of a miraculous playoff resurrection when salary cap rules hilariously don't matter anymore. Quick "conditioning stint" in the AHL after the deadline to get some reps and maybe you get the call if an injury happens or some shit.

 

[LeafOfFaith]

You're right, he would be the first technically healthy player ever to get buried on LTIR. Robidas was actually injured, he just happened to remember that he was injured immediately after Lou was hired and asked him how he was feeling.

Murray is busted. This is not a new thing, we're just the latest team to find out about it.

But here's the overall scenario. The Leafs have 3 NHL goalies ready to go at the beginning of next season. Sammy (RFA that they probably want to re sign), Woll (is no longer waiver eligible, so if he doesn't make the team out of camp, he's on another team) and Murray who is paid 8 million in cash next season and has been busted for a long time now to the point where he's getting concussions on plays we don't even realize he's been hurt on and is at least on concussion 5 in his career now, probably more.

So the organization has to make a choice on which 2 goalies they're moving forward with and the choice is fairly obvious. Murray is the odd man out. The most expensive as well as the least reliable due to injuries. That Murray (allegedly healthy and ready to go) was the one who sat despite his 2 cup rings as a starter, in elimination games so that a kid with like 8 days NHL experience could play tells us alot about what the org thinks going forward.

So this leaves the organization with a few avenues.

Trade: This would be ideal as long as it doesn't end up too punitive to get the deal done. Would sting a little bit more given the fact that this would be 2 yrs in a row we'd be firing assets out the door (or eating cap we can't really afford to eat) to move him. The trick here is that you need a dance partner. There might be interest here, there might not be. His contract makes shit complicated to move without retention because of the 8 million in cash owed. The usual (cheap) suspects aren't likely to be interested in paying Murray 6 million next year on 25% retention. That's a lot of budget for poor teams.

Buy Out: This is our ace in the hole in trade negotiations, but also might be why it's hard to move him when cap retention comes up. This would carry a cap hit of .687 this season and 2 million the following season. So it's not nothing, but it's something that might stop us from being willing to throw 50% retention at the problem. Also, Murray won't be super horny about this either as he takes a hit in a buyout, going from 8 million in salary to 5.33. Now, he would recoup some of the money with his next contract, but I can't see a big lineup to spend money on a guy who has struggled to stay healthy and worst case scenario he ends up with no guaranteed money at all and only offered PTO's or some shit. There's risk here for him if it goes down like this.

Robidas: Murray gets all of his money, the Leafs get salary cap relief and he spends the season getting as healthy as possible and he'll be looking at a similar situation in summer 2024 (looking at 1 year show me's or PTO's) as he would be in summer 2023 if we just bought him out. Also has the longshot possibility of a miraculous playoff resurrection when salary cap rules hilariously don't matter anymore. Quick "conditioning stint" in the AHL after the deadline to get some reps and maybe you get the call if an injury happens or some shit.

Well said. Don’t get me wrong, I badly want him to disappear, but not sure how willing he’ll be to play ball and sit out a whole year after missing lots of this year. He can get all his money on the island, but I don’t know what kind of career he has left afterwards that make getting that extra couple of million worth it.

Trade is the most likely avenue, and we’ll probably have to part with something decent yet again, as is tradition. Watch the 1st from Boston go in the deal, meaning we’d have traded Sandin to rid ourselves of Murray.

 

[MindzEye]

He can get all his money on the island, but I don’t know what kind of career he has left afterwards that make getting that extra couple of million worth it.

Same career as if we bought him out this summer, which has to be on the table if a trade doesn't materialize, which is a real possibility.

Except he'd be short 2.7 million dollars in that scenario.

 

[axlsalinger]

You're right, he would be the first technically healthy player ever to get buried on LTIR. Robidas was actually injured, he just happened to remember that he was injured immediately after Lou was hired and asked him how he was feeling.

Murray is busted. This is not a new thing, we're just the latest team to find out about it.

But here's the overall scenario. The Leafs have 3 NHL goalies ready to go at the beginning of next season. Sammy (RFA that they probably want to re sign), Woll (is no longer waiver eligible, so if he doesn't make the team out of camp, he's on another team) and Murray who is paid 8 million in cash next season and has been busted for a long time now to the point where he's getting concussions on plays we don't even realize he's been hurt on and is at least on concussion 5 in his career now, probably more.

So the organization has to make a choice on which 2 goalies they're moving forward with and the choice is fairly obvious. Murray is the odd man out. The most expensive as well as the least reliable due to injuries. That Murray (allegedly healthy and ready to go) was the one who sat despite his 2 cup rings as a starter, in elimination games so that a kid with like 8 days NHL experience could play tells us alot about what the org thinks going forward.

So this leaves the organization with a few avenues.

Trade: This would be ideal as long as it doesn't end up too punitive to get the deal done. Would sting a little bit more given the fact that this would be 2 yrs in a row we'd be firing assets out the door (or eating cap we can't really afford to eat) to move him. The trick here is that you need a dance partner. There might be interest here, there might not be. His contract makes shit complicated to move without retention because of the 8 million in cash owed. The usual (cheap) suspects aren't likely to be interested in paying Murray 6 million next year on 25% retention. That's a lot of budget for poor teams.

Buy Out: This is our ace in the hole in trade negotiations, but also might be why it's hard to move him when cap retention comes up. This would carry a cap hit of .687 this season and 2 million the following season. So it's not nothing, but it's something that might stop us from being willing to throw 50% retention at the problem. Also, Murray won't be super horny about this either as he takes a hit in a buyout, going from 8 million in salary to 5.33. Now, he would recoup some of the money with his next contract, but I can't see a big lineup to spend money on a guy who has struggled to stay healthy and worst case scenario he ends up with no guaranteed money at all and only offered PTO's or some shit. There's risk here for him if it goes down like this.

Robidas: Murray gets all of his money, the Leafs get salary cap relief and he spends the season getting as healthy as possible and he'll be looking at a similar situation in summer 2024 (looking at 1 year show me's or PTO's) as he would be in summer 2023 if we just bought him out. Also has the longshot possibility of a miraculous playoff resurrection when salary cap rules hilariously don't matter anymore. Quick "conditioning stint" in the AHL after the deadline to get some reps and maybe you get the call if an injury happens or some shit.