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The Official 2026 Off-Season Thread: Revenge of the Nerds

zeke said:
I mean you want to sign a 36yr old Coyle i am pretty confident Tanev will still be very good.

He might even be healthier and more rested than he's been in years.
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Coyle is 34, his contract would run to his 36 yr old season.

As for Tanev being healthier and more rested, maybe. But that doesn't mean better. It gets harder and harder as they get older to take significant amounts of time off of their training and come back the same as they were before the injury.
 
LeafOfFaith said:
Nobody wants Berube. Nobody ever did. I don't know how we got here.
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iu
 
MindzEye said:
Coyle is 34, his contract would run to his 36 yr old season.

As for Tanev being healthier and more rested, maybe. But that doesn't mean better. It gets harder and harder as they get older to take significant amounts of time off of their training and come back the same as they were before the injury.
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We’ve seen these defensive guys be decent into their late 30s. As long as he’s not counted on as a top pairing guy I think we’ll be ok. The injuries and mileage tho…
 
Leafin' said:
We’ve seen these defensive guys be decent into their late 30s.
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Yeah, I've got no qualms with asking him to be a ~17 mpg 3rd pairing guy who can be trusted to play against whatever level of competition as needed, kill penalties, etc. OEL-Tanev would kind of be a great old man pairing for that kind of work. It's the lineups I see where he's pencilled in next to McCabe under the idea that he's going to be 35 yr old Tanev who was okay in that role, but really only just okay....that sounds fucking crazy.
 
You count on Tanev but you don't assume he's going to be healthy or good. So you try to get both Andersson and Raddysh and make Tanev the best third pairing dman in the league who doesn't have to play as much as before.

If's he's down or out, you bring back Stecher and use him.
 
LeafOfFaith said:
You count on Tanev but you don't assume he's going to be healthy or good. So you try to get both Andersson and Raddysh and make Tanev the best third pairing dman in the league who doesn't have to play as much as before.

If's he's down or out, you bring back Stecher and use him.
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Surely a good nerd can find something better than Stecher?
 
MyNameIsJonas said:
I look at Tanev and i worry about what happened to TJ Brodie.

He was really really good too until he became an unplayable corpse.
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Thats the thing, skills erode pretty evenly. You lose your speed, your hands, your reaction time more or less evenly to time. When you were only ever good at playing on one side of the puck, that erosion hitting the already weak part of your game makes you pretty unplayable at the NHL level in a hurry.
 
If im forced to believe one of

Chayka is a moron and will keep Berube
or
MLSE doesn't want to pay Berube to not coach and asked Chayka to keep him.

Im not sure which is more dumb.
 
zeke said:
Tbh brooby shoulda resigned.

But him getting one meeting is just being decent.

I'm sure Cassidy isn't going to run at the first option without seeing what's what first.
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No NHL coach in his position is ever going to do that. If he gets fired, the Leafs have to pay out the rest of his contract. He quits, he gets bupkis. And these coaches that were 80's/90's former NHLers didn't necessarily rack up a fortune in their playing days.

Anyway, we'd better hope it's just one meeting for the sake of courtesy. Because tradition around these parts is giving the previous regime's coach at least one more season so he can be used as a convenient scapegoat if things go poorly again.
 
The lottery win and McKenna excitement has completely revitalized me after the hell season.

Still, it will be a massive downer if they keep the brainless wonder behind the bench this season. And considering he hasn't even met with him yet, I don't think any of these reports about him staying come from any reliable source.
 
MyNameIsJonas said:
I look at Tanev and i worry about what happened to TJ Brodie.

He was really really good too until he became an unplayable corpse.
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Didn’t he have some mental stuff going on? Like his dad died or something in the offseason and then he went off the rails? Tough to really blame a guy for that one. Who knows, injuries, booze, grief.
 
I'm confident they will. How can they overlook two separate 7-8 game losing streaks in the second half and a complete quit by the team.

There's no coming back from that. There's no rationalizing it or excusing it. They have to just be going through the motions here and giving the worst player and worst coach in Leafs history the face-saving benefit of the process. The process has to result in the termination though.
 
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