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

Given To Fly said:
Long time lurker, but have been around these parts for as long as you guys. Gotta be over 20 years (crazy).. last post gotta be close to 10 years ago, but wanted to chime in.

At first, like the rest of you, I was a bit underwhelmed by the moves on Wednesday, however the more I think about it, the more I like them.

I’ve said for years (in my own hockey circles) that one of our issues is that we have guys playing in roles they are simply not designed for. We have asked guys of the likes of Robertson, Maccelli, Kampf, Jarnkrok, etc etc, to play a checking role and to win board battles, play the body, break up the cycle defensively, forecheck and sustain pressure offensively, when they’re not those kind of players. There’s a reason why they didn’t excel in those roles, they are simply just not built for them.

The moves the other day address this issue. We now have guys who can actually play in the bottom 6; they can skate, they can hit, they can forecheck, they can break up the cycle, can play on the pk, and are defensively responsible 5v5.

Let’s go with the lines of:

Mckenna/Matthews/Knies
Cowen/Tavares/Nylander
Paul/Sissons/Roslovic
Joshua/Blueger/Duhaime

That 3rd line has two 20 goal potential guys, so it’s not like we didn’t add any offensive depth to the bottom 6. The 4th line can bang and bring energy.

Both lines are something we haven’t had in years. Defensively responsible, fast, can play the body, provide some energy, and can also chip in. And they’re not a bunch of soft pussies who will just get pushed around game after game. I know that sounds old school, but we see it year after year. We are just too soft and have no jam really anywhere in the lineup. Maybe it’s the old time hockey in me, but I’m looking forward to watching a team that can bring those elements and stand up for themselves and their teammates.

This should also hopefully allow us to not get outshot 2:1 every game as we have guys who can actually play a sound game away from the puck. Obviously the system plays a part in this, as Berubes system (if you can call it that) was gotta be the worse blueprint I’ve ever seen in my hockey watching career, but we weren’t dominating the play or the shots under Keefe either.

We didn’t lose any of our top offensive guys. I would have loved to have added Kane to the mix (could still happen), and have him play with Mckenna and Matthews - which also pushes everyone else down a spot, but addressing the bottom 6 of the roster was way more needed then adding more firepower upfront.

Lets also not forget, its easy to say “for x mil we could have singed player y”,but its a two way street. Those guys need to want to sign here just as much as we want to sign them. So sure, Jenner would have been nice as a 3C, but who’s to say he even wanted to come here. Same with Arvidsson, or Kane, etc etc.

Bob is a gamble. At 38 does he have some Belfour years left in him. FLA was a disaster last year, and I’m hoping it was just a byproduct of that and he bounces back to form. I think we all do.

Anyway, that’s my two cents on things
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Where are Lorentz and MacEwen playing?
 
Blackheart said:
Also a long time lurker, been here a long time, on many different boards. I check in and read up on the team, but admittedly watched very little hockey last season.

I'm not a huge fan of Chayka's July 1st overall, but my 2 cents is that we may as well wait and see what happens. At least we can watch McKenna, which is a damn site better than the alternatives prior to May 5th.
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Welcome to the forum. I hope that you know who "Dom" is.
 
I as well am on the super positive train.

I think all these new players are gonna come in with an excitement for a new coach a Stanley Cup winning goalie McKenna‘s infectious energy. All those guys are gonna come back come ready to go these young leafs and new players as well seeing what’s going on with the World Cup and all of this on July 1 this is a very positive start to the year.

The other aspect is within two years. They will have $58 million in cap space. I think that McDavid and Werenski will see how things go for this year and I presume that McDavid is gonna have a bad year not his fault but that bad cock situation is ridiculous and he and Morenski won’t re-up and then we can trade-off those expiring contracts if need be to throw into a package after July 1 next year when McDavid and Werenski officially declared that they won’t sign.

The leafs are in a fantastic spot because they are gonna be pretty good next year with all of this excitement and reasons I mentioned above and Wronski and McDavid are going to see that and they’re gonna want in
 
With Domi on LTIR, leafs have exactly $3,422,618 in capspace to sign Andre and another forward.

Andrae's QO was $874k, and they could just use that. AFP has a 2yr extension at $2.1m which seems more likely.

if they just settle for the QO, they'd have $2.5m + whatever other salary they want to move out to sign someone else.
 
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