What Now?

[hobarth]

The teams that TO has faced in the playoffs in the Matthews/Marner years has been:

Tampa .692%
Boston .688%
Washington .636%

These %s are their records during that time, TO winning % .649, these are the top 4 teams over this period. If a team is going to be the best then they have to beat the best. So this gives an insight into why TO has struggled in the first rounds during the 2017/18 to 2021/22 years, what isn't explained in this is why TO couldn't beat Columbus in the Covid year to qualify for the playoffs.

Because of TO's salary structure expecting TO to somehow get miraculously better seems like magical thinking but it has been the mindset of TO's hierarchy that TO would have better results because the core of the team was young and as it matured the results would follow.

It seems to me the hierarchy has been right TO has lost some good to very good players Hyman, Kadri and Mikheyev without proper replacements and has been able to continue having excellent regular season results, so has the teams that TO has been competing against.

TO just lost against Boston, it felt playoffish but I didn't feel that TO showed up which is like the back half of TO's first round playoff loses. Mitch had 2 assists, Matthews a goal, JT and Nylander had little bearing on the results. Mitch and Auston can't be on the ice for every minute, the support players aren't good enough to keep up or overcome Leaf competitors. Kerfoot, Kampf, Jarnkrok, Simmomds, Robertson, Aston-Reese, Holmberg, Timmins, Holl, Brodie, Muzzin, Rielly and many more just aren't the quality of support TO needs to become playoff successful.

For me, I don't think Dubie was wrong to give out the big contracts what I do think was wrong was attempting to fix gigantic leaks with small bandages, giving up quality draft choices for Foligno and the like when TO's on ice results were often/always middlin' prior to the playoffs. I didn't see anything from TO against Boston that would make me think TO is a true competitor and spending more potential assets for bandages would again be a mistake(s).

I think TO needs to go all in this year, spend assets to get quality depth not bandage depth like Lybushkin or Dubie should realize that TO isn't ready and disseminate some of it's questionable depth, now, to enable a proper retool for next year. 

 

[hobarth]

How dire is it?

Tavares, John-32
Kerfoot, Alexander-28
J?rnkrok, Calle-31
K?mpf, David-28
Simmonds, Wayne-34
Aston-Reese, Zach-28
Rielly, Morgan-28
Holl, Justin-30
Giordano, Mark-39
Benn, Jordie-35
Murray, Matt-28

These are the ages of over half of TO's lineup, I would say that when a team has this many oldsters the team should have already have achieved it's goal and now it should be retooled.

 

[BrownRolo]

How dire is it?

Tavares, John-32
Kerfoot, Alexander-28
J?rnkrok, Calle-31
K?mpf, David-28
Simmonds, Wayne-34
Aston-Reese, Zach-28
Rielly, Morgan-28
Holl, Justin-30
Giordano, Mark-39
Benn, Jordie-35
Murray, Matt-28

These are the ages of over half of TO's lineup, I would say that when a team has this many oldsters the team should have already have achieved it's goal and now it should be retooled.

Tavares, John-32 Still pretty good
Kerfoot, Alexander-28 Minor player/Bottom 6
J?rnkrok, Calle-31 Bottom 6 and good
K?mpf, David-28 Bottom 6 and good
Simmonds, Wayne-34 popcorn eater
Aston-Reese, Zach-28Bottom 6
Rielly, Morgan-28 not great since injury but we know he is still good
Holl, Justin-30 does a pretty good job for his caphit
Giordano, Mark-39 give me 4 more
Benn, Jordie-35 popcorn eater
Murray, Matt-28 28 isn't that old for a goalie even though Murray has miles on him. He's looked good this year for he most part

So from your list I'd say Tavares, Rielly, and Murray are key pieces. But you fail to mention Matthews, Marner, Bunting, Nylander, Holmberg, Lily, Sandin, Engvall who are pretty important to this team.

Leafs have some old guys for sure but their main core is still quite young. Now if these guys can get it done is another story...

 

[hobarth]

How dire is it?

Tavares, John-32
Kerfoot, Alexander-28
J?rnkrok, Calle-31
K?mpf, David-28
Simmonds, Wayne-34
Aston-Reese, Zach-28
Rielly, Morgan-28
Holl, Justin-30
Giordano, Mark-39
Benn, Jordie-35
Murray, Matt-28

These are the ages of over half of TO's lineup, I would say that when a team has this many oldsters the team should have already have achieved it's goal and now it should be retooled.

Tavares, John-32 Still pretty good
Kerfoot, Alexander-28 Minor player/Bottom 6
J?rnkrok, Calle-31 Bottom 6 and good
K?mpf, David-28 Bottom 6 and good
Simmonds, Wayne-34 popcorn eater
Aston-Reese, Zach-28Bottom 6
Rielly, Morgan-28 not great since injury but we know he is still good
Holl, Justin-30 does a pretty good job for his caphit
Giordano, Mark-39 give me 4 more
Benn, Jordie-35 popcorn eater
Murray, Matt-28 28 isn't that old for a goalie even though Murray has miles on him. He's looked good this year for he most part

So from your list I'd say Tavares, Rielly, and Murray are key pieces. But you fail to mention Matthews, Marner, Bunting, Nylander, Holmberg, Lily, Sandin, Engvall who are pretty important to this team.

Leafs have some old guys for sure but their main core is still quite young. Now if these guys can get it done is another story...

I think the story is, where is the support, if other teams in the playoffs somehow stymie Willie, Auston, Mitch and JT that's it TO doesn't have reasonable weapons to back them up, to expect just 4 players to carry the load in the playoffs is magical thinking.

TO lost to TB last year in the first round, TO's bottom 6 scored 3 or 4 goals, 2 of which were empty netters, TB's bottom 6 scored something like 12, that's a huge obstacle for TO and it's great core 4 to surmount.

TO needs a quality bottom 6 and not acknowledging that like Dubie seems to be doing means TO's ability to progress in the playoffs is practically nil. Discounting players because they're bottom 6ers isn't a practical way to view or build a team, giving 4 year contracts to players over 30 that really haven't accomplished much is a glaring mistake when TO needed to be looking for bottom 6ers with a hope of contributing while playing in the bottom 6, that contributing needs to be at both ends of the ice.

I think Timmins is an example of how a decently talented d-man can fit in with the Leafs but at the same time his ability to actually be a d-man isn't on par with his offense, Rielly is a similar type, he's no Hedman both offensively or defensively and is a glaring example of the compromises TO has accepted rather than try to improve on.

Because of the age of the supporting players little improvement can be expected, I don't see any way out of the current cycle for TO other than rebuild. 

 

[Bill33]

Because of the age of the supporting players little improvement can be expected, I don't see any way out of the current cycle for TO other than rebuild. 

I'm not following your logic. The supporting players are largely on short term, low cost deals, and in a lot of cases, no term deals.

The core of the team are elite players in their statistical prime.

It's when your core talent has aged out (or consistently underperformed) that you consider rebuilding. Toronto is in the exact opposite situation. You'd want to blow it all up because you don't like the 4th line?

 

[bustaheims]

This strikes me a looking for a problem much more than actually identifying one.

 

[LeafsDownUnder]

"What if none of our best players play well?"

Any team will fail in this scenario.

It's not a uniquely Leafs situation.

This whole topic is redundant and unnecessarily negative.

 

[Guilt Trip]

"What if none of our best players play well?"

Any team will fail in this scenario.

It's not a uniquely Leafs situation.

This whole topic is redundant and unnecessarily negative.

Yup but some can't help themselves.

 

[hobarth]

Because of the age of the supporting players little improvement can be expected, I don't see any way out of the current cycle for TO other than rebuild. 

I'm not following your logic. The supporting players are largely on short term, low cost deals, and in a lot of cases, no term deals.

The core of the team are elite players in their statistical prime.

It's when your core talent has aged out (or consistently underperformed) that you consider rebuilding. Toronto is in the exact opposite situation. You'd want to blow it all up because you don't like the 4th line?

You don't see the logic in "TO lost to TB last year in the first round, TO's bottom 6 scored 3 or 4 goals, 2 of which were empty netters, TB's bottom 6 scored something like 12, that's a huge obstacle for TO and it's great core 4 to surmount."

It's not a problem if it's a one off but it isn't, it's an ongoing problem being made worse by signing even older players who will not be able to help in the playoffs. What TO needs is either a massive infusion of talent/character for the bottom 6 or acknowledgement that what's on the team now doesn't have it so greater attention needs to be directed towards the future rather than spending the future for players like Foligno.

I wouldn't say TO's core hasn't performed, they've actually enabled TO to extend truly great teams to 7 games in the many first round loses but it has been essentially only them as the support players haven't provided true support like TB's bottom 6 last year.

TO might be able to spend the future for P. Kane and Horvath, I think TO would need both, and the price would be steep but the return could be a Cup or TO could spend the future for more Folignos/Lybushkins ultimately having no future while continuing to get the same results.

TO's bottom 6 has a proven track record that can only get better results with a massive infusion of talent. 

 

[Bender]

Because of the age of the supporting players little improvement can be expected, I don't see any way out of the current cycle for TO other than rebuild. 

I'm not following your logic. The supporting players are largely on short term, low cost deals, and in a lot of cases, no term deals.

The core of the team are elite players in their statistical prime.

It's when your core talent has aged out (or consistently underperformed) that you consider rebuilding. Toronto is in the exact opposite situation. You'd want to blow it all up because you don't like the 4th line?

You don't see the logic in "TO lost to TB last year in the first round, TO's bottom 6 scored 3 or 4 goals, 2 of which were empty netters, TB's bottom 6 scored something like 12, that's a huge obstacle for TO and it's great core 4 to surmount."

It's not a problem if it's a one off but it isn't, it's an ongoing problem being made worse by signing even older players who will not be able to help in the playoffs. What TO needs is either a massive infusion of talent/character for the bottom 6 or acknowledgement that what's on the team now doesn't have it so greater attention needs to be directed towards the future rather than spending the future for players like Foligno.

I wouldn't say TO's core hasn't performed, they've actually enabled TO to extend truly great teams to 7 games in the many first round loses but it has been essentially only them as the support players haven't provided true support like TB's bottom 6 last year.

TO might be able to spend the future for P. Kane and Horvath, I think TO would need both, and the price would be steep but the return could be a Cup or TO could spend the future for more Folignos/Lybushkins ultimately having no future while continuing to get the same results.

TO's bottom 6 has a proven track record that can only get better results with a massive infusion of talent. 

So if they spend and get Horvat and Kane and they lose what do you say then? This is sport. There aren't any guarantees, and there are multiple ways to approach things. It's great to talk in hypothetical, but that's really all they are. Sit back and enjoy the ride.

 

[spiderbob]

People who DEMAND satisfaction from their sports teams should consider going to the movies instead. Sports don't work that way, especially in a hard cap, parity inclined league.

 

[bustaheims]

People who DEMAND satisfaction from their sports teams should consider going to the movies instead. Sports don't work that way, especially in a hard cap, parity inclined league.

Movies don't work that way, either. No form of entertainment does. People who demand satisfaction have unrealistic expectations of the world.

 

[OldTimeHockey]

It's not a problem if it's a one off but it isn't, it's an ongoing problem being made worse by signing even older players who will not be able to help in the playoffs.   

I'm extremely confused by this statement. What "older" players are the Leafs signing? The only 22/23 forward signing I can see that's over the age of 30 is Jarnkrok. He's 31. And despite a slow start, he's up to 21 points in 38 games.

Are we hoping that there's a 25 year old forward sitting unsigned at home that has the potential of scoring double digit goals, the ability to play the powerplay, the ability to kill penalties and on top of that, the ability to be Nick Paul in the playoffs? If so, can we get two of those guys. Certainly they're around.

 

[Bender]

I say we storm MLSE headquarters with pitchforks if they don't agree to our demands. We'll call it Bastilleaf Day!

 

[Guilt Trip]

It's not a problem if it's a one off but it isn't, it's an ongoing problem being made worse by signing even older players who will not be able to help in the playoffs.   

I'm extremely confused by this statement. What "older" players are the Leafs signing? The only 22/23 forward signing I can see that's over the age of 30 is Jarnkrok. He's 31. And despite a slow start, he's up to 21 points in 38 games.

Are we hoping that there's a 25 year old forward sitting unsigned at home that has the potential of scoring double digit goals, the ability to play the powerplay, the ability to kill penalties and on top of that, the ability to be Chris Paul in the playoffs? If so, can we get two of those guys. Certainly they're around.

I know you mean Nick Paul lol. Here's a funny thing. He did nothing until game 7, both stoppable shots, and when all is said and done, Kampf scored as many goals as he did.

I'm throwing my hat into getting Lawson Crouse. I think he'd fit in nicely on one of the top lines and is signed for 4 more years at 4.3M. I think he gets 25-30 goals on this team. Only player I'm not giving up is Knies who I also think is coming after his season is done.

 

[OldTimeHockey]

I know you mean Nick Paul lol.

Bite me

 

[Guilt Trip]

I know you mean Nick Paul lol.

Bite me

Haha...would love to see Chris on skates tho..

 

[hobarth]

People who DEMAND satisfaction from their sports teams should consider going to the movies instead. Sports don't work that way, especially in a hard cap, parity inclined league.

This is a forum, the purpose of a forum is to discuss/demand, in this particular case, the Leafs.

If you have this thought, what's your purpose for being here?

 

[princedpw]

The leafs lost in game 7 by a goal.  They just needed a lucky bounce.  Unfortunately, there?s no guarantee they?ll get one.

 

[Kin]

This is a forum, the purpose of a forum is to discuss/demand, in this particular case, the Leafs.

If you have this thought, what's your purpose for being here?

The purpose of a discussion forum is for discussion. To the extent that those discussions include demands is entirely optional and has nothing to do with the inherent purpose of a forum. It is entirely possible, although in fairness it took me a long time to manage this myself, to discuss the goings on of a sports team on and have a fairly even keel about the results.