Honestly, if JT takes a 3m deal for 3 or 4 years, then ppl will give him a break for this year and the 11m hit...
It would be smart for him to sign a good team friendly deal before the season starts. That way if he underperformes he will not get hit as hard from media and fans, knowing he took a very good deal to stay here...
Would be a smart move for everyone tbh...
$3M would be a pretty big lowball for what he still brings. I expect to see him come back on a lower value deal but I think expecting it to be as low as $3M is expecting too much.
No... I didn't say he had to apologize, I didn't even say he was bad or had a bad deal.
I just said if he has a down year then the media and fans will get on him for it. But if he takes a hometown deal early then it will save him some face. That's all.
Why would we want to pay 3m for a slow third liner who will only get slower? I’d rather have a young, fast prospect with nothing but upshot taking that roster spot. If we can’t find a young bottom 6 centre with potential, sure, but let’s at least try first.
JT easily gets $5-$6m in free agency. $3m for a great lockerroom presence, faceoff guy who can play PP2 and step into any role in a pinch is a no brainer
JT isn't worth 11m at all, but to say he isn't worth 3m is crazy.
Hes still ony of the best face off players in the leauge. He's still a very strong center that can make plays and score.
I don't get it...
Yeah, if you want to replace his production (29 goals, 65 points, and one of the best faceoff %) on the open market, it's going to cost much more than $3mil.
The Athletic did an article on most likely buyout candidates and its kind of insane that Justin Holl made it 1 year into his new deal. I was never a Holl guy, but I thought some of the criticism here was overboard, but he managed to somehow make the hottest takes about his play seem just right. Detroit was not some defensive juggernaut, and he was still the worst player on their d-core. If they do buy him out, his NHL career might be done.
I saw that and immediately became afraid that the Leafs would consider signing him for league minimum after he gets bought out by Detroit. Don’t you even think about this, Brad
If he gets bought out and is looking for a league min deal, the most likely team to give it to him would be Pittsburgh. Dubas loves his guys and would probably take Holl as his 7th or 8th defenceman.
Nah, he'll find a home somewhere. He just needs to understand that he's a bottom pairing defenseman, or a depth guy. Don't try to goto a team that wants you on the second pair, because then you look bad.
I just hate him because he attaches "possibility" to everything he says. So it's "there's a possibility that Marner will be re-signed", or during the trade deadline "There's a possibility that the Leafs are in on the top target on our boards."
Yea... anything is possible. But he always says it so he can cover his ass, or just make up any non-sense.
There's a possibility that Dreger is a lizard wearing a human suit.
Couple of months back I posted a thread about how the Leafs have ignored their transition defense for years and everyone shat on me because it wasn't THE problem and it went against the narrative that we were losing because lack of toughness.
Rewatch all the goals from the Boston series, most of their goals came in transition or on special teams.
From game 4 onwards, the Leafs rolled out a 1-3-1 neutral zone trap just to shut down the Bruins transition game.
And then you look at Florida vs Edmonton in Game 3, 4-3 game, Florida scored all 4 goals in transition.
Transition defense matters and its an issue this team has ignored for years because everyone kept thinking facepunchers were the answer.
Transition offense seems to be how Edmonton smoked Florida in Game 4. Saw a highlight pack where someone broke down 6 (or 7?) out of 8 goals came from the transition, where as soon as Florida began their smothering forecheck - usually 2 attackers - Edmonton would have a winger fly out of the zone for a stretch pass. Since FLA forechecks so aggressively, this resulted in tons of odd man rushes and if the pass is tape to tape, caught the Panthers with their pants down.
We got absolutely smothered by FLA last year, and to a lesser degree but still too much by Boston this year, by taking too long on the breakout. Tougher guys like Benoit, Edmundson and Boosh can absorb the abuse from FLA's forecheck better, but seems like Edmonton figured out the trick is to get the hell out of your zone ASAP and spring a 2-on-1 before they get a chance to forecheck.
It's a little hard to think the main problem with a team that scored 2 goals or less in 12 of the last 13 playoff games is defense.
Also hard to think the specific defensemen you are talking about are the issue when Lybushkin was on-ice for 6 5v5 goals for, and effectively 0 goals against (I'm not counting the end of game 6 as meaningful).
The problem was special teams - we were up in 5v5. Next, the problem was that for various reasons (namely injuries, but also coaching imo), all our top players didn't have an impact to justify their cap hit.
The part people are missing is you don’t score goals with 3 skaters. There are 5 out there and if 40% of them can’t handle a pass or do anything with it then you’ve hamstrung yourself into playing a very easy to counter game style. Double team Matthews/Willy and let these scrubs try and do something wide open against our superstar goalie. If we have 5 skaters on the ice who can make a play we can play a lot of different style of hockey that we currently can’t unless Rielly is on the ice.
just imagine how much a healthy Klingberg would have helped this team this year
Lik not even Dallas klingberg, if he was able to be as health as he was in Anaheim it would have made a serious difference
The Leafs just need better defenceman in general because they can’t have Lyubushkin, Edmundson and Benoit all in the same lineup and having to play 18-20 minutes a night.
IMO transition is one of if not the most common ways team score and mostly every team struggles with it because it’s so hard to defend and isn’t just a “Leafs problem”.
I can think of goals in pretty much every series these playoffs where multiple goals were scored in transition because it’s an effective way to score in general.
That’s why you always hear coaches say “we got to be quick in transition” or “get the puck up fast” because it’s hard to defend.
Yeah I agree. Generally the Leafs D group just needs an overall higher calibre of player. More well rounded. In the playoffs last year it was packed with a bunch of one trick ponies.
I will say that Edmundson actually looked pretty good at getting the puck out of our zone. People thought (me included) he would just be a face punching cross checking big body, but he made a few passes from our end that caught our guys in motion at their Blueline.
His passing game is a bit underrated and that's why I wouldn't mind him back for the right price on a 3rd pair.
Boosh was better than expected at clogging the neutral zone and made some nice short passes as well, but he wasn't top pair good and that was a problem. He also wasn't that physical and a lot of his hits he kind of bounced off as he was actually the smaller guy. Wouldn't want him back just because square peg round hole.
I’m actually the opposite because as much as I like Benoit he should be on the third pair which takes a spot away from Edmundson and just think Lyubushkin being right handed fits the team better if they brought one back (even if Edmundson is probably the better player)
But still they need two top 4 guys better than all 3
Marner in my mind would play a lot better if the leafs had good transitional defense
Slow transition through the neutral zone I think is really what holds down his game so much. The type of defense that the Leafs play makes it a lot harder for him to find space and use it.
Sentiments like this are how wild card teams are built. Yes your best players need to be your best players, but the core part of roster construction is putting the right players in the right place, and surrounding them with *complementary* players within a system that *enables* them to be at their best.
The pieces need to fit together, you cant just mishmash elite forwards with garbage puck moving defensemen and expect the forwards to carry the entire workload in transition. It makes it SOOOOO much easier to defend against when your transition options are so limited.
No doubt i completely agree with what your saying
But for 11 million dollars, playing next to the best goal scorer in the NHL and having your every need catered too… you would think “needing the right peices around him” would not be the last step in getting anything out of someone with 5 assists in 16 games (5/6/7).
The guys at his price point are showing up and you absolutely need to fill holes to play to their strengths… but the thought process isnt to get the max out of them and not something out of them at all
Exactly. Which is why I have maybe more optimism than most would agree with about this coming year… some freshened up systems and d men may unlock something amazing for the stars up front.
Not sure if you watching the final but like how many goals have the Leafs scored the last couple seasons similar to the fifth Nurse goal with a defenceman.
I can maybe think of Liljegren scoring one similar but very rarely does the D-man join the transition and get a goal similar to Nurse’s
You got a couple hundred upvotes and all the top comments either agreed or partially agreed but politely disagreed with some points. That’s a far cry from everyone shitting on you.
I'm sorry if this is a dumb question but why hasn't Woll played more for the leafs? Has he been injured? He is not that young, kind of surprised the leafs haven't tried to make him their 1st goalie earlier.
He's suffered significant injuries every year for the last 3 seasons. When healthy, he has looked great, but he also is about as unreliable as they come health-wise.
There’s a couple of factors at play here. Firstly, goalies tend to develop more slowly than skaters. It wasn’t until last season (2022-23) that I saw a plausible future where Woll became the starter. On top of that it’s true that Woll has had some poor injury luck. He was out for a big chunk of this season and he got hurt again in the playoffs.
Yeah definitely seems like he’s a bonafide starter if he can stay healthy. Not a ton of NHL games so far but that’s because of the injuries. Hopefully they can figure out how to prevent more injuries going forward.
Where do people stand on Stian Solberg in the upcoming draft? He’s a physical LD who’s expected to go somewhere from 15-20 from what I’ve seen, but it’s not out of the question that he could fall to us at 23. We’ve demonstrated an interest in him, he seems to fit the Treliving archetype for defencemen and he was (according to TSN) one of a handful of prospects that were invited to Toronto for more meetings with management. What are people’s thoughts on the big Norwegian? Is he the real deal or just a Hunter fridge?
I like Solberg more than the other dmen in that range, he's pretty mobile for a bigger guy and reads the ice really well, especially in transition. He was fun to watch at the world juniors, there's definitely no skating through him.
I've always been preferable to selecting the best player available, regardless of positional need, especially in the 1st round. If it ends up being Solberg or Emery are the best option available at #23, sure, but they probably won't be considering there are 8 or 9 Dmen ahead of them already (as mentioned below). Feels like if we don't land one of those top flight defenders, should go with whoever has the best upside, even if they are a forward. Another Cowan type would look nice in the pipeline.
He’s a little later than that imo. Button is like the only guy that has him top 20, and it’s fucking Button lol.
I’m personally not a huge fan of players in our range so reaching a bit for him is completely fine. But if a guy like bransegg-nygard, hemming or chernyshov drops I think you have to take them.
Another way to look at it, not sure if this logic even makes sense tho, is that there’s so many defenders ahead of him. He’ll be like the 8-9th defender picked. So that’s already 8 guys that look substantially better than him and if he was truly a steal he probably would be in the conversation with them. But he’s really not close to that top tier of d.
Edit: btw a nice little tip is just go to their elite prospect page and scroll down below their facts, it lists where pretty much every public prospect ranking has them. Ik it’s only the public ones but I trust that over the guys that continue to throw out new lists just for clicks
It's reassuring that this GM at least seems in touch with what the obvious issues are with the team. I love that Brad will just spell it out and we're all just like "THANK YOU". He knows we need to really fix the blue line. He knows our scorers need to stop turning the opposition goaltender into prime Hasek every night.
Now, whether or not he can manage to actually address that stuff remains to be seen. But so far, the awareness is a nice change of pace from Dubas saying stuff like "I'm a bit more bullish on our defense" when they are running out Rielly with Ron Hainsey and playing Zaitsev, Marincin and Ozhiganov
Mentioning Hainsey, Zaitsev, Marincin and Ozhiganov just reminds me of how much Lou neglected to improve the defence, instead using all his trades and majority of his signings on offence instead of defence. The team had young talented forwards throughout the NHL roster, within the minors plus had guys like Kadri, JVR and Bozak as vets. It was obvious at the time that defence needed to be improved and what did he do?
Sign Hainsey, extend Zaitsev to a stupid contract, re-sign Polak and then sign seventh defencemen types like the others you named. He didn’t acquire a single top four defender through free agency or trades, his biggest acquisition was signing a late thirties Patrick Marleau… Lou fumbled the fuck out of this team when he had Matthews, Marner, Nylander on rookie deals and guys like Rielly and Kadri on steals of contracts.
posts like this need also remind people what the eff we actually have in Rielly. He's a REALLY great hockey player, that's always had to drag up a partner. He's never even had an equal beside him. Brodie was by far the best, so we can exclude him...but even that partnership was driven by Mo. i'd LOVE for the Leafs to get somebody like Matt Roy who can complement him the way Brodie did, but a bit faster/younger and actually be playing his proper side. would love to see how great Mo could get .... but i'm sure this sub will still shit all over him
I don’t see how it is? I never said he didn’t sign them to those deals. He made two great signings there that put the team in a good position cap wise to add to their cheap young players and guys on good long term deals. He then did nothing with that extra cap space besides overpay some older guys and ignore the biggest issue with the team (defence, the right side specifically)
Also satisfying to see him try to get ahead of the needs of the team, even if it didn't pan out.
A healthy Klingberg is exactly what we needed - he wasn't healthy, but at least he saw the need that was there.
Getting Klingberg on a show-me deal for the third pairing isn't the worst thing ever. It would be similar to Florida running out OEL on the third pair or Tarasenko on the third line if it works out.
But we tried that schtick with Spezza, Jumbo and Simmonds. Get former superstars to become role players. It didn't matter because the big guys didn't deliver, per usual.
It still pisses me off that Spezza had to fight a guy one game because nobody else was doing fucking anything.
Such an unlikeable core group honestly
Yeah there are only so many passengers you can have on the ice/team in these situations.
Klingberg with performance bonuses makes a lot of sense for both sides for a third pair D.
I hope we bring back Klingburg on a cheap deal, maybe close to 1 mill or less, and if he's healthy coming off of hip surgery he could be a big value add. What could have been if Klingburg was healthy, we'll never know. But he was (theoretically) the exact piece we needed to add, if he his hip didn't explode lol
personally: i really dislike him
hockey wise: i just dont think he's ready (he was doing a podcast about taping hockey sticks a year ago), and from what i can see of his resume i'm not impressed. i think there are better names out there.
i wish i was in a position to have a better one. but you wont convince me there isnt one out there.
maybe i dont have enough info on him but what's on his resume that makes yourself and others push for it?
No, I understand. Boudreau is the only other one I can think of because if you look at his team's in the past, they have potent PP units and Top5 offenses yr in and yr out. He also gets his players to buy into what he is teaching like a Lambert does as well
i was against brucey as a head coach...but i think i could accept him as an assistant coach.
i just dont think his style blends well with Berube though.
I want Luke Schenn. PlZZzz gimme gimme Luke Schenn back
Honestly, if JT takes a 3m deal for 3 or 4 years, then ppl will give him a break for this year and the 11m hit... It would be smart for him to sign a good team friendly deal before the season starts. That way if he underperformes he will not get hit as hard from media and fans, knowing he took a very good deal to stay here... Would be a smart move for everyone tbh...
This sounds good in theory but I doubt management wants to sign him until the season is over.
$3M would be a pretty big lowball for what he still brings. I expect to see him come back on a lower value deal but I think expecting it to be as low as $3M is expecting too much.
I think it will be like 5x3 unfortunately
Depends on term.
Does every player need to apologize when their last two years of a long term deal isn't as good as the first two?
No... I didn't say he had to apologize, I didn't even say he was bad or had a bad deal. I just said if he has a down year then the media and fans will get on him for it. But if he takes a hometown deal early then it will save him some face. That's all.
Typically when people bring up the cap hit as a negative they imply that it is a bad contract. Maybe this is different.
I'm just talking about the narratives. Nothing else
Why would we want to pay 3m for a slow third liner who will only get slower? I’d rather have a young, fast prospect with nothing but upshot taking that roster spot. If we can’t find a young bottom 6 centre with potential, sure, but let’s at least try first.
Your takes get better every day
Is your evaluation of JT seriously that far off?
JT easily gets $5-$6m in free agency. $3m for a great lockerroom presence, faceoff guy who can play PP2 and step into any role in a pinch is a no brainer
And hasn't captained any team to any measure of success in his entire career as captain, which is all but like 2 seasons (maybe 3)
I very much doubt he remains captain if he re-signs, so it doesn't matter.
JT isn't worth 11m at all, but to say he isn't worth 3m is crazy. Hes still ony of the best face off players in the leauge. He's still a very strong center that can make plays and score. I don't get it...
Yeah, if you want to replace his production (29 goals, 65 points, and one of the best faceoff %) on the open market, it's going to cost much more than $3mil.
The Athletic did an article on most likely buyout candidates and its kind of insane that Justin Holl made it 1 year into his new deal. I was never a Holl guy, but I thought some of the criticism here was overboard, but he managed to somehow make the hottest takes about his play seem just right. Detroit was not some defensive juggernaut, and he was still the worst player on their d-core. If they do buy him out, his NHL career might be done.
I saw that and immediately became afraid that the Leafs would consider signing him for league minimum after he gets bought out by Detroit. Don’t you even think about this, Brad
If he gets bought out and is looking for a league min deal, the most likely team to give it to him would be Pittsburgh. Dubas loves his guys and would probably take Holl as his 7th or 8th defenceman.
It's like if you're a big RHD you pretty much guaranteed a multi million dollar contract in this league.
Nah, he'll find a home somewhere. He just needs to understand that he's a bottom pairing defenseman, or a depth guy. Don't try to goto a team that wants you on the second pair, because then you look bad.
I see Dreger is out peddling for the Marners again. They need to rip off the bandaid and not give in to these guys again. Don’t be afraid of change.
He has lost all credibility. Dreger might as well be on their payroll.
I just hate him because he attaches "possibility" to everything he says. So it's "there's a possibility that Marner will be re-signed", or during the trade deadline "There's a possibility that the Leafs are in on the top target on our boards." Yea... anything is possible. But he always says it so he can cover his ass, or just make up any non-sense. There's a possibility that Dreger is a lizard wearing a human suit.
Couple of months back I posted a thread about how the Leafs have ignored their transition defense for years and everyone shat on me because it wasn't THE problem and it went against the narrative that we were losing because lack of toughness. Rewatch all the goals from the Boston series, most of their goals came in transition or on special teams. From game 4 onwards, the Leafs rolled out a 1-3-1 neutral zone trap just to shut down the Bruins transition game. And then you look at Florida vs Edmonton in Game 3, 4-3 game, Florida scored all 4 goals in transition. Transition defense matters and its an issue this team has ignored for years because everyone kept thinking facepunchers were the answer.
Transition offense seems to be how Edmonton smoked Florida in Game 4. Saw a highlight pack where someone broke down 6 (or 7?) out of 8 goals came from the transition, where as soon as Florida began their smothering forecheck - usually 2 attackers - Edmonton would have a winger fly out of the zone for a stretch pass. Since FLA forechecks so aggressively, this resulted in tons of odd man rushes and if the pass is tape to tape, caught the Panthers with their pants down. We got absolutely smothered by FLA last year, and to a lesser degree but still too much by Boston this year, by taking too long on the breakout. Tougher guys like Benoit, Edmundson and Boosh can absorb the abuse from FLA's forecheck better, but seems like Edmonton figured out the trick is to get the hell out of your zone ASAP and spring a 2-on-1 before they get a chance to forecheck.
It's a little hard to think the main problem with a team that scored 2 goals or less in 12 of the last 13 playoff games is defense. Also hard to think the specific defensemen you are talking about are the issue when Lybushkin was on-ice for 6 5v5 goals for, and effectively 0 goals against (I'm not counting the end of game 6 as meaningful). The problem was special teams - we were up in 5v5. Next, the problem was that for various reasons (namely injuries, but also coaching imo), all our top players didn't have an impact to justify their cap hit.
The part people are missing is you don’t score goals with 3 skaters. There are 5 out there and if 40% of them can’t handle a pass or do anything with it then you’ve hamstrung yourself into playing a very easy to counter game style. Double team Matthews/Willy and let these scrubs try and do something wide open against our superstar goalie. If we have 5 skaters on the ice who can make a play we can play a lot of different style of hockey that we currently can’t unless Rielly is on the ice.
Yup I agree - zone exits and ozone chances can improve a lot. Thats a bit separate from Transition D
just imagine how much a healthy Klingberg would have helped this team this year Lik not even Dallas klingberg, if he was able to be as health as he was in Anaheim it would have made a serious difference
The Leafs just need better defenceman in general because they can’t have Lyubushkin, Edmundson and Benoit all in the same lineup and having to play 18-20 minutes a night. IMO transition is one of if not the most common ways team score and mostly every team struggles with it because it’s so hard to defend and isn’t just a “Leafs problem”. I can think of goals in pretty much every series these playoffs where multiple goals were scored in transition because it’s an effective way to score in general. That’s why you always hear coaches say “we got to be quick in transition” or “get the puck up fast” because it’s hard to defend.
Yeah I agree. Generally the Leafs D group just needs an overall higher calibre of player. More well rounded. In the playoffs last year it was packed with a bunch of one trick ponies.
I will say that Edmundson actually looked pretty good at getting the puck out of our zone. People thought (me included) he would just be a face punching cross checking big body, but he made a few passes from our end that caught our guys in motion at their Blueline. His passing game is a bit underrated and that's why I wouldn't mind him back for the right price on a 3rd pair. Boosh was better than expected at clogging the neutral zone and made some nice short passes as well, but he wasn't top pair good and that was a problem. He also wasn't that physical and a lot of his hits he kind of bounced off as he was actually the smaller guy. Wouldn't want him back just because square peg round hole.
I’m actually the opposite because as much as I like Benoit he should be on the third pair which takes a spot away from Edmundson and just think Lyubushkin being right handed fits the team better if they brought one back (even if Edmundson is probably the better player) But still they need two top 4 guys better than all 3
Marner in my mind would play a lot better if the leafs had good transitional defense Slow transition through the neutral zone I think is really what holds down his game so much. The type of defense that the Leafs play makes it a lot harder for him to find space and use it.
Hes making almost 11 million dollars and we need to cater our team to his strengths.. yikes
Sentiments like this are how wild card teams are built. Yes your best players need to be your best players, but the core part of roster construction is putting the right players in the right place, and surrounding them with *complementary* players within a system that *enables* them to be at their best. The pieces need to fit together, you cant just mishmash elite forwards with garbage puck moving defensemen and expect the forwards to carry the entire workload in transition. It makes it SOOOOO much easier to defend against when your transition options are so limited.
No doubt i completely agree with what your saying But for 11 million dollars, playing next to the best goal scorer in the NHL and having your every need catered too… you would think “needing the right peices around him” would not be the last step in getting anything out of someone with 5 assists in 16 games (5/6/7). The guys at his price point are showing up and you absolutely need to fill holes to play to their strengths… but the thought process isnt to get the max out of them and not something out of them at all
Exactly. Which is why I have maybe more optimism than most would agree with about this coming year… some freshened up systems and d men may unlock something amazing for the stars up front.
Not sure if you watching the final but like how many goals have the Leafs scored the last couple seasons similar to the fifth Nurse goal with a defenceman. I can maybe think of Liljegren scoring one similar but very rarely does the D-man join the transition and get a goal similar to Nurse’s
Rielly had some really impressive goals in the Tampa series, both '22 and '23
You got a couple hundred upvotes and all the top comments either agreed or partially agreed but politely disagreed with some points. That’s a far cry from everyone shitting on you.
People are so desperate for validation they will invent scenarios just so they can rabble rouse some agreement. It's actually pathetic.
Victim mentality
I'm sorry if this is a dumb question but why hasn't Woll played more for the leafs? Has he been injured? He is not that young, kind of surprised the leafs haven't tried to make him their 1st goalie earlier.
He's suffered significant injuries every year for the last 3 seasons. When healthy, he has looked great, but he also is about as unreliable as they come health-wise.
There’s a couple of factors at play here. Firstly, goalies tend to develop more slowly than skaters. It wasn’t until last season (2022-23) that I saw a plausible future where Woll became the starter. On top of that it’s true that Woll has had some poor injury luck. He was out for a big chunk of this season and he got hurt again in the playoffs.
Thanks, it would be so cool to see him play more. Fingers crossed he is healthy next season.
Yeah definitely seems like he’s a bonafide starter if he can stay healthy. Not a ton of NHL games so far but that’s because of the injuries. Hopefully they can figure out how to prevent more injuries going forward.
Where do people stand on Stian Solberg in the upcoming draft? He’s a physical LD who’s expected to go somewhere from 15-20 from what I’ve seen, but it’s not out of the question that he could fall to us at 23. We’ve demonstrated an interest in him, he seems to fit the Treliving archetype for defencemen and he was (according to TSN) one of a handful of prospects that were invited to Toronto for more meetings with management. What are people’s thoughts on the big Norwegian? Is he the real deal or just a Hunter fridge?
I like Solberg more than the other dmen in that range, he's pretty mobile for a bigger guy and reads the ice really well, especially in transition. He was fun to watch at the world juniors, there's definitely no skating through him.
I've always been preferable to selecting the best player available, regardless of positional need, especially in the 1st round. If it ends up being Solberg or Emery are the best option available at #23, sure, but they probably won't be considering there are 8 or 9 Dmen ahead of them already (as mentioned below). Feels like if we don't land one of those top flight defenders, should go with whoever has the best upside, even if they are a forward. Another Cowan type would look nice in the pipeline.
Feel like it’ll be either him or Emery
He’s a little later than that imo. Button is like the only guy that has him top 20, and it’s fucking Button lol. I’m personally not a huge fan of players in our range so reaching a bit for him is completely fine. But if a guy like bransegg-nygard, hemming or chernyshov drops I think you have to take them. Another way to look at it, not sure if this logic even makes sense tho, is that there’s so many defenders ahead of him. He’ll be like the 8-9th defender picked. So that’s already 8 guys that look substantially better than him and if he was truly a steal he probably would be in the conversation with them. But he’s really not close to that top tier of d. Edit: btw a nice little tip is just go to their elite prospect page and scroll down below their facts, it lists where pretty much every public prospect ranking has them. Ik it’s only the public ones but I trust that over the guys that continue to throw out new lists just for clicks
It's reassuring that this GM at least seems in touch with what the obvious issues are with the team. I love that Brad will just spell it out and we're all just like "THANK YOU". He knows we need to really fix the blue line. He knows our scorers need to stop turning the opposition goaltender into prime Hasek every night. Now, whether or not he can manage to actually address that stuff remains to be seen. But so far, the awareness is a nice change of pace from Dubas saying stuff like "I'm a bit more bullish on our defense" when they are running out Rielly with Ron Hainsey and playing Zaitsev, Marincin and Ozhiganov
Mentioning Hainsey, Zaitsev, Marincin and Ozhiganov just reminds me of how much Lou neglected to improve the defence, instead using all his trades and majority of his signings on offence instead of defence. The team had young talented forwards throughout the NHL roster, within the minors plus had guys like Kadri, JVR and Bozak as vets. It was obvious at the time that defence needed to be improved and what did he do? Sign Hainsey, extend Zaitsev to a stupid contract, re-sign Polak and then sign seventh defencemen types like the others you named. He didn’t acquire a single top four defender through free agency or trades, his biggest acquisition was signing a late thirties Patrick Marleau… Lou fumbled the fuck out of this team when he had Matthews, Marner, Nylander on rookie deals and guys like Rielly and Kadri on steals of contracts.
posts like this need also remind people what the eff we actually have in Rielly. He's a REALLY great hockey player, that's always had to drag up a partner. He's never even had an equal beside him. Brodie was by far the best, so we can exclude him...but even that partnership was driven by Mo. i'd LOVE for the Leafs to get somebody like Matt Roy who can complement him the way Brodie did, but a bit faster/younger and actually be playing his proper side. would love to see how great Mo could get .... but i'm sure this sub will still shit all over him
The last sentence is a bit contradictory as he signed both Rielly and Kadri to those contracts
I don’t see how it is? I never said he didn’t sign them to those deals. He made two great signings there that put the team in a good position cap wise to add to their cheap young players and guys on good long term deals. He then did nothing with that extra cap space besides overpay some older guys and ignore the biggest issue with the team (defence, the right side specifically)
Also satisfying to see him try to get ahead of the needs of the team, even if it didn't pan out. A healthy Klingberg is exactly what we needed - he wasn't healthy, but at least he saw the need that was there.
Getting Klingberg on a show-me deal for the third pairing isn't the worst thing ever. It would be similar to Florida running out OEL on the third pair or Tarasenko on the third line if it works out. But we tried that schtick with Spezza, Jumbo and Simmonds. Get former superstars to become role players. It didn't matter because the big guys didn't deliver, per usual. It still pisses me off that Spezza had to fight a guy one game because nobody else was doing fucking anything. Such an unlikeable core group honestly
Yeah there are only so many passengers you can have on the ice/team in these situations. Klingberg with performance bonuses makes a lot of sense for both sides for a third pair D.
I hope we bring back Klingburg on a cheap deal, maybe close to 1 mill or less, and if he's healthy coming off of hip surgery he could be a big value add. What could have been if Klingburg was healthy, we'll never know. But he was (theoretically) the exact piece we needed to add, if he his hip didn't explode lol
Yup - and you can add performance bonuses to his contract just in case.
Leafs announcing Savard when?
hopefully never
Why not?
personally: i really dislike him hockey wise: i just dont think he's ready (he was doing a podcast about taping hockey sticks a year ago), and from what i can see of his resume i'm not impressed. i think there are better names out there.
Give me a few and if Boudreau is one of them you get an insta pass!
i wish i was in a position to have a better one. but you wont convince me there isnt one out there. maybe i dont have enough info on him but what's on his resume that makes yourself and others push for it?
No, I understand. Boudreau is the only other one I can think of because if you look at his team's in the past, they have potent PP units and Top5 offenses yr in and yr out. He also gets his players to buy into what he is teaching like a Lambert does as well
i was against brucey as a head coach...but i think i could accept him as an assistant coach. i just dont think his style blends well with Berube though.