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The boys don’t hate to lose. No dogs. And don’t kid yourselves – 16 is WALKING AWAY from this team.
Look up ‘organizational failure’ in a sports dictionary and you’ll see the Shanahan era Leafs as the first entry.
It gives me no joy to say this : I am now backing McJesus and the Oil. But only until these playoffs are done.
Fuck the other three crackhead teams. Dallas and Florida are trash, and I don’t give one fuck about Carolina.
If Edmonton had a goalie, they’d be a lock.
It’s amazing how the Oilers keep pissing away the prime years of the best player on the planet.
I went peek in on HB.
Highlights :
1) Ek posting in the Leafs thread and catering to the Leafs in an effort to stop the slow bleed out of users to HHS.
2) Spatso appeared.
3) Much gnashing of teeth and tearing of robes.
4) Lots of proposed fixes that won’t happen : sign Bennett, bring back Kadri, etc.
5) Political comments flowing freely.
In other words, same old shit.
Was not able to sleep last night, feels empty, angry and disappointed.
It takes couple of days to recover from such events.
But tomorrow will be another day and pain will go away.
Enjoy the Summer Leafs Nation
Alex.TMLI slept normal.
Fortunately i was not invested in this team this year. Didnt even watch game 5 or 7, watched a bit of game 6.With Matthews as captain, marner as an A, i simply dont expect much from this team.
They’ve traded away 1st rounders like crazy, one for a 3rd line center.
Team is screwed for a while. ImoI slept normal.
Fortunately i was not invested in this team this year. Didnt even watch game 5 or 7, watched a bit of game 6.With Matthews as captain, marner as an A, i simply dont expect much from this team.
They’ve traded away 1st rounders like crazy, one for a 3rd line center.
Team is screwed for a while. Imo – FakeSame. I don’t get too invested in shit like sports. I love hockey and I love my teams, but my mood is not tied to my team in any way.
Life goes on. Sure, I’d love it if the Leafs advanced last night. I’m not gonna lose sleep over it though.
Now I just wanna see McJesus teabag the shit out of the competition. Good thing the Oilers don’t have goaltending, or the whole league would be fucked watching McDavid win 10 championships in a row.
The boys don’t hate to lose. No dogs. And don’t kid yourselves – 16 is WALKING AWAY from this team.
Look up ‘organizational failure’ in a sports dictionary and you’ll see the Shanahan era Leafs as the first entry.
~fifty mission capI figure Shanahan is gone, Treliving and Berube are safe.
Marner is gone. He has no supporters left here. The crowd booed him any time he touched the puck at the end of the game. Trade him at the draft for whatever paltry picks you can fetch from an interested team, or participate in a sign & trade for him to get his 8th year. Let him go somewhere else and vanish when the going gets tough.
Tavares played well enough to return, but not well enough to warrant even $7m on his next deal. Even losing Marner and JT makes you wonder if the addition of toughness would really alter this group very much.
Rielly had moments when the physicality wasn’t that amped up, but once Florida started to forecheck, he wilted and reverted to missing pucks, losing battles and not physically engaging on the boards where it was required. In the end he contributed little and cost more. I’d try and move him. Buying him out would be just too long (10 years).
I wouldn’t trade Matthews at his lowest value and I’m expecting he was playing hurt all season; while he was almost a P/G in the playoffs he was not himself and was too infrequently not an asset.
I don’t know what happened to Willy either. He just vanished and didn’t engage way too often. It was enigma-Willy – playing when he felt like it.
On the plus side there were bright spots other than the D and G – Obviously Knies, but the lesser sung guys like Lorentz, Laughton, Pacioretty and at times Holmberg were all pretty good. Kampf, Jarnkrok and Robertson might be done as Leafs.
An honest assessment? They made it further than they have under Matthews – not far enough obviously – but there’s progress there. They need toughness in the forwards and from the forwards. Still too many guys who are easily pushed around and cowed. It’s disappointing and their ability to not compete at critical times was probably more obvious this year than any other year. And this under a coach who preaches competitiveness more than the last one. I would imagine they need to figure out where that rot is and weed it out.
I slept normal.
Fortunately i was not invested in this team this year. Didnt even watch game 5 or 7, watched a bit of game 6.With Matthews as captain, marner as an A, i simply dont expect much from this team.
They’ve traded away 1st rounders like crazy, one for a 3rd line center.
Team is screwed for a while. Imo. ~FakepartofmeWatched all 82 games, but was not emotionally engaged like before.
With every year, watching the same outcome, emotions slowly disappeared.
But last game I felt, not gonna lie.
Good thing it is Holidays today and no need to work.
Team is screwed, I knew it for a while. You can’t patch roster if you don’t have a core to build around.
Dubas and Shnahan screw it completely by giving huge contracts to wrong players.
Willy contract is bad too, he is not worth that much with such level of defense. This is not even Kessel level.So the answer to my question was indeed as Aaron said the Leafs were mostly zeros last night.
Scared and for some scarred zeros.
I thought Domi was their bast player and when Matthews, Marner, Willy, JT and Reilly take up the % of cap they do that simply shouldn’t. And can’t happen in a game 7 Ever.
Woll was the only reason they weren’t t done after 20 minutes just like game 5. He got tired and his rebound control suffered and it cost them 2 goals but it didn’t matter all that much imo as they weren’t coming back.
Woll will learn from this experience I think / hope and I do think they are fine between the pipes moving forward.
Marner of all people screaming at the bench like a 3 year old having a temper tantrum while playing his usual scared and soft / underperforming elimination game was pathetic and laughable all at the same time. Zero accountability by him or Matthews in his post game and I was so disgusted I didn’t watch the interview with the rest of the core but expect they were similar.
“I don’t know” or “too many passengers” is a cop out – step the fuck up and say I was terrible and there is no excuse for it and I apologize to the fans for that. If you are going to wear the C or an A on your fucking jersey lead by example don’t shrug your shoulders and say “I dunno”. Jesus.
Marner is gone and he needs to be.
Exceptionally talented player who can’t succeed in Toronto. It’s not uncommon – home town boy and the pressure he feels cripples him IMO. It’s too bad he didn’t see this and agree to the Rantenan trade but no way he’s back. Try a sign and trade but if that can’t happen trade his rights for whatever you can get and use that cap to start to change the structure ams culture of this team before they are the new San Jose Sharks (if they aren’t already).I’m going to wait and see what’s up with Matthews and his injury before chiming in on if trading him should be under consideration (as unlikely as it would be to happen) but his comments so far after this mess have been very disappointing to me.
They lost again for the same reason they have lost so many times come playoffs – the guys paid to score didn’t. They beat Ottawa fueled by secondary scoring and d scoring. They didn’t and don’t get enough from lines 1&2 when the chips are down sometime to make changes to line 1 & 2.
Knies needs to be locked up – before he got hurt he was the best player they had all series.
Rielly is a problem, he’s not value for money but I’m not sure you can trade him but I’d try anyway. He’s part of the rotten core so if you can move him I’d do it but I have my doubts they can.
JT needs to only come back on a 3rd line centre salary or let him walk too.
Willy disappeared the last 3 games which is not like him at all. The chemistry in the room seems like it’s an issue. I also think Willy maybe is slightly unhappy about not being part of the leadership team. I’d stick it out with him based on the fact he just signed a monster contract and he can score and handle the Toronto pressure much better than say Marner or even Matthews. Maybe he’s part of the leadership team (wear an A) in the future maybe not but being this is the first time he’s really disappeared in critical playoff games I would play it out a bit.
Reilly out helps this D tremendously imo.
It’s going to be an interesting summer to see what MLSE does or doesn’t do. If they just tweak and bring back Marner they will continue to not be good enough to be in that upper echelon of teams good enough to get to a cup final.
That’s my 67 cents take (get it 67?) and mini- blog.
Off to do yard work and forget about last night and enjoy some sun.
Florida was expected to win this series. I am less upset they lost and more with how they lost. If game 5 and 7 were competitive and had both been losses I would likely be ok.
I think anyone but a complete moron or troll can see that Marner wants to test free agency. He wants to be the center of attention and he wants to be the star of his team and in the process will probably get $14-15 mil. If he wanted to sign here he would have by now.
Tre has done a fabulous job with Goal and the D in his time so far.. We need to trust that he can do the same to the forward group.
He has pulled of trades that nobody saw coming (Carlo) to help the D.
The first thing that needs to happen is Shanny needs to go.. He has been a failure here went off the board and hired Dubas who crippled this team by handing out contracts rather than bridge deals and has incubated the coddling of the stars.
Washington and Ovechkin have advanced past the 2nd round 1 time in 20 years
Colorado and McKinnon have advanced past the 2nd round 1 time in 11 yearsThis isn’t some magical curse or some other “fans fault” bullshit excuse. Kids who grew up as the “best” player on their teams don’t experience much of that “dig in and try hard” mentality because its always been easy for them.
A lot of us have been saying it for years…the team is filled with players that are too soft and are paid too much so can’t add good players that are not too soft.
It’s not overly complicated. Add hard-nosed players that have had to work their balls off to get to the big league WITH SKILL to this new “CORE” group and watch the difference.
Knies, Matthews, XXX
XXX, XXX, Nylander
Domi, Laughton, B.Tanev
Lorentz, XXX, JeannotMcCabe, Tanev
OEL, XXX
Benoit, CarloStoli
Woll (as a B/U only, for now, needs to find consistency)6 players with a never quit attitude, after you sign FAs Tanev/Jeannot and you have the cap space plus Rielly, Marner and Tavares $ to do it.
If Marner really loved the city of Toronto and wanted to leave on a good note, he would allow a sign and trade so he can get his greedy mitts on 8yr deal and go fluff it on another team and Leafs could get assets back. It’s the best win/win scenario.
And I said it yesterday, Leafs fans in general don’t care about losing (seen enough of it), I bet most of us care more about “HOW” the Leafs lose…aka dry haired Marner yelling at the bench is the exact fucking issue for me.
As a surprise to some, but not I, the Leafs lost to the Panthers. The Leafs exceeded my expectations. I thought the Panthers would end them in 6 but the Leafs pushed them to 7.
Let’s do this player by player, head to head.
RW1- Reinhart 2G 3A 5P – Marner 1G 4A 5P – Even
C1 – Barkov 2G 3A 5P – Matthews 1G 3A 4P – Barkov
LW1 – Verhaeghe 2G 3A 5P – Knies 2G 2A 4P – VerhaegheThe top lines were pretty evenly matched with the Panthers getting the slight edge. The three games the Leafs won, Marner, Matthews and Knies got the GWG. That should tell anybody with even a room temperature IQ that the problem IS NOT the top line on this team. They went shot for shot with not one but TWO Selke FINALISTS and came out pretty much even.
RW2 – Tkachuk 0G 4A 4P – Nylander 3G 3A 6P – Nylander
C2 – Bennett 3G 1A 4P – Tavares 2G 0A 2P – Bennett
LW2 – Rodrigues 0G 3A 3P – Pacioretty 2G 4A 6P – PaciorettyOn the score sheet, this line was a mixed bag either way. This line for the Leafs started strong and ended with a whimper. For all the shit Marner and Matthews gets for not showing up in the big games, Nylander and Tavares did next to nothing in Games 5, 6 and 7. Pacioretty was the big surprise offensively but this line was routinely stuck in their own zone and Tavares was on the ice for more goals against than any other Leafs forward. He has always been and will continue to be a defensive liability as he ages. The fact that the Panthers could manage to win this series with Tkachuk getting 0 goals is telling. The reason? Depth scoring as we are about to see with the 3rd and 4th lines.
RW3 – Marchand 3G 5A 8P – Holmberg 0G 0A 0P – Marchand
C3 – Lundell 2G 3A 5P – Domi 2G 3A 5P – Even
LW3 – Luostarinen 2G 5A 7P – McMann 0G 2A 2P – LuostarinenThis line was the biggest reason why the Panthers won the series. Plain and simple. They absolutely destroyed the Leafs at both ends of the ice. Leafs fans can erroneously blame their “core 4” for all their problems but the reality is they got beat on the 3rd line. Marchand was the perfect deadline acquisition for the Panthers, unlike Laughton for the Leafs. Absolutely relentless on the forecheck, defensively sound and offensively opportunistic. This line wasn’t really on the PP but they would kill you 5v5. The Leafs did not have an answer for this line and if they wish to win in the future, this is the type of 3rd line they need to be able to create. Which is funny because it’s often the type of line that barely costs you cap space to create if you just know how to draft and develop players.
Lundell and Luostarinen are clear examples of what the Panthers do right that the Leafs do wrong. Lundell, a 1st round pick, is 23 years old and produces 15ish goals with 30-40 points. Luostarinen, picked up as a spare part in a trade with Carolina for Trocheck, another 10-15 goal, 30-40 point player. Neither one of them are flashy or all-stars. But determined competitors. Think of having two of Leo Komarov’s bigger, better brothers. Then add to the mix a veteran like Marchand and you have a 3rd line from hell. Domi, for all his flaws, is still a valuable playoff performer for the Leafs. He gets it. It’s in his blood. He hates to lose. But he needs better guys to play with. McMann was damn near useless other than one assist. And Holmberg, well, he’s pretty much useless too, especially offensively.
RW4 – Gadjovich 2G 1A 3P – Jarnkrok 0G 0A 0P – Gadjovich
C4 – Sturm 0G 0A 0P – Laughton 0G 0A 0P – Even
LW4 – Greer 1G 1A 2P – Lorentz 0G 2A 2P – GreerThis Leafs 4th line did hustle, I will give them that. But they couldn’t finish to save their life. Two breakaways early in Game 7 with nothing to show for it. The Panthers, on the other hand, did get some goals from their 4th line. In a game of inches, it makes all the difference. Absolutely ZERO goals from this line. Doesn’t seem like it should matter but unfortunately it does. Did anybody know who Gadjovich was before the series? Well, he scored 2 goals by himself. 6’3, 211 from Whitby, scored 46 goals in the OHL. And the Leafs don’t have him. Why? Because they’d rather have midget pylons like Jarnkrok. Jarnkrok, for all his efforts, got nothing. And he’s been considered a reliable, dependable bottom-six player. He has to go. Kampf and Robertson, also have to go. They do not move the needle in the playoffs. At all.
LD1 – Forsling 0G 1A 1P – McCabe 0G 3A – 3P
RD1 – Jones 2G 2A – 4P – Tanev 1G 1A – 2PJones dominated this series. Multiple Leafs fans stupidly thought Jones absolutely sucked. Guess what? He’s a force. He played a ridiculous amount of time and took over games, including important moments like Game 7. While the Leafs have been looking for a top pair RHD for years, what were they doing? They were busy getting Carlo. Why? Because the Leafs love getting lesser players and expecting too much from them. The moment Jones demanded a trade away from Chicago, the Leafs should have been first in line. Instead? They’re golfing early because their division rival was first to improve their team. Tanev, at his age and his contract, is going to decline. And offensively, simply does not contribute enough. The Leafs should have signed him to be a 2nd pair RHD and instead they’re expecting him to do too much as they always have from their aging defenders.
LD2 – Mikkola 1G 0A 1P – Rielly 2G 2A 4P – Mikkola just for not being a defensive liability
RD2 – Ekblad 1G 4A 5P – Carlo 0G 0A 0P – EkbladRielly is an absolute disaster. He must be traded. He scored more than he did in the regular season but it still wasn’t enough to make up for the absolute train wreck he is defensively. Once able to skate himself out of trouble, he just makes terrible decisions for a player with 10+ years of NHL experience. He is broke and can’t be fixed. Carlo, is a big pylon too. There’s a reason why Boston dumped him on the Leafs. Playing with Rielly is difficult, no doubt, but it’s always extra annoying when the biggest guy on the ice is playing like he’s Ian White rather than Zdeno Chara. If Carlo had somebody better to play with, he wouldn’t be as bad but there’s no chance he’s going to be able to keep Rielly afloat going forward. And he’s offensively inept and useless so whatever mistakes he makes defensively will never be equalized at the other end.
LD3 – Schmidt 0G 4A 4P – OEL 0G 2A 2P – Schmidt
RD3 – Kulikov 1G 1A 2P – Benoit 0G 0A 0P – KulikovOEL was underutilized this season and this series. He is aging, for sure, but he should have been put on the PP because he can shoot and pass the puck. He can QB a PP. The guy made an entire career of being a high power offensive D. And the Leafs leave him to rot offensively when that was his calling card. Marc Savard must be fired immediately and replaced with somebody who can put OEL’s talents to good use. OEL could have been a difference maker (he was the Panthers top offensive option last year) and yet they simply refused to use him even when the PP had gone static and dry.
EXD – Balinskis vs. Myers
Balinskis played one game and scored one goal. Even their blueline depth scores more. Unbelievable.
Bob vs. Stolarz + Woll – Bob
Bob had a rough start to the series and just turned it around as the series went on. He gave up some suspect goals but ended the series with 3 out of 4 games with a .950 SV%. He is currently a steady hand for the Panthers but at his age, this will become the Panthers weakness in the next year or two as he ages out. The Leafs, with Woll, have a playoff performer. If they can keep him healthy, the Leafs will win these future battles in net. Woll gave the Leafs a chance to win most games, even when they gave him nothing in terms of support in Game 5 and Game 7. He stood tall in Game 4 and Game 6. When the pressure is on, Woll is on. They just need to support him better like they did in Game 6. It will simply be a matter of time.
TOR PP vs. FLO PK – FLO
TOR PK vs. FLO PP – FLOLeafs PP sucked balls. Fire Savard. Their PK need work, again, their bottom-six forwards are not good enough at either end of the rink to help the special teams enough. The Leafs are forced to throw their star players out there in so many situations they end up being over worked by the end of the series.
Leafs were absolutely dominated most games at 5v5. Why? Because the Panthers forecheck, much like the Ottawa forecheck, dictates how and where the game is played. Until the Leafs inject the line-up with more guys that can play that style, they will always struggle to come out on top in these tight series, especially when their bottom-six forwards contribute basically 0 goals for and many goals against.
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Luckily, despite all these flaws and mistakes, this Leafs team is the best team we’ve seen in this era.
They won the division. They beat Ottawa (as they should) and got out of the 1st round. They took the defending Champions (two time Finalists) to Game 7. Did they meet the lofty (and exaggerated) expectations of winning a Cup? No. Not yet. But the correct adjustments can make a difference.
1. Fire Shanahan. His time is up. This team needs upper management that understands what it takes to finish building a team. Shanahan has made many mistakes getting us to this point, they can not allow him to continue to throw away this opportunity. With this type of foundation, we should have been looking at multiple Cups. As it stands, they’ll be fortunate if they can squeeze out one.
2. Trade Rielly. If there is to be somebody from the “core” that DESERVES to go, it’s Morgan Rielly. He’s been here the longest and his time is up. The Leafs will never be able to win with a guy like Rielly. He does not provide the Leafs with enough offensive output to compensate for his absolutely horrid defensive ability and his cap hit is unmanageable. It won’t be easy to move him but Vancouver could be a place he doesn’t mind landing. Worse players with worse contracts have been traded before. He can and should be moved.
3. Bye Tavares. He’s older, he’s slower and he’s defensively terrible. Absolutely no team or coach or player looks at Tavares anymore and is worried about that match-up. They know he can’t skate, they know he can’t defend and they know he won’t kill them offensively anymore either. Again, people want to bitch about Mitch in Game 5, 6 and 7? Where was Tavares? He was busy watching the other team score goals while he scored none himself. He was overpaid and underdelivered once before, never make the same mistake twice.
4. Re-sign Marner. He led the team in points, 5 straight 100 point per 82 game seasons and was 2nd in playoff scoring (more than Matthews). Your team will not improve if you let these types of players walk as UFAs. There is no player better (or cheaper) available to replace Marner. The Leafs do not have prospects, they do not have draft picks. They can not afford to lose this much talent. The cap is going up, they can afford to keep Marner and Knies if they trim the fat.
5. Re-sign Knies to a bridge deal. He’s a big body, he scored some goals but he’s not a star yet. Don’t pay him like one. Give him a bridge deal and let him earn it. Don’t pay for the UFA years and worry about his “big” contract when he earns it in the future. The Leafs made the mistake of giving every young player a giant deal way too early. Never make the same mistake twice. If he gets an offer sheet, deal with it accordingly but keep that cap hit low in the short term.
6. Dump Jarnkrok, Kampf, Robertson, Holmberg and McMann. You won’t win in the playoffs with depth players that bring nothing to the table. These guys are mostly overpaid and simply don’t move the needle when it matters. Replace them immediately with guys who bring more size, more aggression and can actually bang in some greasy playoff goals. The Leafs can no longer afford to have their bottom-six provide no offense and expect to win games.
7. Keep finding guys like Pacioretty. Every year, there are former “star” players who are on their back-nine who are more willing to play for a bargain. We see guys like Perry who can still contribute and cost next to nothing. The Leafs need to continue to recruit these guys. Jamie Benn? He might be the next one to fit that mold.
8. Bring in some quality coaches to help fix this team on special teams. Tortz should be at the top of the list. Keep adding guys to the staff who have accomplished something as coaches unlike that fat piece of shit Marc Savard.
Florida was expected to win this series. I am less upset they lost and more with how they lost. If game 5 and 7 were competitive and had both been losses I would likely be ok.
The Leafs pushed the defending Champs and the superior team to Game 7. But you’re going to bitch about “how” they lost? They shut them out in Game 6 when everybody thought they were dead in the water. A loss is a loss. They got beat by the better team.
I think anyone but a complete moron or troll can see that Marner wants to test free agency. He wants to be the center of attention and he wants to be the star of his team and in the process will probably get $14-15 mil. If he wanted to sign here he would have by now.
The complete morons here are creating a false narrative about Marner being a greedy prima donna attention whore. He wants what he deserves as the leading point producer. Just like the Leafs overpaid Tavares, Matthews and Nylander. Why should he take less as a 100 point player who has to pay ridiculous Canadian taxes?
But somehow, Tavares, who did absolutely nothing in Game 5-7, is old and slow is “Johnny Toronto” because he signed the 2nd highest paid contract in his Leafs pajamas and did nothing for this team except cripple their cap. But he’s the good guy because he’ll take a “discount” and continue to play like shit as he becomes a dinosaur.
Tre has done a fabulous job with Goal and the D in his time so far.. We need to trust that he can do the same to the forward group. He has pulled of trades that nobody saw coming (Carlo) to help the D.
The defense is old, signed long term, offensively useless and Rielly wasn’t traded. Carlo did not move the needle as much as, for example, Seth Jones. Yet, cost almost the same price. Treliving made improvements but not nearly as good as advertised.
The first thing that needs to happen is Shanny needs to go.. He has been a failure here went off the board and hired Dubas who crippled this team by handing out contracts rather than bridge deals and has incubated the coddling of the stars.
Absolutely fire Shanahan. Dubas was an idiot.
Washington and Ovechkin have advanced past the 2nd round 1 time in 20 years
Colorado and McKinnon have advanced past the 2nd round 1 time in 11 years -AzurePerfect undermining of your own argument about the Leafs core players. Winning a Cup is extremely difficult. It takes many, many attempts to even get one successful run. The absolute dumbest thing the Leafs can do right now, with no 1st round picks, no elite prospects and limited options as UFAs is let their 100 point players walk for nothing as UFAs.
This isn’t some magical curse or some other “fans fault” bullshit excuse. Kids who grew up as the “best” player on their teams don’t experience much of that “dig in and try hard” mentality because its always been easy for them. -underhill14
Remember when you said Seth Jones sucks? Pepridge Farm remembers.
Your logic here makes absolutely no sense. The majority of NHL players were always the best player on their team. That’s why they got drafted. That’s why they’re here. Teams are never going to pass on the best player on any team to pick a 2nd rate player who sucks at hockey but works really hard at being inferior.
Maybe, instead of coming up with these idiotic ideas, look at the actual facts of the matter.
Take Matthews for example…
https://www.eliteprospects.com/player/199898/auston-matthews
There is Matthews’ career profile. Take a good hard look at it. Does it look strange at all to you? Perhaps look at how many “playoff” games he played on record prior to his first professional season in Switzerland. What’s that? He played ZERO playoff games in his life prior to being a professional?
Perhaps, maybe, just maybe, the reason why Matthews drops off significantly in the playoffs is because he never grew up playing playoff hockey the way other kids grew up playing playoff hockey in the OHL / WHL etc. That would actually be a logical reason why he’s struggled to succeed since day 1 of playoff hockey. He’s learning as a pro instead of having his growing pains when he was a teen. It’s a delayed lesson in playoff hockey. But there’s constant improvement.
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