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Thumbs up to this article, it’s a good overview of where the Leafs are and what they need to do moving forward. The only thing I’ll say is they need to build a team to beat a team LIKE the Panthers because even if the Panthers lose some key pieces and regress simply getting to the ECF is not a guarenteed cup win as Florida is the template most teams are now using to build their teams out. They will need to essentially build a team that can beat multiple teams that play and are built like this current Panthers team.
It’s doable but changes must be made to get there.
Whipper – re: avatar.
Thanks – assuming you mean the current one vs the Colton Orr after just KO’ing Paros I had up for a hot minute it’s from an ODR on the Severn River. Little slice of winter heaven.
Here are a couple more pics.
Fake – I think the problem (or the why to what you find funny) is these 2 guys just default to Marner to set up Matthews when they play together for the most part, if they were more of a 2 headed threat to score then teams would have a much harder time to defend them but they simply aren’t and IMO never will be.
Teams play Marner to pass to Matthews and Matthews to shoot when fed by Marner but when you separate them both appear more willing or able to do what they don’t do often enough when they play together (Matthews set up someone else / Marner to finish). This is one of the reasons why I have always preferred them on separate lines.
As far as me being too one sided towards one guy over the other ok fair but I’ll always be one sided towards a 2 way #1 centre who can score 50 + goals almost every year in his prime when healthy over a talented winger – most people would regardless of the names on the jerseys no?
I’ll add something additional. Considering Carolina and Florida both are “built the right way” and one of them has to lose this series like, you can build “tough” but it doesn’t matter because 31 teams a year lose. Colorado and the Blues and Kings all built the same way. Fuck the Oilers aren’t and they are in conference finals back to back years. -Aaron
Is Carolina built ‘the right way’ though? They struggled to score a lot all season and it may come to bite them in the ass now we will see.
I also feel like the Canes were riding super hot goaltending in Freddy that might be coming down to earth (Where have we see that before?) and Florida just has more scoring power than they do.It’s game 1 so it’s early and Canes have one of if not the best motivating coaches in the NHL so I expect them to come out alot differently in game 2. Flordia was riding the game 7 win high and Canes were rested but cold. I think game 2 is a lot closer and different but Florida is so unpredictable who knows – they looked dead in the water vs the Leafs until the 3rd period really of game 3 and then they were the Florida team from last year.
Florida is now the ‘template’ teams will build around and they used the Tampa template, who used the Boston template.
Nobody is mimicking what the Leafs have done for nearly a decade now & quite honestly to some degree Toronto was stupid and arrogant to think it would work and as much as we want to blame Shanny or Dubas specifically for trying to be creative and do something never done before that’s not entirely accurate. Toronto followed the old Oilers template just with more success but not enough.
Oilers drafted in the top 3 for several years landing Hall, RNH, Yakapov etc. and sure they made some terrible picks but they kept drafting high skill and no real grit guys and failed. Dubas had some quote about drafting for skill and trading for grit – that is 100% the old Oilers and they failed. The Leafs had better options and drafted better but they are what most organizations who are looking to re-build now or soon are looking at and saying “Jesus boys lets make sure we draft to try and balance our roster not like what the Leafs did”.
Boston, Tampa, Florida – all highly successful for years – all more successful than Toronto.
Time to stop trying to guess what the answer on the test is and copy someone else’s work (or in this case move stuff around to try and get it as close as you can to their work).
Not sure if this will work or not – trying to post the playoff stats for this year of Marner and Willy as a pic.
Ok I’ll say it – why are we obsessing about replacing Marner’s 100 points? He played PP1 and was the set up guy at the top of the PP umbrella so he racked up assists there as well as playing on L1 99% of the season with Matthews.
Matthews doesn’t need Marner to score, IMO Marner needs a sniper to score for him to rack up points.
Blaming the bottom 6 for the Leafs losing this series is about as stupid as blaming the fanbase for fuck sakes.
For anyone in love with this top 6 that’s fine they are amazing players it makes sense.
BUT
If you can’t get past that and don’t see any reason to change them enjoy never seeing this team get deeper in the playoffs than they have at this point.Just because someone thinks the core needs to be broken up and sees the 2 UFA’s as the easiest pieces to move to gain valuable cap space to strengthen the bottom 6, and toughen up the top 6 with a small change in some personnel doesn’t make them a ‘hater’ of a player, nor does it make them any less of a fan.
The entire concept of simply swapping out the bottom 6 with the belief this will allow the Leafs to success is a severly flawed plan in itself. Layer in unrealistic components of this plan such as a bottom 6 winger making 3.5M is suddenly going to agree to take 900K or that multiple players with full no movement clauses are going to magically agree to waive them just amplifies how insanely flawed this plan is.
Morgan Rielly would be great to move but it’s hard to even think he would agree to be moved for a minute.
Matthews being moved would be a colossal mistake, quite possibly the worst trade mistake the Leafs could every make in their history. Top line, 2 way centres who have shown they can score 50 or more goals are true unicorns. Should he be captain? Perhaps not but it’s the way the NHL has shifted the captaincy on most teams now where your ‘top player’ has to be your captain and it’s dumb but the Leafs couldn’t afford to not make that move really – who else did they have they could have given the C to? Rielly? They probalby should have left it with JT and then even gone with 4 A’s until it became clearer but here we are.
JT can come back on the cheap and save this team a lot of money, provide veteran leadership & retire a Leaf.
Willy just locked in for 8 years and it’s hard to think he would even consider a move – it’s obvious he loves Toronto.
I asked this before and the poster I asked it of course ignored the question but I’ll ask it again:
Who is the Mitch Marner on the most successful teams in the league? Who is Florida’s Mitch Marner for instance?
Who is their uber talented, soft and small playmaking (because he seems to have an aversion to shooting) winger making 11M and looking for 13 (likely more) per season long term who has proven to be ineffective *(like others yes)* in series clinching games and struggles mightily under that pressure?
Teams can’t afford to have a 13.5M franchise centre & 2 wingers making over 11M and balance the roster to have the grit, toughness and scoring they need to be successful in playoffs – that’s been proven by the Leafs to be an ineffective strategy.
Chicago with Towes and Kane is a great example – only having those 2 monster contracts allowed them to fill out a balanced roster with unreal supporting players, D etc.
If the Leafs re-up Marner and have Matthews at 13.5, Willy at 11 and Marner at 13 or more IMO we call all just expect to see more of the same come playoffs and that will just be the cherry on top of a wasted era.
I can’t wait to see what the situation is on July 2nd.
If this team doesn’t break up some of the core (and just losing JT isn’t making any change when you have Marner with his hand out for more and know Knies needs more because you can’t lose him) I won’t be happy at all.
If they traded Rielly and/or traded Willy and kept Marner and got a good return I’d say they parted ways with the wrong winger but I’d at least be happy they made a big move. Asking guys to waive no trade’s and having them say no is not making a move it’s exploring options, so if one or more of Marner, Willy, Rielly aren’t in a new team uniform next year then IMO the Leafs have failed and are destined to continue to not be good enough to be a top 4 team in this league.
Marner is not a guy to build a team around so why pay him like one? He wants to be paid like proven winners and leaders but has done neither.
If they re-sign him (and I am in the camp of do not) it should be for 12M per season max or let him walk. He’s not in the same tier as the guys he thinks he should be paid like. Let his ego deal with that fact and that Matthews makes more than him (as a centre should) but he can jack it at night knowing he makes more than the other soft but skilled winger (who aside from this year actually shows up in games 5,6,7).
Marner is too soft physically and emotionally to be compared to almost anyone at the salary he reportedly thinks he’s worth. Yes Willy is soft too but he wasn’t looking for 13M + was he?
Yes MLSE has overpaid all 3 of the core forwards and also Reilly clearly but that doesn’t change the situation they are in now.
And yes other players on the leafs check some or all of those boxes – the Captain hasn’t led them to where they need to get to not been good in elimination games until game 6 this year and then no-showed for game 7.
None of that is a good excuse to not do the right thing now to crate a more balanced roster & try and fix the mistakes made by prior GM’s.
Going GM mode in video games and brushing off the financial constraints and no trade clauses like it’s nothing is a fools game. Marner leaving and maybe JT leaving or coming back at 50% of his current cost are the moves they can make and should make now if they want to rebuild on the fly and balance the roster.
Teams that win aren’t afraid to make difficult and bold moves, the Leafs have made zero of those in the near decade with this core.
Monkey I shit on you every time you compare Showtime Kane to Marner for good reason – they aren’t the same players. Kane produced when the chips were down and led that team with Towes where Marner has not. You can blame the roster construction as much as you want winner find a way to win – Marner simply hasn’t IMO.
It’s not the job of the Leafs to build a roster to insulate a small, skilled winger in Marner but even if it is why is he now asking for $ exceeding the franchise player? He’s only restricting their ability to do so if they chose to more.
Marner (and Matthew and Nylander & Reilly) all got paid for delivering jack shit. This is the biggest problem and the bar was set and these clowns just keep one upping each other every salary negotiation, leveraging the other core players salary and MLSE stupidly continues to play that game.
Matthews is arguably the only one of those salary extensions that is defendable simply because of the fact he a franchise centre.
IMO you simply can’t compare what Chicago did to ensure Kane had success to what Toronto has or hasn’t done for Marner for 2 big reasons:
1. Kane and Towes got their huge salary AFTER delivering in Chicago. The entire “core” in Toronto got their’s based on achieving nothing & that is the fault of MLSE (Shanny, Lou, Dubas). This brain trust thought they could get ahead of the curve by overpaying in advance and I guess they thought that would save some $ after the core delivered. As we all know all too well that was a horribly flawed strategy and then later on Covid / flat cap and well here we are.
2. Chicago dumped huge dollars into 2 contracts in Towes and Kane. Toronto decided to do it into 4 in Matthews, Marner, JT and Willy. Also MLSE’s fault but the presumed greed of the players (which has some merit based on hold outs and fairly public negotiations with a-hole parents and agents) sure didn’t help.
So here we are and I can only hope MLSE will eat crow and make the difficult but necessary moves to try and make this team balanced to get to the next level.
Read this today – hard to argue with this:
You cant argue that Marner wasn’t successful in the playoffs; he had 13 points in 13 games (2G, 11A) but it was his lack of production in Games 5 and 7 that really made fans furious.
Zero points, only three shots, a minus-4 rating. He had only four points the entire series, and did most of his heavy lifting against Ottawa.Marner is gone – the crying and proclaiming they can’t let him go or they are doomed if he goes is just drama and untrue.
Name the “Mitch Marner” type of player on any of the remaining teams for me? If you can name one go ahead and tell me what is different between them and Marner. I think we all know the differences and it’s why he is gone – the Leafs have too much rope and / soft as shit talent so he’s the odd man out being the UFA.
The whataboutism is irrelevant and deflecting.
Yes the rest of the core was shit last 2/3 games (as usual), Marner and JT are the only guys who can be moved / let walk without them having to agree to it.
They can’t afford to keep Marner if he wants more than what Willy makes. That’s the facts, you don’t have to like them but you do have to accept them.
Marner is gone – as a start at least it’s a forgone conclusion. He knows it, he essentially said it on his willing at the end of the game having a pity party and in his post game presser.
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.
Anyone yapping about the crowd being pathetic in the SBA for a playoff game has clearly never been at one – Wedgie is 100% right.
Blaming the crowd is a joke of an excuse.
Those who do so are also the ones who bitch that the team doesn’t change enough because games are always sold out because the fanbase never holds the players / teams accountable.
🙄
Also I started a game 7 blog 🙂
Did I actually read that JT needed to do more when it comes to GWG ms – after being the guy who prior to this year was the only one to get this team to the 2nd round?
And then the fans were terrible in game 5? The fans who paid 400 bucks minimum per seat to watch the Leafs absolute not show up at all?
And then Marner doesn’t get enough love and because he got an assist on a pedestrian pass where Matthews buried the game winner after 9 years of choking in late series games Marner should get paid basically whatever he wants?
All from the same person?
JFC those are some super hot takes there…..🙄
Me, He is a shit goalie…Even shit goalies have good runs sometimes
– Azure“Shit goalie” who has gone on a run in playoffs 2 years in a row? I hope he bought a bunch of lottery tickets if that’s all luck. 🍀
