2021-22 Toronto Maple Leafs General Discussion
- Thread starter herman
- Start date
ZBBM
Active member
mr grieves said:
Well, the defense is what improved by leaps and bounds last season, and that is what all of us have been begging for since the days of Bill Barilko.
Seriously, this is FINALLY the season where Liljegren and Sandin should be on the blueline. They'll make their share of mistakes (oh Rasmus my Rasmus I wish I could wave a magic wand over G5 and make your gaffes go poof) but I have reasonable faith that both will turn out to be good defensemen, and Sandin might even become very good.
So that to me is some pretty clear separation from EDM.
That said, this team is not a lock to make the playoffs, either.
Guilt Trip
Active member
No team is a lock...injuries can happen to key players to ruin it for a team pretty quick.
Agree with the D. Time to play them.
Agree with the D. Time to play them.
Arn
Active member
Most of the moves so far probably constitute sideways moves:
Mrazek for Andersen probably would be considered a slight "downgrade" but Mrazek and Campbell as a pair might be better than last year. So slight improvement.
Loss of Bogosian I don't think has been quite covered as yet unless there's a different makeup/style on the D
Obviously up front there's no real direct replacement for Hyman but I think the real difference there can be on the 3rd and 4th line. Bunting for Thornton is probably (sad and hard as it is to admit) an improvement. Moving Kerfoot out of 3rd line centre is also probably an improvement.
Mrazek for Andersen probably would be considered a slight "downgrade" but Mrazek and Campbell as a pair might be better than last year. So slight improvement.
Loss of Bogosian I don't think has been quite covered as yet unless there's a different makeup/style on the D
Obviously up front there's no real direct replacement for Hyman but I think the real difference there can be on the 3rd and 4th line. Bunting for Thornton is probably (sad and hard as it is to admit) an improvement. Moving Kerfoot out of 3rd line centre is also probably an improvement.
As I was reviewing depth and contract term etc. this morning at Cap Friendly, I was reminded that we have Phil Kessel on the books for 1 more year at $1.2 million - which means that Phil costs more than each of these listed roster players - Wayne Simmonds, Michael Amadio, Jason Spezza, Rasmus Sandin, and Alex Biega.
One more year......
One more year......
Michael said:
The return ended up being pretty solid really but yeah that retention aspect of it sure sucked. Especially since it's dead space you can't move to another team or anything.
Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate said:
The thought has crossed my mind that either he or Topi Niemel? could turn into that guy. It's not out of the realm of possibilities, but it also isn't a lock, so right now that is a hope and a prayer, rather than going out and getting someone who has proven that they can be in the conversation as one of the best defensemen in the league.
CarltonTheBear said:
IIRC, there was a player on the penguins who refused to waive his NTC for that trade and Pittsburgh was the only team on Kessel's list that was willing to trade for him, so retaining was the only way to make it happen.
I think it would have been far worse had they not been able to trade Kessel that summer.
Guilt Trip
Active member
They probably don't finish last and get Matthews.Deebo said:
herman
Well-known member
Arn said:
Sideways from the team that finished first in the division that came runner up in the Cup final -- that we were a goalpost or two away from being directly involved in? Surprisingly very disappointing for some people.
Not trying to pollyanna this (boo Marner-PP1, coaching deployment overreactions) and this is not directed at you, Arn, but it's like people forget this team still has Matthews, Tavares, Nylander, Muzzin, Brodie, Rielly. Teams that have made big changes this offseason so far have largely just tied substantial cap anchors around their necks with middling depth (Buchnevich, Point notwithstanding). There isn't really an outright terrible contract on our cap sheet a la Phaneuf, Marleau, Zaitsev.
Mrazek is probably a downgrade from peak Andersen, but peak Andersen was 3 seasons ago; incidentally we just got the assistant coach that managed the players in front of Mrazek the past couple of seasons.
If Kampf works out as a shutdown 3C (he did effectively it on a defensively inept and moribund CHI team), then that frees up our top 6 to actually do more OZ stuff. Thornton/Kerfoot/broken Riley Nash/Engvall weren't able to do that last season, and also opens up options for either using Kerfoot in the top-6, or trading him/Engvall/Mikheyev to fill the top-6 winger more effectively and shelter Bunting.
L K
Active member
Guilt Trip said:
I still think the Horachek/Nonis approach to finishing off that season was atrocious. I don't think it nerfed Kessel's value but having a coach be outright antagonistic toward Kessel and then play the team with a style that completely made his play terrible was not a good strategy.
herman
Well-known member
Deebo said:
The first 3, arguably we should not have really been there, and even then, we pushed some championship caliber teams to the brink with some questionable management/coaching.
The past two are big fat COVID weirdness seasons (oh yeah, a coaching change too). Yes, they were failures, but what type of failures were they? Management, Roster/Personnel, Tactical, Execution, or Divine Judgment?
Where I stand, is the personnel have some responsibility (execution), the coaching staff has some responsibility (tactical), and the management team that empowers them bears the final responsibility. I wouldn't say the issue has been roster-build, which is where people are looking for fixes for their disappointment.