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2025 Offseason Thread: Spring Cleaning

A good run down of how things went awry after early promise from MLHS. One thing that stands out, besides recounting all the consequences of trying to accelerate things amid mismanaged drafts and with too quickly spent draft capital, is how misguided they were in insulating the young stars with those vets who've seen it all and could show them how to win. It's crazy to think Marleau and Thornton were brought in to do that.
 
And I know that failing over and over again kind of let us to a total frustration level with this team, but from the Division Winners, Toronto outlasted all other 3 with the game 7.

Of Course we would expect they to show up on games 5 and 7, but they were able to push it to 7.
 
Kaberle15 said:
And I know that failing over and over again kind of let us to a total frustration level with this team, but from the Division Winners, Toronto outlasted all other 3 with the game 7.

Of Course we would expect they to show up on games 5 and 7, but they were able to push it to 7.
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Like several of us said, you can accept a loss to the champs. Leafs were underdogs, after all.

It's the way they lost. At home. Inexcusable. If there were a solitary owner of the franchise, that person would be justified in firing the coaches/GM en masse and then clean out the lockers to boot.
 
ZBBM said:
It's going to be hard to stomach losing Marner for nothing, and being left with Nylander, who also has playoff-fatal flaws in his game, but seems to be getting off scot-free in the RecriminationFest going on right now. And for the record, I like both players.
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I'm a fan of both too. But can you imagine the inverse (re-upping Marner, letting Nylander walk away in FA? This team loses to Florida in 4 straight, and very likely does not get out of the 1st round. There is a significant problem with playoff Marner, particularly in games that matter (11 points in 26 total game 5-7's). 11 points! And 4 of those were in 2018!

I'm not really sure why there is a Nylander vs Marner narrative to begin with. Nylander played with Tavares (who was beginning to be a bit of an albatross the latter games of the playoffs) and a number of 4th line options on his LW. Marner only played with Matthews and Knies; significantly better linemates. And even then, defensively, where Marner (and Matthews) really shine and put Nylander to shame, their line was the main culprit Game 5 and not much better Game 7. Why would anyone call out Nylander before calling out Marner, the guy who is demanding more money and who was performed far worse when things mattered?

Finally, Herman's post in the Playoff thread about creating chances 5v5 kind of says it all. Not that I'm trying to bash Marner, or have a bias in favour of Nylander; I just want to look at this whole thing objectively. Objectively, I completely understand why people have more issues with Marner than Nylander.

The End ;)
 
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https://twitter.com/x/status/1925571078769807416
William Nylander was the best player on the ice in the first two games of the series, and while the Panthers’ third line caused problems, so did the Panthers switching their matchups. Nylander’s most common opponent in the series was Gustav Forsling, with those head-to-head minutes coming largely after those first two games, and the goals were 1-1 in the matchup.

The Panthers put their best defenseman against Nylander, and Matthews-Marner drew even against what is ostensibly Florida’s second pairing, plus either the Barkov or Lundell line.
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Hence Tavares-Nylander going relatively quiet in the back half. Matthews-Marner getting iced out by the FLA third line and second-pair was basically made this a done deal.

The rest of the article is great (but sad/maddening, because it's basically our 2023 and 2024 threads lol)
 
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Kaberle15 said:
And I know that failing over and over again kind of let us to a total frustration level with this team, but from the Division Winners, Toronto outlasted all other 3 with the game 7.

Of Course we would expect they to show up on games 5 and 7, but they were able to push it to 7.
Click to expand...
And that's the thing, being in our division completely skews the traditional optics about playoffs and rounds. We play the Stanley Cup Champs, defending Champs or main Cup contender every 1st-2nd round. You can't look at all of these loses as simply out in the first or second round; they are, effectively, Conference Finals (if not Stanley Cup Final) game 7 loses. That's why I kind of dread this idea of blowing things up- they are pretty darn close. One good significant tweak (that jostles those crazy game 7/clutch performance mental blocks) may be all we need.
 
Andy007 said:
And that's the thing, being in our division completely skews the traditional optics about playoffs and rounds. We play the Stanley Cup Champs, defending Champs or main Cup contender every 1st-2nd round. You can't look at all of these loses as simply out in the first or second round; they are, effectively, Conference Finals (if not Stanley Cup Final) game 7 loses. That's why I kind of dread this idea of blowing things up- they are pretty darn close. One good significant tweak (that jostles those crazy game 7/clutch performance mental blocks) may be all we need.
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Come on man don't do this, if we lost hard fought battles that any team would be the winner, fine, but year after year after year after year that's not what happens, our core craps the bed, completely disappears and we fall on our face, what has to happen before you get that? This team isn't right, it needs major changes, period. End rant. 👍
 
The silence is telling. No Leafs press conference yet almost certainly means multiple firings are in the works. If it were just one guy, they’d have spun it already. Feels like they’re lining up a bigger announcement, my bet is Tuesday or Wednesday next week.
 
Andy007 said:
I'm a fan of both too. But can you imagine the inverse (re-upping Marner, letting Nylander walk away in FA? This team loses to Florida in 4 straight, and very likely does not get out of the 1st round. There is a significant problem with playoff Marner, particularly in games that matter (11 points in 26 total game 5-7's). 11 points! And 4 of those were in 2018!

I'm not really sure why there is a Nylander vs Marner narrative to begin with. Nylander played with Tavares (who was beginning to be a bit of an albatross the latter games of the playoffs) and a number of 4th line options on his LW. Marner only played with Matthews and Knies; significantly better linemates. And even then, defensively, where Marner (and Matthews) really shine and put Nylander to shame, their line was the main culprit Game 5 and not much better Game 7. Why would anyone call out Nylander before calling out Marner, the guy who is demanding more money and who was performed far worse then things mattered?

Finally, Herman's post in the Playoff thread about creating chances 5v5 kind of says it all. Not that I'm trying to bash Marner, or have a bias in favour of Nylander; I just want to look at this whole thing objectively. Objectively, I completely understand why people have more issues with Marner than Nylander.

The End ;)
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Marner plays defense, and does it very well. Nylander could, but refuses to. That's a fatal flaw.

Did Nylander have an availability this week? If he did, I didn't see it. If not, why not?
 
4EVRLEAFAN said:
Come on man don't do this, if we lost hard fought battles that any team would be the winner, fine, but year after year after year after year that's not what happens, our core craps the bed, completely disappears and we fall on our face, what has to happen before you get that? This team isn't right, it needs major changes, period. End rant. 👍
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OH, I certainly don't want to run it back, nor do I think there shouldn't be a significant move; I'm just a bit apprehensive about blowing things so much that we don't even get the opportunity to fall on our face ;)
 
ZBBM said:
Marner plays defense, and does it very well. Nylander could, but refuses to. That's a fatal flaw.

Did Nylander have an availability this week? If he did, I didn't see it. If not, why not?
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I agree with that. I still don't know why that means Nylander should be criticized as much, or more than Marner, especially since the latter didn't, you know, play defense all that well those games either..
 
Zee said:
The silence is telling. No Leafs press conference yet almost certainly means multiple firings are in the works. If it were just one guy, they’d have spun it already. Feels like they’re lining up a bigger announcement, my bet is Tuesday or Wednesday next week.
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The board is meeting today. I'm guessing the decision to not renew him is made there. It's leaked tonight, with an official announcement tomorrow.

For what it's worth the Leafs officially announced Dubas wouldn't be getting renewed in 2023 on a Friday as well, exactly a week after being eliminated by Florida then.

Kinda funny Dubas and Shanny both got (or are getting) let go in only years the Leafs advanced past the 1st round.
 
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CarltonTheBear said:
The board is meeting today. I'm guessing the decision to not renew him is made there. It's leaked tonight, with an official announcement tomorrow.

For what it's worth the Leafs officially announced Dubas wouldn't be getting renewed in 2023 on a Friday as well, exactly a week after being eliminated by Florida then.

Kinda funny Dubas and Shanny both got (or are getting) let go in only years the Leafs advanced past the 1st round.
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Would be even more funny if they add the President title to Brad.
 
L K said:
That drastic changes aren't always the right move. If you have a spider in your kitchen burning down the house is a bad approach.

Some of the rumblings for a while is that Ed Rogers wants Masai Ujiri out in the Raptors side of things. If that's the kind of restructuring they want to get rid of, it's not good decision making. There are a lot of good arguments for restructuring management but going in and gutting things doesn't necessarily fill me with confidence that we are making good decisions.
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I get what you're saying but it really depends on what they're going to do and we don't really know anything yet. I mean, I did hear that Tanenbaum was a champion of Shanahan's and Bell would generally vote in line with Tanenbaum, and that's led us to where exactly? It feels like the last 9 years were essentially squandered, so I'm not against Rogers holding GMs/Presidents to a higher standard of accountability and trimming the fat. There've been a lot of cooks in the Leafs' kitchen for the last half decade and so far they've collectively failed to bake anything resembling a cake.
 
CarltonTheBear said:
The board is meeting today. I'm guessing the decision to not renew him is made there. It's leaked tonight, with an official announcement tomorrow.

For what it's worth the Leafs officially announced Dubas wouldn't be getting renewed in 2023 on a Friday as well, exactly a week after being eliminated by Florida then.

Kinda funny Dubas and Shanny both got (or are getting) let go in only years the Leafs advanced past the 1st round.
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And both by Florida and not Boston.
 
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