How Long Do We Keep With This same Crap?
- Thread starter azzurri63
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azzurri63
Active member
Bender Frank E you make good points. As far as the contracts I for one hoped after signing JT they would be able to keep the core together but not to the point of overpaying. You can say what you want about the contracts but me personally Dubas overpaid on all of them.
How come all other teams are signing their stars for less?
Is Marner that much better than Point?
Nylander held out and all of us were saying he shouldn't be making more than Pasta. 2 months holding out and he signed for more than most of us figured.
Matthews is another story. Think him being labelled as a generational player was the problem. He's nowhere near McDavid but getting paid it.
Got all the tools and size to be one of the best but for some reason the consistency is not there.
I'm glad we signed all 3 but it came at a great expense. More than it should and sad to say maybe someone should have been traded.
As far as your comments Frank that is my issue. Yes personnel has changed, we've had some injuries but that has been the biggest issue with this team since Babcock got here.
Even before he got hired but it hasn't changed and that is where the issue lies.
Team cannot play away from the puck.
Andersen has been our MVP for the last 3 years. Team is atrocious defensively.
Is it personnel because I thought the D this year looked as good as it has in a long time on paper but hasn't looked it.
It's a whole team effort and I'll say it for the thousandth time team is too easy to play against.
I don't know what the answer is but I said it last year rinse and repeat and I think it's more of the same this year.
I know it's early. Wait for the full lineup and we'll see but I think it's all going to fall with Freddy again.
Something will need to give and usually it's the coach that goes.
Maybe they need to get rid of one of the stars to help in other areas.
Time will tell and I hope most on here are right. I have my doubts.
How come all other teams are signing their stars for less?
Is Marner that much better than Point?
Nylander held out and all of us were saying he shouldn't be making more than Pasta. 2 months holding out and he signed for more than most of us figured.
Matthews is another story. Think him being labelled as a generational player was the problem. He's nowhere near McDavid but getting paid it.
Got all the tools and size to be one of the best but for some reason the consistency is not there.
I'm glad we signed all 3 but it came at a great expense. More than it should and sad to say maybe someone should have been traded.
As far as your comments Frank that is my issue. Yes personnel has changed, we've had some injuries but that has been the biggest issue with this team since Babcock got here.
Even before he got hired but it hasn't changed and that is where the issue lies.
Team cannot play away from the puck.
Andersen has been our MVP for the last 3 years. Team is atrocious defensively.
Is it personnel because I thought the D this year looked as good as it has in a long time on paper but hasn't looked it.
It's a whole team effort and I'll say it for the thousandth time team is too easy to play against.
I don't know what the answer is but I said it last year rinse and repeat and I think it's more of the same this year.
I know it's early. Wait for the full lineup and we'll see but I think it's all going to fall with Freddy again.
Something will need to give and usually it's the coach that goes.
Maybe they need to get rid of one of the stars to help in other areas.
Time will tell and I hope most on here are right. I have my doubts.
azzurri63 said:
I think that the Leafs major weakness on defense shows up more to you because you want defense to be played a certain way.
For the Leafs, they have to get the puck out of their zone quickly. They can't get hemmed in their own zone and allow the other team to fore check them. They just aren't built to withstand that. They play a style where they want to get the puck our of their zone and transition it to offense as quickly as possible. That's not a style that is conducive to banging people and laying the body on them. It's a puck retrieval, quick first pass style. When they do get hemmed in their zone, they are in trouble because they don't have the personnel to handle that sort of game. They can't switch styles because the personnel won't play well in that style.
They also can't switch personnel because that would be a major overhaul. The style that they play is because they have the forwards and the defense that can play that quick out, switch to attack style really really well. So if you switch personnel, then you are going to have to switch styles, which means you probably have to change more players than just the defencemen.
So when the Leafs do get hemmed in their zone, it looks really really bad. However, when they can play the style that they want, they look really really good, like the first ten - twelve minutes of the Philadelphia game.
Kin
New member
azzurri63 said:
It remains fascinating to me that for all the people who put forth this assertion(which is untrue and almost always based on isolated and cherry-picked examples) there's never actually an effort to answer the question.
I think that's largely because any serious attempt to answer it within the confines of the beliefs professed can only really come to one conclusion: that somehow Dubas is just bad at the process of negotiating contracts. The problem with this, outside of it generally being poorly reasoned and non-specific, is that if it's true it's not fundamentally a criticism of Dubas but rather a major and significant criticism of Shanahan for hiring a GM who, as their thinking goes, is so fundamentally poor at such a major aspect of the position.
azzurri63
Active member
Nik Bethune said:
I mention Dubas as where the blame lies as he is the one negotiating.
Management as a whole is to blame because ultimately they obviously agree to the signings.
It?s hard to justify some signings due to increase in salaries.
Going to see an increase in all signings that?s just the nature of the beast. That said we seem to be throwing out more than the rest of the league.
Kin
New member
azzurri63 said:
No, not regardless of the changes. This is a different team than last year's team. I'm referring to the 2019-2020 Maple Leafs.
That said, you may be too focused on the word "stretch" and less on the charge that this same lazy criticism gets trotted out whenever the Leafs lose.
Kin
New member
azzurri63 said:
Sure, just like in your mind every single goal scored against the Leafs seems to be a result of nobody throwing a good enough hit. There may, just maybe, some confirmation bias at work there.
But, again, there isn't an actual attempt to answer the question you asked other than "Well, I guess Dubas is just bad at negotiating" which is not a specific criticism or analysis.
True and this is a big concern. However...in the playoffs I thought they clearly outplayed the Bruins except for special teams. There were a couple of games where I felt almost like I was watching another team - they were playing sound attentive defense, were playing hard, no stick waving flybys. And that was without a major piece (Kadri). Well, you might even say without 3 major pieces since Gardiner and Dermot were dealing with significant injuries. So we have evidence they can play like that.azzurri63 said:
I don't necessarily expect them to play like that every game (though really, why shouldn't they, $11 million dollar players should be expected to perform) so as long as they make the playoffs (not a given if they keep going like this), they'll have a chance. But don't want bad habits to set in.
azzurri63 said:
Not so sure I agree with your assessment of the D. They lost 3 players who were arguably better defenders in the d-zone (Hainsey, Gardiner, Zaitsev) and replaced them with potentially better offensive players who are probably not as good in the d-zone (Ceci, Barrie, Holl...though Holl has looked pretty good). So the d-zone is weaker which means the forwards have to compensate and obviously that isn't happening. I thought this would potentially be a problem, we'll see if they can sort it out.
Highlander
Active member
Lets say the Leafs gel, go on a tear and go to the conference finals, revenues generated by so many playoff games etc make the signings much more bearable because the Leafs not only generate so much additional revenues, but make all us SOBs happy for the first time in many many years.
Guilt Trip
Active member
Last year only counts if you have the exact same people in place. The Leafs don't. We have 3 new D pairings, and pretty much 4 new lines. You can only base anything on what they do this year, with this line up.azzurri63 said:
WAYNEINIONA
New member
AvroArrow said:
Hopefully there is a different ending this time.