Lou Will Not Return

[CarltonTheBear]

Zaitsev coming over was basically a done deal before Lou, and finding a 4D on the right side for free is great. Signing said 4D to 7 years is a sketchy bet, and that's on Lou (even though I'm in the camp that Z has yet to play to his potential and that his issues are coachable -- or the result of coaching).

Ah, I actually forgot about how his deal was long in the making before Lou. So Lou's additions to the defence over 3 years were: Corrado, Carrick, Marchenko, Borgman, Rosen, Hainsey

edit: Actually I remember now how Lamoriello visited Zaitsev directly in Russia so I'm willing to add his name to the list too... not sure if that's a good or bad thing though.

 

[herman]

Zaitsev coming over was basically a done deal before Lou, and finding a 4D on the right side for free is great. Signing said 4D to 7 years is a sketchy bet, and that's on Lou (even though I'm in the camp that Z has yet to play to his potential and that his issues are coachable -- or the result of coaching).

Ah, I actually forgot about how his deal was long in the making before Lou. So Lou's additions to the defence over 3 years were: Corrado, Carrick, Marchenko, Borgman, Rosen, Hainsey

edit: Actually I remember now how Lamoriello visited Zaitsev directly in Russia so I'm willing to add his name to the list too... not sure if that's a good or bad thing though.

Lou with the 9th inning save to nail down the signing?

 

[Coco-puffs]

Zaitsev coming over was basically a done deal before Lou, and finding a 4D on the right side for free is great. Signing said 4D to 7 years is a sketchy bet, and that's on Lou (even though I'm in the camp that Z has yet to play to his potential and that his issues are coachable -- or the result of coaching).

Ah, I actually forgot about how his deal was long in the making before Lou. So Lou's additions to the defence over 3 years were: Corrado, Carrick, Marchenko, Borgman, Rosen, Hainsey

edit: Actually I remember now how Lamoriello visited Zaitsev directly in Russia so I'm willing to add his name to the list too... not sure if that's a good or bad thing though.

Again, picking up better defenders is not exactly easy.  All of us want the Leafs to improve their D.

Here is the list of good/decent (ie top 4) d-men who have changed hands (traded or UFA) in the NHL over the last three seasons, not including the blockbusters (Subban-Weber, Drouin-Sergachev, Johansen-Jones):

McDonaugh
Vatanen
Demers
Shattenkirk
Hamonic
Scandella
Yandle
Larsson
Pysyk
Hamilton

Lets take out the guys who had no chance of landing in Toronto because their old teams wouldn't trade them to the Leafs (Pysyk- Buffalo, Hamilton- Bruins).  Lets take out the guys who were way overpaid to acquire (Shattenkirk-trade, Larsson).  Shattenkirk wanted to sign with the NYR so we didn't really have a shot.

McDonaugh we were in on but NYR seemed to prefer Tampa's package. 
Anaheim wanted a C for Vatanen and they wouldn't have taken Bozak, so that means Kadri- yeah, not doing that. 
Hamonic we were in on, but the Islanders smartly chose picks over JvR. 
Yandle is a LD and has had some big prices attached to him.
Scandella is a LD.

The only miss I see there is Demers, although did they ever have a real shot at him?  As a UFA ('16-17), the Leafs had just finished in the basement of the league the year before.  When traded last summer, Florida may not have wanted to trade him to a team they'd be fighting for a playoff spot with.

 

[Frank E]

Anyone else concerned that Frank E's account has been hacked?

The account is making way too many high-quality posts for it to be Frank.

Don't worry, won't last.

 

[Guilt Trip]

Zaitsev coming over was basically a done deal before Lou, and finding a 4D on the right side for free is great. Signing said 4D to 7 years is a sketchy bet, and that's on Lou (even though I'm in the camp that Z has yet to play to his potential and that his issues are coachable -- or the result of coaching).

Ah, I actually forgot about how his deal was long in the making before Lou. So Lou's additions to the defence over 3 years were: Corrado, Carrick, Marchenko, Borgman, Rosen, Hainsey

edit: Actually I remember now how Lamoriello visited Zaitsev directly in Russia so I'm willing to add his name to the list too... not sure if that's a good or bad thing though.

Again, picking up better defenders is not exactly easy.  All of us want the Leafs to improve their D.

Here is the list of good/decent (ie top 4) d-men who have changed hands (traded or UFA) in the NHL over the last three seasons, not including the blockbusters (Subban-Weber, Drouin-Sergachev, Johansen-Jones):

McDonaugh
Vatanen
Demers
Shattenkirk
Hamonic
Scandella
Yandle
Larsson
Pysyk
Hamilton

Lets take out the guys who had no chance of landing in Toronto because their old teams wouldn't trade them to the Leafs (Pysyk- Buffalo, Hamilton- Bruins).  Lets take out the guys who were way overpaid to acquire (Shattenkirk-trade, Larsson).  Shattenkirk wanted to sign with the NYR so we didn't really have a shot.

McDonaugh we were in on but NYR seemed to prefer Tampa's package. 
Anaheim wanted a C for Vatanen and they wouldn't have taken Bozak, so that means Kadri- yeah, not doing that. 
Hamonic we were in on, but the Islanders smartly chose picks over JvR. 
Yandle is a LD and has had some big prices attached to him.
Scandella is a LD.

The only miss I see there is Demers, although did they ever have a real shot at him?  As a UFA ('16-17), the Leafs had just finished in the basement of the league the year before.  When traded last summer, Florida may not have wanted to trade him to a team they'd be fighting for a playoff spot with.

That's a great post. I would add Niklas Hjalmarsson to the list tho. I think the Leafs could have grabbed him and even at 30, he would have definitely helped the Leafs.

 

[Coco-puffs]

Zaitsev coming over was basically a done deal before Lou, and finding a 4D on the right side for free is great. Signing said 4D to 7 years is a sketchy bet, and that's on Lou (even though I'm in the camp that Z has yet to play to his potential and that his issues are coachable -- or the result of coaching).

Ah, I actually forgot about how his deal was long in the making before Lou. So Lou's additions to the defence over 3 years were: Corrado, Carrick, Marchenko, Borgman, Rosen, Hainsey

edit: Actually I remember now how Lamoriello visited Zaitsev directly in Russia so I'm willing to add his name to the list too... not sure if that's a good or bad thing though.

Again, picking up better defenders is not exactly easy.  All of us want the Leafs to improve their D.

Here is the list of good/decent (ie top 4) d-men who have changed hands (traded or UFA) in the NHL over the last three seasons, not including the blockbusters (Subban-Weber, Drouin-Sergachev, Johansen-Jones):

McDonaugh
Vatanen
Demers
Shattenkirk
Hamonic
Scandella
Yandle
Larsson
Pysyk
Hamilton

Lets take out the guys who had no chance of landing in Toronto because their old teams wouldn't trade them to the Leafs (Pysyk- Buffalo, Hamilton- Bruins).  Lets take out the guys who were way overpaid to acquire (Shattenkirk-trade, Larsson).  Shattenkirk wanted to sign with the NYR so we didn't really have a shot.

McDonaugh we were in on but NYR seemed to prefer Tampa's package. 
Anaheim wanted a C for Vatanen and they wouldn't have taken Bozak, so that means Kadri- yeah, not doing that. 
Hamonic we were in on, but the Islanders smartly chose picks over JvR. 
Yandle is a LD and has had some big prices attached to him.
Scandella is a LD.

The only miss I see there is Demers, although did they ever have a real shot at him?  As a UFA ('16-17), the Leafs had just finished in the basement of the league the year before.  When traded last summer, Florida may not have wanted to trade him to a team they'd be fighting for a playoff spot with.

That's a great post. I would add Niklas Hjalmarsson to the list tho. I think the Leafs could have grabbed him and even at 30, he would have definitely helped the Leafs.

I considered adding him to the list but I don't think I'd consider him a top 4 d-man.  A third-pair, PK specialist?  Yes- probably would have been an upgrade on Polak- and probably would have cost Carrick to acquire. 

 

[CarltonTheBear]

Again, picking up better defenders is not exactly easy.  All of us want the Leafs to improve their D.

Here is the list of good/decent (ie top 4) d-men who have changed hands (traded or UFA) in the NHL over the last three seasons, not including the blockbusters (Subban-Weber, Drouin-Sergachev, Johansen-Jones):

I'm not so sure that Buffalo would have really had a moral quandary dealing Mark Pysyk to Toronto, and Boston has shown in the past that they're fine dealing people they consider to be problems to Toronto as long as the price is right. I'm not so sure that I'd consider a 1st and a 2nd for Shattenkirk to be an overpayment, although yes his first choice destination as a free agent did seem to be New York (although players often don't go to their first choice).

There were probably roughly a dozen top-4 defencemen that the Leafs could have acquired to improve the team (the 10 on your list, plus guys like Tanev and Barrie who were rumoured to be available... and who knows who else could have been pried loose but hasn't been). Yes, in some of those cases the Leafs might not have been able to compete with other teams. I don't want to go into every single detail but just looking at two... I'll agree that since the Ducks wanted a centre when they moved Vatanen we couldn't really compete, but seeing as how they've always been short on wingers if the Leafs decided to move on from JVR earlier I think a trade could have been worked out there. Sorta ditto for the Hamonic deal, the Flames choose picks over JVR but if Lou dealt him for picks earlier we could have been flush with them. I don't want to tie this all back to JVR but he (and to a lesser extent Bozak) was by far our biggest trade piece to improve our D over the past 3 years and we completely squandered that.

All in all yes I obviously understand that acquiring defencemen in the NHL isn't an easy thing to do, but isn't that why we originally hired Lou isn't of Dubas, because he was more capable of doing the hard parts of this job? Again, fact is our defence has only marginally improved in the 3 years that he was the teams GM and most of that improvement was done via the internal growth of players that he inherited. I don't think that there's anything wrong with saying that he didn't do enough to improve our defence.

 

[Guilt Trip]

I don't think that there's anything wrong with saying that he didn't do enough to improve our defence.

He didn't do enough on the backend for sure. Maybe Shanny saw this as his downfall that lead to moving Lou out to pasture? I think the JVR, Bozak scenario handcuffed the Leafs because I'm sure every GM asked for Marner or Nylander in any deal for a D man.

 

[herman]

https://www.pensionplanpuppets.com/2018/5/2/17303140/kyle-dubas-toronto-marlies-general-manager-history-ahl-goons-modern-development-system

Katya Knappe/PPP goes through a bit of Marlies history under Kyle Dubas' tenure and wonders aloud about the role known goons had on the club (recently shed almost entirely).

 

[Kin]

Lets take out the guys who had no chance of landing in Toronto because their old teams wouldn't trade them to the Leafs (Pysyk- Buffalo, Hamilton- Bruins). 

Yes, I'm sure that in Boston they're positively terrified of making another move with the Leafs.

McDonaugh we were in on but NYR seemed to prefer Tampa's package. 
Anaheim wanted a C for Vatanen and they wouldn't have taken Bozak, so that means Kadri- yeah, not doing that. 
Hamonic we were in on, but the Islanders smartly chose picks over JvR. 
Yandle is a LD and has had some big prices attached to him.
Scandella is a LD.

The only miss I see there is Demers, although did they ever have a real shot at him?  As a UFA ('16-17), the Leafs had just finished in the basement of the league the year before.  When traded last summer, Florida may not have wanted to trade him to a team they'd be fighting for a playoff spot with.

All of these "The Leafs have no chance" excuses basically seem to be "Well, the Leafs didn't land them, so they clearly never had a chance". I thought the whole point of Lamoriello being the smart savvy and connected guy was that maybe he might have been able to convince the Rangers or Islanders to prefer the package he was offering. Or to at least have the last word so he could improve his offer.

 

[Frank E]

Hamonic wanted to play in Western Canada for some family reasons.  He requested a trade in 2015, then rescinded that, but ended up in Calgary later anyways.

So maybe that one makes some sense in that the Leafs weren't going to get him.

 

[Kin]

Hamonic wanted to play in Western Canada for some family reasons.  He requested a trade in 2015, then rescinded that, but ended up in Calgary later anyways.

So maybe that one makes some sense in that the Leafs weren't going to get him.

That was discussed at length before on the board. To put it mildly, I don't think it was unanimous that the Leafs couldn't have traded for him because of his reason for a since-rescinded trade request that wasn't honoured by the team anyway.

To say nothing of my groundbreaking work in the field of "Just how much closer is Calgary to Winnipeg than Toronto anyway?"

 

[Coco-puffs]

Lets take out the guys who had no chance of landing in Toronto because their old teams wouldn't trade them to the Leafs (Pysyk- Buffalo, Hamilton- Bruins). 

Yes, I'm sure that in Boston they're positively terrified of making another move with the Leafs.

McDonaugh we were in on but NYR seemed to prefer Tampa's package. 
Anaheim wanted a C for Vatanen and they wouldn't have taken Bozak, so that means Kadri- yeah, not doing that. 
Hamonic we were in on, but the Islanders smartly chose picks over JvR. 
Yandle is a LD and has had some big prices attached to him.
Scandella is a LD.

The only miss I see there is Demers, although did they ever have a real shot at him?  As a UFA ('16-17), the Leafs had just finished in the basement of the league the year before.  When traded last summer, Florida may not have wanted to trade him to a team they'd be fighting for a playoff spot with.

All of these "The Leafs have no chance" excuses basically seem to be "Well, the Leafs didn't land them, so they clearly never had a chance". I thought the whole point of Lamoriello being the smart savvy and connected guy was that maybe he might have been able to convince the Rangers or Islanders to prefer the package he was offering. Or to at least have the last word so he could improve his offer.

Yup, easy peasy.  You should be GMing from your basement... its sooo easy.

 

[Coco-puffs]

Again, picking up better defenders is not exactly easy.  All of us want the Leafs to improve their D.

Here is the list of good/decent (ie top 4) d-men who have changed hands (traded or UFA) in the NHL over the last three seasons, not including the blockbusters (Subban-Weber, Drouin-Sergachev, Johansen-Jones):

I'm not so sure that Buffalo would have really had a moral quandary dealing Mark Pysyk to Toronto, and Boston has shown in the past that they're fine dealing people they consider to be problems to Toronto as long as the price is right. I'm not so sure that I'd consider a 1st and a 2nd for Shattenkirk to be an overpayment, although yes his first choice destination as a free agent did seem to be New York (although players often don't go to their first choice).

There were probably roughly a dozen top-4 defencemen that the Leafs could have acquired to improve the team (the 10 on your list, plus guys like Tanev and Barrie who were rumoured to be available... and who knows who else could have been pried loose but hasn't been). Yes, in some of those cases the Leafs might not have been able to compete with other teams. I don't want to go into every single detail but just looking at two... I'll agree that since the Ducks wanted a centre when they moved Vatanen we couldn't really compete, but seeing as how they've always been short on wingers if the Leafs decided to move on from JVR earlier I think a trade could have been worked out there. Sorta ditto for the Hamonic deal, the Flames choose picks over JVR but if Lou dealt him for picks earlier we could have been flush with them. I don't want to tie this all back to JVR but he (and to a lesser extent Bozak) was by far our biggest trade piece to improve our D over the past 3 years and we completely squandered that.

All in all yes I obviously understand that acquiring defencemen in the NHL isn't an easy thing to do, but isn't that why we originally hired Lou isn't of Dubas, because he was more capable of doing the hard parts of this job? Again, fact is our defence has only marginally improved in the 3 years that he was the teams GM and most of that improvement was done via the internal growth of players that he inherited. I don't think that there's anything wrong with saying that he didn't do enough to improve our defence.

I don't disagree with most of what you said except for the overpayment for Shattenkirk.  For a rental, that was ALOT.

All I was pointing out is top 4 D don't exactly move a whole lot throughout the league.  So while I agree its VERY disappointing that Lou hasn't improved the D the criticism is a bit overboard considering what has happened around the league.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

Yup, easy peasy.  You should be GMing from your basement... its sooo easy.

In the span of a year 26/27-year old John Chayka acquired 3 quality NHL defencemen (Alex Goligoski, Niklas Hjalmarsson, Jason Demers).

 

[Bates]

That does not mean any were available for the Leafs.  two out of three had movement clauses and I'm pretty sure Demers actually turned down a trade North of the Border at one point.  Some guys just happen to like sun and obscurity more than spotlight. 

Yup, easy peasy.  You should be GMing from your basement... its sooo easy.

In the span of a year 26/27-year old John Chayka acquired 3 quality NHL defencemen (Alex Goligoski, Niklas Hjalmarsson, Jason Demers).

 

[Coco-puffs]

Yup, easy peasy.  You should be GMing from your basement... its sooo easy.

In the span of a year 26/27-year old John Chayka acquired 3 quality NHL defencemen (Alex Goligoski, Niklas Hjalmarsson, Jason Demers).

Goligoski - Left Defender and not better than Rielly or Gardiner

Niklas Hjalmarsson - This is probably one that I'd come around on as being good enough.  We would have had to trade the equivalent of Carrick and Gauthier.  I would have been fine with that price.

Demers - I already stated that was one Lou missed out on.  Cost was reasonable.  Demers does have a modified-NTC and as I stated, Florida would be trading him to a direct competitor for a playoff spot.

 

[cabber24]

Lou was hired in the summer of 2015, so this is what our 2014-15 D generally looked like vs. what it generally looked like this season:

2014-15 Phaneuf-Franson Rielly-Polak Gardiner-Robidas

2017-18 Rielly-Hainsey Gardiner-Zaitsev Dermott/Borgman-Polak

Lou had 3 years to improve what was always going to be this teams biggest weakness and aside from internal improvements from Rielly and Gardiner (Dermott was drafted pre-Lou as well) I don't even really think the personnel now is THAT much better than it was when Lou got here.

3 years with no improvement to our most pressing need is brutal. Only a trade will improve our D in a meaningful way for next season.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

We can nit-pick every single one of these names all we want, but fact is it still shows that middle pairing guys get traded. They aren't untouchables. So even if we rule out every single one of these guys are players the Leafs wouldn't be interested in or they wouldn't be interested in us, there's still a pretty big pool of guys like Chris Tanev who would certainly have been attainable at the right price. Because again, middle pairing guys aren't untouchable. I'm not lamenting the fact that Lou couldn't acquire Drew Doughty here.

And if you don't want to let go of the "defencemen are impossible to acquire" idea, you essentially have to then admit that John Chayka was able to do something 3 times that Lou Lamoriello found too difficult to do even once... which is pretty amusing to me considering the circumstances here.

 

[Coco-puffs]

We can nit-pick every single one of these names all we want, but fact is it still shows that middle pairing guys get traded. They aren't untouchables. So even if we rule out every single one of these guys are players the Leafs wouldn't be interested in or they wouldn't be interested in us, there's still a pretty big pool of guys like Chris Tanev who would certainly have been attainable at the right price. Because again, middle pairing guys aren't untouchable. I'm not lamenting the fact that Lou couldn't acquire Drew Doughty here.

And if you don't want to let go of the "defencemen are impossible to acquire" idea, you essentially have to then admit that John Chayka was able to do something 3 times that Lou Lamoriello found too difficult to do even once... which is pretty amusing to me considering the circumstances here.

I didn't say impossible- don't put those words in my mouth.  I said they are hard to acquire.

Our need has been on the right side- the number of middle-pair or higher d-men that are right handed that have been traded or signed as UFA is in the single digits over Lou's tenure. 

I also agreed with you that Lou deserves SOME criticism for not getting it done.  I just don't think the amount of criticism he's getting is fair- it comes from our frustration that it hasn't improved much over the last few years instead of looking at the landscape and realizing its not as easy as we'd all like it to be.