bustaheims said:
Significantly Insignificant said:
Yeah, but Damphouse, Iafrate and Courtnall didn't really hit their peaks until they got out of Toronto. Was it because they left, or was it because the Leafs weren't patient, it's hard to say. I put Clark in that special category. He was injured a lot early on, and he really hit his stride once Gilmour got here, and that is when the culture started to change. They brought an outside winner in, and people started to believe that it was possible. I think people should be prepared for when Kessel leaves the Leafs and ends up tearing up the league goal scoring wise once he is in a different environment.
I agree that this is all quite new, but look at some of the posts on this site alone about it being a fast turnaround. In order to do this right, it can't be a fast turnaround. It has to be built systemically, and that will take time. I hope that it works out, but I have my doubts that the euphoria that people are feeling right now that "Yes the Leafs are going to do it the right way" is going to last through two more hellishly bad seasons. Plus, if upper management makes a mistake, it's going to be "Here we go again" which will snowball.
Shanahan has to get these replacements for the firings that he conducted today right. He can't make a mistake. It is crucial that as this goes forward, the right people are put in to the proper places. You can say that that is a given, but as we have seen from the Leafs in the past, they are bad at making these sorts of decisions, and we have no past experience with Shanahan to go on to see if he will get it right.
All the players mentioned had excellent years in Leaf uniforms. They may have had career seasons elsewhere, but, they developed well on a Leafs' team that was rife with losing. The point here is that a losing environment is not an issue when there are no expectations. It's an environment of failure that can cause issues, and, without any real expectations of success, that failure won't be an issue. For the next few seasons, success for the Leafs won't be measured in wins and losses, but rather in progress and development.
Sure and those are reasonable expectations to fans like you, Nik, and CW. But you have to remember there are a lot of fans that aren't in your stratosphere when it comes to being able to see the logical path that a team is trying to take. You are completely right, if the expectation is that it is a growing and learning process, then the team will get a pass as long as it is showing development.
The problem is setting that as the expectation and then sticking to it. Look at the 80's. The Leafs did sort of look like the path that they were on was in the vein of keeping their draft picks and building up and amassing talent. Then they hired an idiot for a coach who wanted John Kordic because the team wasn't tough enough.
I mean think about the names that you threw out. As you said that was quite the amassing of some young talent...but in the end the only one who was left was Clark. They moved all the others out. And they moved them out because they felt they needed to build a winner quicker.
I agree wholeheartedly with your premise. I lack faith in the ability to execute it in Toronto successfully because losing is seen as failure. Therefore, the team has to be very careful in how they approach bringing their young talent along, because as they bring them along, if they expose them to the environment that is Toronto, it could ruin them. Look at what happened when Kadri was sent down. Pictures of him in a baby bonnet were on the covers of newspapers. And now the media is on the kid about everything and the team is publicly tearing him down for his shortcomings. Most of us now question what his ceiling really is. When he was drafted he was seen as a really good prospect, almost elite.
It makes me wonder if getting to draft McDavid would be a blessing or a curse.