What's more important. winning the Cup or sustainable winning?

[Bender]

I think, or hope anyway, that one of the things that people come to see over the next few years is that this idea that watching a bad team is always ultimately pointless and depressing while watching a good team is fun is really only true when the "bad" team you're watching is an expensive one that's been sold to us as a good team.

In a year or two, we're going to get to watch a Leafs team led by guys like Marner and Rielly and Nylander and while that team is likely to be bad at first, we're going to get to see flashes of the team and players we'll eventually see. Probably my favourite moment of all of last year was the highlight goal Rielly scored against the Oilers. Now imagine watching a team that has five or six guys capable of something like that. Even if they ultimately miss the playoffs, that will be a team I'll be excited to watch on a nightly basis.

So I agree with Bender and the rest who pointed out that the question posed here is ultimately an empty one(in this era of parity, the best way to win a cup is to build a team capable of being a good team for as long as possible) but I disagree with the idea that I'd always prefer to watch a good team to a bad one. The Leafs over the last 10 years haven't been depressing because they've been bad, it's because they've very rarely given me real hope that things would eventually improve.

I wonder about this, I think a large portion of Leafdom or hockey fandom are draft choice junkies, they live and thrive on the draft, compiling their own mock drafts and dwelling on others. They are happiest when players are traded for draft choices and were probably ecstatic that TO traded down twice during the last draft because TO had more draft choices, with them draft choices seem to have taken on a life of it's own and the purpose of draft choices seems to have been lost.

I believe that having draft choices is one of the best ways to build and maintain a team but we see it every trade deadline, teams give up 1sts, 2nds and other draft choices looking for that edge that might put them over the top and sometimes prospects and draft choices. This has repercussions not now maybe, not next year maybe but in 5 years probably and I think there's a difference between a winning team and a competitive team.

Well right now we're going crazy about the draft because our only  hope is the future. If Marner ends up being our #1C for 10yrs and we have a team that's challenging legitimately every year then I without question wouldn't care as much about following the top picks of the draft.

But what Nik says isn't wrong at all. I agree with his sentiment wholeheartedly - if the team shows improvement and we know we're going through a learning process and as Babcock says, we know there'll be pain then that's a very good management of fan expectation. When they brough in Kessel, Phaneuf, Gus and Giguere they were sold to us as a team that would finally make it, and we know that obviously wasn't true at all, even when fans saw regression the management team kept going for several more years believing this core had what it took.

I don't really understand how your point on "Leafdom" and the draft have to do with the original question posed - it's not really a fair question and doesn't allow for any nuance anything between an extremely simplistic black and white answer that may or may not have any basis in how team are run or how the process works. There is absolutely nothing wrong with trading picks and prospects if you feel that adding a player at the deadline will give you the best shot at the cup. Sometimes it pays off and sometimes it doesn't and the same goes for hanging on to your picks, maybe all of them bust out and you missed your chance at winning the cup because you didn't have the cahones to give up a pick.

The problem with your idea is that unless you're looking at it from a case by case basis in what you're giving up vs. what you're getting then you really can't in any way comment on what strategy is the only one worth pursuing for the team in regards to being able to compete for the cup legitimately and being sustainable year over year.

Then you have voted that winning the cup is more important than worrying about sustainability, my opinion is mine, yours is yours. The nuances have come out in the discussions, I call that nit piking rather than accepting the poll as a general question. To me Rielly would be a degree of toleration for the outright pursuit of the cup because of his potential, TO isn't in a cup contention situation so he is a far more important part of TO's team now and into the future but maybe LA with Doughty could afford to move him for a player that would put them in the driver's seat during the playoffs, an Eric Staal perhaps.

If somebody can't accept the notion that the chance of winning the cup would never be worth the trading of Rielly then I would assume they would vote for sustainability.

 

LA would never trade Doughty for Staal.

I get that everyone has their own opinion but not everyone gets to have their own facts. Like I said, sustainability and winning the cup are not mutually exclusive. Boston, LA, Chicago, Detroit and Anaheim have been competitive for years and they all won at least one Cup since 2007.

You can be for winning a Cup and not interested in giving up Rielly, but that's the judgment call you make when presented with the option. If you don't do one thing because you don't believe it will work regardless of the reasons for or against then there's probably an issue there.

Since we're talking in unrealistic expectations then maybe if you were offered Crosby for Rielly and Gardiner you'd turn it down.

 

[Kin]

The problem with your idea is that unless you're looking at it from a case by case basis in what you're giving up vs. what you're getting then you really can't in any way comment on what strategy is the only one worth pursuing for the team in regards to being able to compete for the cup legitimately and being sustainable year over year.

Exactly. Any hypothetical trade is meaningless without knowing the full context and really the idea that, in this one, Rielly equals sustainable success and Staal equals an improved chance at the cup is really only displaying an understanding of things on the most superficial level possible.

In this hypothetical scenario, who else is on the Leafs blueline? Who is in their system? Who are their centers that Staal would represent a huge upgrade over? Would Staal, who's only 30, be willing to re-sign? What's the team's cap situation like?

If you use LA as a stand-in for a contender, the way was suggested, the reason you need that full context becomes clear. Rielly might be further down the Kings depth chart defense-wise but Staal simply wouldn't fit for cap reasons. More to the point, Staal would probably be a 3rd center on LA behind Carter and Kopitar. So would Staal, who would be on their third line or at best a second line winger, really be an immediate upgrade on Rielly, who might be their 5th or 6th defenseman? Or if you factored in the other changes LA would have to make to fit him in?

If you look at some of the situations in the past we've talked about we see a clearer picture of why some of those trades got made. The Red Wings traded Primeau at 24 and coming off three good seasons and Paul Coffey who was a year removed from winning the Norris trophy because the depth they had at those positions made them superfluous. The Rangers traded Tony Amonte, at least in part, because they had a number of other very good young wingers like Adam Graves and Alex Kovalev. Neither team really sacrificed the future for the present despite adding older players.

And this really comes into focus when we look at the modern Blackhawks. Teams that have an abundance of good young talent, like the Blackhawks have had, will not only have to trade away good young players from time to time because of cap concerns but will do so without really sacrificing anything from their ability to compete in the future.

 

[Bill_Berg]

Also, I think there's sort of a false choice being made here. People seem to be looking at this as an entirely hypothetical "Would you rather a team that won the cup once on a fluke and then stunk for a long period of time or a team that never won the cup but always had a good chance to" and aside from it being impossible to construct either team purposefully, I think the question being asked is more of a "what short terms moves are you willing for a team to make in order to increase their chances of winning in any one year".

I saw it as a one for sure cup win, then never again, or low odds to win again, vs no guarantee to win, but have a team with a chance to win consistently.

If you take away the guaranteed cup win in option one, I change my vote to "sustainable winning".

 

[Kin]

I saw it as a one for sure cup win, then never again, or low odds to win again, vs no guarantee to win, but have a team with a chance to win consistently.

If you take away the guaranteed cup win in option one, I change my vote to "sustainable winning".

Right. I get what the question is as an abstract concept, my issue was about the question as an actual practical matter regarding decisions a hockey team might actually make.

You know, nit picking.

 

[hobarth]

TO traded for Brian Leetch and some insignificant draft choice, cost 2004 1st and 2005 2nd., Leetch played 1 more season not even with the Leafs.

Glen Wesley was acquired for 2004 2nd, he only finished the year with TO.

Owen Nolan, 31, acquired for Brad Boyes
Alyn McCauley
2003 1st round pick (#21-Mark Stuart)

Phil Housley, 38, acquired for 2003 9th round pick (#282-Chris Porter)
2003 or 2004 4th round pick (2004 #123-Karel Hromas)

These players were old, broken down and generally not traded for the future other than the immediate future, the only value TO really saw in them was winning the Cup certainly not as a sustainable winning measure.

Then the next year the pursuit for the Cup continued.

Ron Francis acquired for 2005 4th round pick (#101-Jared Boll)

Brian Leetch acquired for
Jarkko Immonen
Maxim Kondratiev
2004 1st round pick (#24-Kris Chucko)
2005 2nd round pick (#40-Michael Sauer)

TO was at the end of any sustainable winning period so instead of acquiring young assets or laying the foundation for a prosperous future they went all in for the Cup, it didn't work but if it had would it have been worth it.

 

[Al14]

Sustained winning is great and all but I'm not getting any younger. I'll be 46 this year, waited my entire life to see a Leafs cup. I'll take one and be happy

I got to see two in the 1960s as a young lad!  However, at 60, my time is running out to see a Cup win as an adult.  I too will be happy to see it happen soon!

I think that sustained winning will likely be necessary leading up to actually winning it all.  I can see at least 1 failure in a Cup final before hitting a home run.  It takes a lot of hard work, and, a great deal of good fortune to win it all IMHO.

 

[Bill_Berg]

I saw it as a one for sure cup win, then never again, or low odds to win again, vs no guarantee to win, but have a team with a chance to win consistently.

If you take away the guaranteed cup win in option one, I change my vote to "sustainable winning".

Right. I get what the question is as an abstract concept, my issue was about the question as an actual practical matter regarding decisions a hockey team might actually make.

You know, nit picking.

Which is also an interesting question, probably more interesting, but I think far fewer would pick a one time chance at the cup via some deadline trade than an approach that makes them competitive for years.

Even those saying 'win one before I die' would likely prefer to not take the risk on a one year window of opportunity. Unless the doc gave them a year to live, then trade the future for today!

 

[Kin]

Which is also an interesting question, probably more interesting, but I think far fewer would pick a one time chance at the cup via some deadline trade than an approach that makes them competitive for years.

Right, but again, I'm saying that is a largely empty question because that doesn't actually reflect a reality a team would ever face. Why would a team only have a one time chance at a cup if they were enough of a contender at a deadline? What possible composition could a team have that would make them both a good team this year but a certainty to be a bad team the next?

It's just not a question that reflects any actual decisions that have to be made. It's like asking if you'd rather the team traveled by spaceship or on the back of a giant flying turtle.