2025-26 Toronto Maple Leafs General Discussion
- Thread starter herman
- Start date
I was going to say, isn't MacKinnon the one that went after his teammates for not eating healthy enough? He seems like a psychotic hardass who will do anything to win and will call out his team. How many times did the core here not take accountability and deflect it or say they can't listen to outside noise, implying it's the fan's fault? It's been infuriating for years. I doubt MacKinnon or his group asks coaches to walk back minorly critical comments.
You will see who the true assassins are in the league come Olympic time. 4 Nations was telling with the C of USA having zero goals.
herman
Well-known member
Some people in the fan base aren’t going to like this statement because playing defence has become some sort of moral status symbol, but naturally I agree with this and most teams allocate their cap dollars accordingly. Creating offense consistently is THE premium skillset.
Guru Tugginmypuddah
Well-known member
Easy fix bro.
herman
Well-known member
Stop doing stupid shit? See those guys with the non-Leaf sweaters: don't give them the puck?
Joe S.
Moderator
Zach ‘5 goals in 32 playoff games’ Hyman? That Zach Hyman?
And the leafs didn’t get rid of him. He left as a free agent for a contract that made no sense for what he had contributed up to that point.
This is starting to look an awful lot like the Randy Carlyle years. Teams outshooting them every night. No cohesion on the team. They win if the goalie stands on his head, and one of the scorers has a good night. I think Carlyle and Berube's coaching reputation may be built entirely on the fact that a goalie on their team got hot during a playoff run.
Guilt Trip
Well-known member
Fun Facts....When Berube took over and they won a cup.....
Yeo coached the first 18 games that year. They were 7-8-3, scored 56 goals,(3.11GF/Gm~13th best) and 57 against(3.17GAA~18th)
Berube was hired Nov 19 2018. In his first 21 games pre Binnington, they went 9-11-1, scored 54 goals,(2.57GF/Gm~26th), and had 71 against,(3.38GAA~25th).
Binnington played his first game Jan 7. The team went 29-9-5 after he joined. He played 30 of those games, went 24-5-1 with a .930 SV% and a 1.87GAA. Their GAA dropped to 2.14 which was 1.24GAA less per game and was 2nd best in the league. Their goals for also went to 12th best from 25th.
There was no new coach bump and the team actually got worse when Berube took over until Binnington showed up 21 games later. They went on a tear and won a cup because of Binner playing lights out.
The chances of the Leafs winning a cup with Berube are minute at best. Only 3 coaches in NHL history have coached two different teams to cup wins. Bowman, Irvin and Gorman. That's not very good odds.
Factor in that this is the worst they have looked since Babcock, and I think it's pretty apparent that the coach has to go. This isn't working. The Leafs, being the Leafs though, will probably point to injuries, or roster changes, or Blue Jays Playoff run, or lack of amulets as the reason things are going sideways and wait till the offseason. If they are going to waste this year, they have to waste it enough to get into the bottom 5 of the draft because that's when the pick is protected. Maybe you can sell off the Domi's, McCabes, and Carlo's, but I am not sure what you are getting back for those. Why can't the Leafs ever do something smart, and trade for picks from a team that is going to have a horrible year?
And that's the thing that grinds me. Why couldn't the Boston pick be top-10 protected? And even then we've only had one really strong swing with our picks in ROR and that didn't pan out either. I'm tired of this core, and if Matthews is going to be a shell of his former self then we've got to move on and start over.
Yeah, the year over year pick trading was stupid. They already don't have a first round pick for two more years, so at this point, if you don't have a team that can compete for the cup, you are pretty much SOL. The year the Caps won the cup they only made something like two trades at the deadline and didn't move much at all. If you have to overhaul your defence at the trade deadline, do you really have a shot at winning a cup? I keep hoping that one of these years the Leafs will get a smart GM. Someone who understands team building, and isn't afraid of the pressure in Toronto. I thought they had it in Dubas, and maybe they did but he was just too young, and under Shanahan's thumb to do what he wanted to. When I say smart, I don't mean someone who doesn't make mistakes, but at least looks like they have a plan that isn't "I will trade all the futures I have at the deadline for one small sliver of a chance to win the cup". This team is in Phil Kessel team territory. Not good enough to compete, and not good enough to bottom out, not that the bottoming out is really an option because they don't have any picks to draft with.
Anyways, this is a lot like the 70's when they had Sittler, and McDonald, and they just couldn't figure out a way to build around them. What a mess. I feel like starting a "Stop watching the Leafs, they aren't worth your money. Save for retirement. Move the team to Quebec. If the NHL doesn't care about them, why should you?" campaign.
Guilt Trip
Well-known member
Yes the Leafs have looked horrible and maybe they turn it around or maybe they don't. Fact is, they're 4 pts out of 1st in the Atlantic, so they're far from done with 54 games to go.
L K
Well-known member
I know that you can't just make a panic move and need to have some kind of plan in place but every day this team limps along it feels like this could be a turning point with the fanbase. As Guilt Trip said, they aren't an unreasonable amount out of being way better in the standings but the performance on the ice itself is just so poor. The more I talk hockey with friends the more I am finding a lot of apathy toward the organization. Things just aren't in a great place right now.
Guru Tugginmypuddah
Well-known member
There are the weirdos out there (many of them here on this site, me included) who will watch the Leafs no matter what. There are many people out there who will just stop watching.
The entertainment options are just too vast and varied these days to keep the eyballs glued to your product if it sucks.
The younger generation of fans have next to zero patience for suckage.
I'm not saying the can't turn it around and win some games. But what does turning it around even mean? This team wasn't great defensively last year. I think that a lot of the problems were papered over by a great year by Stolarz, and his .927 save percentage. Also they scored enough to overcome the times where the goalie couldn't solve it. What are the Leafs going back to in that case?
I think the frustrating thing that is gnawing at the back of every seasoned Leaf fans head at this moment is the realization that either this team improves from within, or they are going to be what we have seen them to be up to this point and that is not a very good team. So where does that improvement from within come from? The defence is what it is. They aren't getting better. The players that make up this defence are what they are, and that is all that they are. Rielly, Carlo, OEL, McCabe and Tanev are not suddenly going to become Norris trophy candidates. Could they be a serviceable top 6. Yeah probably. But does a serviceable top 6 get you to a cup finals? Probably not.
The forward group is really built like the Kessel years, with that whole top 6 bottom 6 mindset. The top 6 is a hodge podge of two superstars (maybe), and 4 players that are pretty good most days offensively. The bottom 6 is a bunch of identity-less players that are paid to put on the jersey and go for a skate 12 minutes a night. Where is improvement going to come from that? It's not like Nicolas Roy or Scott Laughton are suddenly going to become ROR. They are 40 point players at their best, and I think their best is way behind them, because I am not sure they are even all that defensively responsible anymore.
That leaves you with the goaltending. If Stolarz and Woll can string together a run where they are putting up save percentages between .915 and .925, then yeah the Leafs will probably make the playoffs, but I don't think they are going to go on this massive cup run if that is the way the team is built.
For me, and I think other fans are looking at it this way as well, it's the fact that this team is now in the "maybe they squeak into the playoffs" category because their superstar #1 center is not a superstar anymore, and isn't even really playing likes he's a franchise cornerstone anymore, and their other superstar is defence adverse, the team has no prospects to speak of, and no picks in the near future to get prospects, and it looks like the last 10 years have been a waste of some great talent, so why are we just delaying the inevitable. Let's go through the muck right now and start the process towards a better future 5 years from now, rather than paying lip service to some sort fantasy that this team is going to win a cup outside of a goalie on the team getting unbelievably hot.
On the Auston Matthews front, does anyone else feel like his career has taken this Jeremy Reonick type of turn?
Even if the Leafs sell out every game I've never bought into the idea that ownership doesn't care, especially this group. Look at how much money and goodwill Rogers earned with the Jays this year. If they could have even a sliver of that every year wouldn't they want that vs. being tied to a loser and by extension having the owner (Ed Rogers) look like a loser? Winning cures everything and they really haven't been doing that.
I'm with you on on almost all of this. What do you mean by the JR comment? Personally I'm worried he'll never be able to stay healthy and turn into latter day Wendel, except without all the attributes that made Wendel a fan favourite regardless of injuries.