Lou Will Not Return

[Kin]

He eked a lot of value out of our valueless assets

Did he? Because on your list there are a number of guys he effectively got nothing for and other moves that are less a testament to clever GMing and more, you know, by-products of Rogers and Bell being willing to spend a lot of money.

In terms of moving guys out and bringing real assets back that list would be about half as long.

 

[Frank E]

Just from a contract negotiation perspective, I think Lou signed Kadri and Rielly to nice deals.

But Matt Martin probably is a bit of a black eye...and I'm hoping that Zaitsev just had a bad year.

Andersen looks like a decent value, so far, and so do the Brown, Hyman, and Hainsey deals.  I'm good with the Marleau deal...not great, just good.

I think he has more pluses than minuses on the contract signing aspect of things.

But this year's trade deadline is the big boner for me.  He can hang for that.

 

[Bullfrog]

I share your assessment, Frank.

On another matter: as much as I (and many others) have made fun of the whole no-facial-hair policy, I think it is a legitimate thing to criticize. To me, it really shows a person who's out of touch with a younger generation.

 

[Guilt Trip]

Nothing ground-breaking here but Brian Burke talked to MacLean about the Lou situation last night:

https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/brian-burke-weighs-maple-leafs-lamoriello-replacement/

I enjoy Burke much more on the camera than behind a GM's desk. Wonder if his plan is to make this more of a full-time gig (Cherry replacement maybe one day?)

He said he wants to get into broadcasting. He won't be replacing Cherry. I'd like to see O'Neil replace Cherry when he retires.

 

[Kin]

Just from a contract negotiation perspective, I think Lou signed Kadri and Rielly to nice deals.

But Matt Martin probably is a bit of a black eye...and I'm hoping that Zaitsev just had a bad year.

Andersen looks like a decent value, so far, and so do the Brown, Hyman, and Hainsey deals.  I'm good with the Marleau deal...not great, just good.

I think he has more pluses than minuses on the contract signing aspect of things.

But this year's trade deadline is the big boner for me.  He can hang for that.

I think, broadly speaking, things a GM does should fall into one of three categories: good, bad and stuff a GM does.

Quite rightly in all of the weighing up of Lamoriello's tenure nobody is giving him a ton of credit for drafting Matthews. Because that's something anyone would have done. We should expect a basic level of competence from execs and not mark those decisions on either side of the ledger.

So I agree very much re: Kadri. Coming off the poor year he had and with all the issues surrounding him I think it took real guts to sign him long term and at a rate that would really look good if he realized his potential, which he eventually did.

Rielly, I'm less convinced. He was a good young defenseman, playing well and signed to a market rate. To me that falls under GM stuff. Ditto with Brown and Hyman.

I agree re Marleau and Hainsey. Good, not great. And while I understand why people like the Andersen deal...eh, I disagree but I've said my piece there.

So even before you get to this deadline I think that's a pretty thin body of work to attribute to his supposed Yoda-like wisdom and mastery of the profession.

 

[Guilt Trip]

I share your assessment, Frank.

On another matter: as much as I (and many others) have made fun of the whole no-facial-hair policy, I think it is a legitimate thing to criticize. To me, it really shows a person who's out of touch with a younger generation.

I don't think he's out of touch. I think he wants his players and other employees to look professional just like some businesses require their employees to wear suits. I don't really care about it because it really isn't a big deal. I guess that Lou's gone now opens the door for Thornton to come!

 

[WhatIfGodWasALeaf]

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.

 

[Kin]

I share your assessment, Frank.

On another matter: as much as I (and many others) have made fun of the whole no-facial-hair policy, I think it is a legitimate thing to criticize. To me, it really shows a person who's out of touch with a younger generation.

I agree and I don't even necessarily think that's just players on the younger end of things or the outliers like Chayka and Dubas in the front office. I think it's evidence he was out of touch with the GMs closer to Shanahans age.

All of the analogies or similes fail because they don't take into account the reality that the specifics of the situation dictate the situation. There's an argument for why a bank might want their employees to dress a certain way. If a pet store required their employees to dress like they worked in a bank, you'd think that pet store was run by crazy people. This is on the latter half of that spectrum. At best, it's performative.

 

[Bates]

Found this post funny as my bank has employees wear either a golf shirt or a button down shirt with collar, pretty much exactly the type of shirts my pet store dresses their staff in!!!

I share your assessment, Frank.

On another matter: as much as I (and many others) have made fun of the whole no-facial-hair policy, I think it is a legitimate thing to criticize. To me, it really shows a person who's out of touch with a younger generation.

I agree and I don't even necessarily think that's just players on the younger end of things or the outliers like Chayka and Dubas in the front office. I think it's evidence he was out of touch with the GMs closer to Shanahans age.

All of the analogies or similes fail because they don't take into account the reality that the specifics of the situation dictate the situation. There's an argument for why a bank might want their employees to dress a certain way. If a pet store required their employees to dress like they worked in a bank, you'd think that pet store was run by crazy people. This is on the latter half of that spectrum. At best, it's performative.

 

[Kin]

Found this post funny as my bank has employees wear either a golf shirt or a button down shirt with collar, pretty much exactly the type of shirts my pet store dresses their staff in!!!

I confess after writing that I realized that I haven't been in an actual bank branch in a long time. I was really referring to people I know who work in banking.

Although I can still swing that around. Even banks these days are like "Nah, tying some cloth around your neck isn't actually shorthand for trustworthiness and responsibility".

 

[Bates]

Yeah I'm not a dress code guy but found the random examples that are the same in my world humorous.

Found this post funny as my bank has employees wear either a golf shirt or a button down shirt with collar, pretty much exactly the type of shirts my pet store dresses their staff in!!!

I confess after writing that I realized that I haven't been in an actual bank branch in a long time. I was really referring to people I know who work in banking.

Although I can still swing that around. Even banks these days are like "Nah, tying some cloth around your neck isn't actually shorthand for trustworthiness and responsibility".

 

[CarltonTheBear]

If we're looking/judging Lou's deal, I'd say the Hainsey one all by itself was fine-to-good. $3mil for 2 years for what he brings is fine value. The problem is his solution to the teams defence going into this season was Hainsey and Polak playing/continuing to play big minutes, and he gets a big F from me for that line of thinking.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

On another matter: as much as I (and many others) have made fun of the whole no-facial-hair policy, I think it is a legitimate thing to criticize. To me, it really shows a person who's out of touch with a younger generation.

I agree and I don't even necessarily think that's just players on the younger end of things or the outliers like Chayka and Dubas in the front office. I think it's evidence he was out of touch with the GMs closer to Shanahans age.

I mean even 62-year old Brian Burke was talking in that Sportsnet clip about how ridiculous he thought some of Lou's rules were.

 

[herman]

I am still a bit giddy that Lou got promoted to preside over Robidas Island.

 

[WhatIfGodWasALeaf]

I am still a bit giddy that Lou got promoted to preside over Robidas Island.

He has a lovely cabana that also happens to be the sole entry and exit point to the island.

 

[Coco-puffs]

If we're looking/judging Lou's deal, I'd say the Hainsey one all by itself was fine-to-good. $3mil for 2 years for what he brings is fine value. The problem is his solution to the teams defence going into this season was Hainsey and Polak playing/continuing to play big minutes, and he gets a big F from me for that line of thinking.

I highly doubt Lou went into this season thinking Hainsey was the solution to our defensive woes (remember, Polak wasn't signed until a month into the season).  But, he was right that he would provide some value back there.  The problem was and still is, he's playing too high in the lineup and too much overall.

I think its easy to sit on the sidelines and say its all Lou's fault our defense isn't better, but acquiring good d-men isn't easy.  It seemed pretty obvious the Leafs have tried for a while to make their d better but if the cost to acquire someone is way out of line or if the team willing to give up a d-man thinks they have a better deal elsewhere (Hamonic/McDonaugh deals stick out here), there's only so much you can do.  We really don't know how hard they've pushed to shore up the back-end. 

 

[WhatIfGodWasALeaf]

I think the Andersen deal showed that when they thought they had a chance to add a significant piece to the roster that they would pay a substantial price.

I know we don't want to rob the cupboard bare of all future assets, but they were likely a top 4 RD from being a second round team and who knows what from there.

To me, the key issue for the Leafs was not having someone good in the Hainsey spot. It would have pushed Hainsey and Zaitsev down the lineup, lowered their workload and quality of competition and allowed them to make plays.

I think an Andersen type deal with perhaps a little more value in terms of depth D like Carrick/Borgman could have shaken a significant RD upgrade loose.

Lou was just too conservative a lot of the time, especially after the Phaneuf deal.

He spent middling assets on short-term solutions and never really spent big on a long-term one.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

I highly doubt Lou went into this season thinking Hainsey was the solution to our defensive woes (remember, Polak wasn't signed until a month into the season).  But, he was right that he would provide some value back there.  The problem was and still is, he's playing too high in the lineup and too much overall.

Maybe I'm just not remembering things correctly, but I'm pretty sure Babs said that he wanted Hainsey with Rielly pretty much from the get-go. So sure he wasn't brought in to be a long-term solution but as far as this season goes he was the teams big defensive addition to help the top pair. And maybe Lou wanted to bring in another defenseman and couldn't, but that's still essentially means he failed at improving the defence enough.

As for Polak, everything that we saw happen during the season pretty much confirms to me that the plan was always to bring him back once he proved to be 100% healthy.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

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.

 

[herman]

Some of the names we were in on (that I'm aware of), but didn't get done for whatever reason:

Kris Russell, Sami Vatanen, Travis Hamonic, Ryan McDonagh

I would have picked up Franson. (Marincin - Franson would be really funny for Twitter fights)

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).