Of Nonis, Babcock & who the heck is going to be running this asylum on draft day

[GhostofPotvin29]

Carlyle may have been stubborn, I don't know.  What I do know is that buying out players, and not re-signing players is a GM responsibility, not a coach's one.  I didn't see too many sad posters when Kulemin walked for $4mil in NYI.

I'm with Potvin and Nik on this. Carlyle basically ran those players out of town. Nonis didn't move them at the deadline because those players kept us in the playoff hunt. So after the failure, they walked for free + Grabovski buyout because he clashed with Carlyle.

And management definitely has to take a huge chunk of blame for all 3 of those players leaving the Leafs in some form or another and getting nothing in return for all 3 (and like you say, actually eating $$ to get rid of one).

Kulemin may not be worth $4 million, and he may not have had a great season offensively - but he's riding 1 line wing to John Tavares and Mark Strome in the playoffs right now.  The least you can say is that he isn't a liability to those two.  I mean, how many times did we hear this season about players not trying their hardest - and yet the line of MacArthur/Grabovski/Kulemin was arguably the hardest working on the team and the team ate money to let all 3 go without anything in return.

 

[herman]

Carlyle may have been stubborn, I don't know.  What I do know is that buying out players, and not re-signing players is a GM responsibility, not a coach's one.  I didn't see too many sad posters when Kulemin walked for $4mil in NYI.

I'm with Potvin and Nik on this. Carlyle basically ran those players out of town. Nonis didn't move them at the deadline because those players kept us in the playoff hunt. So after the failure, they walked for free + Grabovski buyout because he clashed with Carlyle.

And management definitely has to take a huge chunk of blame for all 3 of those players leaving the Leafs in some form or another and getting nothing in return for all 3 (and like you say, actually eating $$ to get rid of one).

Kulemin may not be worth $4 million, and he may not have had a great season offensively - but he's riding 1 line wing to John Tavares and Mark Strome in the playoffs right now.  The least you can say is that he isn't a liability to those two.  I mean, how many times did we hear this season about players not trying their hardest - and yet the line of MacArthur/Grabovski/Kulemin was arguably the hardest working on the team and the team ate money to let all 3 go without anything in return.

One of the worst offseasons ever.

 

[Leaflifer]

RC running them out of town is pure speculation. I'm not much into defending him, but c'mon.

If you have some reference to that statement, I'll gladly rethink.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

RC running them out of town is pure speculation. I'm not much into defending him, but c'mon.

If you have some reference to that statement, I'll gladly rethink.

MacArthur:

?It was a tough way to end it,? MacArthur told Sportsnet. ?Just getting scratched in the playoffs, that was it for me. I came back and I scored some goals that were good for the team, but I was done here after that. That was it, the game of hockey, it wasn?t exciting coming in any more. It was time to move on.?

As for Grabovski, I mean you obviously remember his tirade against Randy after everything went down. Nonis also plainly said that Grabo was a good player who just didn't "fit" on the team, and that was because Randy was playing him at 3C.

 

[WhatIfGodWasALeaf]

Not really seen it mentioned here, but a few players spoke about how they didn't really speak with the coach. A large part of the coach's job is to be a teacher, I think he took close to the opposite approach of a guy like Staios (yes I know he was an assistant) who it was clear from everything the players said was a great communicator.

The above was just another of the many reasons Randy had to go. He certainly doesn't take all the responsibility for the teams failures but he certainly has to eat a significant portion of it.

 

[herman]

Here's more of what MacArthur said:

"I didn't have a relationship (with him)," said MacArthur. "Not many guys do.

"It's one of those things where he runs the show there, and everyone knows that. That's the way it is. It's worked for him in the past. He's got a Cup from that. But at the same time there's other ways to do things too.

"Some guys are good with the criticism and some guys, they don't want to hear it every single shift you come off the ice. I'm old enough to know I made a mistake. You don't need to hear it every five seconds.

"It weighs differently on different people. For me, it was just some long days."

In a different generation of NHL player that's probably no big deal. With players born in the late 80s and early 90s, that's an unfortunate disconnect. Management backed him, but did ask him to take on a development role and teach them to play the right way. He didn't, took some potshots about the types of players he was being given to use and got fired.

 

[mr grieves]

Carlyle may have been stubborn, I don't know.  What I do know is that buying out players, and not re-signing players is a GM responsibility, not a coach's one.  I didn't see too many sad posters when Kulemin walked for $4mil in NYI.

I'm with Potvin and Nik on this. Carlyle basically ran those players out of town. Nonis didn't move them at the deadline because those players kept us in the playoff hunt. So after the failure, they walked for free + Grabovski buyout because he clashed with Carlyle.

I don't think Grabovski "clashed" with Carlyle until he was bought out, said nasty things about the coach, and we read that back into what their relationship must've been like.

He probably wasn't happy as a third-line, shutdown center. But he did that job quite well (the list of opposing forwards who didn't score much when he was on the ice against them is impressive), and didn't express any sort of frustration until Carlyle publicly called him out for not scoring as much in that role. I don't think there was a blow up or the player was unwilling to do what the coach asked of him.

Instead, what the coach asked of $5m player just couldn't work for a GM living in a cap world. It also didn't help his trade value any.

 

[Leaflifer]

I remember those complaints, and I'll wager there were many more we haven't heard about.

It's only an opinion, but I think there was good justification for him playing that particular line-up the way he did. In retrospect, I'm surprised he got as many wins as he did. That team just doesn't click.

 

[herman]

I remember those complaints, and I'll wager there were many more we haven't heard about.

It's only an opinion, but I think there was good justification for him playing that particular line-up the way he did. In retrospect, I'm surprised he got as many wins as he did. That team just doesn't click.

That style of play lives and dies by the team PDO. It's why we saw some lofty wins, and several crushing losses.

The new management team wanted Carlyle to teach them how to play the right way (structured defense, puck possession), develop the youth, and not worry about the wins. Carlyle clearly valued wins more, rode the horses he knew, and basically told the team that he wasn't there to teach.

 

[mr grieves]

I remember those complaints, and I'll wager there were many more we haven't heard about.

Well, neither of us will ever collect on that bet, because we'll never know. It's hard to imagine clashes between Carlyle and players because what little we know from inside the locker room that year (from MacArthur) suggests Randy didn't really talk to the players.

All we can really know is how the player performed when given a particular role, and he did well -- certainly better than a lot of players on this roster performed when a new coach came in and asked new things of them.

But a $5m player succeeding as a shutdown center is a misallocation of cap space that any GM would fix.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

Carlyle may have been stubborn, I don't know.  What I do know is that buying out players, and not re-signing players is a GM responsibility, not a coach's one.  I didn't see too many sad posters when Kulemin walked for $4mil in NYI.

I'm with Potvin and Nik on this. Carlyle basically ran those players out of town. Nonis didn't move them at the deadline because those players kept us in the playoff hunt. So after the failure, they walked for free + Grabovski buyout because he clashed with Carlyle.

I don't think Grabovski "clashed" with Carlyle until he was bought out, said nasty things about the coach, and we read that back into what their relationship must've been like.

He probably wasn't happy as a third-line, shutdown center. But he did that job quite well (the list of opposing forwards who didn't score much when he was on the ice against them is impressive), and didn't express any sort of frustration until Carlyle publicly called him out for not scoring as much in that role. I don't think there was a blow up or the player was unwilling to do what the coach asked of him.

Instead, what the coach asked of $5m player just couldn't work for a GM living in a cap world. It also didn't help his trade value any.

Disagreeing with the way the coach used you seems like the definition of clashing to me.  Doesn't mean it had to play out as the player refusing to play for the coach for it to be clashing, but it's still a clash of viewpoints.  Obviously Grabovski did well to wait until he was no longer on the team to make any comments about it.

 

[mr grieves]

Disagreeing with the way the coach used you seems like the definition of clashing to me.  Doesn't mean it had to play out as the player refusing to play for the coach for it to be clashing, but it's still a clash of viewpoints.  Obviously Grabovski did well to wait until he was no longer on the team to make any comments about it.

Sure, but that sort of "clashing" is not why a player would be bought out. He was bought out because he made $5m on a team where he was going to play on the third line. I doubt Grabovski's or Carlyle's feelings entered into it.

Unless, of course, they did, in which case this team was more screwily managed than even I'd thought.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

Disagreeing with the way the coach used you seems like the definition of clashing to me.  Doesn't mean it had to play out as the player refusing to play for the coach for it to be clashing, but it's still a clash of viewpoints.  Obviously Grabovski did well to wait until he was no longer on the team to make any comments about it.

Sure, but that sort of "clashing" is not why a player would be bought out. He was bought out because he made $5m on a team where he was going to play on the third line. I doubt Grabovski's or Carlyle's feelings entered into it.

Unless, of course, they did, in which case this team was more screwily managed than even I'd thought.

Well I guess it depends on how you look at it.  If Carlyle doesn't use Grabovski the way he does, he likely doesn't have his worst season offensively, likely isn't bought out.  So there was a "clash" there - from where and between who it doesn't really matter.  There was clearly a clash in Grabovski's expected role when he signed his deal and then his use under Carlyle.

They could have easily kept Grabovski with his contract (especially considering some of the other deals they were willing to do) but Carlyle's usage of him effectively killed that (as well as the 48-game season basically brainwashing the entire management).

 

[mr grieves]

Yeah, we're basically saying the same thing. I only wanted to push back against the notion that he was bought out because there was a personal disagreement between Grabovski and Carlyle, a clash of personalities, and an unhappy (lone wolf!) player. That explanation makes management seem childish and inclined to make its personnel decisions personal, which I think is unfair -- and lets them off too easy. They were terrible at hockey.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

Yeah, we're basically saying the same thing. I only wanted to push back against the notion that he was bought out because there was a personal disagreement between Grabovski and Carlyle, a clash of personalities, and an unhappy (lone wolf!) player. That explanation makes management seem childish and inclined to make its personnel decisions personal, which I think is unfair -- and lets them off too easy. They were terrible at hockey.

Ah, gotcha!  Yeah we're on the same page.

 

[herman]

Yeah, we're basically saying the same thing. I only wanted to push back against the notion that he was bought out because there was a personal disagreement between Grabovski and Carlyle, a clash of personalities, and an unhappy (lone wolf!) player. That explanation makes management seem childish and inclined to make its personnel decisions personal, which I think is unfair -- and lets them off too easy. They were terrible at hockey.

If there wasn't a personal disagreement, I'd like to think management would've considered an alternative to buying out the contract and make do with the sunk cost. Not resigning Bozak and promoting Grabo/Kulemin/Whoever to the second line with JvR/Kadri/Kessel on the 1st, for example, using the compliance buyout on Liles instead.

Instead, management sided with Carlyle (he's their Cup winner after all) and cut Grabovski loose to buy Bozak and Clarkson.

How many former Leafs are now playing fairly significant minutes in the playoffs right now? I think it's more than fair to lay a lot of the players' ineptitudes at the feet of Wilson/Carlyle and the management team that put them in those positions.

 

[mr grieves]

If there wasn't a personal disagreement, I'd like to think management would've considered an alternative to buying out the contract and make do with the sunk cost. Not resigning Bozak and promoting Grabo/Kulemin/Whoever to the second line with JvR/Kadri/Kessel on the 1st, for example, using the compliance buyout on Liles instead.

Instead, management sided with Carlyle (he's their Cup winner after all) and cut Grabovski loose to buy Bozak and Clarkson.

Which was a hockey move -- a breathtakingly stupid one. But I think management honestly thought they were building a better team, and a lot of people agreed with them at the time.

 

[Kin]

If there wasn't a personal disagreement, I'd like to think management would've considered an alternative to buying out the contract and make do with the sunk cost. Not resigning Bozak and promoting Grabo/Kulemin/Whoever to the second line with JvR/Kadri/Kessel on the 1st, for example, using the compliance buyout on Liles instead.

I'm sure they did consider it but ultimately decided that it didn't make much sense to watch Carlyle essentially write off Grabovski as an offensive option and then tell him that he had no say in the matter and would use Grabovski in that role regardless.

Either Carlyle was the coach or he wasn't. If they were going to tell him he had no real say in how he used players they may as well have fired him then and there.

 

[Frank E]

All coaches will have a hand in personnel decisions because it's an inherently collaborative process. Aside from the MacArthur example Potvin used, consider Grabo. Grabo went from getting 17+ minutes a game under Wilson with all manner of offensive opportunities to 15 minutes and very few under Carlyle. The decision to buyout Grabovski was done knowing that Carlyle would probably continue to use Grabo as a third line checking centre, a position that can't credibly command 5.5 million a year.

I think that doesn't take into consideration that Grabovski didn't play well that season, never mind where he was asked to play.  I remember conversations around here that season that many were surprised at how badly he was playing, and not playing like he had the season before...I was nervous at a $5.5m long term investment at that point too.  I'm not going to blame Carlyle for Grabovski having a bad season...he only got a 1 year $3mil deal from Washington after that season, so I'm comfortable saying that his poor play of that season was notable.  I think they may have jumped the gun there, but that ship has sailed.

So Nonis could either fire Carlyle at that point, something he really didn't have the juice to do in his first year as GM after the team had just made the playoffs for the first time in 9 years, or he had to put together a roster that actually reflected how Carlyle would use the roster and that meant walking away from Grabo and Mac, signing Bozak and Clarkson and so on.

We've covered Grabo...it seems that Mac didn't get along with Carlyle, so he's the first person to not get along with a coach. 

Attributing re-signing Bozak to Carlyle's coaching isn't something that holds any water, neither is signing Clarkson.  Those we decisions made to address specific roster needs, and neither has worked out particularly well.  Bozak was retained, and if Nonis could have upgraded there, I think he would have.  The Leafs desperately needed a physical presence in that top-6, no matter who the coach was going to be.  It didn't work, and I think we'll agree that Clarkson was completely over-hyped by many.  But I can't say the coach didn't try to put him in a position to succeed.  Bad player, and not the coach's fault.

The idea that the team was built to Carlyle's specifications is largely based on what Nonis did in the off-season after they made the playoffs, not this past season so Shanahan and Dubas had nothing to do with it.

Well, I'm talking about including this season.  On whose specifications was this season's team built around?

Why? Because you were optimistic? Because you thought it would be easy as pie for players to adapt to a brand new system of hockey midseason?

Again, the team chased away the players who would have fit well under Horacheck because Carlyle decided they weren't worth keeping around. To shape the team to the way Carlyle wanted to use players the talent level on the club dropped and likewise their adaptability suffered. Horacheck had fewer legitimate options.

Oh I see...if Horachek had more time, and a couple of different players, they would have adapted to his style, and they would have done better than the crappy Carlyle roster did.  But I guess we'll never know, and the results show a piss poor result under Horachek vs. Carlyle using the same roster.

Horacheck wasn't toast from the start because they gutted the roster. He was toast from the start because he was asking a bunch of players specifically chosen for their ability to play a certain way to instead play a different way and they didn't adapt very well. That doesn't reflect well on Carlyle no matter how you try to spin it.

I'm not spinning, I'm speaking to the direct results.

You're arguing that the management tailor made a roster to suit a coach, and the coach then didn't produce the results.

I'm saying that I don't buy that, and I think that the management put together the best roster of talented hockey players they could, and left it to the coach to coach them in a way that produced results.

Carlyle didn't produce results out of a crappy roster, and Horachek got even less out of the crappy roster.  The common element here is the crappy roster, and I don't think that Carlyle is mostly responsible for that. 

 

[Kin]

I think that doesn't take into consideration that Grabovski didn't play well that season, never mind where he was asked to play.

It doesn't take that into consideration because I don't think that's true. I think Grabo played well in the role he was given but it was a role that couldn't justify his salary. Carlyle was committed to using him as a 3rd line center and no third line center is worth the money he was being paid.

We've covered Grabo...it seems that Mac didn't get along with Carlyle, so he's the first person to not get along with a coach. 

Attributing re-signing Bozak to Carlyle's coaching isn't something that holds any water, neither is signing Clarkson.  Those we decisions made to address specific roster needs, and neither has worked out particularly well.  Bozak was retained, and if Nonis could have upgraded there, I think he would have.  The Leafs desperately needed a physical presence in that top-6, no matter who the coach was going to be.  It didn't work, and I think we'll agree that Clarkson was completely over-hyped by many.  But I can't say the coach didn't try to put him in a position to succeed.  Bad player, and not the coach's fault.

Except that's a complete and total rewriting of history to suit your purposes. There were people around at the time, the people who were early adopters of possession numbers, who were saying that Nonis could have upgraded on Bozak simply by keeping Grabo and forcing Carlyle to play him in that spot. Likewise there were lots of people who argued against the idea that the team needed "a physical presence" and in fact needed people who were just better players. The Clarkson deal was nowhere near universally popular when it was signed on this board. Those threads are still around, go read them.

And you can't just say "so what?" to MacArthur leaving when the whole point is that Carlyle's decisions weakened the team. You're just conceding the point. The team was built because of what Carlyle wanted, that's indisputable, all you're haggling over is the extent to which that's true.

Well, I'm talking about including this season.  On whose specifications was this season's team built around?

That would be a valid interjection if teams experienced 100% roster turnover from year to year. This year's team was largely hamstrung by the decisions Nonis made in the 2013 off-season to build on what Carlyle wanted.

Oh I see...if Horachek had more time, and a couple of different players, they would have adapted to his style, and they would have done better than the crappy Carlyle roster did.  But I guess we'll never know, and the results show a piss poor result under Horachek vs. Carlyle using the same roster.

Yes because, again, Carlyle chased away many of the players who would have performed well in a more sustainable system.

Carlyle didn't produce results out of a crappy roster, and Horachek got even less out of the crappy roster.  The common element here is the crappy roster, and I don't think that Carlyle is mostly responsible for that.

Nobody is saying Carlyle is "mostly" responsible for the roster. What I'm saying is that the decisions made to put together the type of roster Carlyle wanted hamstrung any efforts Horacheck or whoever else might have made to improve on the mess Carlyle made in a short time span. Spinning that into vindication for Carlyle is ridiculous, tantamount to giving the people running the Oilers credit for all of the foresight that led them to the McDavid pick.