Tank Nation UNITE!!!

[Lynx]

The Leafs could have reversed their bad fortune had they traded MaCabe at his peak (for picks) instead of resigning him. He was pretty highly rated for the two seasons before his contract was renegotiated by JFJ.

The Leafs could have netted 2 or 3 prospects for him.

Of everything mentioned, that's the one that stung me the most. The timing would have been perfect.

Trading Tucker after his 30 goal year instead of resigning him to that big contract would have really helped too.

 

[Highlander]

I bet every other team in the league has a litany of woe.  We are not alone in the hockey universe. Yes plenty of bad moves but lets pray we have the guys in place to turn this thing around.

 

[Kin]

I don't think resigning Carlyle was a mistake, the Leafs hand out golden parachutes and I think it was part of a plan.  He was the guy who brought in Horachuck and Spott and ousted Randy's crew.  If he had dumped Randy before the season started and what is happening to Horachuck now happened at the beginning of the season then the pundents (including us) would have been calling for Horachecks head and then we would have changed 2 head coaches in matter of months. Randy bought some time for Shanaplan to see where the team was at and what they could do with Horachuck, knowing full well that Horachuck has a half season no matter how many games they lose.  At the end of the season an opportuntiy to change interem for full time again.

Except that if Carlyle had been fired before the season began then Horachek almost certainly wouldn't have been the team's head coach. They could have been in on Trotz or Bylsma or any of the candidates out there who would have had a lot of leeway to begin the season and the team very likely wouldn't be where they are right now.

 

[Highlander]

Agreed on that NtT, makes for the Babcock argument however. You want a season to assess, trade who you have to, sign who you have to, draft what makes sense.
I am not saying for sure the B is coming here but I do think this was always an assessment year.

 

[pmrules]

I'm guessing at this point Shanahan has seen enough and has a pretty firm idea of what needs to happen.  And a better performance leading up to the deadline won't change that.

I'm cautiously optimistic that he's looking at process over results at this point.  He's certainly surrounded himself with people who think that way, and firing Carlyle and talking about the shots for/against indicate he has a bigger picture in mind.

I hope so, but I don't trust Shanahan yet.  Siegel rightly called him out for re-signing Carlyle.  Even at the point it should have been obvious that he was the wrong guy to go forward with.  Just pissed money down the drain and wasted another season "assessing" the obvious.

Get ready for next year...another "assessment" year for the new Coach and/or GM.

 

[Kin]

You want a season to assess, trade who you have to, sign who you have to, draft what makes sense.

And all of those things could still have been done with a new coach but with the added benefit of not completely wasting a year of Kessel's prime. Babcock is an interesting option, sure, but if Shanahan was basing his long term strategy on the remote possibility that he'd be available and want to come to Toronto then that's a pretty terrible decision in and of itself.

Carlyle, realistically, didn't need to be assessed. Shanahan dropped the ball on that one, plain and simple.

 

[LuncheonMeat]

You want a season to assess, trade who you have to, sign who you have to, draft what makes sense.

And all of those things could still have been done with a new coach but with the added benefit of not completely wasting a year of Kessel's prime. Babcock is an interesting option, sure, but if Shanahan was basing his long term strategy on the remote possibility that he'd be available and want to come to Toronto then that's a pretty terrible decision in and of itself.

Carlyle, realistically, didn't need to be assessed. Shanahan dropped the ball on that one, plain and simple.

LMAO Nhick!  I  was giggling about the same thing earlier. 

 

[Highlander]

If you had to wait a year for Babcock wouldnt you. Shanaplan and him a very good friends, cottage kind of friends,  real buddys, if Horachuck had been made head coach I think it would have been a lot worse to fire two head coaches in what amounts to one season. To hire a Blysma or other top name was not what Shanaplan wanted to do. Yes I was not a Randy fan, but I am also not a fan of implementing a defensive system to an offensive juggernaut for what will amount to be half a season. Or maybe learning some defensive stuff will bear fruit for the new Coach.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

Shanaplan and him a very good friends, cottage kind of friends,  real buddys,

It's pretty impressive that they have a friendship like that despite reportedly not liking each other.

 

[Highlander]

news to me! 

Perhaps Shanaplan thought Horachuck could assist Randy in implementing some defence onto the squad and that the ship would be more well balanced between the D and the O, or for the reasons already stated.  Perhaps Horachuck will right this ship as Hitchcock suggested and become the new full time coach.  All a frikken mystery to me.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

This thread has taken a dark, sad, and depressing turn.

The facts surrounding the Leafs have a way of doing that.

Funny, I've always looked at the 80s, and the Ballard years in general, and think things really aren't that bad right now.  But as this train wreck of a franchise continues to plumb the depths of futility, it's becoming a lot harder to convince myself that those years were so much worse than the current ones (just a different kind of bad).

The Leafs barely made the playoffs in 1980, finishing five games below .500. They would not post a winning record again until 1992?93, going a franchise-record 13 consecutive seasons without a winning record. The low point came in 1984?85, when the Leafs finished the season with the worst record in the league, 32 games below .500.

Not that I was old enough, but I'm pretty sure it was wayyyy easier to make the playoffs then.

For instance, in 85-86 Leafs finished 25-48-7 and made it to the 2nd round of the playoffs.

 

[Kin]

If you had to wait a year for Babcock wouldnt you.

Even if I thought that Shanahan was 100% sure that Babcock was coming after a season, and I absolutely don't, then the smart move still would have been to fire Carlyle and replace him for a year with someone who at the very least would lay a groundwork for the changes that the team wanted to see. If they were hellbent on throwing the season away in the name of assessment then screwing around for 40 games with Carlyle's nonsense was a complete and total waste.

Right now we all still have questions about Kadri and Gardiner and Bernier and how they're going to look in a new system. If Spott or someone were running the team since the summer we'd be a lot further down the road in answering those questions.

Shanahan bungled it, you can admit that without thinking the world is on fire.

 

[Highlander]

Point taken.

 

[Deebo]

The President of the Toronto Maple Leafs is named Brendan Shanahan.

 

[mc]

Part of me wants them to lose so we get a higher pick in a very deep draft.

Part of me wants them to win and get through this tailspin because I cannot fathom another rebuild for 5 or so years.

Part of me is wondering what the hell the past five years were if not a rebuild?

 

[freer]

Buying out Grabovski was ffffoooooking nuts!  Both at the time and now!  The one thing you could not say about him was that he lacked "compete level" or "accountability"  I still can't believe we picked Bozak over him, essentially because Kessel was his roommate (In my mind).

Really what has Grabovski done! Nothing! He has 14 pts so for this season compared to Bozaks 32 pts. Both players played the exact same amount of games last season and Bozak had 14 more pts. Bozak 4.2 mil, Grabovski 5.0 mil. Numbers say Bozak is better and cheaper.

 

[TML fan]

Yeah but Grabovski has one advantage that Bozak can never have: he's not Bozak.

 

[Deebo]

Buying out Grabovski was ffffoooooking nuts!  Both at the time and now!  The one thing you could not say about him was that he lacked "compete level" or "accountability"  I still can't believe we picked Bozak over him, essentially because Kessel was his roommate (In my mind).

I don't think buying him out was an mistake, using the resulting cap space to sign Clarkson was a huge mistake though.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

Buying out Grabovski was ffffoooooking nuts!  Both at the time and now!  The one thing you could not say about him was that he lacked "compete level" or "accountability"  I still can't believe we picked Bozak over him, essentially because Kessel was his roommate (In my mind).

Really what has Grabovski done! Nothing! He has 14 pts so for this season compared to Bozaks 32 pts. Both players played the exact same amount of games last season and Bozak had 14 more pts. Bozak 4.2 mil, Grabovski 5.0 mil. Numbers say Bozak is better and cheaper.

Looking at numbers in that way and only that way would mean Bozak is as good as or better than Jeff Carter, Patrice Bergeron, Alex Galchenyuk, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Eric Staal, Matt Duchene, Nathan MacKinnon, to name a few.

 

[freer]

Buying out Grabovski was ffffoooooking nuts!  Both at the time and now!  The one thing you could not say about him was that he lacked "compete level" or "accountability"  I still can't believe we picked Bozak over him, essentially because Kessel was his roommate (In my mind).

I don't think buying him out was an mistake, using the resulting cap space to sign Clarkson was a huge mistake though.

I will agree on that point. No one could of known that Clarkson was going to be as bad!