Joe S.
Moderator
True. But even when they were in the lineup the team didn’t look all that impressive
2025-26 Toronto Maple Leafs General Discussion
- Thread starter herman
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Joe S.
Moderator
The nhl, for years, has been a bush league. I’ve not seen another professional sports league that plays so fast and lose with its rules, suspensions and fines.
OldTimeHockey
Well-known member
While I don't have a specific reason, what return are you looking for? What return are you looking for in any of your hobbies?
Guru Tugginmypuddah
Well-known member
The Marlies are pretty much in the toilet too.
A team can only get away with trading everything away for so long.
A team can only get away with trading everything away for so long.
I've become rather apathetic about the team this year. In years past I'd arrange my schedule so I missed as few games as possible. Now, I regularly skip periods or whole games. I mean, the players aren't showing up half the time, so why should I?
I'll pay more attention once Matthews returns, just to see if he can get back anywhere near his previous level. Without that the team is sunk, with it...I don't know, I still think they are far better than they have been playing but at some point, you just have to accept what they are.
One thing that would really get my attention would be a coaching change. I don't think that's likely unless they lose out on the road trip, and even then they still have the injury excuse to fall back on so who knows.
That is the path of thinking I started going down on the weekend. I look at the Leafs as entertainment. This would put it in the same category as a T.V. show or a movie I think. Maybe the same as a video game.
If it's compared to a T.V. show, I tend to see a show out until it is cancelled regardless of how bad it gets, although as I get older I have started to become more discerning with my time, as I don't have as much of it left as I used to. There is usually a light at the end of the tunnel with shows though, as the show provider will usually take care of that problem for me.
If it's compared to s video game, when I play video games, I want to play them to completion. Typically, with the games I play, there is usually one part of the game that is a slog. It's tough to get through, it's not fun, it's brings the rest of the game down, etc. I'll get through that one part, and then when you accomplish completing the game you typically feel pretty good.
Here's where I am at with the Leafs. They are like a T.V. show, because I have no control on what gets put on the ice at all, not that I need that, but that is a fact. If the team continually puts out a product that I don't enjoy, the only recourse I can see that I really have is to stop investing my time and money in that product. That's how I feel right now. And I somewhat feel that way about the NHL as a whole. The hypocrisy and inequity around the league seems worse in the NHL. However that is probably fueled by the fact that I am currently invested in one team. Other sports that I watch, like the NFL or the EPL, I don't really cheer for a team. I just watch it to see what happens. I want to see if Erling Haaland is going to continue to be this goal scoring machine, or if Arsenal is going to win the top of the table. I don't care if either of those things do or don't happen. I am just watching to see what does happen. Same with the NFL. I would like to see what happens with the Lions or the Bills, but it doesn't really affect me if it doesn't happen.
With the Leafs it is different for some reason, because that is the flag I have chosen to fly, which makes it feel like a video game that I have chosen to play. It's like there is a different type of investment, different than a T.V. show. So when the Leafs inevitably screw things up, and it's been pretty inevitable over the last 40 years (the amount of time I have roughly been watching them), it hits a little harder. I'm not watching to see what happens. I am watching because I am hoping for a particular outcome. Now the outcome can't be guaranteed, I understand that, but it seems like the Leafs are the team that more often than not flames out hard. It flames out in the most spectacularly stupid way possible. They hire the wrong coach, they hire the wrong GM, they make the wrong trade or they sign the wrong player. It's just built up year after year, so it's like video game that is a constant slog. It's almost like the inverse. The entire game is a slog, and there are these small ray's of light every so often that make you think it's going to get better and then it never does. I look back at the optimism I had 9 years ago. They had drafted Matthews, they had drafted Marner, they had drafted Nylander. They seemed to be making smart decisions. They seemed to be putting smart people in decision making positions. And then the mistakes started to happen, and they compounded, and now a team that was comprised of the three most talented players that they have had in their entire history failed to make it past the second round of the playoffs even once.
I am having a hard time reconciling that. I really do think I am at the end here with this team. I quit smoking when I was 22. I was always amazed at how the addiction to cigarettes tried to convince you that you needed it. That the habit would drive you back even though you knew, rationally, that it was killing you and making you feel horrible.
While I don't think that the Leafs are killing me, I mean I hope not, they do make me feel horrible more often than not. I have to watch as other fans rejoice in the Leafs comeuppance when ever it happens, even though, those same fans wouldn't enjoy going through what fans of this team have had to endure for the last 60 years. I'm starting to think that this habit is convincing me that I need it when I really don't. I guess I am just trying to see if others feel the same way.
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It's basically religion. I was born and raised a Leafs fan, my earliest memories are of Doug and Wendel in 92/93 and then Mats for years. I kept watching during the post-lockout years but not as routinely. And obviously there was a lot of promise from 2016 onward, but that hasn't really materialized, and now the gap between expectations and reality is probably as wide as it's ever been. I like seeing progress and change from year to year (even if it means bottoming out, acquiring picks and following prospects), but right now basically none of that is happening.
All my closest friends are Leafs fans. What else would we talk about if it weren't for that, our families? Bleh.
I like the idea of trying Stecher higher in the line-up. It doesn't seem like Tanev or Carlo are even close to returning and Benoit can't be kept in the top-4 while they're out.
I'd probably try him with Rielly though instead of McCabe, that way Jake can still slide back to the left with OEL on his right. Last season with the Oilers Nurse was Stecher's most common defence partner so he isn't a total stranger to filling in for that sort of role.
herman
Well-known member
The role of watching your D partner get turnstiled so you go try to cover and subsequently get backdoored on the tap in.
Andy007
Well-known member
This is something that has bothered me for quite some time now, and also why I don't get nearly as worked up regarding the Leafs as I previously would have. They really can't win. Everyone on and surrounding this team deserves as much flack as they get, don't get me wrong, but they can never be the Bruins, The Lightning or the Panthers, solely because the league will punish them. It's a no-win (literally) situation. I mean, how many years has this team sat near the top (or at the top) of the Standings, and still found themselves at the bottom-half in Power Plays? And we're talking skilled, non-dirty, Dubas style teams. They can't "protect" or "answer" other team's dirty (usually uncalled) infractions because THEY get punished, always. I don't know what they're supposed to do.
There is a bit of that which filters into the decision. When I was younger, the only thing that saved my relationship with my father was probably the Leafs. No matter how things got between the two of us, we could sit down and watch the Leafs play hockey for two to three hours.
I also get the religion side of it as well. Guess maybe I just figure that there is no way that I see them ever making a Cup final. Even if they did hire a smart management team, and a top notch coach, and fill out the roster with good players, it seems like then they still have this uphill battle against the NHL itself.
I don't think anyone is doing anything malicious. I just think that with the noise that Toronto generates, these things just usually pan out in a way that is a disadvantage for the Leafs.
OldTimeHockey
Well-known member
I apologize, but what do we think the advantage would be for the NHL to be bias against Toronto? Or are we suggesting that it's an unconscious bias?
I'll fully admit that I haven't been much of a team "addict" since the mid 90's. I don't know the last time I watched a regular season game from start to finish. Call it "too busy" or "couldn't be bothered". Perhaps this checking out was caused by having my first kid or it was brought on by this feeling of defeat you seem to be going through.
Though, I thoroughly love the sport itself. I will have hockey on the tv in some capacity most days of the week. Even if I can only tune in for 10 minutes of a game between two random teams. Or if I can watch a team with player's I coached on youtube or facebook. I spend most weekends at a rink. I'm the guy that comes in, sits in the stands, and watches other people's children practice while I wait for my kid's game to start.
So perhaps, the reason I'm able to continue to cheer for the Leafs is I've been able to take a step back and enjoy it for what it is. The sport I enjoy watching most. The Leafs are just lucky enough to be the team that gets to piss me off every second or third night.
I think it has to do with an assumption that the NHL doesn't want to appear biased towards Toronto, what with the head offices being in Toronto, so that leads to punishments being less severe for things that happen towards Toronto, and more of a punishment for things that the Leafs do.
There's no proof to this, so I realize that my bias towards the Leafs may be creeping in here. If we look at the numbers though it seems like the numbers come out against the Leafs. Like Andy007 pointed out, the Leafs consistently draw a lower number of penalties than other teams, despite a play style that would typically draw more. For example if you compare the Leafs when Sheldon Keefe coached them to the Oilers in the same time frame, I believe I read somewhere that the Oilers drew more penalties consistently than the Leafs. I would have to look at the numbers again myself just to be sure, but that's the sort of thing that always comes up, and when the Leafs have outlier numbers, it makes you wonder what the cause of those outlier numbers are.
There's tremendous media scrutiny in Toronto as we Leafs fans all know. So more pressure to make the 'right call'
As Leafs fans we probably have a better idea of what the right call is than the fans of many newer franchises. Leafs fans have decades of experience with the rules - many having played the game.
But now, there are 31 teams and a lot of their fans hate the Leafs - in part, for all the attention they get.
So the popular decision for the NHL is to decide with the 31 teams and their fans - against the Leafs.
It shouldn't be that way. The right call is the right call period (allowing some latitude for judgement).
But I strongly suspect that is a factor - beyond mere biased fan perception.
OldTimeHockey
Well-known member
Yeah, I don't buy it. I refuse to.
Sounds like a fan base trying to explain why their team doesn't win games.
Sounds like a fan base trying to explain why their team doesn't win games.
Joe S.
Moderator
The NHL head office is in NY.
But, I don’t think it’s about appearing favourable to Toronto, I just don’t think the league gives a shit about Toronto. It’s a stable market that makes money regardless of the state of the team.
And all their league disciplinarians are ex NHLers, and many seem to have this hate for Toronto as a city and a team.
Maybe I’m being a little immature in my thinking, but that’s how it comes across to me.
Joe S.
Moderator
Sure. But you can’t really deny that he league seems to put the screws to the leafs.
I don’t for a second believe that if a leafs player had hit Bobrovsky in the head and knocked him out he wouldn’t have been suspended. He would have been out of the series, whoever it was.
Remember Belak once fell, hit the guy behind him with his stick, clearly accidentally, and was suspended 8 games.
OldTimeHockey
Well-known member
I'm not sure why anyone would watch a league that they feel is working to make sure their team loses. Or in the least, working to make sure that their players get suspended for longer or are given more penalties.
When I watch the Leafs in this era, I see a team that rarely gets dirty. They don't go to places that draw penalties. They're a perimeter team and the proof is in the playoffs when the game changes. I'm not saying that the way they call penalties in the playoffs is right, but it has been that way since the beginning of time.
Over the past 3 seasons, this is where the leafs rank in penalties drawn.
When I watch the Leafs in this era, I see a team that rarely gets dirty. They don't go to places that draw penalties. They're a perimeter team and the proof is in the playoffs when the game changes. I'm not saying that the way they call penalties in the playoffs is right, but it has been that way since the beginning of time.
Over the past 3 seasons, this is where the leafs rank in penalties drawn.
- This year, the leafs are ranked 18th with 81 penalties drawn. They're certainly not ranked so low because of the bias against them. The NHL favourite rangers are ranked 22nd. The league leading avalanche are ranked 21st. The Stars and Red Wings who are off to great starts are also ranked below the Leafs.
- Last season, the Leafs ranked in the middle of the league for penalties drawn with 7.86 minutes per game. 16 teams drew less penalties per game than them. I'm going to guess that the League doesn't dislike 16 teams more than the Leafs.
- Florida on the other hand drew the 4th most penalties per game. But, they also took the most penalties per 60