The Core

[Nik]

What are you trying to convince everyone of here? That sometimes the best team wins and sometimes they lose?

The argument being put forth is basically this:

The Maple Leafs have made the playoffs every year for the last 7 years. In some of those years they lost close series' to teams that were better than them or they were roughly as good as. In maybe two of those years they lost close series to teams they were better than. This cannot possibly be explained by the randomness of the playoffs along with some bad luck but rather by either a significant character deficiency on the part of a few select players on the team(which does not allow them to be like the players on more successful teams who never, ever have bad games in key moments) or some sort of curse brought on the team by an angry deity who feels the CN Tower reaches too far into the heavens and is a challenge to his omnipotence.

The answer, as prescribed, is to trade our good players for less good players. Step 2 is ??? and Step 3 is Stanley Cup Champions.

[OldTimeHockey]

What are you trying to convince everyone of here? That sometimes the best team wins and sometimes they lose?

The argument being put forth is basically this:

The Maple Leafs have made the playoffs every year for the last 7 years. In some of those years they lost close series' to teams that were better than them or they were roughly as good as. In maybe two of those years they lost close series to teams they were better than. This cannot possibly be explained by the randomness of the playoffs along with some bad luck but rather by either a significant character deficiency on the part of a few select players on the team(which does not allow them to be like the players on more successful teams who never, ever have bad games in key moments) or some sort of curse brought on the team by an angry deity who feels the CN Tower reaches too far into the heavens and is a challenge to his omnipotence.

The answer, as prescribed, is to trade our good players for less good players. Step 2 is ??? and Step 3 is Stanley Cup Champions.

Step 2 could be "add more truculence"

[Highlander]

What are you trying to convince everyone of here? That sometimes the best team wins and sometimes they lose?

The argument being put forth is basically this:

The Maple Leafs have made the playoffs every year for the last 7 years. In some of those years they lost close series' to teams that were better than them or they were roughly as good as. In maybe two of those years they lost close series to teams they were better than. This cannot possibly be explained by the randomness of the playoffs along with some bad luck but rather by either a significant character deficiency on the part of a few select players on the team(which does not allow them to be like the players on more successful teams who never, ever have bad games in key moments) or some sort of curse brought on the team by an angry deity who feels the CN Tower reaches too far into the heavens and is a challenge to his omnipotence.

The answer, as prescribed, is to trade our good players for less good players. Step 2 is ??? and Step 3 is Stanley Cup Champions.

Step 2 could be "add more truculence"

And a good dose of Testosterone.

[Bender]

What are you trying to convince everyone of here? That sometimes the best team wins and sometimes they lose?

The argument being put forth is basically this:

The Maple Leafs have made the playoffs every year for the last 7 years. In some of those years they lost close series' to teams that were better than them or they were roughly as good as. In maybe two of those years they lost close series to teams they were better than. This cannot possibly be explained by the randomness of the playoffs along with some bad luck but rather by either a significant character deficiency on the part of a few select players on the team(which does not allow them to be like the players on more successful teams who never, ever have bad games in key moments) or some sort of curse brought on the team by an angry deity who feels the CN Tower reaches too far into the heavens and is a challenge to his omnipotence.

The answer, as prescribed, is to trade our good players for less good players. Step 2 is ??? and Step 3 is Stanley Cup Champions.

I mean we're not being paid to know what's out there in terms of trades or team construction, we're all just on a forum spitting out our thoughts on the team and whatever we think isn't relevant to how the team is run in the end.

Having said that, the road to a championship is bumpy and never paved smoothly and we've tried adding at the margins from the core and there has been little progress in the last seven years, rightly or wrongly, and having it go your way once in 7 years and saying it's going to happen eventually, let's keep running it back at some point is ludicrous given the hard cap.

How many teams have won with almost half the cap tied up in 4 forwards? I don't think it's that many, if any, when I think of the teams that have won since the cap era began. Washington and Pittsburgh had to do a lot of wheeling and dealing to get their cups and they didn't think too hard beyond keeping Sid, Malkin & Letang and Washington Ovechkin, Backstrom and Carlson.

[Nik]

I mean we're not being paid to know what's out there in terms of trades or team construction, we're all just on a forum spitting out our thoughts on the team and whatever we think isn't relevant to how the team is run in the end.

Having said that, the road to a championship is bumpy and never paved smoothly and we've tried adding at the margins from the core and there has been little progress in the last seven years, rightly or wrongly, and having it go your way once in 7 years and saying it's going to happen eventually, let's keep running it back at some point is ludicrous given the hard cap.

So I don't want us to just keep repeating the same conversation but, like, I get it. We have different concepts of progress. You see the last 7 years as all one continuous effort to succeed in the playoffs that has stalled out every year. I'm just never going to look at it that way. To me that's like flipping a coin and getting Heads three times in a row and thinking you need to change coins. The largely random results in short series of games, especially very close series of games, are not going to be my be all and end all of how I measure a team's growth. I've seen a team go from finishing with one of the worst records in the league in order to get Matthews to being a playoff team in their first season and then growing until now where, over the last three years, they've basically averaged the equivalent of 113 points over an 82 game season. To me, that genuinely does matter more in terms of meaningful, projectable growth than anything that can happen in one series.

And, conversely, if the Leafs had been sputtering along these past seven seasons but had fluked out a Montreal-esque run one year, I wouldn't be going "Hooray! Playoffs!". That's just not how I'm going to determine the sort of club they've built. I really do think the only thing you can really do in terms of success is build as good a team as possible and hope things break your way. Anything else is magical sort of weather controlling thinking.

How many teams have won with almost half the cap tied up in 4 forwards? I don't think it's that many, if any, when I think of the teams that have won since the cap era began. Washington and Pittsburgh had to do a lot of wheeling and dealing to get their cups and they didn't think too hard beyond keeping Sid, Malkin & Letang and Washington Ovechkin, Backstrom and Carlson.

The problem with that line of thought is that we all know who it is among the Leafs top 4 who, in terms of price to performance, is the one it makes the most sense to move and, quite frankly, it's not even close. But because the Leafs can't do that contractually it seems to me like what you're essentially saying is the equivalent of the Penguins saying "Well, we can't move on from Sergei Gonchar so we should probably trade Evgeni Malkin otherwise we're not doing much". You're advocating making bad moves because the good move isn't available.

[hobarth]

OK, July 1 is rapidly approaching, the core has stated they want to remain Leafs so would it be a good idea or reasonable to allow the July 1 deadline to pass and not have signed Willie and Austin.

Why is July 1 so significant, after that date TO can't move Austin anywhere without his consent and Willie can name teams he won't accept a trade to, both will become Free Agents after next season and will be able to sign with any team. TO could lose both for nothing.

I think they need to put their signatures where their mouths are before July 1 or move them.

I also believe Mitch will have a NMC after July 1, so any trade involving him would have to be agreed to by him, not ideal but he's signed for 2 more years and he has roots in the TO community so his resigning seems far more likely.

[Guilt Trip]

I think they need to put their signatures where their mouths are before July 1 or move them.

Can't sign before July 1st.

[bustaheims]

I think they need to put their signatures where their mouths are before July 1 or move them.

Can't sign before July 1st.

Also, in these cases, July 1st isn't a deadline, it's an opening.

[hobarth]

Negotiating with UFAs can't happen until July 1 except they have some sort of grace period now, I'm sure players like Austin are essentially signed before July 1.

July 1 is an opening for future UFAs to think about where they want to play next and know that if they don't sign anywhere(except Winterpeg) in NHL can be their home. 

[hobarth]

I watched the Carolina/Florida series, Necas the top scorer for Carolina this last year would be another great Leaf, he never went close to the opposition's net, basically protected himself thru these entire playoffs, interesting side note Noesen who was a Leaf last year and got into 1 game, 10 minutes, was a far better playoff player than Necas and had more points.

[cabber24]

Run it back again, what choice do they have? Brady Tkachuk for Marner, yeah right. If everyone walks so be it. No one can stomach a rebuild anytime soon. Can't flip half your D line at the deadline and expect the team to gel that quickly. Bring back Schenn and another McCabe like UFA and a season together will hopefully lead to better D come playoff time. If the core cannot do it, we're finished.

[Bullfrog]

Negotiating with UFAs can't happen until July 1 except they have some sort of grace period now, I'm sure players like Austin are essentially signed before July 1.

July 1 is an opening for future UFAs to think about where they want to play next and know that if they don't sign anywhere(except Winterpeg) in NHL can be their home. 

I'm confused. Matthews isn't a UFA, so what relevance does July 1 have? He'll be an UFA on July 1, 2024. The team and Matthews can negotiate whenever the hell they want

[Significantly Insignificant]

Negotiating with UFAs can't happen until July 1 except they have some sort of grace period now, I'm sure players like Austin are essentially signed before July 1.

July 1 is an opening for future UFAs to think about where they want to play next and know that if they don't sign anywhere(except Winterpeg) in NHL can be their home. 

I'm confused. Matthews isn't a UFA, so what relevance does July 1 have? He'll be an UFA on July 1, 2024. The team and Matthews can negotiate whenever the hell they want

No trade clause kicks in.

[CarltonTheBear]

I'm confused. Matthews isn't a UFA, so what relevance does July 1 have? He'll be an UFA on July 1, 2024. The team and Matthews can negotiate whenever the hell they want

No trade clause kicks in.

Short of Matthews saying "I want out and I want out right now" I don't think there's any chance we'll see him get traded. They'll use all the time they have to get him signed. So July 1st isn't that big of a deal, but getting this done before the regular season starts will be very important.

[hobarth]

Gaudreau didn't proclaim he wanted out of Calgary, he went silently into the USA, would silently make things better for TO with Matthews, I don't think so.