If you look at Roenicks career, at the start it looked like he was going to be this superstar player that would anchor teams for years to come. He would be in the Messier, Yzerman, Sackic conversation for best players in the league. Then all of sudden he started having these good but not great seasons. Some of it was injury from the way that Roenick played, but he also admitted that he stopped working as hard, and he tried later in his career to get it back and he just couldn't.
2025-26 Toronto Maple Leafs General Discussion
- Thread starter herman
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Woll, Cowan both back.
Guru Tugginmypuddah
Well-known member
I've never subscribed to the idea that ownership doesn't care. I think that ended with the Ballard era. Winning is good for business.
Agreed. None of this is nefarious. The ownership group is trying to put the best people in place to run the team and make decisions that will result in a winning team. Building a winning team is not easy. Only one team wins.
I think Treliving was a mistake for GM. I also think Berube was a mistake for the coach. I think this team needs to go in a different direction. Personally I think the need to take their lumps now. I'm not saying they should tank, but they definitely should not mortgage the future for now. You keep what you think is the core, and you move out pieces with an eye to the future. If it means playing three defensemen from the Marlies this year, so be it. You have to get through the next draft, and the draft after without a first round pick. Try and pick up some young prospects and picks by moving out some of the more desirable, but non-core players on the team. Just please, please, please, don't push all the chips in this year and try and go for it, as I don't think this is the year. The team is bleeding out. Need to stop the bleeding and right the ship, and plan for the next phase.
Bill_Berg
Well-known member
I agree, I've not seen them be cheap in a long time. What else can they really be judged by in terms or caring or effort?
4EVRLEAFAN
Active member
Matthews?
Guilt Trip
Well-known member
It's not effort with Matthews. I believe he's always going to have back issues. I've never met anyone who's had back issues that weren't one wrong move away from having back issues again.
Yeah that's what I think has happened to Matthews a bit. He's had some injuries, and some personal success, and is viewed as a superstar, so maybe he has taken his foot off the gas a little. He's not driven to be in the same class as McDavid and MacKinnon. He's happy with what he's accomplished, and now he'll show up, play some games here and there. Every so often he'll show flashes of the player he used to be, but he is not going to be dominant. He's not going to grab this team by the collar and tell everyone they can't have sugar anymore. Just not his nature.
You don't necessarily need that either, if your team is strong. You can get by with someone who is pretty good, as long as lines 3 and 4 don't have a drop off. But the Leafs don't really have that. Florida sure does though.
I believe that originally the Leafs were built around the Pittsburgh Penguins model that won the cups in 2016 and 2017. The forward lines on those teams just overpowered teams. You had Crosby, Malkin and Kessel coming at you. Sometimes on one line, sometimes on three different lines. They got timely goaltending. Their top d-man in one of those runs was Trevor Daley (Letang was hurt). In order for that model to succeed though, One of Crosby, Malkin and Kessel had to be unstoppable. I think when the Leafs had Marner, Matthews and Nylander, they looked at their talent and they said "Yeah we can do that.", but it didn't really work out that way because they never wanted to break them up. They always wanted to have the three of them playing on the first two lines. I think this meant that they couldn't work the matchups the way they wanted to, or at least the way that Pittsburgh was able to during those runs. Also, in the playoffs, Matthews, Marner, and Nylander became stoppable, so that side of it didn't work either.
Now Marner is gone, Matthews is a shadow of his former self, and Willy's going to Willy when Willy wants to Willy, but that won't happen sometimes because the other team won't let Willy Willy when he wants to Willy.
ZBBM
Well-known member
THIS in big capital letters. I don't buy, at all, that "he doesn't care" or coasts. He may not be PsychoKillerLeader but what he is, is a guy with back problems. I'm pretty convinced that's his problem. The Zadorov hit wasn't heavy at all. Just the wrong angle.
I'll never forget the day I swiveled slightly to get up from my desk and almost went to my knees after the invisible shiv went into my lower back. Evolution has dealt humans a very weird hand, spinally.
Guru Tugginmypuddah
Well-known member
You can care and have full effort, that results in nothing.
Care and effort are important but they also have to be implemented with patience. Throwing capital (draft picks, prospects, roster players, cash) at the problem at a furious rate and hoping something sticks isn't a great model.
The Leafs drafted 34,16,88 and the rebuild was declared over and the trades started with Lou Lam trading a first for Andersen.
We had the latest most glaring example just last weekend. Minten doing pretty good with the Bruins, and Leafs have Carlo and minus a 1st rounder. While Treliving can be commended for getting more than a rental, he also severely overpaid for Carlo. It's just the latest example of how the Leafs have mismanaged their capital over the past ten years.
The last ten years has just reeked of desperation on the part of management.
I wonder how you fix the patience thing though, because I do think some of it is driven by the fans. I remember when Matthews and Marner were drafted there was this refrain of "We have our Toews and Kane", before they even stepped on the ice. Not saying all fans, and I would even say that wasn't prevalent here on this site, but it was out there. The team needs to control the message out to the fans, and they need to have an internal plan that they stick to that doesn't involve them just getting one number 1 overall pick. It should be about building talent at every level of the organization so that they have the chips they need to build the team that they think is going to be able to win a cup.
The Shanaplan was flawed in that they didn't see it through. They changed the Shanaplan after they got Matthews. You can't hurry love or cup contending teams. Pretty sure that is a rule somewhere.
Guru Tugginmypuddah
Well-known member
I think there may have been a couple more lean years after Matthews followed by an upward trend. The fans (most of them) could have seen them get better year over year and see that they were building something sustainable. Take a look down the 401 at Ottawa and Montreal.
Regarding Matthews - you can argue all day long about how much of his shortcomings are due to injury (definitely plays a role) and how much is "something else." In the end though, the fact is he was paid early on as if he was someone more like MacKinnon, someone capable of lifting a team to another level. They were all paid that way - Marner, Tavares, and Nylander (not as much but still). However, none of them were that type of player - just look at their results in game 5-7s of playoff series. But they took up so much of the salary cap that it didn't leave enough to properly fill out the rest of the roster, and they were unable to live up to what was required based on the amount of cap they took up. For whatever reasons.
Lots of mistakes were made along the way - as others have noted, everything was fast-tracked leading to not selling off assets early on when they still should have been, overly rich contracts too early, then the trading of assets chasing playoff success, letting Hyman walk, not trading one of the core when they could have...and of course covid came along at the worst possible time. I think that when all is said and done, Shanahan probably is most to blame since he was the one who authorized all the moves made by the GMs (and maybe blocked some others). It's too bad.
Maybe Matthews has another great year in him, kind of like Clark did later in his career. He was amazing in 93-94 and the 2 playoff series (including 92-93). Of course, the Leafs had Gilmour driving the bus and I don't think they're going to find another Gilmour at this point.
Lots of mistakes were made along the way - as others have noted, everything was fast-tracked leading to not selling off assets early on when they still should have been, overly rich contracts too early, then the trading of assets chasing playoff success, letting Hyman walk, not trading one of the core when they could have...and of course covid came along at the worst possible time. I think that when all is said and done, Shanahan probably is most to blame since he was the one who authorized all the moves made by the GMs (and maybe blocked some others). It's too bad.
Maybe Matthews has another great year in him, kind of like Clark did later in his career. He was amazing in 93-94 and the 2 playoff series (including 92-93). Of course, the Leafs had Gilmour driving the bus and I don't think they're going to find another Gilmour at this point.