HockeyBuzz Hotstove: Where do the Toronto Maple Leafs go from here?

Stay the course. Keeping trading 1st round picks for average goaltenders, injured players and to rid themselves of cap dumps.

golfing

HockeyBuzz Hotstove: Where do the Toronto Maple Leafs go from here?
- ToddCordellVAN

They should move the Leafs to Kansas City.

HockeyBuzz Hotstove: Where do the Toronto Maple Leafs go from here?
- ToddCordellVAN

AHL

Trade Marner please

Hogwash. Don't touch the core? Give me a break. These guys are bums. Absolute bums, and the fact that the ask is "oh surround them with better talent" is absolutely bullcrap at this point.

In past years, I could rationalize the failures:
- Washington and Boston were better teams than the Leafs. It makes sense we lost.
- Defensive woes hurt us - I can see that in the past
- Goaltending failures - again, I can see that in the past
- Too young / not enough veteran presence? I get that in the past.

What the heck is the excuse this time? They overcame ALL of that. And they still failed.

This "core" doesn't have the WILL to make big things happen. They've been coddled. Send Marner and Matthews to the Gary Roberts training camp for a real summer workout. And if i'm Shanahan / Keefe / Dubas, that "core" better be spending the entire summer training. They don't deserve a summer vacation - they already took it over the past two weeks.

The last time the Maple Leafs won a playoff series you could still buy a brand new Oldsmobile.... Just remarkable futility.

And the assertion was that Carey Price beat the Leafs is, again, crap. Every year it seems a goalie beats this team. See a pattern?

They need to find a way, good lord. AND Campbell had a better save % than Price, so what's the excuse?

We need to STOP absolving the big guys from their responsibility - they are the problem at this point. They can't step up. They're too busy looking for the next GQ photo shoot, or Bieber music video.

The last time the Maple Leafs won a playoff series you could still buy a brand new Oldsmobile.... Just remarkable futility.
- Queenie_5_hole

Yet still very amusing.

These were both brutal takes which proves you actually don't need to know anything about hockey to write for this site lmao

These were both brutal takes which proves you actually don't need to know anything about hockey to write for this site lmao
- Prospy1493

Agreed!!!

Yet still very amusing.
- Cptmjl

Just over half way to the Chicago Cubs 108 year break from Championships...

The last time Toronto won a playoff series their leading scorer was using wood stick!

But seriously it's crazy to see them bounced in the first round along with Edmonton. So much elite level talent... I'm jealous. I know it must feel like crap getting your bell rung every playoffs but it still seems like more fun then what's going on in Devilville.

bottom line... the leafs and jt91 cant win a round.... but lou can !

They can't compete with a salary structure that pays four players 40M. This is just fact. Top 3 contenders in the playoffs have far superior salary structures.

The new "meta" isn't to stack talent; it's the oldest meta alive. Millennials keep thinking they can drive by road blocks placed by previous generations, not recognizing why those road blocks were placed there, and have this fixation that they don't need to innovate existing theories of success, but reinvent the oldest ones and keep trying to do that over and over again. (More numbers = more success is a failure to identify the dozen extra variables that go into hockey as a sport)

The Avs look like #1 contenders right now. Know what the Avs, Bruins, and Lightning all have in common? They're not paying anyone much more than 9M. That's the meta. Then they took that cash they have that other teams overpaying their stars don't, and they're putting some good glue guys on the team.

This is the salary cap era. Let's take a very simple example: Matthews makes 11.6 a year, MacKinnon makes 6.3. Matthews now has to play 84% better than MacKinnon to give his team what MacKinnon gives the Avs. You know what the Avs paid for that spare salary? Brandon Saad.

Dubas FAILED to tame his paychecks to superstars and now the solution is to juggle depth to cover up this failure? No. He's got to admit his error and change that precious formula or he'll continue to get the old regular season success an playoff failure.

So ask yourself what will help this team win more? A Mitch Marner? Or 11 million dollars worth of roster players to support JT, Nylander, and Matthews?

JT and Matthews are fixtures. Odd man out? Marner. Time to move on. It was time to move on from this formula two years ago.

Also: if you're trading for a first liner, unlike Franchise mode... they don't slot right into your roster. There's a buffer period before they start to be effective. That buffer period is longest with first line players. Foligno would probably make a great line with Marner and Matthews but they need a full training camp.

These were both brutal takes which proves you actually don't need to know anything about hockey to write for this site lmao
- Prospy1493

The trick is, don't bother reading the blog, just the headline, then you won't be disappointed.

Other than a couple of players the Loafs lineup scares nobody. Having long in the tooth and beards just put more pressure on the core and nobody cared about the old timers. Focus on the youngsters and let the old times do what they want was the strategy of the opposition. Jumbo never won anything Spezza not Simmonds NOPE
IF you keep doing the same thing over and over and expect a different result, I've got some bad news for ya. It ain't gonna happen. Loafs are cursed. They may never win a seven game series again for ever

To add to the lunacy........the last time the Loafs won a series Crosby Malkin and Ovie were not even in the NHL. YIKES

Mathews has 3 more years in Toronto, could he re sign, yup, could he also want to end up in Arizona, LA or New York, yup, no one but him really knows, but if you suspect he may want to leave after 3 more years its more likely than not he is traded after 2.

why not at least look around and see what someone might offer? if LA offered;
Byfield (local bopy)
Kaliyev
Kempe
Grans
and their top 10 pick this year
might be interesting but i'm sure Leaf fans will want 3x as much back which is unrealistic.

It's a team sport, Team effort, Theres already enough pressure on the top four or 5 Leaf forwards, This latest Leaf failure lands squarely on Shanahan, Dubas, And Keefe. If you want to continue to put more unnecessary pressure on Mathews you can bet he'll be signing with an American based team when he gets the chance.

Trading Marner is not a sign of panic.

Paying a player 10mil + before the player can demonstrate any competency to produce in the playoffs is panicking.

Signing ufa taveres to 11mil thus setting the pay scale for your young starts leading to the lop sided balance of the line up and eventual removal of skilled depth because you don’t want to stay the course in the rebuild is panic.

Recognizing a mistake and addressing it under new cap circumstances is not panic.

Trade Marner

Forgot to add Matthews and Marner to that dead weight column there. Sure a lot of the bottom 6 were non existent here but when your top guys are being shown up by Spezza in all regards on a nightly basis….. I’m not too sure. It’s just not too great a sign two years in a row they get a chance to play a team that in a real season shouldn’t be in the playoffs more so Montreal than Columbus and come out with nothing. I suppose both seasons leafs would of been what ended up 7th or 8th both years and ended up out first round anyways to superior teams? Expectations of them winning would of at least been against them at least. Until the big boys can actually learn to play with some emotion and fire to win we will be looking at more or less the same next year also…..new side cast same result losing and not really too concerned about it

I am still hearing today Toronto media saying the Leafs were the best in their Division! Best at what?... Use the last ten years if needed for reference....

I am still hearing today Toronto media saying the Leafs were the best in their Division! Best at what?... Use the last ten years if needed for reference....
- justsaying

Losing in the first round again of course.

Seriously, if the Leafs once again do nothing but micro-analyze how 100% mediocre teams like Columbus and Montreal were able to beat them in the first round, history will just keep repeating itself with slightly different permutations. Just making it out of the first round is so far from where the goal for this team should be that it's an embarrassment. Not to mention that blaming the supporting cast without frisking the core is just flat-out dumb.

There's always going to be players XYZ on the other team who will be putting in a great effort, stepping up defensively, and take away time and space. The question is, what are the G-D $11M superstars doing about it, to even begin to warrant their absolutely massive salaries? Because if you think it's hard playing through guys like Danault, just wait until you see what teams like Tampa Bay, Boston, and Colorado have in store for you when the Cup is on the line.

Marner - 0G in the series, 0Pts in 4/7 games
Mathews - 1G in the series, 0Pts in 4/7 games

Plus, it's not like the whole Maple Leafs team was shut down... Nylander was the best scorer in the series, Kerfoot/Spezza had more points than anyone on the Canadiens roster, the top d-men all chipped in with points, and Campbell had a better GAA, SV% than Price. So the "experts" can say the core is just fine all they want, but that really doesn't hold up in the analysis. Just more and more lipstick on an increasingly ugly pig.