OT: Leafs/NHL Thread

[ItsDanger]

I believe Dubas has same agent as Matthews. Classic case of overpaying your hand.

[GQStylin]

It's looking like autonomy played a big part in this as well, basically shades of Alex Anthopoulos where both ended up giving up their dream jobs at least in part due to not having full autonomy.

Elliotte Friedman just said in the Canes/Panthers intermission that maybe part of the autonomy issue was that Dubas had suggested simplifying the decision making process while not cutting Shanahan out of the decision making. Need to see the clip again to see what he said in detail.

[GQStylin]

Reasons Masai makes way more:
-more experience and won a title
-president role
-nba brings in more money than nhl. Average NBA team generates $300m in annual revenue vs $200m for NHL. Raptors estimated valuation is $3b vs $2b for Leafs.

So Masai is making more money because the NBA makes more money and not because he's doing more. Not unlike a CEO of a big corporation earning millions doing the same or less work than a CEO of a small company. Just sucks that its like 3 times more than any NHL GM makes even though they have much more work to do.

[powerhouse117]

Would love to see curse breaker Theo Epstein in this role. In past interviews he’s expressed interest in trying his hand outside of baseball.

[ItsDanger]

Reasons Masai makes way more:
-more experience and won a title
-president role
-nba brings in more money than nhl. Average NBA team generates $300m in annual revenue vs $200m for NHL. Raptors estimated valuation is $3b vs $2b for Leafs.

False premise, the market sets the rates. The NBA market for GMs or Presidents is at a higher rate. I'd seriously question any public estimates of Leafs and Raps data, it's based on very little info.

[ItsDanger]

This is a 2 year old article but its quite amusing to read in hindsight. For any Dubas supporters, its a terrible look. But its a must read even for non hockey fans, don't blindly trust management of the sports teams. Sometimes, they have their own agenda.

https://editorinleaf.com/2021/07/21/toronto-maple-leafs-greyhounds-2/

[ATLTimekeeper]

Shocking. But ultimately, I'm ok with it, considering it clarifies who may be to blame going forward. Dubas wanted more money and autonomy, and you could argue if that was reasonable or not. In the end, Shanny didn't agree with it and, as he said several times throughout his presser, had already started looking elsewhere. The rest was theatre.

OK. Fine.

But make no mistake: the next one is on you Shanny.

Proceed...

Dubas was asking for quite a raise if the numbers that were reported are true. That's more or less Dubas saying: "I don't want to continue as the GM, but I don't want to be frontal about it, but I also don't want to make an obviously non-serious counter-offer."

He was asking for more than what Shanahan currently makes, and for autonomy.

[JB7]

Its possible but it doesn't happen all that often that a GTA or Ontario born star player specifically wants to return to play for one of the Ontario teams the way Tavares did let alone trying to sign non-Canadian star players and getting them to want to play in Canada. It doesn't mean stars won't sign with Canadian teams, but in many if not most cases it certainly isn't their first choice and they likely won't take a discount to do so. Just sucks because it makes Canadian teams less competitive.

Agree it is rare, when players are in their prime years (earning potential), but many once they have got pass that stage do consider Toronto, at vet minimums. Dubas has benefitted with this: Spezza, Simmonds & Giordano to name a few. Brodie came back as well. So there is some draw of Ontario born players.

If Matthews signed with Arizona that would make ZERO difference in helping the Yotes get an arena deal somewhere in the state. They would still be on the verge of moving as they are now. We're talking about billion dollar arena/surrounding development projects here and I doubt one player would make any impact on those kinds of deals. If the Yotes were a top NHL team then that might perhaps make some difference although even then not too much.

Let's just say, if there were any player that could be signed that might sway an arena deal in Arizona, it would be Matthews.

I'm focused on the 2 goals a game because that's what cost the Leafs the series against the Panthers. You can't win when your opponent scoring more than 2 goals in a game automatically means you've lost because your own team can't score 2+ goals to try and make a comeback. In the 2nd round the Leafs allowed the 3rd fewest goals compared to everyone else with only the Canes and Panthers beating them by allowing a couple fewer. However they were AT THE BOTTOM when it came to scoring goals at 10 goals in the 2nd round with only the Panthers being anywhere near them with 14. The Oilers scored 19 and every other team score 20+.

Despite making some mistakes both the Leafs goaltending and defense held Florida to the 2nd fewest goals in the second round so they did their job. If any of the Leafs core had showed up even a little bit they could've easily have beaten the Panthers. Instead they were incapable of scoring when they needed it the most and that was the difference between winning and losing a series.

And again I ask you looking through the list of Stanley Cup champs for the past 30-40 years and find me a championship team that could score 2 goals or less for the majority of their run and still win the cup? Can you find even ONE example of that happening?

As I mentioned earlier, even low scoring teams with playoff success are probably scoring at a rate higher than 2 goals per game, which is pretty unheard of. Only teams that might have come close to that were maybe the Devils and Ducks.

Problem is the Leafs cannot score the gritty goals, which are more common place in the playoffs. When the defense tightens up, the Leafs scoring disappears. The Leafs need to be rebuilt to withstand the playoff style hockey.

And even if the league wanted to try and alter the rules to give skilled teams a greater chance, it will be hard to push against what has determined success for so many years.

The Leafs are a very good team that's capable of being a great team if their top players could show up consistently. As for the not getting out of the 1st round sometimes they were unlucky and sometimes they choked, but its not like they were completely outclassed most of the time. Again look at the Caps and all their great teams and yet they've only been out of the 2nd round ONCE in Ovi's entire career. They were able to put it together for that one season and win the cup and now they're back to being 1st or 2nd round fodder or as in this season not even a playoff team.

The NHL playoffs is tough and unpredicatable and sometimes even really good teams can not make it far.

The playoff results for the Leafs don't equate to a good to great team. And the Caps as a comparator to the Leafs is not great, because the Caps probably cannot be considered a great team, but rather maybe a very good one with moderate success, as they at least they made it to the 2nd round more consistently, and did eventually win a Cup. Great teams over the last couple of decades would be Penguins, Blackhawks, Tampa and Kings, who had sustained success - consistent long runs and multiple championships.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. A great NHL team is like a good gourmet dish where you have different ingredients being blended together really well. Messier is one kind of ingredient and Gretzky is another kind of ingredient and both are important to making that dish good. I'm not convinced that Gretzky on the '94 team wouldn't have won the cup as well and Messier on the '93 LA team wouldn't have still lost in the finals against Montreal.

One time you could definitely say that not having that player on your team was the difference between winning and losing is the '93 Habs when Patrick Roy played out of his mind and led the Habs to a cup win where they would never have won without him that year.

Messier's impact on that Rangers '94 win was almost comparable to Roy. Difference being that a goalie can influence the results of the game way more than any other player.

26 years old is still in the peak prime of their careers for most NHL players. You're old enough to have experience in playing in the NHL and know how tough it is and you're still plenty young enough to compete with everyone at your best. Most star players are still very far from going on the decline in their mid to late 20s and if you can stay healthy and fit you can easily play well into your mid to late 30s as a very good player.

Their prime years are usually 25-29ish. Yes they can still be good past it, but usually those are their best performance years, and the Leafs core 3 are right within that range, so their best years could be past them soon.

Avs have had more than one time where they've been without Landeskog and they've been fine. As for Kadri you need to stop overvaluing him. He's a good player and he helped the Avs to win their cup no doubt, but now that he's off the Avs and with the Flames he at least for his first year there hasn't produced the same as he did the previous season. In fact last season was the first time he averaged better than point per game and now he's back to his career norm of being a 50-60 pt player.

Don't confuse points (especially season points) with playoff impact. The Leafs core would be the best example of this point. Kadri was impactful for the Avs in the playoffs and they did miss him.

Marner has never been counted on to be a top goal scorer for the Leafs even though he's improved the past couple of years from being a 20 goal scorer to now a 30 goal scorer. His main job has ALWAYS been to be the puck mover and playmaker when he's on the ice. Guys like Tavares, Matthews and Nylander are suppose to the main goal scorers. At any rate he still improved and became more of a goal scoring threat in addition to being good penalty killer and powerplay guy.

If anything its Matthews that needs someone to help him to be successful. Marner and Nylander can both create for themselves as well for others while Matthews is much more limited doing both because of his lack of speed. Its not like he can't create for his teammates which he's good at, but he definitely lacks the speed and agility that McDavid or even Nylander has where he can just take the puck down the ice himself and make a big play all by himself. Knies for a bigger player seems to have decent speed and good moves and if Matthews had even that he'd be closer to McDavid level.

I agree that Matthews doesn't show as much ability creating for others like Marner or Nylander do, and that is a limiting factor to his game (also a reason I would be open to moving him). But the problem with Marner is because he is such a great playmaker, and not a scorer, it means he relies heavily on the linemates with him. Would he have been as productive these last 5 years, had he played with a C like Bozak, over Matthews and Tavares? Obviously not. It is the reason I would keep Nylander over Marner. The team can rely on Nylander more to make the big play, be it scoring a goal, or setting it up, than they can rely on Marner.

If the Leafs are intent on changing their culture, and trying to win in the playoffs, the two players they seriously need to consider moving are Matthews and Marner.

[Ado05]

They should fire Shanahan while they're at it.

[JB7]

They should fire Shanahan while they're at it.

Agreed. Just how he handled the Dubas firing shows what a buffoon he is.

[GQStylin]

Agree it is rare, when players are in their prime years (earning potential), but many once they have got pass that stage do consider Toronto, at vet minimums. Dubas has benefitted with this: Spezza, Simmonds & Giordano to name a few. Brodie came back as well. So there is some draw of Ontario born players.

Like you said relatively few come to a Canadian team in their prime unless they're a Tavares case of wanting to return home or they get paid a ton of money.

Let's just say, if there were any player that could be signed that might sway an arena deal in Arizona, it would be Matthews.

Yes in a hypothetical world Matthews has probably the best chance to influence some people in an Arizona government to change their minds about an arena. In real life he'll probably make almost no difference because again we're talking about a billion dollar deal that will have an effect on a region for decades to come and I doubt one star player on a team without much success is going to make much difference. If the Yotes were a very good team that might actually have some real impact.

As I mentioned earlier, even low scoring teams with playoff success are probably scoring at a rate higher than 2 goals per game, which is pretty unheard of. Only teams that might have come close to that were maybe the Devils and Ducks.

That's right. Low scoring championship teams are still scoring better than 2 goals a game more times than not and as I said if the Leafs could've done that even a few times in the Florida series it would be them playing the Canes right now. People kept saying their defense and goaltending wasn't good enough and yet once again it was their offense drying up that cost them another series. Samsonov/Woll did give up a few softies against the Panthers and the team in front of them did make some defensive mistakes, but by and large they played well and kept the Florida offense in check.

Problem is the Leafs cannot score the gritty goals, which are more common place in the playoffs. When the defense tightens up, the Leafs scoring disappears. The Leafs need to be rebuilt to withstand the playoff style hockey.

And even if the league wanted to try and alter the rules to give skilled teams a greater chance, it will be hard to push against what has determined success for so many years.

The Leafs are definitely capable of scoring garbage, greasy goals and we saw that in the Tampa series. Just that they weren't able to do the same against Bob who suddenly decided to look like the Bob of old who could steal games for you. Between Bob playing great and the Leafs inability to capitalize on even some of their prime scoring chances there was no way they could win.

The playoff results for the Leafs don't equate to a good to great team. And the Caps as a comparator to the Leafs is not great, because the Caps probably cannot be considered a great team, but rather maybe a very good one with moderate success, as they at least they made it to the 2nd round more consistently, and did eventually win a Cup. Great teams over the last couple of decades would be Penguins, Blackhawks, Tampa and Kings, who had sustained success - consistent long runs and multiple championships.

Of course playoff results matter, but the NHL playoffs are always unpredictable and as we've seen time and again the difference between winning and losing is razor thin. The Leafs comeback twice against Tampa to push games 3 and 4 into OT and they end up winning both of them. Against the Panthers they had the chance to go up 2-1 in the series if they win those 2 OT games and instead they lose both and then lose the series in another OT game.

That's the difference between saying the Leafs blew it again for another year vs 'WOW the Leafs are going to the 3rd round!'. Sometimes its not about a team playing poorly and losing rather than a team playing well enough to win, but being unlucky especially when it comes to playoff overtime games. I mean did the Canes play badly to be down 2-0 or were they just unlucky to not win at least one of those games to be at least tied going back to Florida?

Messier's impact on that Rangers '94 win was almost comparable to Roy. Difference being that a goalie can influence the results of the game way more than any other player.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. Its been so long that I'd have to watch some of the games again to see if he were actually that dominate or not in '94. Roy was unquestionably dominate in '93 and the Habs probably don't even make the finals let alone win the cup without him.

Their prime years are usually 25-29ish. Yes they can still be good past it, but usually those are their best performance years, and the Leafs core 3 are right within that range, so their best years could be past them soon.

The prime years of a hockey player can vary greatly depending on each person. Crosby, Malkin, Ovechkin all started their NHL careers looking like they were in their primes and they've only slowed down slightly even after all these years with their biggest enemy being their ability to stay healthy. MacKinnon on the otherhand started off looking good, but not great and it wasn't until his 5th season that he exploded and was looking like the dominate player that people thought he could be. So different players develop differently.

Don't confuse points (especially season points) with playoff impact. The Leafs core would be the best example of this point. Kadri was impactful for the Avs in the playoffs and they did miss him.

I'm not saying Kadri didn't make an impact to help the Avs win the cup, but I don't think he made a Conn Smyth level of impact when they won it all. So yeah he was good, but now with the Flames he hasn't had that same kind of impact in his first season there. For his sake and the Flames lets hope that changes next season.

I agree that Matthews doesn't show as much ability creating for others like Marner or Nylander do, and that is a limiting factor to his game (also a reason I would be open to moving him). But the problem with Marner is because he is such a great playmaker, and not a scorer, it means he relies heavily on the linemates with him. Would he have been as productive these last 5 years, had he played with a C like Bozak, over Matthews and Tavares? Obviously not. It is the reason I would keep Nylander over Marner. The team can rely on Nylander more to make the big play, be it scoring a goal, or setting it up, than they can rely on Marner.

Marner isn't known to be a great goal scorer and yet in the past couple of seasons he's improved to become a 30 goal scorer. So now he's not only an elite playmaker, but also a pretty decent goal scoring threat. And yeah because hockey is a true team sport he's going to rely on his teammates just as they rely on him. Whatever line he plays on he's going to be driving the play and often its going to be up to his linemates to finish the great passes he gives to them.

If his linemates can't finish that's not his problem and it might mean that he will have to shoot more himself if the players on his line aren't up to it.

If the Leafs are intent on changing their culture, and trying to win in the playoffs, the two players they seriously need to consider moving are Matthews and Marner.

If you're looking to move both of them then unless you're getting back very good roster players to compensate for them leaving (in addition to picks/prospects), then its hard to say if they can maintain the level of success they've had so far at least regular season wise. Matthews with a year less on his contract and with a no movement clause about to kick in should be the priority to move if you're going to move a core player.

Marner I would like to see what he could do without Matthews and see if he can't still do as well as he's been doing so far. I'm not completely against trading Marner if a really good deal comes along, but I'm not dying to move him right now either.

[ontnut]

Reasons Masai makes way more:
-more experience and won a title
-president role
-nba brings in more money than nhl. Average NBA team generates $300m in annual revenue vs $200m for NHL. Raptors estimated valuation is $3b vs $2b for Leafs.

So Masai is making more money because the NBA makes more money and not because he's doing more. Not unlike a CEO of a big corporation earning millions doing the same or less work than a CEO of a small company. Just sucks that its like 3 times more than any NHL GM makes even though they have much more work to do.

The WNBA and every other women's sports league has the exact same gripe.
It's a market economy, live by it, die by it.

[fbalmeida]

Shocking. But ultimately, I'm ok with it, considering it clarifies who may be to blame going forward. Dubas wanted more money and autonomy, and you could argue if that was reasonable or not. In the end, Shanny didn't agree with it and, as he said several times throughout his presser, had already started looking elsewhere. The rest was theatre.

OK. Fine.

But make no mistake: the next one is on you Shanny.

Proceed...

Dubas was asking for quite a raise if the numbers that were reported are true. That's more or less Dubas saying: "I don't want to continue as the GM, but I don't want to be frontal about it, but I also don't want to make an obviously non-serious counter-offer."

He was asking for more than what Shanahan currently makes, and for autonomy.

Yup, this was Dubas' asking Shanahan to make himself redundant. This explains Shanahan's decision and reasoning almost perfectly.
Personally, I think we'd be better off if MLSE had pulled the rug on Shanahan instead of Dubas. I'd rather take up the risk on Dubas than pivoting to a new GM at this time.

[Kingsway_fan]

Reasons Masai makes way more:
-more experience and won a title
-president role
-nba brings in more money than nhl. Average NBA team generates $300m in annual revenue vs $200m for NHL. Raptors estimated valuation is $3b vs $2b for Leafs.

So Masai is making more money because the NBA makes more money and not because he's doing more. Not unlike a CEO of a big corporation earning millions doing the same or less work than a CEO of a small company. Just sucks that its like 3 times more than any NHL GM makes even though they have much more work to do.

Why does it suck?... business 101....

[ATLTimekeeper]

Yup, this was Dubas' asking Shanahan to make himself redundant. This explains Shanahan's decision and reasoning almost perfectly.
Personally, I think we'd be better off if MLSE had pulled the rug on Shanahan instead of Dubas. I'd rather take up the risk on Dubas than pivoting to a new GM at this time.

We can't say whether they're better off until we see who they hire, but Dubas inherited an embarrassment of riches and squandered it. Auston Matthews was drafted one year before the Las Vegas Golden Knights existed. They're two games away from their second Finals appearance and in between that they've won several playoff rounds. They're on their 3rd head coach. They've made big changes to their roster despite having more success than the Leafs. Their highest paid player makes almost a million less than Mitch Marner, the Leaf's 3rd highest paid player. The Leafs have 5 draft picks in the top 4 rounds in the next 3 seasons. Only two in the top 2 rounds. The Knights have 9 picks in the top 4, and 5 in the top 2 rounds.

I get why fans like him, he was active on social media and young and read books that weren't about hockey and tried to apply that knowledge to gain competitive advantages. But, he didn't deliver enough results for what he had to work with.

[fbalmeida]

For sure, the key here is who we get, and how fast can we get him.

Haven't thought too hard about it, but I wouldn't mind George McPhee if we can somehow make that happen on short notice.
Eric Tulsky is another name that would make sense to me.

[GQStylin]

We can't say whether they're better off until we see who they hire, but Dubas inherited an embarrassment of riches and squandered it. Auston Matthews was drafted one year before the Las Vegas Golden Knights existed. They're two games away from their second Finals appearance and in between that they've won several playoff rounds. They're on their 3rd head coach. They've made big changes to their roster despite having more success than the Leafs. Their highest paid player makes almost a million less than Mitch Marner, the Leaf's 3rd highest paid player. The Leafs have 5 draft picks in the top 4 rounds in the next 3 seasons. Only two in the top 2 rounds. The Knights have 9 picks in the top 4, and 5 in the top 2 rounds.

If you say Dubas inherited an 'embarassment of riches' then why do people keep complaining that these same players were soft, didn't show up when it mattered and couldn't get the job done etc. to the point where most are saying one or more of these guys need to go now? So clearly Dubas inherited talented players, but players who were also flawed. Don't make it sound like he had a young Crosby and Malkin to work with or something.

As for Vegas you do understand that since their first year of existence they've traded away a number of their top picks and prospects that they drafted in an effort to improve their team faster right? Dubas this year at the deadline might've made a number of trades, but he didn't trade away any of the Leafs top prospects.

Also it doesn't hurt for Nevada to have low taxes so that they can do more with the same amount of cap and that the weather in that city is nice year round. Most US based teams have always had an advantage in signing players over Canadian teams, so its no surprise that they're doing better.

I get why fans like him, he was active on social media and young and read books that weren't about hockey and tried to apply that knowledge to gain competitive advantages. But, he didn't deliver enough results for what he had to work with.

For me I don't care about what he does in his off hours. I care about the moves he made managing the Leafs and to me many of his moves were good and turned out well and even the ones that didn't turn out so well, you could see the reasoning behind why he made that move and he also had no problems with making corrections when things didn't work out. There's a reason why there aren't any bad long term contracts on the team since he took over the job. In fact he had to clean up the mess Lou left with the Matt Martin and Zaizev contracts. Right now the 'worse' contract on the roster is Murray and his deal ends next season.

[JB7]

Of course playoff results matter, but the NHL playoffs are always unpredictable and as we've seen time and again the difference between winning and losing is razor thin. The Leafs comeback twice against Tampa to push games 3 and 4 into OT and they end up winning both of them. Against the Panthers they had the chance to go up 2-1 in the series if they win those 2 OT games and instead they lose both and then lose the series in another OT game.

That's the difference between saying the Leafs blew it again for another year vs 'WOW the Leafs are going to the 3rd round!'. Sometimes its not about a team playing poorly and losing rather than a team playing well enough to win, but being unlucky especially when it comes to playoff overtime games. I mean did the Canes play badly to be down 2-0 or were they just unlucky to not win at least one of those games to be at least tied going back to Florida?

While the score might be close, watching the game, it seemed like Florida and Toronto where on two different planets. Florida could pretty much do what they wanted. Same with Tampa. They just didn't have much luck against the Leafs (plus their D were all injured). While Toronto won the series, they only scored 2 more goals than Tampa.

When a team has lost as much as the Leafs in the 1st round, eventually it is not about luck and more about the team.

Marner isn't known to be a great goal scorer and yet in the past couple of seasons he's improved to become a 30 goal scorer. So now he's not only an elite playmaker, but also a pretty decent goal scoring threat. And yeah because hockey is a true team sport he's going to rely on his teammates just as they rely on him. Whatever line he plays on he's going to be driving the play and often its going to be up to his linemates to finish the great passes he gives to them.

If his linemates can't finish that's not his problem and it might mean that he will have to shoot more himself if the players on his line aren't up to it.

Marner doesn't have a great shot, like a Nylander or Matthews. And since he is not as willing to go into the slot and take a beating to score (gritty goals), he is really not a player the Leafs can trust to score a big goal. At almost $11M, he needs to be a player they can trust to make the big play. And if that is just as him as a playmaker, then he needs a quality finisher beside him. Why pay two players, when you can pay just one. Focus the money on the players that have the most impact.

If you're looking to move both of them then unless you're getting back very good roster players to compensate for them leaving (in addition to picks/prospects), then its hard to say if they can maintain the level of success they've had so far at least regular season wise. Matthews with a year less on his contract and with a no movement clause about to kick in should be the priority to move if you're going to move a core player.

Marner I would like to see what he could do without Matthews and see if he can't still do as well as he's been doing so far. I'm not completely against trading Marner if a really good deal comes along, but I'm not dying to move him right now either.

Again, Matthews I think as way more value on the market, and could draw significant interest, in terms of young players/prospects and draft picks. Any team interested in signing him would probably like to have him for the year to try and convince him to sign.

Marner, it would all depend on what is offered. He is not worth just dumping. But if some team was willing to offer some talent back, I would move him. He is not worth $11M. Not on a Stanley Cup contender. So come contract time, if he is not willing to take a big paycut (down to ~$8M), I think they would have to let him walk.

[WaltFrazier]

What does it say about the NHL that Vegas and Seattle can have instant success as expansion teams. Parity, good CBA I guess, but somehow to me it makes the league look Mickey Mouse too

[sidsid]

What does it say about the NHL that Vegas and Seattle can have instant success as expansion teams. Parity, good CBA I guess, but somehow to me it makes the league look Mickey Mouse too

I think it's smart to get immediate benefits from a jazzed new fanbase. That helps grow the game in new markets. You want to avoid a Blue jackets type morass.

If the NBA tried to replicate favourable asset rules for a 2 team expansion, what would it look like?

Protect only 4 players (guarantee a starter)? A snake draft for both teams to pick 15 players each? The same ransom to not pick a player system as in the NHL?

Who are the top 5 teams chosen first under those rules?

How many over 33 yo big contract players are left unprotected like a Price?

Does a team try to get an old team going or load up on ransom picks? How many contenders are no longer contenders because of this?

Fun to think about.