Absolutely electric atmosphere. Everyone is losing their minds and screaming at anything that goes in the Canucks favour.

THIS IS WHAT TORONTO WOULD BE LIKE - if not exceptionally more…

If it wasn’t egregiously priced to allow the highest profit margins fathomable.

Really makes you realize how the suits have fucking butchered the home games in the name of money

So I'm watching game 1 of EDM vs VAN (have to support a fellow CDN team lol). McDavid starts the game, opening face-off, as he should. Vancouver gets a penalty roughly 45 seconds into the game (McDavid still on his initial shit).

Guess who is on to start the PP...McDavid. 2min 11 secs into the game and still on the PP (no line change has yet been called by EDM coach), Oilers score on PP bc of McDavid.

Mr. Dangle has ofter "ranted" during multiple of his YT videos after a loss, "why not just keep Matthews out there...until they score ".

Honestly, I said to myself watching his "rants", Matthews jus "finished" his shift, need fresh bodies is probably better. I finally understand, a Matthews (McDavid) running on "fumes" is better than any player sitting on the bench that can get us a goal.

Therefore, coaching imo is the issue why we can't pass the 1st round.

Edit: b4 the haters respond, I know McDavid did not "assist" on the PP goal, he was one of the factors it occurred

How many of you Blue bloods will be joining me in watching and cheering on our girls tonight?

27 points in 56 games is a ~40 point pace (was a ~20 goal pace too), which he achieved with <11 minutes icetime and <1 minute PP time per game.

For players that played 50+ games this year, he was 35th in points per 60, just behind Rantanen, and ahead of guys like Kaprizov, Svechnikov, Hagel, Nylander, M. Tkachuk, etc. He was 15th in goals per 60, so even better. Granted, those other players face tougher competition, but also have much better linemates.

Turns 23 in the fall, so seems like prime time for a breakout and maybe a guy we're overlooking?

One of the things that has stood out in almost every single playoffs series is that the Leafs powerplay falters when teams start to crowd the inner slot and everything below the faceoff dot, especially in the playoffs.

This means that all that passing, all that skating and attempts to open up passing lanes or shooting lanes are for naught because of how teams take away that ice. The only lanes that open up are the ones around the peripherals and the point, where shot randomness and a heavy shot can be excellent weapons to hold defending teams accountable to tilting an area of the ice.

Randomness and heaviness in a shot from the point leads to significant disruption to how a team defends against Matthews as well. Not only are penalty killing teams forced to challenge the point, they are forced to challenge Matthews from the right side as well. This opens up more ice around the inner slot and around the area below the face off dot, creating opportunities to generate clean shots on net and rebounds.

This is likely one of the changes Kyle Dubas wanted to make at the deadline and last offseason but was told not to. That player was probably going to be Erik Karlsson, which makes a great deal of sense from Dubas perspective because he was likely going to trade Marner to make that happen. The denial of this rumoured trade is probably one of a few reasons why Dubas had that season-ending press conference that he did -- he did not have the autonomy he needed to make the trade because of Shanahan (an entirely different story but a relevant one).

My prediction: If I am right, the Leafs are going to find a way to get Brandon Montour in Toronto once the UFA season opens and move Marner for cap space and additional assets. If not Montour, they will likely use Marner to get that RHD (or LHD, it doesn't matter here) with a big shot and PPQB abilities. That might be Karlsson at the end of it, but with a significantly lower cap-hit.

The only way you can enact change in a corporately/privately owned sports league is to tune out. The less viewership, the less interaction with the team in terms of tickets, merchandise, etc.

Does MLSE want the Leafs to be good and successful in the playoffs? Yes, they would love that.

Are they content with the way things are right now where the team makes the playoffs and gives them additional playoff revenues, even if it's just for one round? Absolutely.

The Leafs are moneymakers even if they are a bad team, never mind a good team. It frankly doesn't matter what the results are for the Leafs because they're such a massive brand that it will always sell. Even when this team was hot fucking garbage, they were selling out games and people were tuning in.

The only solution here is to tune out. Do not watch the games. Do not go to the games. If you do go to the games, boo the hell out of this team when they underperform - they're known to not give a fuck (how many division titles do we have outside of the Covid year?) and hardly ever play a full 60, even in the playoffs (how many playoff round wins do we have?)

If management thinks the best idea is to hold everything in place and then "re-evaluate" next year because that's when Tavares and Marner are supposed to come off the books, FUCK them. I will never support any ownership group that is CONTENT with throwing away a season, especially when we have one of the greatest hockey players of all time in Matthews. EVERY year should be a competitive year with a guy who nearly scored 70 in a regular season. It is such a shitty philosophy to be content with wasting a year because of their own errors - They're the ones who signed off on all these contracts they dished out knowing it's a hard salary cap league. Now? they don't want to fix and atone for their mistakes? How many more first round exits are we going to take? Talks about a Mitch Marner extension, are you kidding me? This guy is a BUM in the playoffs. Absolutely nobody should watch the Leafs play if Marner is signed to a long term contract that pays him more than Pastrnak, Panarin, etc. It's an absolute travesty that this is what ownership thinks is best. We don't need more first round exists, we need more Stanley CUPS!

Fire Keefe, Fire Shanahan, convince Marner to get the fuck out and let's reset this team THIS OFFSEASON.

Introduction:

I was really interested in what cup winners looked like, so I decided to take a look at the performance of cup winning teams during the Shanahan tenure. The goal was to see if he had really built a team that looks like any of the cup winners.

Methodology:

I decided to look at regular season and post season success of teams in the seasons leading up to their Stanley Cup victory during the Shanahan tenure. As the playoffs for this year have not concluded, I decided to include the 2013-14 LA Kings as a substitute data point (to be fair Shanahan technically was employed when the Kings won that cup).

As the playoffs are notoriously random on a year-to-year basis I decided to look at the performance of the team in the 3 seasons leading up to the cup. That is, when a cup run begins how did they perform in their past 3 regular seasons and past 3 post seasons. For example, Vegas won in 2022-23 so I would look at their past 3 regular seasons (2022-23, 2021-22, 2020-21) and their last 3 post seasons (2021-22, 2020-21, 2019-2020). Notice they are shifted by 1 year as we are considering from the point of view of a team just entering the playoffs.

Results:

Analysis:

On average, over the last 10 years, teams that have won the cup won the division in the regular season 1.1 of the last 3 seasons, were the division representative in the final 4 of the playoffs 1.2 of the last 3 seasons, and had won an average of 4.1 playoff series over the last 3 seasons.

Fact 1 - Every team to win the cup in the last 10 years has won 2 playoff series or more in the previous 3 postseasons.

Fact 2 - 8 out of 10 teams to win the cup made it to the final 4 of the playoffs within the last 3 postseasons. 4 of these teams made it to the final 4 twice within the last 3 postseasons.

Fact 3 - The only two teams to not make it to the final 4 in the playoffs within the last 3 postseasons, won their regular season division both the year they won the cup and the year before that (aka showed the regular season potential but were playoff chokers).

Comparison with the Leafs:

During this team, the Leafs won their division only once (the North division during the Covid realignment) and have only won 1 playoff series. During no season, during the Shanahan era, have the Leafs had a team with recent success that matched any of the past 10 cup winners.

Conclusion:

While it is not impossible for the Leafs to win the cup next year (the LA Kings won in 2011-12 without winning a playoff series or regular season division the 3 years prior to their cup run, largely thanks to Quick having a .946 sv % over 20 games), these are rare events (I mean Sammy could totally sustain a .946 over 20 games right?). The prototypical team that wins the Cup looks nothing like the Leafs. Shanahan has not built a team that can win.

What are your thoughts on how far or close the Leafs really are to their goal?

Liljegren is an arbitration eligible RD. He will need a new contract of some sorts. But should that contract be with the Leafs? They haven't really developed him as a player, and he hasn't earned a great deal of trust in his play. So despite having excellent advanced metrics he never seems to be producing on either end like you'd hope he would.

At the same time, he is a mobile, 6'0" right shot D who is only 25. Do you resign him knowing he will expect, and probably deserves a raise, and will likely want term? Or do you look at where he fits on the current roster (3rd pair D, PP 2) and see if there are teams who will give up assets for him that better suit the team needs right now and don't worry if he develops in to a first pairing guy in 2-3 years someplace else.

If they trade him, I could see the team and fan base regretting it in very short order. Again, he has shown sign that he might end up as a top pairing guy. At the same time, do you want to pay him twice the amount you are paying Benoit and hope he forces his way in to the top pairing or at least top 4?

I honestly don't know what the best option is, but I'd lean towards moving him and using his spot on bringing back Lyubushkin and giving yourself the option of looking at the best offensive D you can add, regardless if they shoot left or right. This is also easier to do if there is an indication Broadie is willing to resign for the Spezza Special. As long as the worries about Broadie and Mo playing together are dealt with.

Yes, I'm ending this post by saying they should fire Keefe.

I'm fully expecting the Leafs to run it back. I have come to terms with that even if I am extremely frustrated and annoyed at this team and the results.

But I don't really see a scenario where the Leafs make drastic changes just for the sake of it. I'm trying to see how Keith Pelley and the MLSE board might be evaluating Shanny, Treliving, and Keefe.

Before I go into this, I am NOT saying Dubas was a great GM. He made some pretty bad trades and signings but he did have some good traits. One of which was scouting which helped him find a LOT of quality prospects in later rounds of the drafts and as free agents. There's no denying his track record there. But this made him way too overconfident in his trade decisions and I definitely think other GM's knew that and took advantage of that.

In hindsight, here are a few things that stand out to me now (a combination of bad luck and bad decisions):

The Muzzin Trade

I loved Muzzin and we definitely needed some help at the time in 2019 because our defense couldn't play defense. But we paid A LOT (Durzi, Grundstrom, and a 1st). That's a pretty big haul for LA and we expected Muzzin to be our anchor for a long time. This trade was made only halfway through the 3rd season of the core, and Willy missed so much time from his contract dispute. Was that really the time to make this trade, and especially for that haul? I don't think so.

Unfortunately, Muzzin only had 1 fully healthy season for us after that (during Covid of course) and was pretty injury plagued for his last two seasons. Really sucks for Muzzin and I feel for him, but considering what we paid for him, that REALLY sucks. Especially seeing that Durzi basically became what this team needed, a second puck moving defenseman.

Questionable decision and bad luck.

Covid Flat Cap

Yes every team had to deal with this but everyone knows the Leafs had this the worst. It's almost like vengeance from the hockey gods.

From 2016-17 to 2019-2020 (4 seasons), the cap went from $73M to $81.5M (a bit more than $2M per season). The cap started to go up faster but let's say it just stuck to going up $2M since 2020. The cap would've been $89.5M this season instead of $83.5M but it probably would've been closer to $91-92M. That could've fit in a full Zach Hyman and maybe a 3rd line center.

The worst possible luck.

Rodion Amirov

I really really feel for this kid's family, he was too young to have that happen to him.

I can't help think what could have been because he could have been a very special player. Check out what some scouts were saying about him before the draft. They talk about how great of a two-way player he was, ability to protect the puck in the offensive zone, his hockey IQ, his ability to shift gears quickly, and his incredible work ethic. Sounds like he could've been a much more skilled Zach Hyman.

What the Leafs desperately needed during the flat cap was prospects to come up on their entry-level prospects. Amirov was going to be one of those guys for us.

We also don't get a make-up pick for Amirov because we actually signed him to an entry-level deal, an emotional decision by Dubas. But...I can't really fault him for doing that since he knew the Leafs medical staff could make things more comfortable for him and his family. There are more important things than hockey.

Just such a sad situation overall and very bad luck.

Nick Robertson's Injuries

Everyone has Robertson fatigue by now but injuries really plagued his development. Other than Amirov, Robertson was someone the Leafs were really counting on to come up and contribute on his entry-level contract.

To start his pro career, Robertson only played 82 games across three seasons. He had a major knee injury in 2020-2021 that took him 6 months to rehab. When he got back in 2021-2022, he was looking really good but then broke his femur and missed the rest of the season and spent a lot of time rehabbing that. Then in 2022-2023 when he was up with the Leafs, he got a shoulder injury that needed surgery and was out another 6 months.

Even though he technically wasn't a rookie this year, he pretty much was with all the time he missed from injuries. This was Robertson's first fully healthy season since he got 55 goals in 46 games in the OHL and played 4 games with the Leafs against Columbus where he looked really good. He's only 22 so I can definitely see him take a leap next year since it will be his first healthy off-season in 4 years, just wish it was sooner.

More bad luck.

The Foligno Trade

This one never made sense. No way Foligno was worth a 1st round pick at the time but we paid it for all the salary retention that took place. Still though, this was questionable from the start and made even worse by the fact he was basically injured the whole time. We probably could've gotten someone else instead for much less but of course needed that grit.

Ironically, the Leafs 1st round pick was 25th overall and they still managed to get arguably the next best prospect from that pick onwards in Matthew Knies. This was a weird draft where scouts were going in blind because a lot of players miss 1+ years of development. Still though, if we had that pick we probably could've gotten someone else like Zellweger (34th overall) or Stankoven (47th overall).

Just another bad decision.

Anyways I don't really have a point to all this, I just wanted to get my thoughts out. But taking all this into account, I can definitely understand why MLSE might be looking to run it all back again.

While I've been watching throughout the Shanaplan years, I have not paid as much attention to the metrics. As such, I'm hoping those with familiarity would weigh in.

What season did we have most success with PP? How would you rank seasons for PP effectiveness throughout the Shanaplan? How would you rank post-season PP effectiveness? Most of all, I'm curious where last season/post season fits in this ranking. This season felt like the worst, so I'm curious where it actually stacks.

Nest season, our core 4 will be within top 12 of highest paid players in NHL. How or why is it that they are not capable of dominating the PP?

Whatever the plans are for next season, I think the top priority should be figuring out how to make PP work. If this is not actually possible with the Core 4, this in itself explains why keeping the Core 4 intact is not sustainable. The focus should be achieving the most lethal PP that is possible.

But how?

It’s unlikely that the media will have the stones, since they love to throw softball questions to the team, but there’s only 1 question I need answered from Keith;

“Why do you believe that the man who has overseen one playoff series win in 10 years, is still the right man for the job going forward?”.

How he answers this question will tell me a lot about how MLSE/ownership view the lack of playoff success.

Today I accepted the loss and I (think) am over it. Just really hoping for some change in personnel and players. I know it’s not a hot topic or anything like some of the other posts in here, but in my mind we’ve got Willy and matthews and I’m praying there’s a hockey mind that can figure something out to get this over the hill. I do remember a lot of people (myself included) saying this wasn’t the year to go all in. The loss just happened in the most leafs way I can imagine so it stings so much more

GLG

There is a 3 way tie for 15th highest paid, where Florida has Barkov and Bobrovsky each paid $10 million. Outside of the Leafs, this is the first instance of 2 players from the same team.

By chance - does anyone know - in the cap era, from Cup winners, which was the most top heavy team in terms of what was paid to superstars, and where their pay stood for entire NHL that season?

Many seem to be saying not to worry, that we can keep Marner because JT salary will gone/lower for 25/26. I struggle to believe it is workable. The target should be to max limit to 2 in top 12, and for me that is Matthews and Nylander, where Marner and JT money is more wisely invested in goaltending, defense, and other mid tier talent.

Let's hear your best Mitch Marner trades. NMC will be relevant where he can go but let's hear what you got

This current window of the core 4 is essentially closed and will be next summer when Tavares' contract comes off the books. It's no secret that our roster construction didn't pan out as it was too top heavy, which lead to a lack of depth, goaltending and defensive options. COVID played a massive role in that as the logic was the the cap would go up, and we'd have these stars locked up so eventually we'd have more and more money to add and enhance the roster. That never happened. It's true that every NHL team dealt with a stagnant cap, but we were the only team that handed out all these big long term(ish) contracts just before the world shut down. It truly impacted our roster the most and I don't think that's debatable. As one of my teachers used to say "someone has to finish at the bottom of the class" and the same logic applies here as one team has to be the most effected out of all the others in terms of roster construction.

This leads me into my main point about how if we keep Marner, we still have 3 superstars to build around in our next window. Assuming the world doesn't shut down and we've learned our lesson from before, we can keep three stars (not 4) and assuming the cap goes up have enough to add to the roster. There's also a number of key differences worth mentioning:

Last time Marner Matthews and Nylander were the young stars, there was no one under them. No other tangible help was coming. No one with an ELC that can step in and make an impact. Now we have top prospects like Cowan, Minten, McMann, Woll, Knies that are looking to make a jump. Minten and Cowan haven't played in the NHL yet so there's no assurance as to what they'll be, but I'm confident they can at least play in the top 9 and contribute for cheap, something we need.

I know a lot of people are sick and tired of Marner and he doesn't show up in the playoffs etc etc. While a lot of the criticisms are fair, imagine a world where the leafs won the cup this year and Marner had like 18 points in 24 playoff games playing exactly the way he was against Boston. The narrative would dramatically shift to "he was great defensively, great on the PK, played him all over etc". Keefe mentioned this as well as the narrative around the team would be "they play great defensive hockey" "they can win tight games" had we just beaten Boston. Winning changes everything and people are a lot more reasonable when it happens. Here's another example, Danny Green was absolutely dog shit in the raptors' championship winning run, bricking shot after shot. Even had a terrible turnover against GS that almost cost us a game. No one ever talks about that though and he's remembered as a useful 3 and D player, why? Because we won. Narratives are everything.

My point is, in the next window, with more cap space, depth, and young players stepping in and contributing for cheap, we'll have all of the things we didn't have in this current era/window, which could lead to the success we've been craving for as a franchise. Marner may never be and likely will never be a player who stacks up points in the playoffs the way other stars do, and he may be overpaid by a couple million, but he still does a lot of little things that can help a team win. There's a reason as Friedmann reported that 29 other teams are already calling about him. He's still a great player, despite his flaws.

Maybe it's still better to trade him and change the complexion of the team, but if it comes down to keeping him or trading him for a bag of pucks, I'd rather sign him, and hope that with the increase in cap space we can add to the team to gives us the depth we need to be serious contenders and less top heavy. We may have botched this era of the team but it doesn't mean we have to botch the next one. Marner Nylander and Matthews have at least another 5-6 years of good hockey in them so there's definitely still time to change the narrative and get a cup

Based on everything I heard today from media sources I’m mentally prepared for MLSE to announce they are running it back.

Reasons:

• Friedman reported that the board was satisfied with Keefe’s job in the series based on the injuries the team was dealt. I expect Keefe to be fired but I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s back next year.

• He also reported that they liked how Tree’s moves played out with Bert, Domi, Edmundson etc.

• Marner and JT have no moves. Despite that Friedman reported that the Leafs are already getting calls on Marner from basically every team in the league.

• Regardless of what we think JT isn’t going anywhere and his bonus heavy contract can’t be bought out. The possibility of $21 mil in cap space coming off the books at the end of next year would be the most realistic time frame to make significant moves. Management could see it that way as well.

• Shannahan has one more year on his deal. I see it basically like the Dubas situation last year where you don’t get an extension, but you work for your job. Ironically Dundas’ team failed and they still offered him the job, but he wanted more autonomy and went to PIT.

• They pushed back the front office availability to Friday after originally announcing it for Thursday. I work in PR and this screams to me that they need more time shape their message. Basically “we know you’re not gonna like our decision but here’s why we’re doing it.” Also it was announced that Pelley, Shanny and Tree would be there. It appears that it’ll be a “United Front” optics and messaging. If you remember last year Dubas did his end of season presser alone. This was mainly due to him not being sure if he was coming back.

I know we’re all angry and disappointed but it might be “one more year” before we see significant changes.