Disclaimer now, I’m going to hurt people and offend them and say exactly what needs to be said no matter the case and yeah there will be something about someone who may he RIP the leafs drafted.
This team sucks, this team genuinely has no heart and no care for winning. These guys are truly money hungry Egotistical people who have 0 F’s to give when it comes to playoffs. Just look at the Numbers they put up each year in the playoffs and regular season and ask if there cap hit is justified and quite honestly not a bloody chance for any of them. Not only are they a problem but management and coaching staff…Shanaplan started what 10-11 years ago now? And where are we with that, still stuck in round 1 of the NHL playoffs for 8 consecutive years now, luckily getting out of it last year but for no good reason as Florida spanked us. Treliving. What did he do to truly help this team but exactly what Dubas did? His draft was horse crap last year, his trades are always lopsided not in favour of his team and he has no direction just fill ins. Then dubas…he screwed this team up. He really did he was genuinely horrible. His offseasons never made any impact to actually improve play of this team, he downgraded the blue line and goalie to keep the core 4 and his drafting is atrocious. The amount of times he had a chance to take a game changer for this team but failed and went forward!?! Rodin Amirov(RIP) was not the smart pick at all in that spot, Brock Faber, Braden Schneider, Helge Grans these are RHD who were available, even Kaiden Guhle right after!!! and he passed up those guys to pick a forward who’s defence first type. Made 0 sense. Then u look at his success rate outside of the 1st round and it’s whom?!?!? Knies and Robertson…who else? This team needs to be Re-Hauled from top to bottom, Management, Coaching staff (like y is guy Boucher our PP coach?!?? HES DEFENSIVE MINDED🤬🤬) and then players.
Matthews-Marner-Nylander-Tavares-Rielly all have Full NMC so for 2024-25 they will be stuck on the team, then guys like Kämpf-Jarnkrok-McCabe all have modified No Trade clauses so they are harder to move. The amount of needs this team has will need a couple years to fix in its entirety. We need a #1 Goalie or at least a very solid 30-40 game 1B option with Woll. We need 3 Top 4 defencemen preferably 2 RHD but can live with 1 to pair with Rielly then an all lefty pair. Now a top 6. U just signed Matthews and Nylander to deals those are ur 2 guys to build around. Matthews top line center, Nylander 2nd line wing, now fill those gaps, Robertson and Knies can potentially be top 6 guys but need to develop a bit more, and u gotta try to find gritty goal scorers like bertuzzi, like what Hyman is. Once that’s all sorted u seriously have to find bottom 6 guys who can score and defend, some good energy forwards, guys who a gritty, can eat some minutes, play on the PK maybe 1 or 2 can play PP but guys who grind the gears of the opposition.
For now have a transition year in 2024-25 where u don’t try to over correct and let ur young guys just step into bigger roles and develop, this team is to far away from being a cup contender so don’t try to hard to fix it and don’t resign Marner or Tavares at all let them play out there deals and move on from them. Unless Marner shows up and scores 115 points next year and if we make playoffs is no less than 1.5 points per game he’s gone and we will get nothing for him unless we out of the playoff picture and he waives….
Thank you for coming to my Ted talk I know it’s long so apologies.
I disagree about Treliving. It isn't his fault Klignberg was out for the season, he was supposed to be a major asset on the power play. Treliving has only been here one season, deserves some time. Also Cowan as a late 1st rounder looks like a steal as of now. But yes Dubas emptied the draft board for pure rentals and some really atricious trades, although he did have some good ones (Muzzin, Campbell). The Tavares contract was abysmal and sooo unnecessary, that has handcuffed the team financially for years and the contracts of Matthews, Marner and Nylander are a joke, should have been tougher in negotiations. There are stars around the league that have signed for less on their teams for the sake of building team that is capable of getting out of the first round. If I was GM I'd trade Marner and Rielly for draft picks and prospects and go out and try to sign a Skjei, Demelo and Stamkos this offseason. Letting a 50 goal guy and penalty killer in Hyman for 5.5 million go is unforgivable. RIP Amirov but I was hoping they would've drafted Schneider ahead of him defence first right hand shot.
I'm actually excited to see what Treliving can do, I thought he did very well in such a short time last off-season. Calling his draft "horse crap" is laughable. Easton Cowan has a legit chance of being the steal of the draft.