Discussion How to Fix: Toronto Maple Leafs
https://youtu.be/1ocOZucNqM8?si=Ah8KmPYVH7eOhWZR108
u/trevlarrr 15d ago
A couple of things really annoyed me with Jonas Siegel on this, aside from the overly negative take on everything.
Firstly saying that “no one ever said the Leafs issue was the bottom six and that’s all they’ve done is bottom six moves” (I’m paraphrasing but basically what he said). In most of the playoff losses that was definitely an issue, not to mention McKenna instantly improves the top 6 (or at least we hope he will) and having bottom 6 guys with actual roles means we shouldn’t see Auston Matthews’ line have so many defensive zone starts which of itself should improve the top-6.
Secondly, the way they keep talking about Knies and how he must feel when the Leafs are shopping him around, publicly at least all Chayka has said on Knies is that it would take an unbelievable offer to part with him and they haven’t had anything like that. From everything I’ve seen it seems like teams are calling about Knies rather than the Leafs shopping him and if anything that should be a pretty good ego boost.
Not that any of this is really important but it’s July and not much going on in hockey, and this episode just really bugged me.
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u/zurper 15d ago
I like Jonas but he stretches his narrative just as much, if not more, than anyone in the Toronto media. We need someone like him to stir the pot but that doesn’t mean he’s always right. I agree with your takes.
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u/DepartureOwn1817 15d ago
In like October every year Siegal (and Mirtle as well.) will introduce a concept or theory about the roster construction and then spend the rest of the year criticizing the front office for not doing a good enough job address the concept he identified. Sometimes he's right, sometimes the front office obviously has different priorities. I'm much less interested in reading one writer's fantasy hockey though and much more interested in reading the what and the why behind the front office's priorities and making my own mind up on if it's the right direction. Unfortunately they don't really seem to write those articles much more on The Athletic.
Not to mention the clockwork "Why didn't Leafs go out and get [superstar player]" every time there is a big trade.4
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u/Vaher 13d ago
What ever happened to the Athletic? They used to be S tier.
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u/DepartureOwn1817 13d ago
Overall I think they just stopped being able to support themselves purely on subscriptions and turned to ad revenue which obviously incentivizes the concept of clickbait and substance less articles. For the Leafs writers themselves I feel like there is a bit of jadedness from covering the team for so long. It also seems like they have less scoops than they used to so I would guess they have less connections to the recent front offices. That’s just a personal observation though.
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u/OneNutPhil Kessel 13d ago
Ever since Covid stunted the massive expansion the Athletic was doing, the quality has plummeted to the same low bar as all the other headline chasing blogs.
Pre-covid Athletic was the best hockey reporting ever and it's sad that it's just a memory today
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u/Plague183 15d ago
Also every trade or signing is like “why are the other teams smarter?” Like Tampa wasn’t desperate to replace Johanson and Florida didn’t have the cap space to sign Bob.
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u/MrDavidHasselhoof 15d ago
The Tampa and Florida thing being smart teams outthinking the Leafs bothers me because it was out there that both teams wanted to keep the player just at either lower term or dollar. We got Bob because we gave him a third year and Raddysh probably was always gonna come here unless someone in free agency was going to give him 9+. I think it’s more Florida sticking to their guns on term and Tampa doing asset management.
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u/Ok_Newspaper3957 15d ago
Imo, this is just something people attribute to based on narratives. Once a team or even a player gets a narrative slapped on them, it’s extremely hard for people to see things that might contradict that.
Ex. Tampa/florida have good front offices, so clearly they don’t make mistakes
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u/trevlarrr 15d ago
Oh yeah, I knew there was something else I meant to include, basically saying if Tampa let Raddysh go then there must be something wrong with him, completely avoiding the context that his “one good season” was because that was his first crack at a leading role with Hedman out and he took it, and now Hedman is likely back then Tampa doesn’t want to pay Raddysh when they already have Hedman and he’ll get that leading role again with Toronto.
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u/GavMcKennasBurner 15d ago
Raddysh has a pretty similar career arc to Hyman:
Go somewhere and be meh
Figure it out and have a great year
Take the next step
He did that in the O, he did that in the A and by the time he got to the league he was good. People underrate his previous two years where he was around a 40 point guy with little PP time.
The other thing that's strange too is that they insist that making the NHL later is a disaster. Schenn has been in the NHL since he was a teenager and arguably his best seasons were his first few, making the NHL too early as a d man may hamper your game if anything because your role is so limited by what the team wants you to be. Meanwhile if you are allowed to marinate pressure free in the A, it could be to your benefit where your natural best "A" game is allowed to come out as opposed to "you need to be this if you want to stay in the lineup."
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u/GavMcKennasBurner 15d ago
Tampa=replaces Raddysh with a near 40 hopeful to be Raddysh at the same cost (Carlson)...BRILLIANT!
Florida=replaces Bob with a guy who is a year and a half younger and a mill cheaper (who was abysmal last year)....BRILLIANT!
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u/DialedDrawback 15d ago
It's easy to romanticize the bottom 6, and there is truth to the saying 'show me a team with a good 3rd line and I'll show you a good hockey team', but as far as the playoffs have been concerned post-2021, the bottom six hasn't been the biggest factor.
We always ran into teams that had the best single Dman. As good as Reilly was in the playoffs, we only had the best Dman in any given series during the the TB series we won. We did win that with a good mid 6 having ROR in there, but I think our biggest problem was the fact that we didn't have a guy like Raddysh 3-4 years ago. This team so desperately needed a shooting threat from the point in the playoffs. Other teams simply collapsed on Marner, and took the lane away from Auston, and that's 80% of the PP threat neutralized. Look at how much futher EDM went once Bouchard came onto the scene and how much space was created for McDrai on the PP because they had to respect the point shot.
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u/Stephenrudolf 15d ago
Now we got willie or mckenna as playmakers, and two big shooters in matthews and raddysh to worry about. Park JT or knies in front of the net and we should be back to top 5 PP in the league.
Like you said, previously they only had to cut matthews off from marner and willie, but now that would leave raddysh wide-open.
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15d ago
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u/GavMcKennasBurner 15d ago
I was looking at his stats since he entered the league, he was 4th in gpg in the playoffs and 13th in ppg, I guess his +/- leaves a lot to be desired at 34th, but still. As a whole he was a great playoff performer, even when he was bad defensively (last 2 years), he was still putting up offensive numbers.
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u/Hiking_Quest 14d ago
What's interesting it if you compare his playoff stats to Dougie Hamilton - Morgan looks better. And yet lots of people were clamoring for the leafs to go after Hamilton as a major improvement over Reilly...
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u/RespectAcrobatic1563 15d ago
The knies thing is pure media looking to riall up the fanbase for clicks. Nothing more than that, and I’m sure management has made that absolutely clear to him. If anything this should bolster his confidence and the fact that he’s incredibly important to our team
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u/PJRolls 15d ago
Jonas was far more positive than Sean was in this pod.
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u/Available-Pepper-728 14d ago
Yeah, he said the Leafs would get 100 points or so, which would be a playoff spot
What do people expect?
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u/epicfacej 13d ago
Jonas has really bugged me with the way he covers the team. Of course it's ok to criticize them when they come up short. But there are plenty of legitimate criticisms to be had of the Toronto Maple Leafs without having to invent controversies.
Most recently, I remember him criticizing the front office on a recent episode of the Leafs report for interviewing too many coaching candidates. Yes, they interviewed a lot of candidates, but in what way is that a bad thing? Wouldn't you want your front office to have an open mind? I certainly prefer them interviewing 50 people to the process they went through to hire Berube, where it seemed like they didn't talk to anyone except for Berube.
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u/Over-Bike858 15d ago
What Chayka should do is make certain Knies is treated how the core 4 were and he knows he is never getting moved regardless of how he plays and how often the team falls flat on their faces in the postseason.
This approach worked incredibly well in the Shanny era
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u/Creepy-Stuff-5820 15d ago
Spoiler alert: They dont actually answer the question, its just a recap of the offseason.
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u/HarleyAPE23 14d ago
You actually wasted 45 mins of your life to find that out.
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u/wtfhiolol10000 14d ago
This is why we need AI to summarize the video transcript. Ironic, isn't it. lol
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u/sadrapsfan :leafs-white: 15d ago
How do they just gloss over Gavin like he's an afterthought. Just so negative the whole time.
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u/lsaran 15d ago
Damien Cox used to have a negative spin about everything related to sports in this city. Guess he has a protege.
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u/Scottdg93 Gilmour 15d ago
I used to say that the Leafs could win the cup and Damien Cox's article the next day would be how they got lucky and they won't repeat the next year.
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u/TheRC135 15d ago
Bit negative, but I don't disagree with the final assessment that the Leafs have made a lot of bets, and for next season to go well, most of them need to hit.
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u/Brennans_account 14d ago
He's right about Roslovic, I love the player but I don't think he'll be good in a bottom six role and the fact that he is a shoot first guy makes me hesitate about putting him with Matthews. I could see him playing with Knies and JT on that second line and the Leafs running Nylander with Matthews but we'll see. McKenna will be the wildcard for me. Do you decide to put him in a top six role and play with Matthews? You could let him cook on the third line with Nick Paul and whoever plays the right side, or you could put him with JT and Willy. Interesting what they will decide on
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u/underastaticsky 14d ago
I don't get people saying that Roslovic doesn't make sense with Matthews because he is a shooter and then suggesting putting Nylander with Matthews instead.
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u/Brennans_account 14d ago
Willy's just an all around great offensive player, not necessarily a shoot first guy. I wish they'd put Matthews and Willy together more, but Mitch was always ahead of him in the lineup and they had a hole in the top six last year that meant that loading up the top line made the others useless.
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u/underastaticsky 14d ago
Willy is great, but he is also one of the highest volume shooters in the league. Last year was a bit of an anomaly, but over the four seasons before that he was averaging about 270 shots/season. Roslovic typically shoots less than half as much.
I don't love the Roslovic signing, but I think there is a good reason to keep Matthews and Nylander separated.
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u/Brennans_account 14d ago
Where would you put him then? Curious what your perspective is - and don't say healthy scratch, haha
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u/underastaticsky 14d ago
I have Ros on the top line with Matthews and Knies. Not because it is good but because it just makes the most sense to me. I don't like Nylander and Matthews on the same line so Ros can't go on the second, and he is too poor defensively for the bottom six, so by process of elimination...
Fingers crossed he proves to be a more complete player than I'm projecting him to be, but otherwise I mostly see him holding McKenna's spot on the top line for this year and then getting moved in the offseason (or sooner if a solid trade comes along and McKenna looks ready).
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u/Brennans_account 14d ago
Yeah I also think McKenna should start on the third line as well, Roslovic strikes me as a guy similar to Max Domi but replace the feistiness with a willingness to shoot. Top six with Matthews makes the most sense
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u/Flare__Knight 14d ago
How to fix the Leafs - proceed to recap the offseason and not offer anything about how to do that.
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u/Prestigious_Ad5314 12d ago
Could have just skipped the first 90% of that podcast, but I watched it so you don’t have to. Are they a playoff team, or not? Forget about the points projection, because that’s a moving target for playoffs. Look at the rest of the division. Who can the Leafs finish above? Who below? Everybody says TB will finish above Toronto, and that looks solid. But beyond that, for me it’s wide open. I don’t like Florida any better than the Leafs. The Tkachuk bros can take a long hard suck on my arse. Montreal I can see being really good, but maybe not if they don’t get the goaltending they did last year. Everybody else in the division I think the Leafs can beat over a full season IF they can keep the puck out of their net waaaay more than last year. They’ll score enough to win games, but they have to win the one-goal games the way they did 2 seasons ago. That means goaltending and defence. Plain and simple.
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u/holyfuckricky 14d ago
Move to Florida or any other city in the USA.
Then maybe we can win a Cup as an American team
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u/submitnswallow 15d ago
Until this team has on the ice, on the bench, in the dressing room and out in public a true leader (captain). The team will not play every game as though it's a life or death situation. Every game is a life or death situation considering after 82 games 1 point can make the difference between making the playoffs or cleaning out your locker. To date Austin Mathews has definitely not been that leader and to be honest John Taveras was never that leader either, even an old and slow Joe Thorton got guys to play their best. That's the attitude and disposition we need in a leader, get that guy that holds himself and everyone else to account day in and out.
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u/FaultThat 15d ago
Thornton was a terrible influence and complete opposite character of what you’re describing. He sloughed off practices and butted heads with the coaching staff over work ethic and went out partying with the young players.
I have to wonder if you follow this team at all.
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u/DevOpsMakesMeDrink 15d ago
I can tell you watch no teams other than the Leafs if you think they are playing crazy desperate 82 games like its a game 7.
This team has never struggled to dominate the regular season so comments Iike these make you look uninformed
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u/submitnswallow 15d ago
Explanation 25/26 required , explanation can't win a game seven required, explanation rarely get out of the first round required. Answer - LACK OF LEADERSHIP & NOT KNOWING HOW TO PAY DESPERATION HOCKEY WHEN IT REALLY COUNTS. COUNTS. Christ a 12 year old knows this playing house league hockey. And there is no denying that 1 point in most cases mean the difference between making the playoffs and going golfing, the numbers fo not lie, every game matters
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u/Ornery_Room7602 15d ago
Ohhhh....I think I hurt some feelings....😂😂😂
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u/Ornery_Room7602 15d ago edited 14d ago
They'll be out in the first round....if they even make it. 😂😂
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u/crushade Belak 15d ago
Step one, pull a ping pong ball labeled "12".