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About to be .500

why cant we do anything properly? ffs

A higher draft pick would help us but they can't throw the season. Besides, this is the 1st year of a rebuild and part of that is a change of culture and systems. So far it looks like steps in the right direction under Babs. They won't win a bunch of games this year, and the players know that, but they are still coming to play. So many of their losses have been by one goal. I've actually enjoyed watching this season because the guys seem like they are playing hard. A team that comes out and never rolls over is a good base to then add some talent to in the next couple years

I happen to think culture change usually should happen after you get some fresh real talent in. Culture change is useless if 3/4 of this team is gone in 2 years.

We got Babcock too early IMO. It's too bad we couldn't have got him after a couple more high draft picks.

Getting fresh real talent in is the result of culture change. This was the last place players wanted to be traded to according to players agents. Babcock put life back into the club. If you want a play on his team, you're playing a 200 ft game and showing up to play every night

Leo/Rielly/Kadri/JVR are guys that are going to be apart of the Leafs future. Bozak/Phaneuf are looking more tradeable

The Leafs still have a lot of work to do but this is a big step in the right direction. Obbessive tanking to a point where you want to harp on getting a good coach is what makes this franchise a joke

Well, people said the same about Randy Carlyle about 4 years ago and look what happened. I'm not saying Babcock is building a fraud winning culture, but the real reason those Carlyle teams couldn't maintain was that the talent was never as good as people thought. All the advanced stat heads warned that the lockout shortened Leafs were a mirage despite everyone saying how Randy changed the culture and the team had a bright future with promising talent. Hell, I posted a link to how bad the Leafs were grading according to advanced stats when they were playing REALLY WELL and looked to be having one of the best records in the conference. The only borderline great talent was Kessel, and he was lazy and didn't back check. Everyone else was injury prone (Lupul) or not as good as their numbers indicated (Dion, Bozak, Kadri, etc,.)

Because of the way the cap goes, relying on free agents is not the way to go anymore. We could do that in the Sundin era but now we have to get real talent through the draft.

You can only polish a turd so much.

What "people?" This is a completely different situation. Carlyle made the playoffs in a shortened season and was quickly exposed

You probably haven't watched much (or any) of the Leafs this season if you think this is 2013/Carlyle all over again

51.3% points percentage (22nd)
+0.0 goal differential (13th)
+0.3 shot diff per game (13th)
50.1% score adjusted corsi (13th)

Babcock is making the most of what he's got. This is great for player development. Something the Leafs haven't had in years

Shanahan stated that he's not a big fan of July 1st to bail yourself out. They're not relying on free agency

The Leafs have been in the lottery 3 out of the last 4 years

Reilly #5
Nylander #8
Marner #4

They brought in Hunter and Dubas and are heavily invested in the draft

Still a lot of hockey left to play. They are not far from the bottom 5. Lou and Shanny are not going to be "buyers" at the deadline. They're still likely to finish with a top 10 draft pick

I don't watch the Leafs as much but their style of play is much more sustainable than the short success that Carlyle was getting out of them.

It's still not good though that they are having this early success in terms of an immediate draft pick. All we can do is hope the lottery falls our way. At the same time, a lot of these guys look a lot better than they have in years past and maybe a good number of them net a good return at the trade deadline.

I'm not criticizing the style of play, but the talent. At the end of the day, if the talent isn't good enough, the style isn't sustainable. These aren't pawns with an equal level of opportunity for success if used correctly.

Marner and Nylander are promising talents. But a hockey club needs more than 1 or 2 good to great talents, they need good to great players on every line. not just 1.

What is it about Leo/Reilly/Kadri/JVR do you think is a good foundation. What makes them a "better" foundation than any other team's young foundation in the league? Are any of these guys elite at any 1 of these things: skating, hockey IQ, puckhandling, scoring, or having just plain incredible physical ability? No, none of them are elite at any of those things. Yes, they are NHL calibre players, sure. But this team needs better talent than that as a foundation all around to eventually build for a Cup.

I bet you 4 years from now, most of the guys in that list are gone.

I wouldn't discount Reilly so easily and Kadri too.

I don't disagree with you that winning right now is hurting this teams opportunity to rebuild but they are still relatively close to the bottom too right now so you could literally move JVR and Lupul hopefully, move Komarov (doubt it) and a few of the guys like Boyes on one-year deals plus the goalies seem to be increasing value so who knows we could still bottom out quickly this year. But there's also no Connor McDavid.

This season and the modest success with Babcock is more an indictment of Shanny not pulling the trigger from last year and the summer before to get this started before he had his management and coaching staff in place. Then maybe they would have had a legit shot at Eichel/McDavid and the Babcock hiring lines up better.

Reilly is okay, but I'm not that high on Kadri.

Mohanad wrote:Getting fresh real talent in is the result of culture change. This was the last place players wanted to be traded to according to players agents. Babcock put life back into the club. If you want a play on his team, you're playing a 200 ft game and showing up to play every night

Leo/Rielly/Kadri/JVR are guys that are going to be apart of the Leafs future. Bozak/Phaneuf are looking more tradeable

The Leafs still have a lot of work to do but this is a big step in the right direction. Obbessive tanking to a point where you want to harp on getting a good coach is what makes this franchise a joke

They should sell high on leo. Shooting % is at 18.5, about 10% higher than the league average. If a team offered up a first rounder for him, I'd take it and run.

On the current roster, I see Kadri, Rielly, JVR, Gardiner and Lupul (Dont see anyone taking him off our hands) as the only players who are going to apart of the future of this team. Although I would definitely be tempted to trade JVR too, his value is probably insane right now.

LLJ wrote:I'm not criticizing the style of play, but the talent. At the end of the day, if the talent isn't good enough, the style isn't sustainable. These aren't pawns with an equal level of opportunity for success if used correctly.

Marner and Nylander are promising talents. But a hockey club needs more than 1 or 2 good to great talents, they need good to great players on every line. not just 1.

What is it about Leo/Reilly/Kadri/JVR do you think is a good foundation. What makes them a "better" foundation than any other team's young foundation in the league? Are any of these guys elite at any 1 of these things: skating, hockey IQ, puckhandling, scoring, or having just plain incredible physical ability? No, none of them are elite at any of those things. Yes, they are NHL calibre players, sure. But this team needs better talent than that as a foundation all around to eventually build for a Cup.

I bet you 4 years from now, most of the guys in that list are gone.

Rielly's got the making of a number 1 D right now. And under Babcock, I can see him reaching that level.

And Kadri has looked good this year, just unlucky. He doesnt look like he's going to be a big part of the future, but he definitely can be part of it.

LLJ wrote:Reilly is okay, but I'm not that high on Kadri.

I'm sort of on the fence with him. It's not so much that he's definitely part of the future or that he's going to be elite, but he's still young enough that there could be another level for him to reach so you keep developing him while integrating more youth.

It's the Parenteau's, Boyes, JVR (could be kept), Lupul, Reimer and Bernier that can possibly be moved and easily push us back to the bottom.

Lupul will be bought out if not traded

Komarov is a player every single playoff team would love to get their hands on. It's going to be interesting to see what happens with Leo. No complaints if they keep him under that contract

There's every reason to be very optimistic about Rielly regarding his development as a PK player, as a defensive player, as a transition player and as an offensive player. The exact opposite of what we got out of Luke Schenn at #5 overall

JvR is an interesting case. He's on an underpaid deal for his production for another year after this, making him a highly valuable trade asset. He's become a consistent player. Babcock's using him incredibly well in his system. Trading guys like JVR just for the sake of "tanking doesn't make sense. Shanny and Lou are going to demand a lot for the 26 yr old.

The Leafs are the 4th worst team in the league and 2 points behind the 3rd pick. Not catching Buffalo or Columbus

They're still players in the lotto and have 42 games left. A LOT can change though. Ideally they finish in the bottom 5 and Pittsburgh makes the playoffs in order to grab another 1st rounder. Hunter and Dubas want as many picks as possible. The plan has never been to look to free agency to "polish a turd" (whatever that means)

The Leafs should really start thinking about moving some bodies out at this point.

I don't have any complaints about anything they've done to this point. In fact it feels like they hit a home run nearly every time they step to the plate. But to an outside observer, very little has changed in time since Shanahan has arrived. We've:

- Got new scouts
- Got a new GM
- Got a new Coach
- Traded Kessel

The first three are a given, and nothing that half the league hasn't done 1 or more of themselves. While there's big implications to be discussed there to those of us in the know, practically speaking, the actual hockey team is the same and is getting the same results. The future looks better with Marner, Nylander and Rielly than it did with Schenn, Kadri and Kessel.

Rielly is okay? Are we all watching the same 21 year old kid? He's going to be elite, a true #1 defensemen very soon.

Reilly is good, I wouldn't say he's a lock to be an elite true #1 defensemen. Not that he can't be, he;s just going to have to a major step to reach that level. Right now he seems projected to be a number 1 or 2 defensemen. He;s got a long way to being elite and being talked about on the level of Karlson, Subban, Doughty and few others.

What qualities has Reilly displayed that makes some of you think he's going to be an elite defenseman in this league? Not saying he can't, but there's still a lot to be worked on.

Now this is more like it.

Amazed the Oilers got McDavid, a credible coach and made real moves trading for defenseman and a goalie and are still standing in our way for worst team

Dr Positivity wrote:Amazed the Oilers got McDavid, a credible coach and made real moves trading for defenseman and a goalie and are still standing in our way for worst team

They're still not strong in net or on D at all, they need a lot of work on the blue line moving forward.

In all likelihood, they'll probably end up with the #1 pick once again. They're going to have to realize eventually, their group hasn't and isn't going to work. They need to deal guys like RNH and Eberle to fill gaps elsewhere. I think picking up someone like Hamonic, Trouba, Brodin or Dumba (all rumoured to be available) will accelerate the process a bit and strengthen their back end.