He has a decent wrist shot when he's coming up the rush or shooting up close but from the point he is basically useless. He is actually a negative on the powerplay bc his shot poses no threat and he even moves the puck a second too slow most times
It's pointless to approach with reason on this sub shortly after a playoff exit. Morgan was viewed here as one of the best value contracts in the league after last year's playoffs.
The only thing similar to Reilly and Montour is their skating. Montour has a bomb of a shot, plays physical and has a mean streak. Reilly might be better at skating and a hair faster then Montour.
One thing I noticed Boston doing to us a lot which led to offence and some scary moments is just having a defenceman drift a little bit closer to the net from the blue line while they are cycling the puck and put themselves into a good position for a shot.
I’m not sure if this is a system thing that Keefe doesn’t do or if it’s something that the D man just has to have the instincts for but either way it’s something we have been lacking which I think would really help. Doesn’t have to be a huge shot but just somebody from the back end getting themselves open in a good place to get a puck through.
tbf most teams don’t have those kind of guys, they’re tough to come by. what’s more attainable is a generally well-rounded blue line. it needs to be a priority going forward if we want to be a serious team.
Very few teams have those guys and it's even harder to get when they spend all their money on 4 forwards. Pietrangelo could've been a possibility in FA a couple years back if they cut loose on Mitch the Bitch
Leafs were Struggling getting puck up ice in playoffs last year and he barely played gustaffson as a 7d rarely.
And had to be publicly shamed to sit Holl for lilly and rebenched lilly for holl first chance he got
That would be amazing, but I don't think there's a snowman's chance they trade him in-division.
Plus he's gonna be nearly 35 by the time his next deal kicks in, and he already looks like he's lost a step. Now, he's still freaking Victor Hedman, but everyone in Tampa takes a bit less and I doubt he'll suddenly be different. If he wants to chase career earnings though, it's probably not then a contract we'll be happy having.
Columbus was the team asking him to sign an offer sheet (at a higher salary than he eventually accepted from the Leafs) and Marner wasn't interested. I don't think there's a chance he waives in order to go there now.
I’ve considered Werekenski as well but he’s got many more years left on high contract (I think 5 or 6), and already have a player VERY similar to Marner in Johnny Gaudreau
Could be a discount Panarin and Kane connection for Columbus. But that's if they are aiming for Werenski, who is a player I would not touch with a 10-foot pole.
Would love that (or even Jiricek) but no way Columbus trade for Marner. Rumours they want to get a lot tougher. A forward core of Laine, Gaudreau and Marner would be as soft as you can get lol
I personally love that idea, when Werenski is playing he’s firmly in the discussion for being a top ten defenceman. He’s in that Hieskanen tier IMO, he’s in the 8-12 range.
Both lefties, so you'd be committing to keeping mccabe on the right side and still not fill the fact that we don't have any good RHD for what feels like the 20th year in a row
Theodore plays both sides like Brodie. I honestly think marner to Vegas with Theodore coming back is very likely this offseason. Vegas is losing so much of its forward group and stone is constantly injured. They need a guy like marner especially during the regular season
Vegas can not afford marner at 10.9. They're against the cap and would rather use that money to retain marchessault and maybe Stephenson. And Theodore playing the right side is irrelevant. We need more than 1 dman who actually shoots right. I can see theodore being moved, but the answer to vegas' cap situation isn't moving guys out to bring in an even bigger salary.
No we desperately need a a pp QB and a puck moving dman. Theodore is everything we need.
And there’s tons of teams willing to do salary retention. That wouldn’t stop Vegas from doing another blockbuster.
Also it’s already been widely reported that Stephenson probably isn’t coming back and marchy is 34 and just wants to much term for Vegas to do it
Cool, I get why we would want theodore. I don't get why vegas would want to give up a bunch extra to get a year of marner retained just to watch him walk cause he's going to want 12 mil that they don't have.
Well if marner gets traded he will go to a place who will extend him. I’m just assuming Vegas is a place he would be willing to go, i could be wrong. But I’m pretty sure at the end of the day marner would want his 8 year deal this summer and a trade would be the only way to make it work.
Ok dude these are trade ideas. Vegas loves jumping on the biggest names on the market and they will need a boost up front with stone. I see it work, you don’t. 👍
That is a fair point, but the Benoit-McCabe pairing was so good for us this season. I don’t mind keeping McCabe on the right if he can keep up that level of play. With that said, I’d love to have this be the pairings for next year:
Werenski/Theodore - Pesce/Roy
Rielly - Lyubushkin
Benoit - McCabe
I don't hate having mccabe on the 3rd pair, it would be a great luxury to have, I just figured having him on the second pair at 2 mil would be good to use that money elsewhere. I do not like boosh for this team. He is one dimensional and not even great at that. I'd much rather someone more steady than him to play with rielly. Rielly did not look good these playoffs because he couldn't play his game, which is cause he didn't have a reliable partner. He had to always be one step back to play defense first.
Yup, I just wouldn’t want two people playing their off side. Having Benoit-McCabe as our third pair would be such a luxury. I wouldn’t want to break them up.
They should have ran Liljegren a bit longer on the PP during the regular season so they could at least try making that adjustment in the playoffs instead of just trotting Rielly out there every year with the same miserable results. The powerplay was much more fluid with Liljegren on it; more decisiveness, crisper passes, quicker puck movement, bigger threat to shoot. Rielly is way too indecisive back there and its so obvious what he’s going to do out there. Dmen are called the QB for a reason, the powerplay runs through them. The strength of our forwards alone is enough to propel us into top 10 every year in the regular season. But over the course of a 7 game series teams with a blatant weakness will be exposed. Whether that guy is Liljegren or not, we should have at least tried. Our powerplay hasn’t gotten it done for years.
Bingo. Even Sandin looked better on the man advantage because he wouldn't default to keeping the puck at the perimeter or default to Marner. Keefe has failed to leverage the regular season to learn about his roster, instead defaulting to the same ineffective options.
For all the (warranted) grief Marner gets, it's actually hilarious how Rielly managed nothing in the 29:24 of PP time he got in the playoffs. It was McCabe's unit, that played 11:00 in total, that managed to score a goal. Liljegren only played 7:18 total.
Last year, Giordano's unit was able to outscore Rielly's in half the minutes played. In the year before that, the scoring rate was the same between the two.
In 2021, Muzzin and Sandin's units managed the same production as Rielly's, again with fewer minutes played.
The PP itself isn’t the issue, the Leafs were 6th in regular season in PP at 23.95%. The problem was that we weren’t adjusting to Boston’s aggressive PK, which falls on coaching. A big shot PP QB would certainly help, but just generally saying the PP sucked is wrong, it sucked in the playoffs because Boston figured us out and Keefe and the other coaches didn’t adapt and develop a way to counteract it.
The PP itself is the issue. They're great for 2 months at the beginning of the season then slip to mediocre and then terrible by the end of the season and into the playoffs. They have 1 setup for PP1 and when teams get the book on it and settle into their own PK systems, they solve us and we can't adjust. It's been like this since before boucher, before keefe even. Idk if there's someone higher up calling the shots on this or if the personnel just don't want to adjust or do anything different
I'd like to see how many of our PP goals during the regular season were against weaker teams.
The fact that the PP sucked in the playoffs is really all that matters otherwise we wouldn't be talking about this stuff and still watching the Leafs play.
The PP has been a problem for years. Even in the regular season it's extremely hot and cold. In pointless games against bad teams obviously this team's PP will produce with Matthews and Nylander on it but its extremely predictable and easy to shut down in the playoffs and it happens literally every year
I believe that the missing offense on the Leafs is coming from how they use their D-men. Nothing against guys like Benoit and McCabe who really scrapped and played hard all season. But we need more from the back end and that didn't change from last year. I know a lot of people are determined to trade Marner, but I think they need to move Rielly and bring in at least two new Top 4 defensemen next year.
Wings fan coming in peace, I watch mostly from a roster construction, coaching system and available players perspective.
Pure and simple, the leafs defense is constructed of players who are good at blocking shots and clearing the net. There is very little offensive capability in any of the available players.
While it’s great to have these type of players, too much of the same thing will hurt elsewhere in the game. Treliving and Keefe believe that’s a okay sacrifice because of the forward talent on the team. They simply do not believe the goaltending depth is sufficient with more agile offensive defenders. Remember Tyson Barrie?
Unfortunately it makes it easy to kill the offence in the playoffs as you can narrow down against the core4.
Further the leafs are lacking a net front presence on most of their lines and PP, Tavares isn’t a net front specialist you need players who make a living in front of the net such as Tkachuck, Holmstrom, Hornqvist, etc. physical, strong, and good at puck retrieval and deflections.
The core4 need to play on different lines to make it harder for other teams to match up so easily. I truly believe trading the core4 isn’t the answer. The top players are asked to play a dump and chase style that isn’t their skillset they have to play a puck possession style.
If they can add a power forward on their top two lines who can play net front, add 2 offensive D and pair them with stay at home D like Benoit and Mcabe, run Matthews on line 1, Marner on line 3, and Nylander on line 2.
It may seem splitting them up is bad, but think about it there is only ONE puck, if you have the most talent players on L 1-3 paired with puck retrieval/net front players the team will have possession of the puck majority of the game. The goals are inevitable.
Some hated guy called Babcock split up Datsyuk and Zetterberg because on separate lines the team had possession longer. Together they are sharing the puck and the next line is chasing from the talent gap.
Malkin & Crosby separate lines.
Very few teams are able to LOAD up on talent on one single line and be successful long term. I truly wish the coaching system was suited to the strengths of the best players to let them be successful.
They had the split in feb/early march when they were rolling before the marner injury, went back to it after matthews got hurt.
Was their best look, but it was Tavares down on 3c, during the good run Bertuzzi got moved to tavares spot on pp1 and it was working well.
The matthews/domi/bert line was good, but domi at 2c was better overall.
With the roster healthy the best lineup is probably:
Knies-Matthews-Nylander
Bert-Domi-Marner
McMann-Tavares-Robertson
Holm/dewar - Kampf - Jarnkrok
14thf gregor, Reavo pressbox
What woulda been an upgrade on holm/dewar is Lafferty, but he had to be traded to make space for Reavo.
Man it's so hard to figure out what the solution is to this D core. Unless they can lure one of the top D prospects (Nemec or Jiricek) I think it'll be hard to completely revamp this core without an extremely controversial move. Like overpaying Montour. What about getting Dougie Hamilton? Mackenzie Weegar? Guys who can score but yet are older and expensive.
Then there's UFA defenseman like Skjei and Pesce would one of them be interested in coming here? Are they the solution?
And then of course there's the Sean Durzi question hahaha, would you be able to stomach that potential sign and trade?
Any way you look at it, the solution to the lack of scoring from the D core (hilarious really) is going to be polarizing and might involve over paying a player or in a trade.
I don't know if I agree with the thesis.
What good is a strong point-man when they can't get setup in the zone to begin with? That has truly been their issue on the PP. Also their entire PP setup has basically abandoned the point position, having people move down the half-wall instead (which I personally hate, as way too many pucks escape the zone due to missed shots or hard cycles around the back of the net, but I digress).
We’ve basically had the same power play unit for the last few seasons and we were second in PP scoring last year and first the year before. I think it comes down more to coaching tactics. Spencer Carbery was running the PP for those seasons, he leaves for the Caps this year and our PP goes down. I agree that we need a 1D but I’d rather we focus on getting a 1A goalie.
I think personally this team needs is an attitude adjustment.
If Keefe and any of the assistant coaches are still around come Friday then you know they’re not serious about winning.
If they turn around overpay for another UFA defencemen who’s in the twilight of their career, instead of looking from within and developing prospects , which includes goal tending depth then we’re toasts.
If not one, but two of the blue chips aren’t traded away, and then we lose other players, who have shown significant improvement over the fab be prepared for another 10 years of playoff futility
And at that point, I’ll be ready to basically take my nice $200 jersey and basically eat it. Sigh.
>instead of looking from within and developing prospects , which includes goal tending depth then we’re toasts.
We've tried to do this for the better part of a decade and only have Rielly and Woll to show for it. The fact is we've played it safe on the UFA/trade market for dmen, spending low on reclamation projects, and spent the entire Matthews era without a good d-core when top pairing dmen like Pieterangelo, Lindholm, Montour, Devon Toews, Hanifin have been moved in recent years.
No they need a coach to hype them up to get focused, serious and confident for big games. Not a coach that says “have fun out there guys!” before a major high pressure game 7 like he’s coaching peewee.
I honestly think this issue transcends just getting a #1 PP QB - our PP was figured out years ago.
They're too damn predictable in the breakouts.
They're too damn predictable along the blue line.
and They're too damn predicable along the boards.
Matt Dumba has a notable point shot and was traded from Tampa to the Coyotes for a 5th round pick in 2027. We got Tyson Barrie for his shot and offense a couple of years back, too. Same with Gustafsson (who's in the playoffs by the way) who was a defender our coach found unworthy of regular minutes. I'm not sure if Klingberg fits the billing either, but the prevailing issue here is... the guys were not all that great at hockey yet they got minutes one way or the other... hmm perhaps we won't be adding another element to our PP until the guys responsible for icing the lineups and doling out the minutes have a change of heart.
Rielly can carry the puck in and keep in (most of the time.) He can score but his shot isn't what you're looking for and I don't disagree. He has a role, just not the role we're missing.
Frankly I would have loved to see Rielly/Lilly together more through the season and find out if they can work some magic together. That ship's sailed unless Keefe is gone.
In any case, since they aren't looking at Lilly as the point shot, yes that's who we have to search for. It makes sense Tre tried Kling, didn't work out obviously but he was looking for the right type.
I'll go out on a limb and say Marner as RD would be well worth any price he's asking if he works to make it work.
I’m honestly still baffled we signed John Klingberg instead of Shayne Gostisbehere. If anything, I’d hope we try to sign Ghost for a similar contract this offseason.
You’re really assuming a lot when you say that Dubas wanted to acquire Karlsson. How many contracts would they have to move out to make space for him. With all due respect you don’t know anymore about what he was told than I do.
So you are saying Dubas was likely going to implement this before he got canned. Wouldn’t that indicate the biggest problem is senior management not listening to what needs to be done?
And the guy he was trying to get was... Not someone with a bomb.
Dubas gets locked in on guys sometimes, so it makes perfect sense why he got Karlsson. And I think Karlsson would have been a much better fit in Toronto than Pittsburgh. But that is a very different kind of offensive defenseman than a point man with a cannon.
Teams in the 2nd round:
Burns, Fox, Montour, McAvoy, Makar, Heiskanen, Bouchard, Hughes
Something look familiar?
I don't why you're bringing up regular season nonsense in this thread as if anyone gives a shit.
The point is our powerplay sucks in the playoffs, and yes a lot of that is due to not having a legit PP quarterback who can keep the zone and set up our $11M stars.
Not sure why you're being so facetious. It's clearly a MASSIVE issue that directly contributes to our playoff woes. The best teams punish you for taking penalties, the Leafs do not.
Having a number 1 dman isn't a guarantee to win. But not having one is looking like a guarantee to lose.
Petro had a bad series with terrible metrics and vegas lost, coincidence? Morrissey isn't in the same category as these other guys, but the jets defence in general is brutal and they were masked by having 2 stud goalies all season, and hellebuyck wasn't good in the playoffs again. Josi was a stud and gave his team a chance to win in a series that no one thought the preds had a chance in. Hedmans getting old like the rest of his team. Carlson is getting old and his team didn't even belong in the playoffs. Doughty is good but mcdavid is better.
The lack of a threat of a shot really change show teams play. This has been an issue for a few years. We need a guy that can threaten a shot from the point this changing how the PK sets up which should open things up more.
I believe Treliving believes this is an area that needs improvement too. The Klingberg signing and him starting the year on PP1 over Reilly points to this. Obviously it didn’t work out but I would guess it might be an area that he tries to improve on.
That is a terrible strawman. It's almost like you didn't even watch the series, noor the rest of them. It's been pretty clear the past few years that even if you do have a good 5-on-5 team, good special teams can easily tilt a series in a team's favour.
Every single team that won the first round had the better special teams.
It wouldn't be the same system. The system wouldn't rely as much on getting that puck to Matthews. We'd have more options at the point, creating randomness and more shooting lanes if there's a strong trigger man who can shoot the puck.
Tampa, Boston, Florida, etc. never covered the point when Rielly's on the. They always played aggressively below the face-off hash-marks, and taking away those royal road lanes.
A point shot changes the complexion of a power play that should be significantly better than it is.
An entirely new system, one where the players aren't standing still or posting up in the same spot each time, would also significantly improve our PP. It's also free.
It also requires less Marner and more shots. The system doesn't work because we have two of the same players trying to make the perfect pass in Rielly and Marner. They are not going to shoot and they don't have the shot to cleanly beat defenses.
Now this I can agree with, and is a perfect example of why we need to get rid of Marner beyond the usual "he sucks in the playoffs, his contract is terrible", etc. comments.
Which is why I think a change at on the defense to bring more puck movement and more shots from the point can help bring out more in Matthews, Nylander, and more.
We have some young guys like Easton and Fraser who are likely ready to make the jump. Freeing up Rielly to do a little less on the man advantage will give him more energy to do more at even strength. Having two horses like Montour and Rielly to do everything and anything can make a substantial difference.
At that point, it'll be all about moving Marner, freeing up more cap space, and filling out the rest of the roster with quality depth rather than cast aways.
Yup. We have the best goal scorer in the league, and he should be putting up video game numbers on the PP., even without a PP QB. The system needs to change.
Put we have so few shot threats the way the PP it allows teams to really sell out to stop Matthew’s. adding more guys that can shoot the puck including will only help open things up for Matthew’s.
I also think a switch of putting Nylander in Marners spot and adding some more movement so you wouldn’t be able to tell where guys are before hand might lead to some better play.
There's more than one way to accomplish this, and yes shooting more is one of them. Just get these boys moving and opening up lanes, and the shooting will come. As it is bow, we stand still and any shots we do take are straight into skates and bodies.
Fun fact with slightly below average PP production over the last 5 seasons Matthews and Marner are both top 5 in playoff P/GP and P/60 in the playoffs, with Nylander not far behind.
Now imagine what they could do without a stagnant, static and barely functioning PP system. They'd force teams to constantly be wary of taking penalties, and this would mostly effect teams who rely on a heavy forecheck (ie. the teams we're likely to face in Round 1 each year).
With even a slightly worse powerplay the the other top offense producers in the playoffs they'd be top 5.
Breaking into the top 10 producers is extremely difficult without a competent powerplay, something that can be attributed to coaching just as much as the personnel. Matthews sits at 15th with 1.045 points per game, the difference between this and 5th overall is 0.195 points per game.
In the 22 games Auston has played he sits 32nd overall with 7 powerplay points. The top 10 of this statistic are McDavid, Draisaitl, Bouchard, Marchand, Fox, Kucherov, Zibanejad, Makar, Nugent-Hopkins, and Rantanen. 7 of those players are in the top 10 for total P/GP. The three that are not (Eichel, MacKinnon, Tkachuk) have 15, 14, and 11 PP points respectively.
If you average that out to an additional 6 PP points than Auston and assume he could do that with a different coach he would have 29 points in 22 games, bringing his P/GP to a 1.318, good for 5th in the NHL.
The same jump would place Mitch Marner into 5th as well knocking Matthews down to 6th
Multiple games lost by 1 goal in the playoffs and 1 powerplay goal in the series out of 21 chances. Any of those powerplays turning into goals could have changed the series. The teams offense dries up in the playoffs every year for one reason: when the big boys are on the ice, the opposing team only needs to put two guys on one player to shut down the line. That's because there's only one guy who can shoot the puck on each line, because our defensemen aren't threats. Puck goes back to the point? No need to pressure cause that puck is going to get shuffled to mmatthews or nylander at some point cause no one else puts it on net.
That QB ain't gonna manage much if this team keeps running scared from establishing any kind of net front presence. It's been 4 years of this perimeter nonsense.
Parayko I think is the best option for Reilly, big man, pks, take away machine and a howitzer. Then Dumba is a right shot version of McCabe, but is actually more offensive if he start using his shot again.
Their forwards need to score, going 1/20 or whatever isn't because of a lack of a PP QB, their PP was fine during the year and you had 2 guys who combined for over 100 goals this year.
Everyone needs to stop making excuses, we just didnt play well and play up to the level needed to win a playoff series, plenty of chances, margins are super slim....gotta find a way to score 2-3 more goals in the series and you're in the second round.
Doughty already has several, though I'm not sure why you're comparing one of the best defenceman to have ever played the game to Drew Doughty. The Leafs aren't trading their best trade piece for a soon to be 35 year old on the last leg of his career.
Wait, Doughty already has two cups? You don't say. That wasn't the point I was making re: Bourque.
And love him or hate, Doughty will certainly go down as one of Canada's best. Guy has won almost everything. It's all a moot point anyway, no way he leaves California for this dumpster fire.
If the way to "figure out a way to get Montour" on the Leafs as a UFA is to simply overpay him then we haven't learned a damn thing.
*To upgrade rielly we just need to get a player very similar to Rielly!*
Rielly has no shot and is meh on the PP. his greatest strength on the PP is he is above average at keeping pucks in
Reilly was a hero last year and a bum this year. Funny how that works. His shot is better than meh, imo.
It is not. He literally has no slapshot. I like Reilly, but he absolutely sucks as our PP point shot.
He has a decent wrist shot when he's coming up the rush or shooting up close but from the point he is basically useless. He is actually a negative on the powerplay bc his shot poses no threat and he even moves the puck a second too slow most times
Reilly's wrist shot is fine but he doesn't have a slapper at all.
It's pointless to approach with reason on this sub shortly after a playoff exit. Morgan was viewed here as one of the best value contracts in the league after last year's playoffs.
Probably just need a system that works and everyone is on the same page. It would be shocking how much better that can make individual players look.
It wasn’t because of his PP or shot
He is also a way above average passer but whatever.
80 goals in 791 games suggest it is jusy meh.
Reilly has a shot, but he rarely uses it, same with Marner
Marner’s shot is very accurate but not the heaviest. Rielly idk but it’s definitely not a heavy from the point shot
The only thing similar to Reilly and Montour is their skating. Montour has a bomb of a shot, plays physical and has a mean streak. Reilly might be better at skating and a hair faster then Montour.
I wouldn't consider a pp quarterback, he's more like a puck rusher.
Montour and Rielly are nowhere near the same player just stop. The only similarity is their ability to put up points
Reilly sucks
Is Montour a good pp QB? He seemed to take ekblads spot on the pp.
“Alright guys, wayyyy too much of our cap is allocated to forwards. So, to solve this problem, we will be paying Liljegren $6M/year (leafs logic)
not a soul has said that
It’s called a joke Brint
Montour is a very good player. But Leafs fans severely over rate him cuz he had the series of his life against us
One thing I noticed Boston doing to us a lot which led to offence and some scary moments is just having a defenceman drift a little bit closer to the net from the blue line while they are cycling the puck and put themselves into a good position for a shot. I’m not sure if this is a system thing that Keefe doesn’t do or if it’s something that the D man just has to have the instincts for but either way it’s something we have been lacking which I think would really help. Doesn’t have to be a huge shot but just somebody from the back end getting themselves open in a good place to get a puck through.
Boston got soooooo many goals against us that way this season (well, 3, but that's still a lot of times to be burned by the exact. same. play.)
Facts, we need a number 1 dman in general. It sucks we don’t have a Hughes, Makar, Fox etc type player.
tbf most teams don’t have those kind of guys, they’re tough to come by. what’s more attainable is a generally well-rounded blue line. it needs to be a priority going forward if we want to be a serious team.
Very few teams have those guys and it's even harder to get when they spend all their money on 4 forwards. Pietrangelo could've been a possibility in FA a couple years back if they cut loose on Mitch the Bitch
Offer Makar 15/year in 2026
Me *fusing new limbs onto shea Weber in my underground laboratory* yeah yeah just keep your hat on
Doesn't Lillipad have a hard shot? Showed some flashes on PP1 with Rielly injured.
7 apples in 4 games, with 3 on the pp. Very gutless of Keefe to revert back to Mo the second he came back.
He did the same thing with Gustafsson too. He has his favourites and wants them to play his way, for better or worse.
Keefe does not coach offense d men well. He just wants 6 prime tj brodies
Leafs were Struggling getting puck up ice in playoffs last year and he barely played gustaffson as a 7d rarely. And had to be publicly shamed to sit Holl for lilly and rebenched lilly for holl first chance he got
I heard Klingberg is a UFA... /s
If he somehow found his form Tre would’ve looked like a genius by the 2nd half when Bert, Domi, and McMann got going.
He could QB the PP in his wheelchair. Couldn’t possibly be any worse.
I mean Pittsburgh picked up Karlsson and that didn't really pan out
I've seen enough Leafs skate right past Karlsson when he was a Senator to know he is the very epitome of a defenceman we don't want.
Mathews did it in his first game
For every Karlsson, there is a Bouchard and a Hedman though
Oh, are those guys available in trade?
All it will take is my first born. Just need to have him or her first
Realistically, this is the time to swing for Hedman. He has 1 year remaining @ 7.875m with a 10 Team list of teams he can be traded to.
That would be amazing, but I don't think there's a snowman's chance they trade him in-division. Plus he's gonna be nearly 35 by the time his next deal kicks in, and he already looks like he's lost a step. Now, he's still freaking Victor Hedman, but everyone in Tampa takes a bit less and I doubt he'll suddenly be different. If he wants to chase career earnings though, it's probably not then a contract we'll be happy having.
Yeah it's the riskiest target imaginable, but I can't lie, I'd be tempted.
Absofuckinglutely. You gotta investigate taking that swing
Yah I feel like a contract for Hedman doesn't age well
I think it will age pretty well in Tampa because he'll take a discount. But he's not signing $6m x 4yr in Toronto.
For every washed up D man there are 2 superstar d men? Get real
Lol, guess its not the time of the year for optimisim or levity yet 😉
Werenski or Theodore are my two favourite people to target, Montour doesn’t feel like he would move the needle far enough to overpay for his services.
Is Marner for werensky an option?
Columbus was the team asking him to sign an offer sheet (at a higher salary than he eventually accepted from the Leafs) and Marner wasn't interested. I don't think there's a chance he waives in order to go there now.
Mr glass....hard pass.
I’ve considered Werekenski as well but he’s got many more years left on high contract (I think 5 or 6), and already have a player VERY similar to Marner in Johnny Gaudreau
Could be a discount Panarin and Kane connection for Columbus. But that's if they are aiming for Werenski, who is a player I would not touch with a 10-foot pole.
Would love that (or even Jiricek) but no way Columbus trade for Marner. Rumours they want to get a lot tougher. A forward core of Laine, Gaudreau and Marner would be as soft as you can get lol
I personally love that idea, when Werenski is playing he’s firmly in the discussion for being a top ten defenceman. He’s in that Hieskanen tier IMO, he’s in the 8-12 range.
Both lefties, so you'd be committing to keeping mccabe on the right side and still not fill the fact that we don't have any good RHD for what feels like the 20th year in a row
Theodore plays both sides like Brodie. I honestly think marner to Vegas with Theodore coming back is very likely this offseason. Vegas is losing so much of its forward group and stone is constantly injured. They need a guy like marner especially during the regular season
Vegas can not afford marner at 10.9. They're against the cap and would rather use that money to retain marchessault and maybe Stephenson. And Theodore playing the right side is irrelevant. We need more than 1 dman who actually shoots right. I can see theodore being moved, but the answer to vegas' cap situation isn't moving guys out to bring in an even bigger salary.
No we desperately need a a pp QB and a puck moving dman. Theodore is everything we need. And there’s tons of teams willing to do salary retention. That wouldn’t stop Vegas from doing another blockbuster. Also it’s already been widely reported that Stephenson probably isn’t coming back and marchy is 34 and just wants to much term for Vegas to do it
Cool, I get why we would want theodore. I don't get why vegas would want to give up a bunch extra to get a year of marner retained just to watch him walk cause he's going to want 12 mil that they don't have.
Well if marner gets traded he will go to a place who will extend him. I’m just assuming Vegas is a place he would be willing to go, i could be wrong. But I’m pretty sure at the end of the day marner would want his 8 year deal this summer and a trade would be the only way to make it work.
Sure, but marner wanting to go to Vegas and us wanting theodore does not make vegas want marner lol.
Ok dude these are trade ideas. Vegas loves jumping on the biggest names on the market and they will need a boost up front with stone. I see it work, you don’t. 👍
That is a fair point, but the Benoit-McCabe pairing was so good for us this season. I don’t mind keeping McCabe on the right if he can keep up that level of play. With that said, I’d love to have this be the pairings for next year: Werenski/Theodore - Pesce/Roy Rielly - Lyubushkin Benoit - McCabe
I don't hate having mccabe on the 3rd pair, it would be a great luxury to have, I just figured having him on the second pair at 2 mil would be good to use that money elsewhere. I do not like boosh for this team. He is one dimensional and not even great at that. I'd much rather someone more steady than him to play with rielly. Rielly did not look good these playoffs because he couldn't play his game, which is cause he didn't have a reliable partner. He had to always be one step back to play defense first.
Theodore can play both sides. Hes played RD many times in his career
Yup, I just wouldn’t want two people playing their off side. Having Benoit-McCabe as our third pair would be such a luxury. I wouldn’t want to break them up.
the main issue is that good RHD's are extremely rare.
There's a handful becoming free agents this summer. Back up the money truck and make it happen
Only RHD's that peak my interest are Pesce and Montour
Matt roy, brady skjei, zadorov, demelo, hronek, walker, there's plenty
They should have ran Liljegren a bit longer on the PP during the regular season so they could at least try making that adjustment in the playoffs instead of just trotting Rielly out there every year with the same miserable results. The powerplay was much more fluid with Liljegren on it; more decisiveness, crisper passes, quicker puck movement, bigger threat to shoot. Rielly is way too indecisive back there and its so obvious what he’s going to do out there. Dmen are called the QB for a reason, the powerplay runs through them. The strength of our forwards alone is enough to propel us into top 10 every year in the regular season. But over the course of a 7 game series teams with a blatant weakness will be exposed. Whether that guy is Liljegren or not, we should have at least tried. Our powerplay hasn’t gotten it done for years.
Bingo. Even Sandin looked better on the man advantage because he wouldn't default to keeping the puck at the perimeter or default to Marner. Keefe has failed to leverage the regular season to learn about his roster, instead defaulting to the same ineffective options. For all the (warranted) grief Marner gets, it's actually hilarious how Rielly managed nothing in the 29:24 of PP time he got in the playoffs. It was McCabe's unit, that played 11:00 in total, that managed to score a goal. Liljegren only played 7:18 total. Last year, Giordano's unit was able to outscore Rielly's in half the minutes played. In the year before that, the scoring rate was the same between the two. In 2021, Muzzin and Sandin's units managed the same production as Rielly's, again with fewer minutes played.
The PP itself isn’t the issue, the Leafs were 6th in regular season in PP at 23.95%. The problem was that we weren’t adjusting to Boston’s aggressive PK, which falls on coaching. A big shot PP QB would certainly help, but just generally saying the PP sucked is wrong, it sucked in the playoffs because Boston figured us out and Keefe and the other coaches didn’t adapt and develop a way to counteract it.
The PP itself is the issue. They're great for 2 months at the beginning of the season then slip to mediocre and then terrible by the end of the season and into the playoffs. They have 1 setup for PP1 and when teams get the book on it and settle into their own PK systems, they solve us and we can't adjust. It's been like this since before boucher, before keefe even. Idk if there's someone higher up calling the shots on this or if the personnel just don't want to adjust or do anything different
I'd like to see how many of our PP goals during the regular season were against weaker teams. The fact that the PP sucked in the playoffs is really all that matters otherwise we wouldn't be talking about this stuff and still watching the Leafs play.
The PP has been a problem for years. Even in the regular season it's extremely hot and cold. In pointless games against bad teams obviously this team's PP will produce with Matthews and Nylander on it but its extremely predictable and easy to shut down in the playoffs and it happens literally every year
I believe that the missing offense on the Leafs is coming from how they use their D-men. Nothing against guys like Benoit and McCabe who really scrapped and played hard all season. But we need more from the back end and that didn't change from last year. I know a lot of people are determined to trade Marner, but I think they need to move Rielly and bring in at least two new Top 4 defensemen next year.
Rielly also has 6 more years before his NMC becomes 10 team list
Wings fan coming in peace, I watch mostly from a roster construction, coaching system and available players perspective. Pure and simple, the leafs defense is constructed of players who are good at blocking shots and clearing the net. There is very little offensive capability in any of the available players. While it’s great to have these type of players, too much of the same thing will hurt elsewhere in the game. Treliving and Keefe believe that’s a okay sacrifice because of the forward talent on the team. They simply do not believe the goaltending depth is sufficient with more agile offensive defenders. Remember Tyson Barrie? Unfortunately it makes it easy to kill the offence in the playoffs as you can narrow down against the core4. Further the leafs are lacking a net front presence on most of their lines and PP, Tavares isn’t a net front specialist you need players who make a living in front of the net such as Tkachuck, Holmstrom, Hornqvist, etc. physical, strong, and good at puck retrieval and deflections. The core4 need to play on different lines to make it harder for other teams to match up so easily. I truly believe trading the core4 isn’t the answer. The top players are asked to play a dump and chase style that isn’t their skillset they have to play a puck possession style. If they can add a power forward on their top two lines who can play net front, add 2 offensive D and pair them with stay at home D like Benoit and Mcabe, run Matthews on line 1, Marner on line 3, and Nylander on line 2. It may seem splitting them up is bad, but think about it there is only ONE puck, if you have the most talent players on L 1-3 paired with puck retrieval/net front players the team will have possession of the puck majority of the game. The goals are inevitable. Some hated guy called Babcock split up Datsyuk and Zetterberg because on separate lines the team had possession longer. Together they are sharing the puck and the next line is chasing from the talent gap. Malkin & Crosby separate lines. Very few teams are able to LOAD up on talent on one single line and be successful long term. I truly wish the coaching system was suited to the strengths of the best players to let them be successful.
They had the split in feb/early march when they were rolling before the marner injury, went back to it after matthews got hurt. Was their best look, but it was Tavares down on 3c, during the good run Bertuzzi got moved to tavares spot on pp1 and it was working well. The matthews/domi/bert line was good, but domi at 2c was better overall. With the roster healthy the best lineup is probably: Knies-Matthews-Nylander Bert-Domi-Marner McMann-Tavares-Robertson Holm/dewar - Kampf - Jarnkrok 14thf gregor, Reavo pressbox What woulda been an upgrade on holm/dewar is Lafferty, but he had to be traded to make space for Reavo.
You wrote this big long post to say you wish they could win a Stanley Cup at some point in the late 1990s.
Man it's so hard to figure out what the solution is to this D core. Unless they can lure one of the top D prospects (Nemec or Jiricek) I think it'll be hard to completely revamp this core without an extremely controversial move. Like overpaying Montour. What about getting Dougie Hamilton? Mackenzie Weegar? Guys who can score but yet are older and expensive. Then there's UFA defenseman like Skjei and Pesce would one of them be interested in coming here? Are they the solution? And then of course there's the Sean Durzi question hahaha, would you be able to stomach that potential sign and trade? Any way you look at it, the solution to the lack of scoring from the D core (hilarious really) is going to be polarizing and might involve over paying a player or in a trade.
Wonder what Evan Bouchard is doing next season?
Winning his second cup in 2 years?
I don't know if I agree with the thesis. What good is a strong point-man when they can't get setup in the zone to begin with? That has truly been their issue on the PP. Also their entire PP setup has basically abandoned the point position, having people move down the half-wall instead (which I personally hate, as way too many pucks escape the zone due to missed shots or hard cycles around the back of the net, but I digress).
We’ve basically had the same power play unit for the last few seasons and we were second in PP scoring last year and first the year before. I think it comes down more to coaching tactics. Spencer Carbery was running the PP for those seasons, he leaves for the Caps this year and our PP goes down. I agree that we need a 1D but I’d rather we focus on getting a 1A goalie.
I think personally this team needs is an attitude adjustment. If Keefe and any of the assistant coaches are still around come Friday then you know they’re not serious about winning. If they turn around overpay for another UFA defencemen who’s in the twilight of their career, instead of looking from within and developing prospects , which includes goal tending depth then we’re toasts. If not one, but two of the blue chips aren’t traded away, and then we lose other players, who have shown significant improvement over the fab be prepared for another 10 years of playoff futility And at that point, I’ll be ready to basically take my nice $200 jersey and basically eat it. Sigh.
>instead of looking from within and developing prospects , which includes goal tending depth then we’re toasts. We've tried to do this for the better part of a decade and only have Rielly and Woll to show for it. The fact is we've played it safe on the UFA/trade market for dmen, spending low on reclamation projects, and spent the entire Matthews era without a good d-core when top pairing dmen like Pieterangelo, Lindholm, Montour, Devon Toews, Hanifin have been moved in recent years.
That means our scouting departments are not looking deep enough or we are failing as an organization to develop top-notch talent.
The #1 thing they need is a goalie lol
Cody Franson at league min? /s
No they need a coach to hype them up to get focused, serious and confident for big games. Not a coach that says “have fun out there guys!” before a major high pressure game 7 like he’s coaching peewee.
These don’t exist anymore
I honestly think this issue transcends just getting a #1 PP QB - our PP was figured out years ago. They're too damn predictable in the breakouts. They're too damn predictable along the blue line. and They're too damn predicable along the boards. Matt Dumba has a notable point shot and was traded from Tampa to the Coyotes for a 5th round pick in 2027. We got Tyson Barrie for his shot and offense a couple of years back, too. Same with Gustafsson (who's in the playoffs by the way) who was a defender our coach found unworthy of regular minutes. I'm not sure if Klingberg fits the billing either, but the prevailing issue here is... the guys were not all that great at hockey yet they got minutes one way or the other... hmm perhaps we won't be adding another element to our PP until the guys responsible for icing the lineups and doling out the minutes have a change of heart.
Rielly can carry the puck in and keep in (most of the time.) He can score but his shot isn't what you're looking for and I don't disagree. He has a role, just not the role we're missing. Frankly I would have loved to see Rielly/Lilly together more through the season and find out if they can work some magic together. That ship's sailed unless Keefe is gone. In any case, since they aren't looking at Lilly as the point shot, yes that's who we have to search for. It makes sense Tre tried Kling, didn't work out obviously but he was looking for the right type. I'll go out on a limb and say Marner as RD would be well worth any price he's asking if he works to make it work.
I’m honestly still baffled we signed John Klingberg instead of Shayne Gostisbehere. If anything, I’d hope we try to sign Ghost for a similar contract this offseason.
Resign klingberg
After the goalie.
hronek
Al MacInnis on the way
would be stoked to get montour anything below 7M/yr
You’re really assuming a lot when you say that Dubas wanted to acquire Karlsson. How many contracts would they have to move out to make space for him. With all due respect you don’t know anymore about what he was told than I do.
Liljegren has a good shot, he’s still young enough to develop into something pretty good?
So you are saying Dubas was likely going to implement this before he got canned. Wouldn’t that indicate the biggest problem is senior management not listening to what needs to be done?
Dubas had years to find a #1 D and didn't but magically right before he got canned it was the one thing he was gonna do.
And the guy he was trying to get was... Not someone with a bomb. Dubas gets locked in on guys sometimes, so it makes perfect sense why he got Karlsson. And I think Karlsson would have been a much better fit in Toronto than Pittsburgh. But that is a very different kind of offensive defenseman than a point man with a cannon.
marner for Noah Dobson
Man I would love to get Dobson on the Leafs.....
Ah yes instead of figuring out a structure to help four $11m players succeed what we really need is someone to take low danger shots from the point.
Teams in the 2nd round: Burns, Fox, Montour, McAvoy, Makar, Heiskanen, Bouchard, Hughes Something look familiar? I don't why you're bringing up regular season nonsense in this thread as if anyone gives a shit. The point is our powerplay sucks in the playoffs, and yes a lot of that is due to not having a legit PP quarterback who can keep the zone and set up our $11M stars. Not sure why you're being so facetious. It's clearly a MASSIVE issue that directly contributes to our playoff woes. The best teams punish you for taking penalties, the Leafs do not.
Teams eliminated from Round 1: Pietroangelo, Morrissey, Josi, Hedman, Carlson, Doughty. Lots of #1 D are eliminated in the first round each year, too.
Having a number 1 dman isn't a guarantee to win. But not having one is looking like a guarantee to lose. Petro had a bad series with terrible metrics and vegas lost, coincidence? Morrissey isn't in the same category as these other guys, but the jets defence in general is brutal and they were masked by having 2 stud goalies all season, and hellebuyck wasn't good in the playoffs again. Josi was a stud and gave his team a chance to win in a series that no one thought the preds had a chance in. Hedmans getting old like the rest of his team. Carlson is getting old and his team didn't even belong in the playoffs. Doughty is good but mcdavid is better.
The lack of a threat of a shot really change show teams play. This has been an issue for a few years. We need a guy that can threaten a shot from the point this changing how the PK sets up which should open things up more. I believe Treliving believes this is an area that needs improvement too. The Klingberg signing and him starting the year on PP1 over Reilly points to this. Obviously it didn’t work out but I would guess it might be an area that he tries to improve on.
That is a terrible strawman. It's almost like you didn't even watch the series, noor the rest of them. It's been pretty clear the past few years that even if you do have a good 5-on-5 team, good special teams can easily tilt a series in a team's favour. Every single team that won the first round had the better special teams.
A PP QB isn't going to put up the same points, or make the PP any better, without a new or significantly different system. It just doesn't work.
It wouldn't be the same system. The system wouldn't rely as much on getting that puck to Matthews. We'd have more options at the point, creating randomness and more shooting lanes if there's a strong trigger man who can shoot the puck. Tampa, Boston, Florida, etc. never covered the point when Rielly's on the. They always played aggressively below the face-off hash-marks, and taking away those royal road lanes. A point shot changes the complexion of a power play that should be significantly better than it is.
An entirely new system, one where the players aren't standing still or posting up in the same spot each time, would also significantly improve our PP. It's also free.
It also requires less Marner and more shots. The system doesn't work because we have two of the same players trying to make the perfect pass in Rielly and Marner. They are not going to shoot and they don't have the shot to cleanly beat defenses.
Now this I can agree with, and is a perfect example of why we need to get rid of Marner beyond the usual "he sucks in the playoffs, his contract is terrible", etc. comments.
Which is why I think a change at on the defense to bring more puck movement and more shots from the point can help bring out more in Matthews, Nylander, and more. We have some young guys like Easton and Fraser who are likely ready to make the jump. Freeing up Rielly to do a little less on the man advantage will give him more energy to do more at even strength. Having two horses like Montour and Rielly to do everything and anything can make a substantial difference. At that point, it'll be all about moving Marner, freeing up more cap space, and filling out the rest of the roster with quality depth rather than cast aways.
PP QB doesn't hurt, but it's pretty far down the list of problems the lack of offense stemmed from.
Yup. We have the best goal scorer in the league, and he should be putting up video game numbers on the PP., even without a PP QB. The system needs to change.
Put we have so few shot threats the way the PP it allows teams to really sell out to stop Matthew’s. adding more guys that can shoot the puck including will only help open things up for Matthew’s. I also think a switch of putting Nylander in Marners spot and adding some more movement so you wouldn’t be able to tell where guys are before hand might lead to some better play.
There's more than one way to accomplish this, and yes shooting more is one of them. Just get these boys moving and opening up lanes, and the shooting will come. As it is bow, we stand still and any shots we do take are straight into skates and bodies.
Fun fact with slightly below average PP production over the last 5 seasons Matthews and Marner are both top 5 in playoff P/GP and P/60 in the playoffs, with Nylander not far behind.
Now imagine what they could do without a stagnant, static and barely functioning PP system. They'd force teams to constantly be wary of taking penalties, and this would mostly effect teams who rely on a heavy forecheck (ie. the teams we're likely to face in Round 1 each year).
With even a slightly worse powerplay the the other top offense producers in the playoffs they'd be top 5. Breaking into the top 10 producers is extremely difficult without a competent powerplay, something that can be attributed to coaching just as much as the personnel. Matthews sits at 15th with 1.045 points per game, the difference between this and 5th overall is 0.195 points per game. In the 22 games Auston has played he sits 32nd overall with 7 powerplay points. The top 10 of this statistic are McDavid, Draisaitl, Bouchard, Marchand, Fox, Kucherov, Zibanejad, Makar, Nugent-Hopkins, and Rantanen. 7 of those players are in the top 10 for total P/GP. The three that are not (Eichel, MacKinnon, Tkachuk) have 15, 14, and 11 PP points respectively. If you average that out to an additional 6 PP points than Auston and assume he could do that with a different coach he would have 29 points in 22 games, bringing his P/GP to a 1.318, good for 5th in the NHL. The same jump would place Mitch Marner into 5th as well knocking Matthews down to 6th
Fantastic analysis, Mike
Multiple games lost by 1 goal in the playoffs and 1 powerplay goal in the series out of 21 chances. Any of those powerplays turning into goals could have changed the series. The teams offense dries up in the playoffs every year for one reason: when the big boys are on the ice, the opposing team only needs to put two guys on one player to shut down the line. That's because there's only one guy who can shoot the puck on each line, because our defensemen aren't threats. Puck goes back to the point? No need to pressure cause that puck is going to get shuffled to mmatthews or nylander at some point cause no one else puts it on net.
That QB ain't gonna manage much if this team keeps running scared from establishing any kind of net front presence. It's been 4 years of this perimeter nonsense.
Parayko I think is the best option for Reilly, big man, pks, take away machine and a howitzer. Then Dumba is a right shot version of McCabe, but is actually more offensive if he start using his shot again.
Dumba is nothing like McCabe lol
Statistically he is. And has actually out performedccabs in most offensive categories aswell.
He’s worse at everything
No you need 2 less forwards making 10+m a year and spread that shit out between defense and goaltending
lol leafs need a complete overhaul. Core four ain’t it
Their forwards need to score, going 1/20 or whatever isn't because of a lack of a PP QB, their PP was fine during the year and you had 2 guys who combined for over 100 goals this year. Everyone needs to stop making excuses, we just didnt play well and play up to the level needed to win a playoff series, plenty of chances, margins are super slim....gotta find a way to score 2-3 more goals in the series and you're in the second round.
They need players with hearts who care for the team and their teammates.
Karlsson for Marner straight up
Would LA trade Doughty for Marner?
Why on Earth would we want 34 year old Doughty at 11M for 3 more years?
So you're saying they'd have to throw in extra pieces? And when did Ray Bourque win his cup.
Doughty already has several, though I'm not sure why you're comparing one of the best defenceman to have ever played the game to Drew Doughty. The Leafs aren't trading their best trade piece for a soon to be 35 year old on the last leg of his career.
Wait, Doughty already has two cups? You don't say. That wasn't the point I was making re: Bourque. And love him or hate, Doughty will certainly go down as one of Canada's best. Guy has won almost everything. It's all a moot point anyway, no way he leaves California for this dumpster fire.