En tant que fan des Canadiens, je me souviens avoir vu cette couverture de magazine et redouté la prochaine décennie de domination des Leafs. Ils avaient tout, pensions-nous.
Il s’avère que ce n’est pas le cas.
Alors, qu’est-ce qui n’a pas fonctionné ? « Une malédiction » est une réponse acceptable.
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ElGrandePeacock
44 Comments
I’m more focused on the Ilya Samsonov vs Carter Hart debate on this cover lol
It was all just marketing
John Tavares and a lack of a number 1 defenseman.
All of these cup teams have a number 1 defenseman. Leafs put too much focus on their forwards. Spending all that money on Tavares limited their cap and forced them to cut key depth players.
“It’s not that they don’t love to win. It’s that they don’t hate to lose.”
What went wrong. Seems like it was 100% shannahan.
Honestly, the media landscape went wrong. Because nothing is ever allowed to breathe or just exist. It has to be the best or the worst ever. That bleeds into predictions, too. The Maple Leafs rebuild isn’t just going to be good, it’s going to be the best thing ever! Multiple Cups!!! So when it inevitably doesn’t go according to the hot take prediction, you get even more hot takes about « what went wrong? » It’s a feedback loop that has made sports media almost unwatchable in my opinion.
Defense wins championships, successful teams are usually built from back to front. You absolutely need great forward depth but no one ever won a cup without a solid goalie and D-corp
They did have a lot and they were not that far from going on a long run last year.
But bad contracts that didn’t let them fill out the roster, hiring Treliving who was an unmitigated disaster, and a bunch of missteps with Marner and Matthews means they are effectively starting over.
The pandemic causing a flat cap right after all of major elcs ran out was a major factor
Culture and cap mismanagement
Went went wrong is that they were the Toronto Maple Leafs
Dubas made a mess of the negotiations from the start of his tenure. He was a on radio show in Toronto and made a comment we can and we will sign marner, Matthews and Nylander. Gave away all the leverage. He was like 34 and didn’t have the experience the negotiate. They all got top dollar, he signed Tavares and it all fell apart. Biggest mistake was getting rid of Lou and putting our eggs with Kyle. He is a very smart guy and seems to be doing a good job it Pit. Giving him the leafs job when he was so young was just a bad move by shanahan and we never recovered from the precedent it set. Keefe tried to call the big dogs out in a loss against phoenix and he was forced to walk his comments back the next day. Inmates ran the asylum from then on. Those are the biggest things I remember as a life long leafs fan killing my spirit as a fan.
Instead of drafting players that like to win draft players that hate to lose.
A lot of things…
-Not having a number 1 dman
-Drafting has been poor especially developing defenceman only dman we have developed is Morgan Rielly.
– Team got too good too fast and probably should’ve tanked another year for Makar or Heiskanen.
– Love Jt and Hindsight is 20/20 but we probably shouldn’t have signed him and look for ways to improve our defence.
-Not trading one of the core 4 away when we know they just couldn’t get it done, should got rid of either Marner or Nylander in 2021 or 2022.
Not going to claim I know what went wrong but Matthews signing short term contracts to get max money is definitely not helping nor a recipe for success. Sets the precedent for future negotiations with Marner, Nylander, and Tavares.
They had the misfortune that Every player they drafted high is a mental midget and a complete negative asset when the lights are brightest. Zero clutch
Soft culture.
Dubas dumping 60% of cap into forwards prematurely. Cap never went up as anticipated – forcing them to fill the rest of the roster with bargain bin players.
Tossing first round picks for « role players ».
Morgan Rielly as your No. 1 defenceman (for a decade at that).
Fuckin Refs! /s
The list is probably another 10 talking points long but thats the short and sweet.
Favoured by who exactly? The hockey news? They’re nothing but Leaf shills because they know that kind of bullshit sells magazines.
They’ve been facing monsters every fucking season (prime Boston, prime Tampa, prime Panthers.) Too bad the leafs couldn’t have had one chance outside the monster division.
Management mortgaged the future without building actual long term depth.
Also some historically bad luck.
Because they made their captain [this guy](https://youtube.com/shorts/s6TY1SRABes?feature=shared)
Not once have they actually been favored to win the cup since the 60s lol , they may have been a sure playoff team but that’s it
The horrible mismanagement of the salary cap. The fact that they refused to pivot off a plan that wouldn’t work, especially with a flat cap. The dumping of every possible future asset every single year at the deadline. The fact they rushed the rebuild instead of letting their young players grow and add where they were weak and at a cost that was appropriate. The list goes on and on.
Treliving was a disaster, but this team has been poorly run well before he got here. Dubas has a lot of defenders but let’s face it, the team he inherited top to bottom (players, salaries, picks, prospects) was way better than the one he left behind and had absolutely no success where it matters in his entire tenure. Not one single deep run, and it only cost them everything.
Favored by Toronto media, not favored by rest of the world.
The whole notion of a Core Four and the fact that none of them are a defensemen or a goalie.
Murphys law: whatever could go wrong, went wrong
I used to get the hockey news delivered to me when I was a kid. I really miss those days.
Fans and media maybe contribute. Places of bad chemistry. But I also think luck is not heavily considered enough for those make it or break it runs to win the cup.
If their top guys found better ways to contribute in the playoffs it’d make a big difference.
Like I get playoffs are “all out” in a way, but consistent top dogs in the regular season are obviously talented enough to push in the playoffs. If they miss on the playoffs, it’s a shitty thing and alarming enough to ask “why tf didnt you play better?”, but I would never understand how your top point producers should be off a team based solely on playoff contributions. Many Rangers fans loathed Panarin for that same issue and I just completely never understood how the proposed solution through the years was to sell him vs just adjusting him for the faster games.
I also know nothing about what I’m talking about.
Leafs gonna Leaf.
So a couple things. First was the wrong coach in Mike Babcock. His presence definitely messed with the players mentally and after he was fired there were plenty of players who came out and said he was crazy, all coming from teams he used to coach. Then there’s Shanahan who coddled Marner and Matthews and blocked major trades Dubas wanted to make to fill holes in the roster. You also got the fact that before COVID, the Leafs were set up in a way that assumed the cap would rise as projected, so they weren’t especially prepared for that either. Then there’s just the fact that almost every team they faced in the first or second round would make it to the finals. Could say more in better detail but that’s just about it. Also culture. That’s a big thing and the leafs didn’t have much of one. Could’ve if they went completely back to their roots instead of just a jersey change
Top Heavy
No Defense
No Grit
Part of the reason their fans are delusional is this Toronto media stigma garbage
The leafs went all in on 4 players and decided depth was optional. While that might work in the regular season it’s the exact opposite of how you build for a deep playoff run
They got everything wrong that they could with that cover. Impressive.
The short answer, a LOT.
The long answer, a LOOOOOOOOOT… of bad management.
You draft an exciting core and they start producing as expected, great. But the first domino was Nylander. He threw a fit and was close to sitting out the season, and they should have said « take the team friendly deal, or goodbye. » I guarantee if that happens, it tells agents like Judd Moldaver and Darren Ferris that Toronto will not be bullied.
After that… I mean, how much time do you have? Handing out term and NMCs/NTCs like they were going out of style. Letting Babcock publicly embarrass Marner in front of the entire team. Letting zero-effort plays go unpunished. The failure to sign a #1 Dman and instead over-bloating the top 6. Stars failing to produce in the playoffs. Total lack of accountability from top to bottom. Matthews as captain. Marner’s final year and the tampering. The list is endless.
Ultimately, if you go back to that December 1st and look at the Nylander decision, it was probably the first failure that set a tone of organizational incompetence. Letting a talented winger get away with acting like a child and bully you into a contract he had not earned at the time tells everyone, « hey, if you’re there and you don’t like your deal, you can just take your ball and threaten to walk home. Dubas and Co. will roll over a give up. »
The Darren Ferris interview, where he publicly lied about Mitch not getting certain bonuses and said he will get what he is due, no favors… someone like Thornton or, hell, even Sundin, should have sat Mitch down and said, « Fire that idiot now before he ruins your relationship with this town. » But again, incompetence and mismanagement leads to both them getting away with it and Mitch getting a big deal that the Leafs then failed to move on from when they fired Dubas with barely any time left before his NTC kicked in.
MLSE and their board should be canned and restructured. Pelley is managing six franchises. Simply put, the Maple Leafs as they are now: built to fail.
A mix of bad luck and bad decisions:
Pandemic, flat cap, no strategic pivot, unable to improve team due to contract structure and bleeding talent.
Also things like first round picks dying from cancer.
Cursed franchise.
Biggest issue is being in a playoff format of forced into playing Boston, Tampa and then Florida.
They drafted highly skilled and talented players who don’t have the desire to play a more physical and determined style required to win in the playoffs.
They show they can do it for a game or two but then its no mas.
I don’t ever see this group finding the fire it takes to win the 16 gruelling playoff games it takes to win a cup.
When your top players are all softer than puppy shit it starts there.
Roster construction. Specifically signing Tavares when they already had Kadri. That money could’ve and should’ve been used to address their blue line.
Neither one of those clowns on the cover for Toronna love the team more than they love *themselves*
That’s the problem. Super talented. Zero leadership, even less accountability. Matthews Should have never been the captain. Leave them in the back and let them score. That’s it. And the team didn’t surround those guys with proven winners. There was zero culture. No grizzled veterans to show the kids the way. Bad coaching. Bad goalies. Losing became tolerable. It’s been that way for decades. These teams today just give the stars everything when they haven’t earned it. I know they are talented but why pile on head of the team, face of the franchise too when they just get in the league? Makes zero sense. Paid way too much. But it makes for unreal topics of discussion around the water cooler at work
As an Islander fan, I know exactly where they went hilariously wrong.
It will be funny for decades.
Toronto is the only city where the Leafs fall in the Spring!
Let me pour a nice cup of copium here…
Like plane crashes ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayday_(Canadian_TV_series) ) it’s usually many factors working together. You can point at any one problem the Leafs have had/faced and say « yeah but other teams had that too » but did they have them all?
# Money
* Signing Tavares at 11M wasn’t bad on its own, but it set an anchor for future contracts.
* I can’t find reference to it, but I thought I heard that Mike Babcock tried to screw the Leafs’ rookies out of their rookie bonuses, especially Marner. This would have taught their stars to demand what they’re worth, forget team-friendly deals.
* Marner was better than expected so also « needed » an 11M contract..
* I’m kind of surprised at Nylander’s dedication to the team considering his early holdout and getting a much lower amount than he maybe deserved.
* Breaking up the Core Four to move money into other parts of the lineup would have been good but you also do need to get value back, not just get rid of a guy to open up cap space — see « trading » Marner for .. was it Roy? And See 1-for-1 Hall for Larsson. We’ll never really know, but apparently Dubas wanted to trade someone before their NMC kicked in, but was overruled.
COVID started a flat salary cap era. This was devastating to the Leafs. The salary cap increased 2~4M per year before COVID (and like $10M/yr after), and I don’t doubt that factored into Dubas’s plan. This was what should have been their peak, like the young years when Crosby/Malkin and Kane/Toews won their cups, but they couldn’t augment their lineup, influencing them to make…
# Late-season Trades costing 1st Round Picks
When you’re a contender, you gotta make deadline deals for the playoffs, right? None of them worked out, and they cost us a bunch of 1st round picks. These are ones we can mostly blame ourselves for, although the flat salary cap influenced it.
* Actually not a deadline deal or consequence of COVID, and one that I think was pretty good in theory, was Acquiring Jake Muzzin in January 2019 for Carl Grundstrom, Sean Durzi, and a 1st round pick. Muzzin was great for us (for a while.. more on that later), better than Rielly, which is something we desperately needed.
* 2021, a 1st round pick for Nick Foligno, who would get injured in the playoffs, and only play 12 games total for the Leafs. He would sign with the Bruins that summer.
* 2023, a 1st round pick for Ryan O’Rielly, who was great in the playoffs, but would sign with Nashville that summer. Him leaving that summer really hurt.
* A 1st, 4th, and Fraser Minten for Brandon Carlo is looking pretty bad.
* We might lose a 1st for Scott Laughton as well.
* Mark Giordano cost two 2nd round picks and 3rd.
* Not late season trades, but did you know we had to trade 1st round picks to GET RID OF Petr Mrazek and Patrick Marleau?
# Goalies and Defense – ours and theirs
What cup winners in the modern era (or ever?) didn’t have a star defenseman and/or goalie? Arguably just STL and VGK. So we weren’t able to build « The Formula » required to win a Cup.
* We tried. I really liked Muzzin. But he played just 1 full, COVID-shortened season for us before a string of injuries repeatedly sidelined him, before a spinal injury ended his career. We gave up prospect Sean Durzi for him, who’s been a 40-pt D since the year Muzzin retired.
* Tanev was critical for us last year, but he took a record number of bodychecks in the playoffs last year and has barely played this year; I suspect those may be related.
* I kind of liked Dubas’s strategy of picking up cheap random goalies and hoping they worked out, because it always seems like it works for someone each year, so eventually it’s got to be us, right? The one time it really worked (after Dubas was gone), Sam Bennet elbowed him in the head and took him out of the series. What was the alternative? Bobrovski cost FLA $10M and we didn’t have that. And goalies are voodoo, it’s actually hard to know who’s *actually* good and not part of a system, so are you trading Marner for.. Ullmark?
Speaking of which, Sam Bennet also sucker-punched Knies the year before, taking him out of the series, when he was one of our best players. [Watch the angle from behind the net](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xbk-AyPYw4), this was absolutely intentional and something he’s done to many players.
Meanwhile, Kadri got suspended twice in the playoffs, but nothing for Bennet both times he intentionally hurt one of our most important players.
# Vezina goalies
How many Vezina winners have the Leafs played against in the playoffs?
I think only 1 playoff opponent in the last 15 years didn’t have a goalie who had won a Vezina (Tim Thomas! Rask, Vasileski, Bobrovski, Price) or would win a Vezina (Holtby, Ullmark)?
The 1 non-Vezina goalie was Korpisalo, who absolutely stole the series. Then in his first game in the next round, he set a playoff record with something like 80 saves in a mult-overtime game against the Lightning. His playoff stat line that year is 9 games, 1.90 GAA, .941 save percentage.
The Leafs in the last 40 years (maybe 100 years, actually) have only ever been successful in the playoffs with an elite goalie – Potvin, Belfour, Joseph – and I don’t think that’s a coincidence.
# The Atlantic
Winning a cup takes skill and luck. And when you’re in a division with TB, BOS, FLA, and Carey price… it’s kinda hard.
Yeah they should have won a few more series, but it’s also not surprising they didn’t win a lot of series.
# « It »/Heart
I’m usually against narratives of « he doesn’t try hard enough » etc, but there’s also not a lot of stars on the team with that undeniable ferocious personality like a Doug Gilmour, [Gary Roberts](https://i.redd.it/kxznugq9il471.jpg), Steve Thomas…