Comment tout cela s’est-il si mal passé avec les Maple Leafs de Toronto cette saison ? Comment ont-ils pu s’effondrer d’une manière aussi stupéfiante : de la plus longue séquence d’après-saison de la LNH à la dernière place du classement et à la première absence en séries éliminatoires en une décennie ?
L’Athletic s’est entretenu avec plus de 20 sources au sein de l’organisation et de la ligue pour mieux comprendre ce qui a provoqué la chute stupéfiante des Maple Leafs.
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TheAthletic
40 Comments
Me too Bill, not sure how we went so far down.
Im going to say injuries and the Defense and Goalies regressing (Stolarz being injured and not able to bounce back) Woll has been good
Pelley has gotta go holy fuck, this level of meddling from an exec that doesn’t know hockey is always only terrible for a sports organization. Put down the Chat GPT
What stunning fall are we talking about here? This team has done sweet piss all in the playoffs. One series win in a decade doesn’t sound like that high a bar to fall from.
Thank you for sharing this
Just need to take the L on the season and reset. Management and exec woes aside, the extra month of recovery for everyone may help to build a solid foundation for the players.
it’s not stunning. it’s a heartless, crap team that is being lapped by younger, better built teams with superior leadership.
It’s refreshing to have some clarity at least. We’re fucked until GPelleyT is gone.
Really, Willy? You can’t believe it? The team is constantly scrutinized, even when they’re playing really well. Not getting beyond the second round with all of that talent didn’t set off any alarms? Getting rid of Babcock, Keefe, and most likely Berube, even after consistent playoff appearances didn’t set off any alarms?
Being outplayed in almost every game out of 82 didn’t register anything? The coach constantly yelling at you to put in a lick of effort didn’t register? The team not having younger talent to debut late in a lost season didn’t register with you? How far in the clouds is Willy’s head?
I mean, the writing is on the wall. You’d have to be completely clueless to not believe how they’ve fallen. I don’t want to hear about injuries. Injuries happen. You have to have depth to patch those holes. That’s also a red flag. This writing has been there for a long time.
This has been by far the most entertaining season in a long time, and i’ve barely watched any games.
Imagine using AI to set tariff policy. Or for a war strategy. That would be really dumb.
One subtext here I find interesting. The Athletic had 20 sources from the team speak out.
NOBODY would open up with press during the Lou/Shanahan/Dubas days. Whether that was out of fear (Lou’s response to leaks has always been intense), respect, or a belief « in the process, » it’s telling that so many staff were willing to speak now.
Shows the staff of the org is fed up and does NOT align with leadership’s vision.
lol AI always reverts to the mean or average.
So tbh as a life long leafs fan it makes sense the organization would do something this stupid.
No Tanev and goaltending not as good as last year, paired with Berube’s system, not great
Every team faces injuries… It’s mental. Same core guys year after year, work hard, finish in the top 1-2-3, out no later than second round…. Do that for 9 years and see how you start playing. Add that Berubes coaching style doesn’t fit the players he has…so switch the players, or switch the coach, or switch both.
Thanks for the gift article, OP! This reads to me like one big hit piece on Keith Pelley.
The Leafs are more focused on making money than they are on winning. it is really sad.
Leadership. Including from players who we expect to be leaders.
https://preview.redd.it/c9wtlhzrpdvg1.jpeg?width=471&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=90a0c87c471ec419b6d0bebeab9f377a9bff7f6c
Using AI to shape the direction of this franchise is utterly fuckin braindead.
https://preview.redd.it/f5qg0291qdvg1.jpeg?width=418&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ebeec26fd67c20fe7a2b1dd3173d9687e6e8c925
I mean, it’s pretty obvious where the largest blame for this season lays and it’s Berube.
I’m not saying that we would be good enough to win a cup if we had a top coach this year instead of Berube or that the players don’t deserve any blame. However, I would stake almost anything that we would have done better (likely significantly) than what we ended up with this year with a different coach.
There’s a lot more that needs to be fixed, but this group of players is too good to be 5th last in the league. We have a franchise center and a franchise winger, 2-3 quality goalies, a great 2nd line center (dont want to hear it, a player who is great on draws and putting up 30+ goals and 70+ points is a fantastic 2nd line center), and another top line winger. The majority of teams that missed the playoffs dont have a list like that or had significant injuries to their top players.
Our forward depth and defense needs serious improvements for next year and hopefully some of that is internal after a bounce back year from one (or two or all three) of Rielly, Carlo, and Tanev if they are still here. Hell, even some 3rd pairing help with Danford would be nice.
The other big issue is that Treliving did a terrible job utilizing our limited assets in trades last year and now fixing the forward depth and defense will be more difficult. Another reason I really think we need the top 5 pick this year is because we still do have the pieces to compete.
If we lucked out and got a future #1Dman who can jump into the league and play as a top 4 guy next year, it’d make a serious world of difference. Big ask, but the top d prospects in this year’s draft do have that potential even if it’s more likely that we would have to wait 1 more year before they join the NHL.
https://preview.redd.it/1llqm5zvqdvg1.jpeg?width=653&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=41622196d0d4fde52048a758907fa210b88e0aa7
As someone who aspires to work in the hockey industry, the leafs make it looks extremely easy to get put into important positions because wtf did I just read.
Well it all started when you and others decided to hold out for max contracts…
I read the whole article, and while in no way am I being sympathetic to Pelley (seems like he’s responsible for alot of the austerity measures that have contributed to this garbage culture) I do have a slightly different takeaway than what I’m reading in some of these comments. I think Pelley is NOT the number 1 issue with this team.
The number 1 issue was an atrocious, incompetent GM.
Pelley is a suit, but part of what these guys are « supposed to » be good at is organizational structure. Do we have the right people. Are we communicating effectively. How are we making decisions. Being in a corporate environment myself, I work with these guys all the time. They don’t want to get into the weeds. They don’t really care about the details, because they expect that you, the middle manager, are handling those and communicating the issues they need to be aware of, at the right level.
Pelley joined the trade deadline meetings not because he wanted to have input on what the leafs receive. He was evaluating the process and the management structure of the leafs – and what he saw was a grossly incompetent GM who couldn’t make strategic decisions, communicate effectively, organize and lead a team or analyze where the group is currently at. There’s alot here being said about how LLMs were used but Pelley probably just had that (because he knows nothing at all about hockey) to challenge a guy he already suspected was useless, and see how he’d react. And as we know, Pelley wasn’t happy with that, and Tre was fired shortly after.
I’m by no means a fan of this guy. Raising the prices, flag bearers, cost-cutting etc is all exactly what we hate to see as fans – but I think the concerns about AI use in this org are overblown. If Pelley went into those meetings and came out with any other observation than what we’ve all been seeing (ie. Treliving is completely incompetent) then I’d be VERY concerned. But at minimum, I haven’t lost hope that they’re going to find someone with an actual ability to lead the org strategically and decisively. Who that is, and how they do it are all up for debate, but it’s an actual non-negotiable requirement for the next GM. This article makes me think that Pelley realizes this.
It’s not hard to understand. The Toronto Maple Leafs became the Philadelphia 76ers.
Just read the full article. My God, what a disaster of an organization. Why on earth would Matthews want to stay here? If I was him, I’d be looking for the escape hatch.
It’s over guys. 5 year rebuild to have a middling team that might make the playoffs. That’s what’s coming with these idiots.
This team hasn’t done anything except be mediocre and they think this is the downfall? They’ve been spiraling for a decade.
I didn’t learn anything new in this article, but only because all of it has been in the countless articles that The Athletic posts daily, but everything about this is pretty damning when it comes to ownership, the front office, and coach.
The team is nickel and diming both fans and players, the head of all this doesn’t know hockey, the GM turned a perennial 100 point playoff team into whatever this is in under three years, and the coach’s best tactic is to say that he can’t teach players.
I don’t hold much hope for them getting these hires right, but at least one of them is gone and the team might install someone back into that Shanahan role.
Over a thousand bucks to be the flag bearer before the game is so cringe (they need a ticket on top of that 956 charge). Eight year old kid out there skating with the team but only because they forced their parents to shell out 2K for a night out after tickets, souvenirs, food, too.
From Ballard to pension bean counters to now a souless corporate culture
Cutting the players’ discounts at Real Sports is the most Rogers move of all time.
I bet my boss in June 2025 the Leafs wouldn’t make the playoffs in 2026, present day. Told him then a detailed analysis of why, and like I told him, it all played out, EXACTLY. Now I’m up 10g.
AI ruins everything it touches.
https://preview.redd.it/n7gn2gbc6evg1.jpeg?width=255&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=03ea0591b45575adc9b8e5ea139cdec46b1901e6
Just going off the headline quote:
I understand that one might logically think to oneself “who would know better than a player in the room”,.. but sometimes I believe someone like Willy is too close to it to understand what’s happening. Like I imagine he shows up each day and does his thing and doesn’t have great awareness of the prospects, the rest of the league, and the trades the GM is making until they are sitting in a room with him. So I realize he has good insight to what’s going on with the team he plays with, but probably a poor judge of whether this is really surprising or not considering how things have been botched for a couple years now. Last years good fortune also probably inflated his expectations
This article screams “Tre sold himself as being more competent than he really was”.
Shanahan probably felt a sense of urgency to replace from the board and put the wrong guy in.
He failed to hit the ground running and failed at asset acquisition and management.
The entire organization and league saw his weakness and the team imploded and dare say gave up.
Pelley failed from the beginning of the season since he didn’t read Tre’s weaknes, said in the vein that if he’s such a great leadership executive he should have seen Tre in his true light, rather cut costs and added crappy gimmicks to make short sighted $$.
We need this team sold out of corporate ownership to really move forward.
(Pierre McGuire voice)
*I CAN…*
The Leafs have been my « other », (Blues fan), team since the early 70s
I really hoped Chief would get The Leafs closer to the Promised Land than previous attempts.
Now I have read enough comments to know that you guys, Leafs Nation, are devoted fans. What I mean is that it seems you guys are fair and objective and brutally honest in your analysis of things, unless and until Management tries to decorate the truth with multicolored B.S.
My thinking is that the problem starts with B Tree.
Will Leafs fans give Chief another year, or should he go also? I’m really curious to see your comments.
We all know:
Bad trades and non-trades that should have happened.
Injuries
Systems
Cap limitations (partly because we have enormous contracts to the young stars years ago and the flat cap after Covid).
The thing is, right now an idiotic CEO who loves buzzwords and AI might stumble into making a good hire in Sunny Mehta… and then have it look like he knew what he was doing.
Pelley is a disaster…
Leafs are big noise zero substance and have always been so except for rare seasons. Fans continue to patronize this entitled team and its management paying big bucks at the turnstiles. It’s time to call the bluff and give a wake-up call to this non-performing team.