OT: How come certain teams are not able to shake off mediocrity?
- Thread starter Suntouchable13
- Start date
Almost all of the teams you mentioned are budget teams. Although some are able to survive, not spending to the cap is a severe handicap.
hotpaws
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Suntouchable13
Registered User
You aren't sure if patiently building through the draft is the right track?
Success is never guaranteed but I'm not sure how you could think this is anything but the right track.
As for the OP, the Leafs aren't perpetually mediocre. We've been on a steady decline from contender to mediocre to garbage over the last 15 years.
BertCorbeau
F*ck cancer - RIP Fugu and Buffaloed
I think it just shows how difficult it can be to build a winning team, even if it's through the draft, and that player development is as crucial as selecting the right players.
hotpaws
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the other teams the OP mentioned are also on the same path , so i'm wondering why we're on the right track but the others aren't
What could the Leafs do differently that would convince you they are on the right track?
hotpaws
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i'm not saying we're not on the correct path , i'm wondering why the OP feels the other teams that are doing the same draft and develop model we've finally adopted aren't ?
Daisy Jane
everything is gonna be okay!
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I honestly think - for most of those teams it's basically due to Budget. (Ottawa kind of has this issue too). you draft well. you have a good base - but you really can't go out and blow your brains out on really good players. Eventually your good players that you've drafted price themselves out, so you have to pick a few and hope they stick, rinse and repeat.
SOME teams just have horrendous luck
sometimes it just takes more time.
SOME teams just have horrendous luck
sometimes it just takes more time.
hotpaws
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So he references the path, which makes sense given many of the teams are in different states/stages or building.
I'd say CLB, WPG, NYI, and even EDM are pushing for a different result than the Leafs are this year. If our management team is expecting "pain" those teams are hoping for relief.
Nothing but bad asset management.
Columbus traded Voracek and Couturier for Carter, Dano and a 2nd for Saad, Rick Nash for spare parts.
Atlanta traded Kovalchuk and Hossa for spare parts.
Carolina traded Pouliot and Sutter for Staal
Toronto, well, we know what's happened in Toronto
Columbus traded Voracek and Couturier for Carter, Dano and a 2nd for Saad, Rick Nash for spare parts.
Atlanta traded Kovalchuk and Hossa for spare parts.
Carolina traded Pouliot and Sutter for Staal
Toronto, well, we know what's happened in Toronto
X66
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Menzinger
Kessel4LadyByng
Poor: asset management, drafting, capspace management and coaching.
Ie Edmonton has had awful coach after awful coach, already paying their young guns massive contracts while still being a bottom feeder AND they've hardly drafted anything outside of the 1st round.
It's not a single causation issue - you've got to look at lots of different factors.
Ie Edmonton has had awful coach after awful coach, already paying their young guns massive contracts while still being a bottom feeder AND they've hardly drafted anything outside of the 1st round.
It's not a single causation issue - you've got to look at lots of different factors.
Both players were expiring ufa's and got pretty much as expected or better returns . Atlanta went years of poor drafting outside of a few star picks. The whole Heatly/Sneider thing really hurt them to.
Carolina has not really picked a direction since they won the cup. For the premier guys they had that have all retired they never seem to be able to replace them in any way and the few good players they have left aren't enough. A lot like the leafs, over paying their front liners and not having anything else.
Columbus moves were head shakers even at the time. They were no were ready to make bold moves like that.
Pretty much this . On top of that i'd say scouting has to hit some home runs outside of the 1st round, coaching , great management ect, ect. All these things have to align at once to have it work. I don't quite buy the budget excuse because success brings popularity that brings in the revenue. Most of these teams just never seem to build a solid base to build off of. To many years go by between successful drafts ect and then lose their best players to either wanting out or free agency because the teams going no where.
HoweHullOrr
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^^^ I like this one.
I also see the point hotpaw is drawing attention to. How do we know we are on the right path? We are using the same build via the draft strategy that many other teams are.
One plus factor in our favour is coaching I suppose. But, a lot of other factors warrant consideration and are less clear.
Canada4Gold
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if every team tries to build the right way, some of them are going to fail, you then need to decide if you're going to keep trying with the group you have and possible stay mediocre or decide you failed and try again.
613Leafer
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I disagree.
If 3/4s of the teams in the league are able to at least semi-regularly make the playoffs (~2+ times every 5 years), then it actually shows just how hard it is to be THIS bad, and how easy it is to be at least semi-competitive on a regular basis. Especially when you consider this organization's financial advantages.
There are many different answers depending on the team in question.
Edmonton is an organization run by a group of former players that had their hay-day in an era where 10+ goal games were the norm, and you really could build a team that out scored its defensive deficiencies.
So they have drafted scoring talent after scoring talent and keep running face first into a brick wall, reeling back, and coming to the conclusion that if they just run a little harder the next time around, they'll make it through.
Suffice to say it doesn't work that way.
Then you look at Columbus, another team that had a very good forward corps, and got Vezina caliber goaltending last season, and the year prior. But it wasn't enough because they were too thin on the blue line. Kekelainen decided that just having Ryan Murray be healthy would be enough "improvement" to the blue line. Aaaaaand Todd Richards is now unemployed.
The NYI and Jets have been having success lately, and should for the foreseeable future. I don't know why they were included.
Florida is a very cap min team. And the issues with ownership have made it hard to find long term stability. But they're a team trending upwards the past few years and have a very talented young group of players, so they have a bright future and GM Tallon is a shrewd man.
Finally Carolina, they won a Cup in 2006, and then signed their "core" players to big long-term deals, and those players have since struggled to play up-to-snuff. E. Staal maybe has been pretty good, but Ward hasn't, and his contract eats up a lot of room for a team that isn't spending to the ceiling.
So their situation has largely been predicated on bad contracts. (Semin @ $7.1M??)
As for the Leafs, Burke treated the GM chair like a seat at the poker table and put 80% of his bankroll on the opening hand pre-flop.
It could've paid off and he'd have looked like a genius, instead it went the other way and he was essentially treading water from that point onward.
Nonis was effed from day one, and basically was just put in charge of ensuring there were enough life rafts for everyone to escape the sinking ship.
Before the Burke era, JFJ was basically tasked with building a contender at any cost, and had to sell off picks/prospects to get the team into full-on WIN NOW mode. It almost worked because they did make the Eastern finals in 2003 but didn't go beyond that. But I think if they had, we'd clearly think much differently of JFJ.
Another big issue, especially for the Leafs, has been keeping to a plan long enough to see it actually come to fruition.
MLSE has in the past been quite impatient. So the Shanaplan is interesting because it's bright and shiny now, but if the losses keep mounting, it will be interesting to see if there isn't pressure placed on management's shoulders to do something.
And lastly, there is a lot of "luck" involved and it hasn't gone to the favour of the Leafs very often the last few decades.
Edmonton is an organization run by a group of former players that had their hay-day in an era where 10+ goal games were the norm, and you really could build a team that out scored its defensive deficiencies.
So they have drafted scoring talent after scoring talent and keep running face first into a brick wall, reeling back, and coming to the conclusion that if they just run a little harder the next time around, they'll make it through.
Suffice to say it doesn't work that way.
Then you look at Columbus, another team that had a very good forward corps, and got Vezina caliber goaltending last season, and the year prior. But it wasn't enough because they were too thin on the blue line. Kekelainen decided that just having Ryan Murray be healthy would be enough "improvement" to the blue line. Aaaaaand Todd Richards is now unemployed.
The NYI and Jets have been having success lately, and should for the foreseeable future. I don't know why they were included.
Florida is a very cap min team. And the issues with ownership have made it hard to find long term stability. But they're a team trending upwards the past few years and have a very talented young group of players, so they have a bright future and GM Tallon is a shrewd man.
Finally Carolina, they won a Cup in 2006, and then signed their "core" players to big long-term deals, and those players have since struggled to play up-to-snuff. E. Staal maybe has been pretty good, but Ward hasn't, and his contract eats up a lot of room for a team that isn't spending to the ceiling.
So their situation has largely been predicated on bad contracts. (Semin @ $7.1M??)
As for the Leafs, Burke treated the GM chair like a seat at the poker table and put 80% of his bankroll on the opening hand pre-flop.
It could've paid off and he'd have looked like a genius, instead it went the other way and he was essentially treading water from that point onward.
Nonis was effed from day one, and basically was just put in charge of ensuring there were enough life rafts for everyone to escape the sinking ship.
Before the Burke era, JFJ was basically tasked with building a contender at any cost, and had to sell off picks/prospects to get the team into full-on WIN NOW mode. It almost worked because they did make the Eastern finals in 2003 but didn't go beyond that. But I think if they had, we'd clearly think much differently of JFJ.
Another big issue, especially for the Leafs, has been keeping to a plan long enough to see it actually come to fruition.
MLSE has in the past been quite impatient. So the Shanaplan is interesting because it's bright and shiny now, but if the losses keep mounting, it will be interesting to see if there isn't pressure placed on management's shoulders to do something.
And lastly, there is a lot of "luck" involved and it hasn't gone to the favour of the Leafs very often the last few decades.
Jimmy Firecracker
Fire Sheldon.
The un-bolded teams have fewer funds to work with as small market teams. Even if they've got excellent drafting they're always going to be at a disadvantage. Also poor management and coaching play a role. Coaching especially with the NYI. Winnipeg is like the Leafs in the mid-2000's, propping up a core that won't go anywhere. Ladd, Byufglien and the like are done there, they're going to bottom out in the next year or so and have to supplement guys like Ehlers and Trouba with high picks. Florida always seems to be just a few steps away but I dunno, they always manage to screw it up. Same with Columbus.
Edmonton and Toronto have just been laughably mismanaged for a decade now, more so than any of the aforementioned teams. Piss poor drafting on both of their parts, but Toronto has made the mistake of avoiding (or at least trying to avoid) bottoming out, always chasing after the playoffs with a weak core. Edmonton until recently has ignored the defensive side of things for a while.
If Toronto and Edmonton can get their acts together in the coming years, I think both of our fortunes will be better than the other teams above. With Toronto it's a case of if you build it they will come. If the team is good enough quality free agents will want to play here. With Edmonton they've got the young talent there now, even on defense with Nurse, Klefbom and Reinhart. It'll just take some shrewd asset management on their part and a culture change to get on the right track.
Both Toronto and Edmonton have the resources those other teams don't to push themselves into Cup Contending status if they do the first two steps right. Acquiring young talent via the draft and properly developing them. Edmonton's done the drafting but not the developing. Toronto needs to do some catching up in both.
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