Line Combos: GM/Coaching criticism

[Amadeus]

I'm so impressed with the job Done Waddell and crew have done in Carolina. They're very deep. Tampa is in their way but they're a top 3 team for me in the league.

Dubas can't replicate that depth with the money tied up front.

 

[TheGoldenJet]

Like I said if I sign a contract with you there are terms and conditions associated with that contract in Ontario law .. and then you fire me that is fine or someone who you designate to act on your behalf in writing .. it could have been done that way if Larry designated GM to do it assuming he was an officer of the company .. I don't think Leaf GMs are officers at least they weren't considering such on financial statements I last saw

Sure but nothing about being an officer or not prevents the GM from being the one to break the bad news to Babs.

 

[EXPECT THE LEAFS]

Dubas gotta go. Made stupid comments to the media about the pending contracts (pretty sure Shanhan did too) then got slaughtered at the negotiating table. Noob got schooled.

 

[TheGoldenJet]

I mean good lord, the Dubites complain that Babcock was rigid?

I like this one.

FYI Twitter is using “Dubasites” I think that’s even better.

 

[hamzarocks]

I'm so impressed with the job Done Waddell and crew have done in Carolina. They're very deep. Tampa is in their way but they're a top 3 team for me in the league.

Dubas can't replicate that depth with the money tied up front.

He's gonna get Svechnikov locked to either a 3 year 5.5-6M bridge or a 8 year 8.5M deal, both of which will look great for them.

They might/prob will lose hamilton but they still got slavin, pesce, skeji, bean in the top 4 and can make moves (i.e., deal nino) and find space to add a RHD

Very well built team

 

[Legendary]

From Jeffler's article

"The irony of this all is that, as the mainstream media, NHL executives, and more old-school fans begin to talk about how Dubas messed this all up and didn’t get enough character, defensive skill, and grit, is he gave them exactly what they wanted. The team was full of grit, physicality, leadership and experience, including players that personally eliminated the team last year, and it didn’t help anything. Kyle Dubas got cute and tried to build the premium, no-bad-contract version of a Toronto Media all star team – experience, grit, intangibles, and their golden boy winger deciding who gets to touch the puck – and has nothing to show for it now but the same heat from the same people, and a crater in his draft cupboard."

A coach who has won with creativity his entire career falling into old tropes and a sense of almost too much patience, and a manager who, as great of a modern-day boss as he shows himself to be and as creative as he can get, deviated too hard from his own process and program to try to win like everyone else."
Organizations that try to please all their critics and match perfectly with all of their opponents end up with no identity and little time dictating the storyline of their battles. When everyone gets cute, the odds of success lessen, more is left to chance, and even the most guaranteed of outcomes become jeopardized, and then, when everyone is in too deep, demolished."

Pretty much what I was saying after the game. Dubas became way too focused on appeasing to the old school people, and the forward group ended up being a no identity mess. He tried to win the way those people said you win when they played in the 90's. The positive is we didn't spend long term contracts on these guys, so Dubas has a chance to make the team the way it should be made based on good players.
Toronto media all star team is so accurate.

Leadership and heart have to happen organically not through desperate deadline acquisitions.

 

[hamzarocks]

The more I think about the loss and read our post-loss threads all I can think is how the f*** did we lose to the habs!!

Philip Danult shut down Marner and Matthews. This isn't a joke it actually happened

How did these two go from torching the NHL to being 3rd liners in the playoffs?

We lose to the 18th place team, a team with not a single player as good as Nylander let alone what MM and AM are supposed to be. It's just shocking and almost unfathomable if I weren't a leaf fan.

If we lose next year in the 1st, I really don't think there is any move besides scorched earth that can get rid of this mess.

 

[Menzinger]

Ok....the board had to make the decision.....the GM with autonomy should have executed it

But why? It seems a somewhat subjective thing to fixate on.

Dubas' didn't hire him, Shanahan did a lot of the the courting, sat beside him at his opening Leafs press conference to announce the contract signing. It's hardly unreasonable that he wanted to take the lead on dumping him - especially given how high the guys salary was.

 

[Aus34Matt]

Do you remember when Keefe was practicing using the visitor's dressing room and bench in the bubble vs Columbus to acclimate his team to the idea of being the 'road team' at home? Like what kind of special genius do you have to be to worry about completely irrelevant details yet fail to come up with any game plan for a borderline playoff team or consistently fail to inspire your team to start on time? That Amazon documentary could be pretty funny to watch.

I heard Amazon is changing its title to "All For Nothing"

 

[francis246]

The more I think about the loss and read our post-loss threads all I can think is how the f*** did we lose to the habs!!

Philip Danult shut down Marner and Matthews. This isn't a joke it actually happened

How did these two go from torching the NHL to being 3rd liners in the playoffs?

We lose to the 18th place team, a team with not a single player as good as Nylander let alone what MM and AM are supposed to be. It's just shocking and almost unfathomable if I weren't a leaf fan.

If we lose next year in the 1st, I really don't think there is any move besides scorched earth that can get rid of this mess.

people laughed at me/scolded me when I suggested that Keefe use last change to get Matthews away from Danault. Why he kept putting him out there against the Danault line was bad coaching in my opinion. I would have used the match up to get them out against the Staal line as much as possible.

 

[fahad203]

The more I think about the loss and read our post-loss threads all I can think is how the f*** did we lose to the habs!!

Philip Danult shut down Marner and Matthews. This isn't a joke it actually happened

How did these two go from torching the NHL to being 3rd liners in the playoffs?

We lose to the 18th place team, a team with not a single player as good as Nylander let alone what MM and AM are supposed to be. It's just shocking and almost unfathomable if I weren't a leaf fan.

If we lose next year in the 1st, I really don't think there is any move besides scorched earth that can get rid of this mess.

We said the same thing last year. We are going to be risk averse type of team. A team always reactive.

Right now Marner is glorified Ryan Nugent Hopkins and Matthews is Taylor Hall. This feels like the Oilers pre McDavid era

 

[Super Mega]

Some blame has to be on Keefe for utilization but mostly for not getting the players to buy into the style of playoff hockey or even trying during the regular season.

This team did play better defensively but additions like Brodie and Bogosian helped that immensely, so did Jack Campbell.

They seemed too concerned with having fun, being loose, getting Matthews to 40, etc. not bad things just, I just didn't see laser focus on the playoffs as you would expect.

 

[Donnie740]

people laughed at me/scolded me when I suggested that Keefe use last change to get Matthews away from Danault. Why he kept putting him out there against the Danault line was bad coaching in my opinion. I would have used the match up to get them out against the Staal line as much as possible.

Keefe is a minor league coach.

Matching up lines at the pro level is something he’s incapable of.

 

[francis246]

He's gonna get Svechnikov locked to either a 3 year 5.5-6M bridge or a 8 year 8.5M deal, both of which will look great for them.

They might/prob will lose hamilton but they still got slavin, pesce, skeji, bean in the top 4 and can make moves (i.e., deal nino) and find space to add a RHD

Very well built team

Rom Francis set most of the team up minus Skeji! But Waddell has done well

 

[sparxx87]

But why? It seems a somewhat subjective thing to fixate on.

Dubas' didn't hire him, Shanahan did a lot of the the courting, sat beside him at his opening Leafs press conference to announce the contract signing. It's hardly unreasonable that he wanted to take the lead on dumping him - especially given how high the guys salary was.

You’ve got an excuse or a spin for everything, huh?

 

[Blowfish]

From Jeffler's article

"The irony of this all is that, as the mainstream media, NHL executives, and more old-school fans begin to talk about how Dubas messed this all up and didn’t get enough character, defensive skill, and grit, is he gave them exactly what they wanted. The team was full of grit, physicality, leadership and experience, including players that personally eliminated the team last year, and it didn’t help anything. Kyle Dubas got cute and tried to build the premium, no-bad-contract version of a Toronto Media all star team – experience, grit, intangibles, and their golden boy winger deciding who gets to touch the puck – and has nothing to show for it now but the same heat from the same people, and a crater in his draft cupboard."

A coach who has won with creativity his entire career falling into old tropes and a sense of almost too much patience, and a manager who, as great of a modern-day boss as he shows himself to be and as creative as he can get, deviated too hard from his own process and program to try to win like everyone else."
Organizations that try to please all their critics and match perfectly with all of their opponents end up with no identity and little time dictating the storyline of their battles. When everyone gets cute, the odds of success lessen, more is left to chance, and even the most guaranteed of outcomes become jeopardized, and then, when everyone is in too deep, demolished."

Pretty much what I was saying after the game. Dubas became way too focused on appeasing to the old school people, and the forward group ended up being a no identity mess. He tried to win the way those people said you win when they played in the 90's. The positive is we didn't spend long term contracts on these guys, so Dubas has a chance to make the team the way it should be made based on good players.
Toronto media all star team is so accurate.

Dubas failed from the very beginning starting with Lou followed by Tavares and now trying to please media/fans. The decision is simple. Dodo must go.

 

[rumman]

Do you remember when Keefe was practicing using the visitor's dressing room and bench in the bubble vs Columbus to acclimate his team to the idea of being the 'road team' at home? Like what kind of special genius do you have to be to worry about completely irrelevant details yet fail to come up with any game plan for a borderline playoff team or consistently fail to inspire your team to start on time? That Amazon documentary could be pretty funny to watch.

Shades of Red Kelly’s pyramid power......

 

[rumman]

I like this one.

FYI Twitter is using “Dubasites” I think that’s even better.

 

[egd27]

But why? It seems a somewhat subjective thing to fixate on.

Dubas' didn't hire him, Shanahan did a lot of the the courting, sat beside him at his opening Leafs press conference to announce the contract signing. It's hardly unreasonable that he wanted to take the lead on dumping him - especially given how high the guys salary was.

I posted that Shanny flew in to fire Babcock.
The poster I was engaging with provided a reason for why that happened.
I asked another question and then I took his word for it.
Hardly a fixation.

Those that still raise the 3rd year of the Marleau contract as crippling? That's a fixation

 

[Transplanted Caper]

If you want Dubas fired, fine, but the notion Babcock's firing involved Dubas not having the guts or whatever to do it himself seems like something dreamed up in your head to confirm your pre-existing feelings about Dubas. The simplest answer, that Shanahan felt he owed it to Babcock to do it himself, is probably the right one.

 

[17 Clark]

I like this one.

FYI Twitter is using “Dubasites” I think that’s even better.

So the coach was too hard on the players trying to teach them what was right from wrong so now they have someone that doesn’t know what to do and gives them free will And they still don’t succeed nothing but a bunch of spoiled entitled children I am here pay me

 

[17 Clark]

I posted that Shanny flew in to fire Babcock.
The poster I was engaging with provided a reason for why that happened.
I asked another question and then I took his word for it.
Hardly a fixation.

Those that still raise the 3rd year of the Marleau contract as crippling? That's a fixation

Lou might’ve made a mess in some contracts But his teams in the playoffs every year the Islanders look pretty good right now for someone that’s delusional what about Kyle playing simple fact he is too friendly with his players and gets taken advantage of and what is Kyle changes his ways This tire fires going to continue I wonder how long it is they allow him to keep damaging the team. And not care what fans want

 

[JT AM da real deal]

If today's Shanny message is same old same old story to fans then that's it for me for a year sabbatical .. 5 years of this core failing is enough for me especially with forwards .. next year if nothing changes then team will be on outside of playoffs when back to old division .. and there will be zero trade value left in Mitch at that point .. it will be a flat our CAP crusher .. today a trade could still be done with Mitch and Rielly and CAP freed up to improve team as a playoff team

 

[Egghead1999]

We said the same thing last year. We are going to be risk averse type of team. A team always reactive.

Right now Marner is glorified Ryan Nugent Hopkins and Matthews is Taylor Hall. This feels like the Oilers pre McDavid era

No way, pre-McDavid era Oiler always had 1OA.
Anyway, on my local radio, hosts pointed out habs just made a simple change in their style. They moved up their defensemen and forced Leafs to play dump and chase. Either Leafs so locked into making a play or Leafs did not want to play dump and chase, Leafs could not counter to the habs' change. So, that is on the Coach.

 

[Throw More Waffles]

The injury problem is a team design flaw.

A team that spreads their talent with no crazy expensive players is clearly going to have far more depth. Someone goes down, anyone, it's no big deal.

But with the leafs, it's a complete gamble. With half your cap on 4 forwards, anyone of them going down will likely seal their fate. Even some of them not playing well will seal their fate. It also means that there's not enough depth elsewhere, so players like Muzzin getting injured is a huge deal. Losing a Muzzin type player would not be a huge deal with a more balanced team.