Has the Leafs rebuild failed?

[HuGo Sham]

jesus christ, can't believe i'm defending leafs..
it's still a young team, with terrific high-end talent and best c depth in the league. Solid goalie - good corner stones.
This is a salary cap / revenue sharing league, EVERY team has warts.
If I were them I'd move Nylander for a young, PMD and try to find some jam / depth in bottom 6.
I would only move kadri for similar type of player. He's nuts, but leafs needed him in this series.
and he has a great cap hit.
i do question babcock. i give him one more year with some changes

 

[voxel]

Eugene Melnyk was right.

 

[wintersej]

all these ******ed posts by people regarding window closure, leafs rebuild failure, babcock overrated, etc

when the real reason is the ****ing standings when you have 2nd and 3rd facing each other so you get games like TO vs BOS that should happen later in the playoffs

ultimately, Toronto is a good team, Boston is just better and they're unlucky enough to have faced them three times, that's it that's all

The Leafs finished 5th in the conference and 2 points above the 8th place team.

This whole "the Leafs got screwed by the format" thing is overblown and dumb. If anything, they faced a team of the Bruins quality a round early. Clearly if the 100 point Leafs played the Islanders in round 1 like they would have in a 1-8 format, they would have kicked the Islanders ass just like the 100 point Pens did.

 

[The Winter Soldier]

Depends what expectations are after signing Tavares. I would not call it a failure. But there has been no progression out of the first rd in the playoffs in 3 years of making it. So it isn't a success either. Less points this year and another first rd exit where the same weaknesses were exposed.

 

[voxel]

Depends what expectations are after signing Tavares. I would not call it a failure. But there has been no progression out of the first rd in the playoffs in 3 years of making it. So it isn't a success either. Less points this year and another first rd exit where the same weaknesses were exposed.

And cap hell this offseason.

 

[beowulf]

Still early to call it a fail but if they don't fill their holes on defense etc it could become one fast if they don't have cap space to fill their needs.

 

[The Winter Soldier]

And cap hell this offseason.

Yes, didn't even touch on that, with Dubas handling negotiations again. I would not expect any team discounts coming the Leafs way.

 

[KingsFan7824]

No, but they've missed the early Cup that Pittsburgh and Chicago were able to win before the star level ELC's were done. Might not be able to reach that 3 Cup standard in the cap era. Although you have to win #1 before you can worry about reaching any standards.

 

[voxel]

No, but they've missed the early Cup that Pittsburgh and Chicago were able to win before the star level ELC's were done. Might not be able to reach that 3 Cup standard in the cap era. Although you have to win #1 before you can worry about reaching any standards.

And Ducks with Getz and Perry.... and Canes with E.Staal. ELC superstar forward are a huge benefit in the cap-era.

 

[TSN Jdog]

Yes. It's time to move out some peices and retry because clearly this group cant even make it out of the first freaking ROUND

 

[Frolov 6'3]

No team has ever won a playoff series with a $10 million player on the roster. The Leafs are likely to have 3 next year.

Paul Kariya ?

 

[Thorton02]

The Leafs just need to find their playoff warrior. The guy that's above average during the regular season but turns everything to 11 during the playoffs. They need to find their Justin Williams. Honestly, Toronto isn't that far off.

 

[The Crypto Guy]

lol not at all.

Rebuild went very well. Teams lose in the playoffs, it happens.

 

[Jacob]

I don't think they've failed at all but I think we might see a bit of a lull in their performance and competitiveness with so many players coming off their ELCs and now taking up a substantial cap space. Same thing happened to the Penguins.

 

[LeafsNation75]

In the last 2 years Toronto has lost Game 7 in Boston. It's not like they lost those series in 4 or 5 games. Would I have liked to see the Leafs win those years obviously the answer to that is yes. However to say their rebuild has failed is a complete joke.

 

[Karl Eriksson]

Window has closed

 

[Cellee]

They are not very deep team at forward and their D is trash.

If Anderson is not Vezina level it is going to be a long game, and, or year.

They are poorly constructed.

 

[KingPuckChoo]

The Leafs finished 5th in the conference and 2 points above the 8th place team.

This whole "the Leafs got screwed by the format" thing is overblown and dumb. If anything, they faced a team of the Bruins quality a round early. Clearly if the 100 point Leafs played the Islanders in round 1 like they would have in a 1-8 format, they would have kicked the Islanders ass just like the 100 point Pens did.

no i fully disagree

the leafs would face the isles rather than the bruins

this LITERALLY changes the games and the opponent they face, like... LITERALLY

not saying the outcome would be different, actually none of us would know this

but it's been 2 seasons where the Leafs would not have faced Boston in the first round

As an example, there's a huge difference between being the team that faces Tampa in the first round, vs a Boston team that is waiting for a Columbus matchup instead. So you're assuming that Toronto would face Boston in later rounds, when, if anything this playoffs should have taught you, is that nothing of that sort is guaranteed

the fact that you state this doesn't change anything, really blows my mind

New York and Boston aren't even in the same state! it's completely completely changes everything wtf are you talking about??

 

[holy]

Still early to call it a fail but if they don't fill their holes on defense etc it could become one fast if they don't have cap space to fill their needs.

Didn't the Bruins just fill the Leafs holes?

 

[WHISTLERNATE]

Paul Kariya ?

Good find. I meant in the Cap era. I'll update.

 

[wintersej]

no i fully disagree

the leafs would face the isles rather than the bruins

this LITERALLY changes the games and the opponent they face, like... LITERALLY

not saying the outcome would be different, actually none of us would know this

but it's been 2 seasons where the Leafs would not have faced Boston in the first round

As an example, there's a huge difference between being the team that faces Tampa in the first round, vs a Boston team that is waiting for a Columbus matchup instead. So you're assuming that Toronto would face Boston in later rounds, when, if anything this playoffs should have taught you, is that nothing of that sort is guaranteed

the fact that you state this doesn't change anything, really blows my mind

New York and Boston aren't even in the same state! it's completely completely changes everything wtf are you talking about??

So you are saying that if the Leafs had 3 fewer points and had to play Tampa in the first round in a 1 vs 8 format it would or would not have been a travesty? Or if the Islanders won one more game and Toronto had to play the Caps in a 1 vs 8 format the first round. Is that a travesty?

There are few easy matchups in the playoffs. Come on. Your team won as an 8 seed.

 

[wintersej]

Leafs just need to hope that Sandin or Lilly (or both) hit and that they can sign some of their depth scoring to nicer contracts than Nylander. If they beat Boston they would have been one of the top contenders left. They are doing fine.

 

[4thline]

Leafs just need to hope that Sandin or Lilly (or both) hit and that they can sign some of their depth scoring to nicer contracts than Nylander. If they beat Boston they would have been one of the top contenders left. They are doing fine.

Good post. I swear some people think that Marleau's contract has the same term as Tavares, the cap is going to freeze at 83 million for the next decade, and a team that has had 3 different 5th round or later drafted forwards graduate and score 20 goals in the last 4 seasons is just going to stop developing players

Next year is likely going to be tight, but a couple bridges and a couple graduations to go along with Marleau's contract ending and cap hell is gone.

 

[KingPuckChoo]

So you are saying that if the Leafs had 3 fewer points and had to play Tampa in the first round in a 1 vs 8 format it would or would not have been a travesty? Or if the Islanders won one more game and Toronto had to play the Caps in a 1 vs 8 format the first round. Is that a travesty?

There are few easy matchups in the playoffs. Come on. Your team won as an 8 seed.

No, what i'm saying is humans are more accepting of a best vs worst in early matchups than best vs best

so most people would do the natural way of things and rank teams 1-31 and sort matchups accordingly

but as soon as you derail from that natural thought process and create this odd bracket for competitive reasons and selling more tickets then you're left with the natural desire for a human to think "what if?"

What if Toronto's achille's heel is BOSTON and BOSTON alone, can this be a probable scenario? YES of course it's probable that TO is good vs 15 teams but just can't grind it out vs Boston

In that case, it would bother me as a fan that the league decided, on occasion, to go against tradition and be part of this odd #2 vs #3 ranking where Boston and Toronto are almost certain to meet, it would really suck actually

you probably were lucky enough to root for a team that never had this issue or was on the good side of it

i'll tell you, i know my kings in and out

and at times i wished we'd fall in the wild card seed in order to land in the NSH WIN CHI bracket because at least vs those teams we had a minor chance... at that time, SJ and ANA were just a pain for us, limited mostly to those two, but enough to eliminate us from the first round

my question is this, other than obvious $$$, if i'm 2nd place why in the hell am i being treated like i'm 4th???

Oh congrats you're 2nd place but we're just gonna treat you like you're an old 4th and face this 5th team that will kick your ass

so then what the f*** is the point of a season?

Also, if you want to argue anything similar to "in order to be the best you gotta beat the best", ask San Jose if they think that's true...look at their bracket and i'm sure they're saying to themselves "thank God Nashville and Winnipeg are out"

 

[Hunter368]

Silly thread question......of course it’s successful......but no team is perfect and goes 82-0 and wins the cup every year. Leafs are a good that has some flaws to fix......