Not saying we're going to win the cup next year but...

[AllDay28]

Blues also had 6 defenseman that would be at worst the 3rd best on the Leafs.

jay bouw, paranko and pietrangelo... who else? Bertuzzo? Carl Gunnarson? Michael Del Zotto? Unlikely.

 

[ToneDog]

jay bouw, paranko and pietrangelo... who else? Bertuzzo? Carl Gunnarson? Michael Del Zotto? Unlikely.

Edmunson and Dunn if memory serves.

 

[AllDay28]

What the leafs need to do is disregard the rules of the sport that teams follow for 82 games and then just act wreckless in the playoffs and if something happens complain about the refs every game ala Columbus.

 

[AllDay28]

Edmunson and Dunn if memory serves.

would be top 3 on Leafs? I see..

 

[SeaOfBlue]

The Blues problem was readily apparent for everyone, at least it was for me. The play style and great defensive play was already in place thanks to Hitchcock.

The centre ice position and goaltending were the achilles heel to me.

The ROR addition was fantastic but not enough to overcome Allen IMO. Binnington arriving as a legit starting goaltender answered their prayers. Brian Elliott and Jake Allen were always costing them.

Right, but Binnington was a Hail Mary to try and save their season. He was on waivers at the beginning of that year and was even loaned to another system the year before. They were literally like "what do we have to lose?". That would be like if Holl came out of nowhere and became a top pairing RD. I mean he did pretty well regardless, but if we had a top pairing RD making 675k come out nowhere, we are likely going pretty far too.

The other thing is that it did not happen overnight. They did not sell off their core when things went south numerous times. There were many times where they looked like they were hitting the same wall.

The point the OP is making is not that changes are not unreasonable to expect, but that in Toronto, overreactions are common and every time something goes wrong, the plan is blamed and a huge change needs to be made. I can understand the frustration and the tendency because of how many plans have failed in the past, but if your first reaction is to constantly change the plan every time something goes wrong, then nothing will ever go right. We already changed the plan a fair bit going from Lou to Dubas, and despite what people are saying, the Leafs have done better (I don't care that they had 105 points in 2017-2018, 14 points coming from shootouts is not sustainable). We need work, but this is a team that is good enough to win not just one, but multiple rounds... and with time and luck (as much as people cringe about luck being a factor), the results are bound to reflect that.

 

[sparxx87]

This idea doesn’t consider the players in place. That team was much, much better to begin with.

Let me know when they get Parayko and Pietrangelo to stagger for 55 minutes a game.

 

[WTFMAN99]

Right, but Binnington was a Hail Mary to try and save their season. He was on waivers at the beginning of that year and was even loaned to another system the year before. They were literally like "what do we have to lose?". That would be like if Holl came out of nowhere and became a top pairing RD. I mean he did pretty well regardless, but if we had a top pairing RD making 675k come out nowhere, we are likely going pretty far too.

The other thing is that it did not happen overnight. They did not sell off their core when things went south numerous times. There were many times where they looked like they were hitting the same wall.

The point the OP is making is not that changes are not unreasonable to expect, but that in Toronto, overreactions are common and every time something goes wrong, the plan is blamed and a huge change needs to be made. I can understand the frustration and the tendency because of how many plans have failed in the past, but if your first reaction is to constantly change the plan every time something goes wrong, then nothing will ever go right. We already changed the plan a fair bit going from Lou to Dubas, and despite what people are saying, the Leafs have done better (I don't care that they had 105 points in 2017-2018, 14 points coming from shootouts is not sustainable). We need work, but this is a team that is good enough to win not just one, but multiple rounds... and with time and luck (as much as people cringe about luck being a factor), the results are bound to reflect that.

They made tough choices like trading Shattenkirk and Stastny when their season was on the line. Letting a guy like Backes walk.

I mean look at Washington too, moving on from Alex Semin (a guy with 84 pts and 40 goals at one point) and Mike Green (31G in 68GP) - these guys would be locked up to multi year deals here but these franchises made tough decisions and made trades.

I don't think this team is doing any better under Dubas, we've technically just missed the play-offs. I don't think he has the balls to make tough decisions, Blues moved Shattenkirk but we weren't really looking like a good playoff team. What did we do? We kept Tyson Barrie at the trade deadline despite knowing he wasn't going to re-sign with us.

Paul Stastny? They were one point out of a playoff spot. It pissed off their players but Armstrong didn't have faith it would work out.

Now I know what you're saying with in getting someone air dropped for free into your line up and getting something out of it, sometimes it happens sometimes it doesn't. We added Mikhayev for free and got a pretty decent top 9 forward but definitely not the top pairing RD.

I look at what Pittsburgh did in trading a 5th or 6th for Marino from Edmonton and basically got their 2nd pairing RHD of the future. We might be able to get those breaks in the future but we also need to lay a foundation of much better defensive hockey. I have no idea on how the hell to judge Andersen sometimes because he'll save like 3 breakaways or some high quality chances but maybe lets in a weaker goal. You can only let your goalie get under siege so much.

 

[tmlms13]

jay bouw, paranko and pietrangelo... who else? Bertuzzo? Carl Gunnarson? Michael Del Zotto? Unlikely.

I was being facetious but not too far off.... As much as we all love Hainsey he's #5 or 6 on that Blues team

Blues Top 6 2019 playoffs - 7 D played 17+ games.... I'm not sure who the #7 is
Jay Bow, Para, Pietro, Edmunson, Dunn, Gunn, Bort

Leafs Top 6 2019 playoffs
Rielly, Muzz, Hainsey, Gards, Zaitsev, Dermott

 

[ruaware41]

Well, that an literally everything I just said. Three years trending in the wrong direction. Missed the playoffs (and actually sold at the deadline the year before in anticipation of missing then squeaked in). Got a legendary HOF hard ass coach fired. Watched another team draft in the top 15 with their pick from a deal used to clear cap space.

The tantrums on this board would be no less epic than the ones we're seeing now, and a decent number of Blues fans on these boards were to that point as well.

Homie I'm just saying the situations were incomparable. I'm confident that core had won playoff rounds before. They were always a playoff success centric team with how they played hockey regardless of fan frustration. If anything that situation should be more frustrating because they had their ducks in a row. To better illustrate my point I'm going to also highlight what the guy replying to me said. They had 6 dman all of which would be the 3rd best at worst on the Leafs.

Their team was always built for playoff success. Ours isn't for some reason

 

[SeaOfBlue]

They made tough choices like trading Shattenkirk and Stastny when their season was on the line. Letting a guy like Backes walk.

I mean look at Washington too, moving on from Alex Semin (a guy with 84 pts and 40 goals at one point) and Mike Green (31G in 68GP) - these guys would be locked up to multi year deals here but these franchises made tough decisions and made trades.

I don't think this team is doing any better under Dubas, we've technically just missed the play-offs. I don't think he has the balls to make tough decisions, Blues moved Shattenkirk but we weren't really looking like a good playoff team. What did we do? We kept Tyson Barrie at the trade deadline despite knowing he wasn't going to re-sign with us.

Paul Stastny? They were one point out of a playoff spot. It pissed off their players but Armstrong didn't have faith it would work out.

Now I know what you're saying with in getting someone air dropped for free into your line up and getting something out of it, sometimes it happens sometimes it doesn't. We added Mikhayev for free and got a pretty decent top 9 forward but definitely not the top pairing RD.

I look at what Pittsburgh did in trading a 5th or 6th for Marino from Edmonton and basically got their 2nd pairing RHD of the future. We might be able to get those breaks in the future but we also need to lay a foundation of much better defensive hockey. I have no idea on how the hell to judge Andersen sometimes because he'll save like 3 breakaways or some high quality chances but maybe lets in a weaker goal. You can only let your goalie get under siege so much.

Absolutely true that difficult decisions had to be made. Dubas decided to let JvR, Bozak, Gardiner walk, and to trade Kadri/Brown/Zaitsev, because he knew they were not going to work out (so not sure your point about the Leafs resigning guys like Semin and Green to multi-year deals is necessarily true; the only pending UFA he has really signed to a lucrative deal is Muzzin... And I don't think many people are complaining about that right now). The only thing with this season I can think is a little bit different than the Blues' is that the Leafs did much better under Keefe than under Babcock (8th best point percentage in the league since Keefe took over despite inconsistent goaltending and numerous injuries), and Barrie was definitely one of the players who benefited from that (32 points in 47 games under Keefe; 13th best for defensemen in that period of time). It would be different if we were a fully healthy team that looked like a bubble team, but 8th best in the league is not exactly someone who thinks about selling... Especially if they could be mostly healthy by the time the playoffs rolled around.

 

[WTFMAN99]

Absolutely true that difficult decisions had to be made. Dubas decided to let JvR, Bozak, Gardiner walk, and to trade Kadri/Brown/Zaitsev, because he knew they were not going to work out (so not sure your point about the Leafs resigning guys like Semin and Green to multi-year deals is necessarily true; the only pending UFA he has really signed to a lucrative deal is Muzzin... And I don't think many people are complaining about that right now). The only thing with this season I can think is a little bit different than the Blues' is that the Leafs did much better under Keefe than under Babcock (8th best point percentage in the league since Keefe took over despite inconsistent goaltending and numerous injuries), and Barrie was definitely one of the players who benefited from that (32 points in 47 games under Keefe; 13th best for defensemen in that period of time). It would be different if we were a fully healthy team that looked like a bubble team, but 8th best in the league is not exactly someone who thinks about selling... Especially if they could be mostly healthy by the time the playoffs rolled around.

I don't think we had the cap to keep any of them to be fair.

He missed badly in the Kadri trade. Brown was cost of moving Zaitsev but if we could have done it for Johnsson, think we would have been better for it.

Even with Barrie turning it around under Keefe, team wasn't built for play-off success. Holl would be the NYI's 8th-9th defenseman

 

[ECanuck]

We are not the Blues, Blackhawks or Capitals.
We are the Leafs.
Just like in Life. People who always look at someone else, never get there.
There being a happy place.

 

[SeaOfBlue]

They had 6 dman all of which would be the 3rd best at worst on the Leafs.

2018-2019: Pietrangelo, Parayko, Bouwmeester, Edmundson, Dunn, Bortuzzo, Gunnarsson
2016-2017: Pietrangelo, Parayko, Bouwmeester, Edmundson, Bortuzzo, Gunnarsson
2015-2016: Pietrangelo, Parayko, Bouwmeester, Edmundson, Shattenkirk, Gunnarsson
2011-2012: Pietrangelo, Shattenkirk, Polak, Colaiacovo, Jackman, Russell

This is the top 6 for the Blues in each of the years they made it past the quarter-finals since they've been a competitive team. You are telling me all of those guys are better than Barrie, Ceci, Dermott, Holl (if not also Rielly and Muzzin as well)?

Case in point for anyone who was curious as to what I was referring to when I said that it was fine to have criticisms, but the majority of them are off-base or plain wrong. This pretty much sums it up perfectly.

 

[ruaware41]

2018-2019: Pietrangelo, Parayko, Bouwmeester, Edmundson, Dunn, Bortuzzo, Gunnarsson
2016-2017: Pietrangelo, Parayko, Bouwmeester, Edmundson, Bortuzzo, Gunnarsson
2015-2016: Pietrangelo, Parayko, Bouwmeester, Edmundson, Shattenkirk, Gunnarsson
2011-2012: Pietrangelo, Shattenkirk, Polak, Colaiacovo, Jackman, Russell

This is the top 6 for the Blues in each of the years they made it past the quarter-finals since they've been a competitive team. You are telling me all of those guys are better than Barrie, Ceci, Dermott, Holl (if not also Rielly and Muzzin as well)?

Case in point for anyone who was curious as to what I was referring to when I said that it was fine to have criticisms, but the majority of them are off-base or plain wrong. This pretty much sums it up perfectly.

Honestly you could disregard that and the rest of my post would still hold true. I was going off what the other guy said but nonetheless their d core is much better than the Leafs. They were built like a playoff team, they were heavy, they finished hits, they were regarded league wide as a team that should be contenders, their core had won playoff rounds. And looking just at 18-19 aside from bortuzzo all those players are better suited for playoff hockey on a team like St Louis than any of Rielly Dermott Holl Muzzin or Ceci. Holl might've done well there and is pretty underrated as well as a prime Muzzin which he's not anymore.

 

[Polaris1010]

The St. Louis Blues for the past decade had strong group in support for their forwards, a very good defense group, shaky goaltending, and only the one sniper on the wing.

They won the cup because O'Rielly played the best hockey of his life, and Binnington came out of nowhere.

This version of the Dubas inspired Toronto Maple Leafs is different.

There are games breakers, but no support in the rest of the forwards, and just plain below average defense.

Getting defensemen is hard in the NHL.

But getting those 3rd line pluggers is relatively easier. But that is beyond Dubas' ability looking at how this team played.

 

[7even]

I'd say the patron saint of staying the course and not over-reacting.

"Steady on the rudder," I think was the motto?

I do agree that two careful trades could put this team in the upper echelon of the league. I don't think St. Louis is a useful comparison to draw. That's an exceptional circumstance. Their problem for years was having no one better than Jake Allen to put in net. Binnington threw up Vezina numbers for them down the stretch to get them in, then was good enough in the playoffs. All the other major pieces were already there, they had a great d core and a sneaky deep forward line up.

 

[Buds17]

The tricky thing for me about their Cup run was that it was a unique playoff in which every division winner was eliminated in the first round. STL did beat some teams who were equal to or better than them (according to the standings) along the way. Still, it's probably not unreasonable to suggest that the path would have typically led to the Central or Pacific winner in the WCF if not also the Atlantic or Metropolitan winner in the SCF. No way of knowing for certain how those series might have played out, of course.

Great work on the thread though. For STL to go from missing the playoffs to winning the Cup from one season to the next is quite an accomplishment, and yes, maybe not exactly the most common of occurrences, but...

 

[pcruz]

Three straight seasons of declining regular season points percentage? Check
Fire the coach? Check
Miss the playoffs? Check*
Have another team use your lottery pick in the low teens because of a cap shedding deal the summer prior? Check
Didn't have a first rounder last year because of a trade for an impact player that re-signed? Check

Pretty bleak right?

This is the Blue's circa June 2018


Now, it didn't just happen for them.
At the deadline they moved a fairly high end C rather than re-signing him to recoup futures

then in the off-season they made a major splash, dealing yet more futures plus to middle of the roster players in a cap in cap out deal for a team complexion changing impact player

Two trades.

Are we about to acquire Pietrangelo and Parayko?
Maybe Bennington as well.

 

[Stephen]

The Blues foundation dates back to 2005-2010, and they've been stumbling towards a cup for a very long time. It's not really comparable to Toronto.

 

[Shayne Corsi]

Even if one concedes the similarities, I'm not seeing a clear or compelling link being drawn between those contextual factors and winning / being successful in the playoffs. It's a correlation that seems, at best, non-trivial to argue as having causation. This is particularly true in a sport like hockey, where there is so much parity to begin with, and therefore results are very hard to link to such specific and seemingly random factors.

In fact, this argument would be more compelling to me if simplified to: hockey has tons of parity and therefore randomness. Ergo, the Leafs could go from being unable to win a single round to champions in one season. That seems like a reasonable argument to me, though I contingently disagree.

I feel our players are generally mercenaries who don't have the requisite grit or desire needed to win during the playoffs. And that this culture was either created or exacerbated by Dubas' dubious negotiations with the core. He should have either gotten term, signed bridge deals, or made them sit. The types of deals ultimately signed basically don't exist across the rest of the league. And I think they stunted the psychological development of the core by creating entitlement etc. / created a culture that is simply not conducive to winning.

I know I sound like a cantankerous old man lol, and I hope you're right, but it's hard to imagine this collection of players winning anything. They are basically the anti-Raptors -- a ton of high pedigree, low effort, entitled mercenaries as opposed to low pedigree, high effort, chip-on-their-shoulder TEAMMATES. Sadly, even if this iteration of the Leafs do find a way to win, I find them so hard to root for nowadays!

 

[saffronleaf]

Maybe Campbell will be our Binnington lol

 

[saffronleaf]

Blues sucked before winning.

Leafs suck.

Ergo, Leafs will win.

 

[Faltorvo]

Are we about to acquire Pietrangelo and Parayko?
Maybe Bennington as well.

pietrangelo,,possibly
and we already have muzz/rielly

 

[Boondock]

No parallel is perfect. And the title of the thread is literally "don't expect the same outcome", but was looking at past draft results saw the origin of the Farabee pick and realized just how many of Dubas' supposed capital crimes had been committed by a cup winning GM in the two years immediately prior to winning the cup.

50% of the cap spent on 4 players that cover 2 positions - don't think the Blues did that.

 

[All Mod Cons]

The Blues didn't lose to their own 42-year old Zamboni driver.