The year of Tre-living dangerously

[Barilko]

Revisiting these posts...

Oct 21, 2023 19:18:10 GMT -5 Barilko said:

I know it's still early in the season -- but this is a badly broken team.

Reaves is totally unplayable unless he's thrown out there to drop the gloves -- and he didn't even do that against Florida. That was a game where this team was supposed to show the world that they aren't pushovers anymore. Kulikov slams Willie into the boards, and nobody answers the bell -- not even the guy we paid $1.3mm to do that and ONLY that. What makes it worse, is that Reaves pretty much makes the entire fourth line unplayable. Reaves is yet another liability in the defensive zone (and we now have way too many of those), and Kampf and Gregor don't generate enough offense to justify the offensive zone starts they give that line.

Kampf is now on the third line, thanks mostly to the Minten experiment failing; all that does is further expose the lack of offensive depth on the forward lines.

Domi and Bertuzzi are both showing very little value as well. I had hoped for more out of them, and as I said, the season is still young. But this is looking really ugly already.

Klingberg and McCabe are mostly atrocious -- it isn't just our forwards that are defensive liabilities.

Arguably the worst liability of this team is behind the bench. I've really had it with Keefe. One thing I'm noticing more and more with him -- as much as he will "throw the lines in the blender", he seems to always revert to form. Willie was never given a real chance at center, Keefe just couldn't resist returning to his comfort zone about 2-3 games into pre-season. He really needs to go.

When I wrote this at the end of August, I didn't realize that it was actually optimistic given the circumstances:

Aug 31, 2023 21:19:48 GMT -5 Barilko said:

My thoughts on Keefe have been recorded in other threads. We all knew that this extension was coming, but don't ask me to be happy about it.

Funny thing. I'm recalling a few months ago, after we lost to the Panthers... EVERYONE was saying "they can't just let Dubas run it back again." So Dubas talked in his end of season presser about making changes. Then Shanny fires Dubas, replaces him with Treliving -- and TRELIVING IS RUNNING IT BACK!

Don't tell me that this team is materially different from the one that Florida steamrolled in the playoffs. Replacing Bunting, O'Reilly, Kerfoot, Simmonds, Schenn and Holl with Bertuzzi, Domi, Gambrell, Reaves, Klingberg and Benoit is actually pretty close to a wash. That's not a knock on the newcomers, it's just fact. Ultimately, there were two potential ways to make a significant change to this team: move out someone from the "core four", or replace the coach. Treliving and Shanahan have done neither. And no, I don't expect them to trade Nylander either.

The only significant change to the Leafs this season is that Dubas is no longer around to be the scapegoat. I really hope I'm wrong, but I strongly suspect that next spring, a similar early exit in the playoffs will be the best case scenario for this club.

Hope everyone's had a fun summer.

Just imagine if instead of signing Reaves ($1.35m), Klingberg ($4.1m) and Kampf ($2.4m), we opted instead to sign Duchene ($2m), Schenn ($2.75m), and kept Lafferty ($1.15m):

• Our bottom 6 would have been a lot deeper and therefore more effective.
• We would have had more options down the middle; Duchene would have pushed Tavares to either the wing or 3rd line center; JT is clearly unfit at this point to drive a #2 line.
• The additional $1.95m saved could have been better spent either on depth signings or given us more wiggle room in trade scenarios (maybe we could have landed Zadorov, for example)
• The Leafs would be considerably better defensively.

Another thing that sticks out with the current state of things, is that Tre and Keefe have definitely NOT been on the same page regarding their respective visions of the club. The quote from Keefe last week about still not knowing which players he can trust is really more of an indictment of Tre than it is of the players, when you stop and think about it. Another piece of evidence to support that, is that it was reported that part of Tre's thought processes behind the moves he made in the summer was that Nylander would get a chance to try out the center position. Keefe never really gave that much of a chance. You can argue whether or not that plan would have succeeded, but the disconnect between coach and GM is pretty much indisputable at this point.

[mokole]

I too have pointed out that we could've had Schenn back, but drove him away. Having Tavares on faceoffs then moving Nylander to the middle works better. I don't know what else this team can do. Minten will be fine soon enough, but why not try something and trade up in a draft to get a Byram??

[hobie]

Would Duchesne want to sign with TO or any Cdn team, did Schenn want to come back, Lafferty is having a decent year with Van. but he sure didn't show us any of what he's doing this year with TO last year, maybe his extra icetime is helping, he wouldn't be getting his 12.5 min. per night with Keefe.

On paper TO has a core of players that should get TO comfortably into the playoffs every year but that is so long as none of that core has subpar years, Mitch and JT are not having great years and it's possible that JT's year is something we can expect in the future. A struggling JT is still putting up 10 more points than the next highest Leaf scorer, nothing spectacular about those 10 points but it does point out how bad the support players are, Willie, Rielly and AM are having great years, nobody else on the team is.

I think that Trevling signing Reaves is another person on TO that hasn't been doing his job or is also having a subpar year, that none of his signings are having good years means he's having a horrific year.

Many complain that Keefe experiments too much, year after year TO has done exceptionally well except in the playoffs, Keefe hasn't been able to inspire them to greater heights in the playoffs and he basically sends out the same combos of the core 4 year after year with predictable results, something has to give. TO needs more from the support players, MM with Domi looked interesting and the results were good but that experiment lasted one game, why?

When Mitch plays with Austin, neither has to shoulder the blame themselves when things are not going well, when Mitch plays with Domi and Jarkrok he knows it's his responsibility that they play well and contribute, make him responsible, I think he would be far better away from Austin. Austin will score, it's what he's best at and he can do it without high end help, Bert and Robertson might be good enough to enable Austin to continue to be a scoring machine  and give him different options to pass to instead of trying to hide in plain sight. Willie and JT together would probably be better with Willie in the middle, Willie's speed and passing ability is the type of traits that great centers have in their tool boxes, maybe Knies might fit on this line or Gregor.

Is it possible putting these 3 lines together might make the core players more responsible, more apt to help/enable the support players to be more productive, I don't know, why? Is having AM, MM, WN playing 22 + minutes a night a good idea, is it enabling them to be at their best when on the ice or causing them, due to fatigue, to make the horrendous decision that resulted in the 2 on none at Samsonov in the last Winterpeg game? When they have more energy they probably are more productive, less icetime should make them more hungry, a possible winning combo?

Keefe is putting all of his apples in one basket, either the core 4 gets it done or it won't happen, that's the hill he prefers to die on, I don't think it makes any sense to die on the same hill, year after year, I think he needs to remove his blinders and use the regular season to try and find a new possible winning combos with the players TO has, I think the tools are there.             

[stugats1]

I still feel the team culture is way off.. how many on this team would go through a brick wall for the coach? Benoit, McCabe? Can't think of others. Maybe Rielly.. outside shot Domi? Something very wrong mentally. Players ate interchangeable. Also should be coachable.

I think the coach has done what he is capable off but is still in over his head

[Gerard]

Great stuff guys. Keefe is a pencil pusher and thats it. He runs out the lines one after the other and only tinkers if weve gone thru 40 minutes of nothing. Even at that he might change them for a few shifts and go right back. Are you kidding me?

Yes culture is the biggest killer and it will be once again this year. Once things get nasty on the p/offs we fold like a cheap tent. Its been that way since forever.

[hobie]

Explain culture?

Certain players will give their all, all year long but after the regular season their all might not be enough, it's easier to be giving your all and appearing to be credible during the regular season against SJ, in the playoffs there are no SJs.

Culture, I think comes from leadership, I also think the better the leadership the better the results. Messier was a leader, we hear, Crosby probably, I think we'd need to go back to Doug Gilmour to pinpoint TO's last leader, can't think of any since him, I think JT has been an exceptional player but probably no a great leader, not sure.   

[Gerard]

Yeah Dougie is the face I see all the time. Perfect captain material.

[Barilko]

I love all of this discussion about "leadership". It reminds me of something I once read about the St. Louis Cardinals in the early 80s, when Whitey Herzog was their manager. Whitey was once asked, "Who is the leader on your team?"

Whitey answered, without blinking: "Me."

Which isn't to say that having a strong leader on the ice doesn't matter. But the place I really want to see strong leadership, is behind the bench. That becomes even more vital when you don't have strong leadership on the ice -- if that void exists on the ice, it becomes more incumbent on the coach to show the team what leadership looks like.

Keefe has failed badly in that regard.

[Gerard]

Im sick/tired of watching Keefe shrug on the bench or simply shake his head at the officials. Hes got zero personality just like his players.