• Moderators, please send me a PM if you are unable to access mod permissions. Thanks, Habsy.

The Official Post-Bitch 2025-26 Regular Season Thread

We should never have lost Mitch, but that's done now. so we try and somehow add another elite player - that's the only real priority.

matthews and nylander should be leafs for life.

Tavares is a good deal now so keep him.

Knies Cowan Robby Maccelli all good young guys but also tradeable for an elite guy.

Sell off literally everyone else if possible. Use all capspace and assets to try to add elite players only.
 
Getting back to a competitive playoff team won’t be hard. Becoming the best team in the league will be tough with the lack of assets and free agency sucking. It might take some time, accumulating and drafting better. But blowing it up and building a winner is harder.
 
I generally agree that it's more of a buzzword that explains totally normal and regular roster turnover that almost every team in the league goes through over the course of a few years. It comes up more when the team appears to have hit some sort of a narrative cross road though and something something change is needed.

Here's our opening night rosters (arranged loosely by role/TOI), separated two years apart since the beginning of this little project, with the player changes in bold

2016
Hyman-Matthews-Nylander
JVR-Bozak-Marner
Komarov-Kadri-Brown
Martin-Gauthier-Soshnikov

Rielly-Zaitsev
Gardiner-Hunwick
Polak-Carrick

Andersen
McIlheney

2018
Hyman-Matthews-Marner
Marleau-Tavares-Nylander
Johnsson-Kadri-Kapanen
Lindholm-Gauthier-Brown

Rielly-Hainsey
Gardiner-Zaitsev
Dermott-Ozhiganov

Anderson
Sparks

2020
Hyman-Matthews-Marner
Mikheyek-Tavares-Nylander
Thornton-Kerfoot-Galchenyuk
Simmonds-Spezza-Engvall

Rielly-Muzzin
Brodie-Holl
Dermott-Bogosian

Andersen
Campbell

2022
Bunting-Matthews-Marner
Kerfoot-Tavares-Nylander
Engvall-Kampf-Jarnkrok
ZAR-Lafferty-Holmberg

Rielly-Brodie
Giordano-Holl
Sandin-Liljegren

Samsonov
Murray

2024
Knies-Matthews-Marner
McMann-Tavares-Nylander
Pacioretty-Domi-Robertson
Lorentz-Kampf-Holmberg

Rielly-McCabe
OEL-Tanev
Benoit-Timmins

Stolarz
Woll


So what exactly is a retool when ~50% roster turnover every 24 months is just normal?
 
CH1 said:
Any candidate who proposes a rebuild is getting a very short interview— next!!
Click to expand...

It's a complete non starter here. Anyone who walks into the interview with knowledge of the bones of the team + it's current prospect and draft pick status and proposes getting worse on purpose is a deeply unserious candidate. We just watched a fucking expansion franchise go from zero to cup within a few years using data, and the Panthers go from never having won a round with a core of Barkov, Huberdeau, Ekblad, & the worst goalie contract in hockey to repeat cup champions in a few years because they made smart moves compounded on one another. They both found value in things other teams were giving away (Forsling, Bennett, Verhaege, Weegar in FLA. Smith, Theodore, Marchy, Karlsson, Carrier, Tuch, etc in Vegas) and when they actually made big swings in trade they brought in real difference makers and not scrubs (Reinhart & Jones in FLA. Eichel, Stone, Pietrangelo in Vegas).

This is what Florida started the season with 2 years before they made their first finals

Huberdeau-Barkov-Hornqvist
Duclair-Wenberg-Verhaege
Vatrano-Acciari-Luostarainen
Marchment-Lomikko-Lomberg

Weegar-Ekblad
Forsling-Stralman
Yandle-Gudas

Bob
Driedger

Smart management makes anything possible.
 
Another thing that Friedman said was that there have been rumours that Toronto wanted Hage in the draft but he doesn’t think that’s true because Wes Clark told him that Tre wanted them to draft a RHD.

#process
 
I mean, we could have wanted Hage and it wouldn't have mattered. We didn't select until 10 picks after Hage was gone when we picked Dernferd.
 
MindzEye said:
I mean, we could have wanted Hage and it wouldn't have mattered. We didn't select until 10 picks after Hage was gone when we picked Dernferd.
Click to expand...

didn't you guys trade down after Habs picked Hage?
 
CH1 said:
didn't you guys trade down after Habs picked Hage?
Click to expand...

Yeah, they did. But I think it's just as likely, more likely even that we wanted the worse prospect and saw the opportunity to trade down for him. Dernferd is a pretty perfect Treliving prospect. It completely tracks that he would pick positionally, and not BPA as well.
 
leafman101 said:
Show your data
Click to expand...
9 years of core players failing miserably in the playoffs . No regime in any sport puts up with this shit. You were handed 2 inferior teams in the covid years and still fucked it up.
After the Habs debacle core needed to be ripped up.
 
Volcanologist said:
would need to be a pretty impressive package, Leafs have no reason to trade Knies no matter which path they take due to his age and contract status.

let alone to a divisional rival.
Click to expand...


Fuck a “package”, even. There’s simply no need or no justification to dump a 23 year-old, signed for long-term Matthew Knies for a collection of lesser assets.

Which completely rules out the Habs, since the only “one-for-one” pieces I’d be interested in for Knies (Hutson, Slaf) are guys that it likewise makes no sense for the Habs to trade.

Thank fuck Treliving’s gone.
 
MindzEye said:
I think you're getting at the heart of the issue without understanding why though. You have to remember, at the time those trades were made the Leafs were tops in the division and to a traditionalist, looked very much like a cup contender. Why wouldn't a high end defensive defender and a gritty 3C move the needle and potentially put that over the top? It was the analytics monkeys though who thought/knew that the Leafs were being carried by elite goalscoring and goaltending despite systems play being a fucking mess. It was the analytics monkeys who knew Carlo was a #5D and not a shutdown pairing guy, that Laughton was more of a winger than a centre and that we overpaid massively for him.

An analytically minded organization wouldn't have assessed that team positively at all, would have seen their record as lucky and wouldn't have invested in it like the dummy organization we were at the time did.

"tiers" don't matter. They're imaginery, or at best highly subjective.
Click to expand...
Don't need analytics to see team has no spine and the much needed will doesn't match the skill to go far
 
LeafGm said:
Fuck a “package”, even. There’s simply no need or no justification to dump a 23 year-old, signed for long-term Matthew Knies for a collection of lesser assets.

Which completely rules out the Habs, since the only “one-for-one” pieces I’d be interested in for Knies (Hutson, Slaf) are guys that it likewise makes no sense for the Habs to trade.

Thank fuck Treliving’s gone.
Click to expand...

He thought what this team needed was a bunch of late first round picks and was willing to throw Matthew Knies overboard for that once he realized all the guys he brought in weren’t worth anything.

Idiot.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top