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The Official Post-Bitch 2025-26 Regular Season Thread

MindzEye said:
I mean, when was the last time they bought into an organization style of play and made decisions from top to bottom in search of players who could fill that?

Pat Quinn. That was the last time. He wanted fast hockey that was tough and had good goaltending. All of his teams in Toronto were built along the lines of that philosophy. We have not have a coherent philosophy on how the game is supposed to be played since. We had a brief opportunity to build a team based on outscoring the universe and winning Stanley Cup games 5-4, but we immediately got scared and insisted on building a gritensity team around 5 soft offensively players.
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Quinn teams were fun to watch as a fan, they mixed speed, offensive skill with dead puck era physicality, especially after 2000. But they lacked discipline, defensive structure and never played inside a system, they luckily got away with that because they had elite goaltending (cujo and belfour) of course it was not enough to get to the finals and win the cup.

Quinn was a let them play/players coach type of coach, thats why he preferred to deal with veterans, the Leafs players back then relied more on their instincts and experience than on a team program/system.
 
MindzEye said:
I differ. I think Chicago should be in their "identify all of the misfit toys" era still and saving their long term cap situation for when the young core + misfit toys get good.
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Bedard has been playing with Ryan Greene and Andre Burakovsky for the bulk of the year. That's just gross.

Lardis got a little bit of rub and could be a thing, and Kansterov should come over but unless they get Stenberg/McKenna they really should make an attempt to get him at least one high end linemate.

I think Tuch is of age where he can help fit and accelerate the timeline
 
MyNameIsJonas said:
Bedard has been playing with Ryan Greene and Andre Burakovsky for the bulk of the year. That's just gross.
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These are not the misfit toys I speak of though. I mean hunting out the next version of Sam Bennett, Forsling etc.

Like...what would Nick Robertson do next to Bedard for a season? Basically, plumb the depths of the bottom 6's around the league looking for weirdo nerdies outliers that look stuck down the depth chart for whatever reason, acquire a few of them for cheap and see what happens.
MyNameIsJonas said:
I think Tuch is of age where he can help fit and accelerate the timeline
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Accelerating the timeline is highly over rated. Acquire as much talent as is possible before you get good. The only thing to make sure of is that shit goaltending isn't holding back a good team. Other than that, build organically and focus on getting your 5v5 play to middle of the pack.
 
Locke said:
When was the Last Time the Leafs franchise/team/ org had a distinct, proper and recognizeable identity?

Maybe under punch imlach- « if you cant beat them in the alley, you wont beat them on the ice »
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Jim Gregory in the 70’s
Cliff Fletcher in the 90’s
Pat Quinn in the 90’s/2000’s

All 3 went 3 rounds in the playoffs. Which was more games than the pre expansion Leafs
 
Locke said:
Quinn teams were fun to watch as a fan, they mixed speed, offensive skill with dead puck era physicality, especially after 2000. But they lacked discipline, defensive structure and never played inside a system, they luckily got away with that because they had elite goaltending (cujo and belfour) of course it was not enough to get to the finals and win the cup.

Quinn was a let them play/players coach type of coach, thats why he preferred to deal with veterans, the Leafs players back then relied more on their instincts and experience than on a team program/system.
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But that was the system. Puck moving, free flowing hockey with tough veteran skill upfront and good goaltending in the back was the philosophy. That was the identity.
 
MindzEye said:
These are not the misfit toys I speak of though. I mean hunting out the next version of Sam Bennett, Forsling etc.

Like...what would Nick Robertson do next to Bedard for a season? Basically, plumb the depths of the bottom 6's around the league looking for weirdo nerdies outliers that look stuck down the depth chart for whatever reason, acquire a few of them for cheap and see what happens.


Accelerating the timeline is highly over rated. Acquire as much talent as is possible before you get good. The only thing to make sure of is that shit goaltending isn't holding back a good team. Other than that, build organically and focus on getting your 5v5 play to middle of the pack.
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Fair enough

I think Spencer Knight is a dude, but its hard to tell.
 
Knight is fine, he's good enough that he won't be the reason that you suck, even once the team has gotten to the point of being bubble worthy.

Nothing worse than falling into the JFJ Leaf trap where the roster is pretty decent but you're a bubble team or worse because the goaltending is putrid.
 
MyNameIsJonas said:
Also, if CHI falls to 3 or 4, i think it would behoove them to move up to 1-2 if one of the top 2 teams was good with a D.
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Chicago kind of needs everything though and the top 4 is all excellent. Verhoeff is the only one who is questionable as an "elite" prospect at the top of this draft.

Just take whoever is there at 3-4. Don't pay extra and get cute about it. Bedard is 20, Levshunov is 20. Everyone important in your organization is 24 or under. Keep all of your picks, make them all. Keep picking value UFA veterans on short term deals, find other people's under appreciated assets. Do that for another year or three and the program will hit terminal velocity and bust out with good young team, with a full as fuck prospect pipeline behind it to either trade from, or better yet replace mid tier young players on the roster when they get expensive. Exactly what your semi dynasty did. Replaced the Versteeg's, Brouwers, and Bollands as soon as they were on their way to getting expensive.
 
MindzEye said:
Chicago kind of needs everything though and the top 4 is all excellent. Verhoeff is the only one who is questionable as an "elite" prospect at the top of this draft.

Just take whoever is there at 3-4. Don't pay extra and get cute about it. Bedard is 20, Levshunov is 20. Everyone important in your organization is 24 or under. Keep all of your picks, make them all. Keep picking value UFA veterans on short term deals, find other people's under appreciated assets. Do that for another year or three and the program will hit terminal velocity and bust out with good young team, with a full as fuck prospect pipeline behind it to either trade from, or better yet replace mid tier young players on the roster when they get expensive. Exactly what your semi dynasty did. Replaced the Versteeg's, Brouwers, and Bollands as soon as they were on their way to getting expensive.
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I pick San Jose to be competitive before Chicago is
 
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