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The Mother****ing Off Season Thread

hockeylover said:
If they go into the season with nearly the same D minus Gardiner and the same coach... jeez. I can’t get excited about that.
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They did quite well with that d to be honest. Not having Gardiner will hurt though, no doubt. It's not ideal but this is kind of a stop gap year. They're limited. Surely dubas will look at options all year. Just because they start the year with that it doesn't mean that's how they end it. And I'd prefer a stop gap 1 year cheap contract for Hainsey over giving term to one of the mediocre UFA d out there. And he'll, maybe just maybe liljegren or sandin prove to be top four d and they no longer need to spend assets on someone.

I don't know... I'm not saying I prefer to sign old man Ron, just because of how Babs uses him.. I just wouldn't be surprised if they do it.

And remember... They went into last year without muzzin. Next year may simply be a Muzzin for Gardiner swap. Not necessarily a downgrade imo. Plus next year they have greater potential for a Lilly/sandin breakout. Not what I'd prefer but hardly the disaster that the media will want you to believe.
 
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I'm honestly less concerned about the pieces we have on defense than I am about how our coach is going to deploy them. Rielly, Muzzin & Dermott is a more solid foundation than a lot of teams have to build off of, and I'm pretty confident that a couple of the guys we already have in the system can be competent bottom-pairing defensemen.

However, we still have the coach who unfailingly played Ron Hainsey on his top pair all year, constantly played Nikita Zaitsev in a top-4 role, stuck with Igor Ozhiganov for the majority of the season and who always turned to Martin Marincin whenever one of our regular top-6 defensemen was out and we needed someone to fill in.

So, my concern is that instead of trying a bunch of different depth defensemen and sticking with the guys who objectively play the best when given the chance, he'll decide prior to the season who "his guys" are, and then doggedly stick with them no matter what the on-ice results are.
 
You can sell me on running with what we currently have and then embracing guys like Liljegren and Sandin. It's not ideal, but I can get behind it.

What you can't sell me on is us all sitting here in April watching Mike Babcock play the shit out of a 39 year old Ron Hainsey. ****. That.
 
hockeylover said:
You can sell me on running with what we currently have and then embracing guys like Liljegren and Sandin. It's not ideal, but I can get behind it.

What you can't sell me on is us all sitting here in April watching Mike Babcock play the shit out of a 39 year old Ron Hainsey. ****. That.
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Yeah that's not ideal. Not going to sell you on anything other than saying it's very possible that it happens. Just going to say it wouldn't be a disaster and the leafs will still be a top 5-7 team in the NHL. After most of the media telling us repeatedly that the roster will have to be dismantled. The only thing they'd be missing this year as opposed to last year is a 1st round pick. Outside of that the team will be essentially the same, if not improved from the beginning of the 2018 season (Muzzin Vs Gardiner, full season of Trevor Moore, that russian guy over Lindholm should be an upgrade, no Marleau, johnsson not on the fourth line for much of the year, young guys a year older, full season of nylander, etc).
 
hockeylover said:
You can sell me on running with what we currently have and then embracing guys like Liljegren and Sandin. It's not ideal, but I can get behind it.

What you can't sell me on is us all sitting here in April watching Mike Babcock play the shit out of a 39 year old Ron Hainsey. ****. That.
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Yep.

I'll be honest, the last time I was this bitter and less hopeful about this team, Dave Nonis was our GM and Randy Carlyle was still our head coach.

It's even to the point where I'm kind of dreading my first look at this Ilya Mikheyev kid. He'd better be good, because it sure sounds like Babcock's already decided he's going to be one of his pets, which means he's going to be getting a ton of prime ice-time and opportunities for the majority of the season regardless of how he plays.
 
LeafGm said:
Yep.

I'll be honest, the last time I was this bitter and less hopeful about this team, Dave Nonis was our GM and Randy Carlyle was still our head coach.

It's even to the point where I'm kind of dreading my first look at this Ilya Mikheyev kid. He'd better be good, because it sure sounds like Babcock's already decided he's going to be one of his pets, which means he's going to be getting a ton of prime ice-time and opportunities for the majority of the season regardless of how he plays.
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Yeah there's no reason for that. Babcock is dumb but this is a real good team. They were a game away from going to the finals last year. And who knows... Without Marleau maybe they win that game or maybe they win in 6. They'll be fine.

They have arguably the best group of forwards in the NHL and their core of elite talent will be in place for at least the next 5 years. Marner will eventually sign and I may find it harder to actually cheer for him (depending on how the rest of the negotiations go), but the team itself will be fine.
 
Dermott not being back until Nov-Dec is a big concern for me if we're not able to make changes and roll in with status quo.
 
IMO Lilly and Sandin will get opportunities, but unless they absolutely blow the competition out of the water they are probably headed back to the Marlies for half a year. Rosen/Borgman/Kivihalme and maybe Lindgren get the first looks.

Lindgren is actually kind of interesting, and forgotten about. Righty, that is 22 now, that was the #3 dman on the Liiga champs and plays a Dubas style game (high hockey IQ, skating and puck skills). Wonder if he gets a look.
 
leafman101 said:
IMO Lilly and Sandin will get opportunities, but unless they absolutely blow the competition out of the water they are probably headed back to the Marlies for half a year. Rosen/Borgman/Kivihalme and maybe Lindgren get the first looks.

Lindgren is actually kind of interesting, and forgotten about. Righty, that is 22 now, that was the #3 dman on the Liiga champs and plays a Dubas style game (high hockey IQ, skating and puck skills). Wonder if he gets a look.
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Sandin and Lilly were the best dmen at training camp last year, and did nothing to undermine that impression during the season, especially compared to their AHL bredren.
 
I mean, I understand the urgency given our roster make up, but I'd really like to see what we have with all the youngsters in house on the back end, and the only way to truly see what we have is if they get some legit NHL reps.

I think I'm close to fully on board the team zeke approach here. Play our kids. Let's see what we've got with them. There's also enough that if one struggles or hits a roadblock, send him back to the Marlies and bring the next guy up.

The way I see it, our D shakes out like this currently:

Established NHLers: Rielly, Muzzin, [Dermott], (Zaitsev)
Fringe NHLers: Rosen, Holl, Kivihalme
Prospects that need a shot: Borgman, Lilly, Sandin
Prospects that may earn a shot: Duszak, Lindgren

the problem is that most of our depth is at the very bottom of the d-corps, and we're lacking one or two top-4 guys. of course, until our in house guys get an opportunity, I'm not sure if we'll find out if they are capable of filling one of the top-4 holes.
 
hockeylover said:
Dermott not being back until Nov-Dec is a big concern for me if we're not able to make changes and roll in with status quo.
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Dermott being back is one of the reasons you can't make certain changes on the d...probably hard to replace his caliber short term while filling holes in other places.
 
LeafGm said:
It's even to the point where I'm kind of dreading my first look at this Ilya Mikheyev kid. He'd better be good, because it sure sounds like Babcock's already decided he's going to be one of his pets, which means he's going to be getting a ton of prime ice-time and opportunities for the majority of the season regardless of how he plays.
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You can't be too cynical when it comes to Babcock. My theory on why he's pumping this guy's tires so hard: he's gonna slot him into Hyman's spot so that we'll never get a sniff of what it would be like to have a skilled NHLer on that wing.
 
BeLeafer said:
You can't be too cynical when it comes to Babcock. My theory on why he's pumping this guy's tires so hard: he's gonna slot him into Hyman's spot so that we'll never get a sniff of what it would be like to have a skilled NHLer on that wing.
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I thoght of that as well when he went over the top in singing his praises without playing a game in the NHL.
 
Yeah this babcock thing really pisses me off. We already know what we're going to get, and that we'll never experiment with anything else.
 
Assuming he got the approval from the board to do it

Firing him wont be the same as letting Hiller or Smith go

Sent from my SM-G950W using Tapatalk
 
BeLeafer said:
You can't be too cynical when it comes to Babcock. My theory on why he's pumping this guy's tires so hard: he's gonna slot him into Hyman's spot so that we'll never get a sniff of what it would be like to have a skilled NHLer on that wing.
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Yeah, that is pretty much what I'm expecting.

He'll be slotted onto the left side of either the Matthews or Tavares lines, and barring injury he'll stay there all 82 games.
 
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