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Gunnarson traded to the Blues for Polak, draft pick

I have no problem with the Polak trade ..... it was the draft pick I cant understand. Maybe Gunnersons hip played some part of this inclusion.
The leafs have one of the softest defences in the league ... this will help.
I do have a problem with the possible slotting of Reilly into the top d pairing. He isn't ready .. not even close. (keep protecting him for at least half of the season)
Also, the team doesn't need both Gleason and Polak. That friggen forth could have been used to trade away Gleason and his contract.
The Ranger experiment must be over.
I still think you might see some sort of Franson, Riemer and Clarkson deal with Edmonton.
 
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MyNameIsJonas said:
I'm feeling a Shawn Thornton character signing.
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I have no problem with a Shawn Thorton signing ... he would be better than Bodie or Orr, and maybe just his experience of having been part of a winning organization could help with the younger guys in the room.
Thorton - ? - D`Amigo line would not be a bad base for a 4th line ..... Ashton needs top 6 minutes to prove he is able to produce (at least 10-15 games) this year or it will be time to realize he wont become that top 6 forward we suppose him to be.
 
MindzEye said:
1) Cover the points: We gave up a grotesque amount of point shots last season, which leads into point 2
2) Stop collapsing: So, winger would stay low in the corner to assist the defender. Puck gets chipped back to the blueline. Impending, wide open point shot would cause everything in a blue and white jersey to collapse really close to the net. Long shot on net often equals either a long rebound, or miss the next and ricochet far from the net. Now we're chasing again because of the ground you need to cover to get to the boards, where the puck is.
3) Triangle break outs: Enough with the 100 foot passes. They have their place but it should only be to establish odd man situations. 80-90% of the time your break outs should be in puck support. We have more than enough speed and skill to create havoc on the breakout, even with a boring, structured breakout.
4) Possess the ****ing puck more: Bring in strong possession depth players. No more goon lines stuck in our zone for 90 seconds, no more Jay McClement checking lines chasing the puck their whole shift. Bring in quality depth that can competently move the puck through the neutral zone, get it deep, and keep it there as much as possible.
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The Leafs strategies and team concept are the worst part of the team. They played a ludicrous style of hockey last year.

That's not something that can be solved by roster moves. Our core has to buy-in. The top-priority of the team has to be to make sure the core players - Kessel, Phaneuf, JVR, Kadri, Gardiner, Rielly - grow in the right way. I don't mind them putting more responsibility on those guys, as they are with Gardiner and Rielly with the Gunnar trade. I also think that's primarily why they kept Carlyle - to not pin the blame on an easy scapegoat.

Anyway, Gunnar for Polak seems to be part of the bigger change. They're changing the defense, approaching it in a different way. I don't mind that at all.
 
Where did this myth that the Leafs had a small, soft blueline last year come from?

Phaneuf & Franson were among what, the top 10 in hits? We spent large portions of the season with either Fraser, Ranger, or Gleason also on the blueline. That's way more physicality than you find on most bluelines.
 
Pucklosopher said:
The Leafs strategies and team concept are the worst part of the team. They played a ludicrous style of hockey last year.

That's not something that can be solved by roster moves. Our core has to buy-in.
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Our core has to buy in to what? A style of play that requires them to chase the puck endlessly in their own zone?


The top-priority of the team has to be to make sure the core players - Kessel, Phaneuf, JVR, Kadri, Gardiner, Rielly - grow in the right way. I don't mind them putting more responsibility on those guys, as they are with Gardiner and Rielly with the Gunnar trade. I also think that's primarily why they kept Carlyle - to not pin the blame on an easy scapegoat.
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I view keeping Carlyle in an entirely different light. It shows me that their is a lack of understanding of exactly what was going wrong on the ice from a strategic level.

Anyway, Gunnar for Polak seems to be part of the bigger change. They're changing the defense, approaching it in a different way. I don't mind that at all.
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You'll mind when it leads to a slower team less able to win hockey games.
 
MindzEye said:
Our core has to buy in to what? A style of play that requires them to chase the puck endlessly in their own zone?

You'll mind when it leads to a slower team less able to win hockey games.
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They have to learn play together, all 5 men. Defense is a team thing. Right now, they only play together when it comes to scoring beautiful goals. Our top-6 players are always leaving our defencemen stranded.

They can't get much worse at playing defence than last year. Their "speed game" style - it didn't work. The Leafs D collectively was horrendous, and that was with our goalies putting up a really good season.
 
Pucklosopher said:
They have to learn play together, all 5 men. Defense is a team thing. Right now, they only play together when it comes to scoring beautiful goals. Our top-6 players are always leaving our defencemen stranded.

They can't get much worse at playing defence than last year. Their "speed game" style - it didn't work. The Leafs D collectively was horrendous, and that was with our goalies putting up a really good season.
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Again, I think our people were exactly where they were supposed to be within our defensive scheme last season. Randy said it himself that his plan was to keep the wingers low and collapse to the front of the net. He couldn't understand what teams were doing to counteract it....teams were forcing the puck low, kicking back to the point when the winger bit to help down low, wide open point shot, rinse and repeat. It's a system that in todays NHL is almost guaranteed to be chasing the puck more often than not, and this shows in the possession numbers of Randy Carlyle coached teams over the past 5-6 seasons.

It's great to throw broad statements like "they have to play together" "5 man units" and similar shit, but if your strategy is broken, it's going to look like people are playing individual hockey.

If our defensive strategy wasn't to collapse to the net, then Randy failed at teaching his system. If our break out system wasn't based on 100 foot zone exit passes, Randy failed at teaching and enforcing a more structured system.
 
MindzEye said:
Our core has to buy in to what? A style of play that requires them to chase the puck endlessly in their own zone?




I view keeping Carlyle in an entirely different light. It shows me that their is a lack of understanding of exactly what was going wrong on the ice from a strategic level.



You'll mind when it leads to a slower team less able to win hockey games.
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Yep. I wanted to see what we do in terms of changes before i judge them but if this is Carlyle's stamp(which it does look like) i don't like the guy any longer. It looks like we'll have another season of him trying to figure out why these players with low hockey iq's are ruining our games. It seems the whole "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" is very much true here.
 
MindzEye said:
Again, I think our people were exactly where they were supposed to be within our defensive scheme last season. Randy said it himself that his plan was to keep the wingers low and collapse to the front of the net. He couldn't understand what teams were doing to counteract it....teams were forcing the puck low, kicking back to the point when the winger bit to help down low, wide open point shot, rinse and repeat. It's a system that in todays NHL is almost guaranteed to be chasing the puck more often than not, and this shows in the possession numbers of Randy Carlyle coached teams over the past 5-6 seasons.

It's great to throw broad statements like "they have to play together" "5 man units" and similar shit, but if your strategy is broken, it's going to look like people are playing individual hockey.

If our defensive strategy wasn't to collapse to the net, then Randy failed at teaching his system. If our break out system wasn't based on 100 foot zone exit passes, Randy failed at teaching and enforcing a more structured system.
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I may speak broadly, but truthfully I can’t pinpoint the Xs and O’s of the Leafs failed strategy. I don’t have that kind of hockey mind. But I also think it’s simplistic to say that if the Leafs just did X+Y+Z, their problems would be fixed. If it were just strategy, people working in the NHL would figure it out. You still have to get the individuals on the team – with strong individual personalities, big egos, in the Leafs case immature individuals - to really believe in any strategy.

Personally, I think the problem is within the core-players. And not resolvable by changing the roster around unless you want to get rid of said core players, which would really hurt the talent level and overall potential of the team.

The Leafs strategy last year seemed to cater to said core-players, letting them put fancy goals first. That’s largely Carlyle’s fault, sure. I think they kept him on, though, because they don’t want to allow anybody to be the scapegoat or the saviour (like a big free agent signing) this year. The message is for the core-players to find the solution on their own. At the same time, they fired the assistants to shift the strategy. Because obviously, it sucked last year.

They found a sort of middle-ground 3rd solution. That's pretty interesting and unusual for the Leafs.
 
there was a decent quote on twitter the other day. something to the effect of: "Its painful to watch a team strip its assets to conform to the view of a coach who can't admit the game has passed him by".
 
I do have to say that I think Carlyle is a dinosaur. Hopefully some new voices bring some new ideas to the table. Some Red Wings-ish ideas.

At the same time, I think it'd be sending the wrong message to this young, impressionable group to fire a coach after only his first full season with a team.
 
Seeing what Gunnar is saying on the way out about this team makes me sad. A total lack of locker room leadership. Surprised that Carlyle was kept when all his assistants were fired.

Shanny has done nothing to shake up this franchise and hold people accountable. It is the status quo.
 
Pucklosopher said:
I do have to say that I think Carlyle is a dinosaur. Hopefully some new voices bring some new ideas to the table. Some Red Wings-ish ideas.

At the same time, I think it'd be sending the wrong message to this young, impressionable group to fire a coach after only his first full season with a team.
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Yes, you're right. It's much better to show this young, impressionable group that abject failure in this organization is rewarded with a contract extension.
 
MapleLeafBlueJayBoy said:
Seeing what Gunnar is saying on the way out about this team makes me sad. A total lack of locker room leadership. Surprised that Carlyle was kept when all his assistants were fired.

Shanny has done nothing to shake up this franchise and hold people accountable. It is the status quo.
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what has gunnar said? Beyond expecting Randy to follow Farrish out the door...
 
Anyways, I'm late into this discussion since I was out in the wilderness for the weekend---but I thought I'd throw my two cents in on this trade.

Frankly, it doesn't look like a good move. Admittedly, I know next-to-nothing about Roman Polak, but the numbers don't paint an encouraging picture for me. For the past four seasons, Polak has been 5th or 6th in ice-time per game for St-Louis. In the two seasons before that, St-Louis did actually use him as a top-four defenseman, but they were a bubble playoff team both of those years---missing the playoffs by five points on year, and sneaking in by a three point margin the other year. That doesn't tell the whole picture, but I think it's telling that as St-Louis progressed from a bubble team to a top-10 NHL team, Polak was pushed down the lineup onto the bottom pair.

So, we've traded a guy who's been a solid, all-around dependable top-3/4 defenseman for us in exchange for a bottom-pairing defenseman, and to make it even more baffling, we threw in an extra draft pick and kept some of Gunn's salary so that we don't even get any cap benefit from this trade.

If this is the trading prowess of our two-headed GM Brendave Shanonishan on display, then I have to say, I'm not encouraged.
 
Yeah, tough to like this move on paper. Obviously they wanted a RH-D, but seems silly to give up Gunnar + cap space for a guy like Polak, guess time will tell.
 
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