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

The Official 2026 Off-Season Thread: Revenge of the Nerds

Never been high on Byram. He's the exact type of player that a smart organizations avoids. You can get a player that provides better impact for much cheaper.
 
It's funny listening to the podcasts fallout from the coach hire. They're really trying to push the narrative the Leafs are cutting spending hence not going for the highest priced Pres/GM/Coach out there, and who knows maybe there is some truth there. But the false equivalency that high salary = success is pretty glaring. By their metric Tre (~$4M?) and Berube (~$4M?) were great hires because the Leafs "flexed their money" and got the cream of the crop. Well as we all found out that cream was fucking sour.

Like honestly hiring Armstrong as Pres at $8M/yr or whatever would have been celebrated by the media here even though we just got fucked by Shanny.

Oh and I get Berube getting paid that because he has a ring and old boys club and whatever. Tre though?
 
Feyd said:
By their metric Tre (~$4M?) and Berube (~$4M?) were great hires because the Leafs "flexed their money" and got the cream of the crop. Well as we all found out that cream was fucking sour.
Click to expand...

we didn't 'find out', we knew right away.


but yeah, from guys who did nothing but praise treliving and berube, all their takes are less than meaningless.
 
Feyd said:
It's funny listening to the podcasts fallout from the coach hire. They're really trying to push the narrative the Leafs are cutting spending hence not going for the highest priced Pres/GM/Coach out there, and who knows maybe there is some truth there. But the false equivalency that high salary = success is pretty glaring. By their metric Tre (~$4M?) and Berube (~$4M?) were great hires because the Leafs "flexed their money" and got the cream of the crop. Well as we all found out that cream was fucking sour.

Like honestly hiring Armstrong as Pres at $8M/yr or whatever would have been celebrated by the media here even though we just got fucked by Shanny.

Oh and I get Berube getting paid that because he has a ring and old boys club and whatever. Tre though?
Click to expand...


It seems like all of these people expected the Leafs to have a thorough, meticulous hiring process for both the GM and coach position, and at the end of those processes, simply hire one of the 2-3 best-known candidates that the media and everyone on Twitter liked the best.

If they’d simply hired Armstrong and Cassidy, everyone would be singing their praises just like they were after Berube was hired.
 
LeafGm said:
It seems like all of these people expected the Leafs to have a thorough, meticulous hiring process for both the GM and coach position, and at the end of those processes, simply hire one of the 2-3 best-known candidates that the media and everyone on Twitter liked the best.

If they’d simply hired Armstrong and Cassidy, everyone would be singing their praises just like they were after Berube was hired.
Click to expand...

These super smart people just wanted their biases confirmed. When the Leafs meticulous process (that they lol'd about) generates an outcome different than their bias, they criticize for the process being dumber than their bias.

There are a lot of dumb people in and around this game. It's ripe for massive disruption. Infact, it's been disrupted by teams that keep winning cups and they refuse to notice it.
 
1. GM

For me there's legit millions of guys who can do the job well. I think we got a smart guy who will make well researched decisions (not just stats research), and probably avoid any major mistakes in terms of wasting huge assets on bad players. That already makes him a good GM in my books. Whether he has the skill to land us more elite players one way or the other, and be a great GM, is a question to be answered.

2. Coach

For me coaches are hired to be fired. The absolute need is for a coach to legit understand the value of puck movement, puck possession, speed, and skill in all aspects of the game. And who is flexible and can make adjustments - indeed that recognizes that adjustments need to be made, and just stubbornly sticking with a one size fits all approach is bad. Keefe had this, and I'm hopeful that Hiller has these at least, but i can't know that yet. Some good signs of it in his track record at least. Now whether Hiller has the stuff to make him a great coach - a high end ability to manage egos and motivate all types of players, and to make impact mid-game adjustments on the fly - i have no idea. we'll have to see. It doesn't look like Keefe has this ability.
 
If Montreal wants Knies so bad I want Dobson. Otherwise fuck off. No futures, no maybe good prospects. Hockey trade.

Same goes for any other teams. werenski, fox etc
 
It's pretty fun watching the meltdown on some who say the Leafs shouldn't trade Knies and are dumb for even entertaining it. And then others rage that the Leafs aren't serious about trading Knies because they are asking for a young #1D or C in return and that isn't reasonable.

Yeah they probably aren't serious about trading Knies. That's a good thing. This isn't Brad anymore. But that doesn't mean you shut down all conversation surrounding the player. This is probably their one, single, best opportunity to trade him (pre-draft, with many teams, including the Leafs, having lots and lots of cap space) so let's hear the offers. If nothing comes from it, we can probably dial the Knies speculation down for the foreseeable future and move on.
 
thehabhater said:
I would listen to teams in the top 5 of this year’s draft who are offering their pick.
For starters.
Click to expand...
We know Chicago loves Knies and by all accounts, Reid and Carels may be available at 4 (apparently SJ may be going for Stenberg and VAN Malholtra). I'm intrigued by this for sure, but it's gotta be more than just the 4 slot. A mystery box D is not more valuable than Knies. Plus it makes them worse this year, which is a big no-no.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top