Playoff Hockey : Still a street fight. CANUCKS ARE YOU WATCHING ?

[oldnews]

18 hours ago, 189lb enforcers? said:

Not in a million years, did I envision myself proping up the freakin’ Leafs, but look at me go. 

Am I serious, I don’t know. It’s a bit of non-playoff sickness maybe. I’m just rambling at this point. 

Well, they did have a good season last year under Babcock...but there's a lot of parity in the league and it's not easy to sustain a breakout season.

 

My point regarding them isn't so much that their deals are horrible - as much as it is that if we hold their deals to the (borderline irrational) standards that are applied to Benning, then they are certainly horrible, absolutely horrible deals by that 'standard'.

I personally have no problem with signing veterans (guys like Hainsey, Moore etc were very good signings imo), particularly when your team doesn't have an abundance of NHL ready prospects.

But regardless of the 'standard' I really don't like their rentals for the reasons I've already gone into (forwards, not ready, still arguably need D in their system...) - and I wouldn't like them whatsover if the Canucks made those types of moves. 

 

I think the questions about their rapidly changing approach is fair enough: the shift from dump all the veterans / stockpile picks to (signing all the 35 year old again) and renting veterans was literally such a small window of time that it's suspect for a reason.   That 'stockpile the picks' strategy is fair enough on it's own (it's one approach - not the only one - but one may or may not work depending on execution, luck, etc) - but the idea that you are building this way implies that a rebuild is being conducted principally through the draft.   When that transition to playoff rentals happens a year or two later though, the fact is that there was no realistic time period to build a prospect pool - via those picks - to then draw from.   Clearly picks / the draft (aside from a few high picks / the lottery) are not really the foundation of the Leafs build to this point - and whether that is the case moving forward is debatable as well.   Perhaps I'm just not as impressed with their blueline or their blueline prospect pool as they are.

 

And by contrast - I think Benning has actually been more consistent, easier to 'understand' - more consistent in approach.   There was a huge chorus of 'what's he doing?' at the cue of and based largely on the 'Leafs model' at the 'stockpile the picks' stage - and yet the Leafs actual approach - actual moves - have pretty much thoroughly undermined that line of thinking - almost overnight (or really, between one bottomfeeder season and the next - post-lottery).