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[Signing] Maple Leafs sign Joe Thornton


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Jumbo could never reach the cup with any of those stacked teams in SJ over the best part of his career and he certainly won't now that he signed in T.O.

 

I think he will be great in the locker room and provide more veteran leadership to guys like Marner and Matthews but other than that, he doesn't put them over the top imo.

 

Wonder if he keeps the beard now that he is separated from Burns?

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4 hours ago, Teemu Selänne said:

If Joe Thornton had signed in Van on this contract I would have been happy. Dude still put up 82 points in his last 143 games (92 in 162 including playoffs). Obviously he's taken a huge decline but as a 4th liner/PP specialist/top-9 injury fill-in I would've been happy. Give some nice saucers to our 4th line sniper Tyler Motte . Plus, 700k is buriable in the minors if it doesn't work out

when your other bottom 6 depth C is Jason Spezza....perhaps this is too old school/dinosaur - but your other 4C - as a backup "powerplay specialist" might be targetting the wrong special teams needs....?

 

But Dubas wouldn't be Dubas if he didn't continue to make signings like this.

One of these years they will score all of the goals and prove us all wrong.

I feel for TJ Brodie though....he's going from playing with Giordano and some good defensive forwards in Calgary (Backlund, Lindholm, Frolik, Ryan...)- to Toronto, where....he'll be scoring all the goals.

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Matthews was in Zurich 5 years ago but I’d probably take the 2015-16 versions of him, Tavares, Spezza and Thornton than the 2021 crew. 
 

He’s 41 and seemed to finally fall of a cliff last year.  I guess you can’t argue with the price, though. 

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25 minutes ago, ilduce39 said:

Matthews was in Zurich 5 years ago but I’d probably take the 2015-16 versions of him, Tavares, Spezza and Thornton than the 2021 crew. 
 

He’s 41 and seemed to finally fall of a cliff last year.  I guess you can’t argue with the price, though. 

Joe won't be able to go to the rink in flip flops come January like he was in SJ. That alone will throw him into a funk. 

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12 minutes ago, kloubek said:

He can still play a reasonably heavy game, from what I've seen.

His size will make him strong along the boards and he's never really been much of a checker. Hasn't really been a shot blocker either. Doesn't kill penalties.

He'll glove punch the opposition's goalie though!

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On 10/16/2020 at 8:44 PM, DeNiro said:

Their power play was not a problem though. They had the 6th best power play.

 

I get that they wanted to get bigger because of their series with Columbus but this was not the kind of bigger they needed. They got bigger and much slower throughout their lineup.

 

I get that Thornton is a big name that gets headlines, but this is not the same Thornton they’re getting. And put in a limited role I don’t expect he’ll be putting up many points.

 

My guess is they feel like they need more veteran leadership to help Tavares with some of the load. Which may or may not help I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

 

For sure.  Not to mention instead of relying on AHL fringe talent they have a lot of veteran game experience in their lineup and those types of teams hate to say it - win cups for you.   Might be the difference they need to get over the hurdle of their first opponent.  Had Boston on the ropes but couldn’t finish them and they went all the way to the final against St Louis...Brodie is better for them by far then Barrie too.   I think they might finally have the proper mix given their tough cap situation - and I’m sure Spezza (who’s loved in their room) and Thorton can help Tavares just like you said.    They have so much talent in their forward group and a lot of size too - won’t make it easy on opposing defenders. 
 

Edit:  Biggest use for them is this season could go to the toilet with Covid and like the lock-out year a lot of vets and players in their prime will lose both one year of stats (for some it could of being the difference in a HHOF career, the ones that were in all three lock-outs especially) - and the for some aging vets ended up outside looking in after the dust settled and lost their final year as a result.    A Canadian Division for sure can work - the US ones are for sure in doubt ... maybe - ha ha - just maybe they let Canadian teams play each other for the cup and our drought will be done with a big fat asterisk on it. 

Edited by IBatch
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The leafs have signed some cheap, experienced and tough guys this season ( Joe Thornton, Simmonds, Brodie, Bogosian), while still able to keep the main core (Marner, Matthews, Nylander, Tavares, Reilly, Anderson). The emergence of Mikheyev, Sandin, Liljegren could suprise a lot of people. With another year gain from their previous failure, their Core will only get stronger.

 

As much as I hate the leafs and all their bad contracts, I honestly think they stand a good chance this year and could surprise all of us.

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4 minutes ago, J-Dizzle said:

Not sure I get the ‘leadership’ angle.... didn’t the guy get stripped of a letter in SAN Jose?  Never really seemed like the ‘good influence’ kind of guy. 

People confuse likeability for leadership. Guys in SJ loved Thornton b/c he joked around and kept things light. That alone is not good enough to be a leader. 

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