With the Leafs loss to the Habs, guys like Rick Dhaliwal,Thomas Drance, JD Burke, 650 Sportsnet, and HF Canucks have received VERY huge blows

[cuporbust]

6 hours ago, EddieVedder said:

Yes because Lindros and Kariya are both drooling over themselves.  Get a grip bruh.  This is hockey, not the ice capades.  Youve probably never played any competitive team sports in your life, so ill explain simply.. you dont win unless you and your team can handle physicality.  

Btw, Scott Stevens was a heck of a skillfull player earlier in his career.  

Hahaha. If u only knew. Good talk.

 

Next

[EddieVedder]

9 hours ago, Bertuzzipunch said:

You have any video of him in the playoffs getting manhandled like you claim? Was this happening every time he was on the ice?

Did you watch this season?  Did you watch Vegas completely wreck QH in the playoffs?  

It might not happen everytime hes on the ice, but it happens way more than it ever should for a defender. 

We wouldn't be having topics devoted to QH and his inability to defend if it wasnt the case.  

[Alflives]

5 minutes ago, EddieVedder said:

Did you watch this season?  Did you watch Vegas completely wreck QH in the playoffs?  

It might not happen everytime hes on the ice, but it happens way more than it ever should for a defender. 

We wouldn't be having topics devoted to QH and his inability to defend if it wasnt the case.  

Huggy Bear set the playoff scoring record for rookie D in those games.  He’s a beauty.

[Alflives]

I come to this thread just to read the title:  “...Leafs Loss”.  

[-DLC-]

58 minutes ago, EddieVedder said:

Did you watch this season?  Did you watch Vegas completely wreck QH in the playoffs?  

It might not happen everytime hes on the ice, but it happens way more than it ever should for a defender. 

We wouldn't be having topics devoted to QH and his inability to defend if it wasnt the case.  

Come on...give this kid a chance to fine tune his game and learn a little.

 

Completely wrecked?  No, I didn't see that and I watched every second of them.  Funny that we rely heavily on Quinn and we took Vegas to 7 games (even IF Demko was a major factor).  You DO have to consider that Makar is paired with another young stud in Toews and that DOES matter.  Quinn's just fine.

 

Makar and the Avs had NO better success versus Vegas...they try to "wreck" every team...that's their MO.  It's not just the Canucks that experienced that.  Where are the Av's now?   Oh yeah, out...so even ON a pretty loaded team, Makar fared no better.  

 

 

[CanucksJay]

3 minutes ago, Patel Bure said:

Many media members in this city, along with the "Canucks fans" over at HF, like to pretend that our 2nd round appearance in 2020 didn't happen because it doesn't suit their narrative.   It's the most ridiculous thing ever.

I'm excited for next season

 

This was clearly an off year for the Canucks. We arent this bad.

Hopefully the pundits and handicappers have us pegged super low. this is the year to bet on us

[spook007]

18 hours ago, kilgore said:

Amazing what works as click bait in here to get recs.

 

A little rewriting of history.  The way I recall it,  many pundits were questioning the large contracts on the Leafs eating up so much of the cap at the time.  How it was huge gamble.  Their defence has been questioned all along. For sure on CDC that was the talk.

 

Toronto won the lottery.  But bad cap managing killed them.  Its ludicrous to suggest that was the fault of "pundits". 

Toronto had a foundational player to build around, and began to do so. They mismanaged both his and the secondary pieces contracts.

So......any pundit that said back then that Toronto looked to be in a good position for their rebuild, is now mud because Dubas screwed it up?

 

I think its impossible to ever scientifically compare different teams rebuilds anyways.  So many factors involved.

Your place in the draft pick order.

Your cap total at the time, and contracts owed in future.

Your average player age and ability

How full your prospect cupboard is at the time

Injuries

And when and how full on, you will commit to the rebuild.

 

This article for The Hockey Writers website was suggesting a rebuild back in 2015 for Benning.

https://thehockeywriters.com/time-is-now-for-rebuild-in-vancouver/

 

And how do you compare rebuilds when one team refused to use the word rebuild?  When one team went through a rebuild accidentally while trying to make the playoffs but failing spectacularly at that so badly they were able to pick high and snag prospects that pretty well demanded that they start to utter the forbidden word, and start to plan for the future instead of the "day to day" reactive style of squeaking into the playoffs managing?

 

Even if you disagree with that synopsis, the situations of both teams were different when they started the rebuild.  And even then....what is a "start"?  Every team is going through a rebuild to some degree every single season. They have to. Its more of a difference in concentration in one area. Simplistic comparison but one is putting most of your eggs in one basket...collecting good prospects. Whereas when in contention, you put most of the eggs in star power and rentals.

 

And the crux of it is cap management. And player position management. And mix of ELC and veterans. And team chemistry. Its the lowest hanging fruit in blaming the hockey pundits that thought Toronto was going to be better by now. Who cares what hockey pundits got right, or got wrong.  The late great Botchford coined "they need an army".  And Benning is still challenged by that job.  Where you need a whole team of players pulling in the same direction, with contracts where non are vastly overpaid, and all four lines contribute well. 

 

Totally different situations.  Dubas and Benning both failed in some areas, and have succeeded in others.  Hate to break it to you but Toronto is not on the decline just yet.  And the Canucks are not ready to compete for the Cup just yet either.   Its yet to be determined which of the two teams will get to another SCF first.

 

 

 

Very true... don't think anybody can't see the abundance of riches in Toronto...

It's the fact that every year they are pronounced cup winners before the first puck drop of the season by the Canadian press... every year...

[Vinny in Vancouver]

Breaking news: Kyle Dubas of the Maple Leafs just contacted Daryl Morey of the Philadelphia Sixers to discuss a swap of playoff underperformers Mitch Marner and Ben Simmons. Morey balked, "both players don't score on the playoffs, but at least Ben can play D and get assists; what does Marner do?" Dubas' only response was, "at least Mitch's salary is only half what Ben's is." 

[Tom Sestito]

 

 

Normal fan behavior by Patel’s twitter burner

[Tom Sestito]

Disgusting

[cdgraham]

On 6/22/2021 at 6:56 AM, EddieVedder said:

Did you watch this season?  Did you watch Vegas completely wreck QH in the playoffs?  

It might not happen everytime hes on the ice, but it happens way more than it ever should for a defender. 

We wouldn't be having topics devoted to QH and his inability to defend if it wasnt the case.  

Wasn't it his rookie year as a defense man lmao. 

[Tom Sestito]

 

 

[tas]

1 hour ago, Tom Sestito said:

 

 

I don't care about botchford's drug habits, but even though his intentions were good, opening the flood gates of legitimizing bloggers by campaigning for them to receive press credentials was the worst thing that's happened in the history of vancouver sports media. 

[IBatch]

On 5/31/2021 at 10:47 PM, Patel Bure said:

With the Leafs loss to the Habs, guys like Rick Dhaliwal, Thomas Drance, JD Burke, 650 Sportsnet, and HF Canucks have received VERY huge blows

 

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.  
 

“We” were told by “the pundits” that the Leafs, under “Shanaplan” were rebuilding the correct way and that the Canucks way was absurd.

 

”We” were told by “the pundits” that the Leafs model was a model of excellence and that it would only be a matter of time before the Leafs took the torch from the Pens, Hawks, and Kings.

 

”We” were told by “the pundits” that the Leafs signing Tavares was a move that would place them closer to the cup, and that signing Tavares to an 11 million dollar cap hit wouldn’t have unforeseen negative circumstances......because the cap always goes up!  Just like real estate and the stock market!  “How is signing an elite franchise center a bad move, lol, omg” was the response.  Although a small portion of Canuck fans tried to warn “the pundits” that signing high ticket superstar  UFA’s to premium contracts BEFORE re-upping your RFA core to cap friendly bridge deals would discourage long term “buy in” (ie taking less money to serve the greater good), and instead, would foster a “he got paid and so I want to get paid too!” mindset, “the pundits” laughed and instead, pointed to the fact that the Canucks had terrible contracts of their own (Sutter, Player Name, Baertschi, Ferland, Roussel, Beagle, etc.).   Were the pundits right?........yes, but only half right.   The other half of the equation, is that

 

1) Despite the “horridity” of these contracts, the highest paid player on our team is still 6 million dollars.....meaning that an internal cap and/or “buy in” (ie taking less money and term short term to “serve the greater good”) was still a possibility.

 

2) Almost all of our bad/transitional contracts that aided us through the rebuild, would be off the books before the start of the 22-23 season......which would be the exact time when our window of elitehood would begin, with our core players and supporting players at very good cap hits (Boeser still a cost controlled asset + Horvat/Miller/Schmidt/Demko all making less than 6 million + Podz/Hog on ELC’s, etc.).

 

“We” were laughed at by ”The pundits when they claimed that burning a year off of Hughes and Boeser’s ELC’s for such a small amount of games made absolutely no sense, because according to them, “all cup winning teams have their best players on ELC’s” (in actuality, Pittsburgh 2009 was really the last team to do this......all other cups winning teams since then had their top players on relatively cap friendly deals and/or low AAV% relative to the teams’ salary cap + a stronger investment in depth players).

 

”We” were told by “the pundits” that the Leafs actually had built their team correctly and that the only reason why they didn’t have Better results, was because they were playing in the toughest division in the league.   Safe to say that this wasn’t the case this year eh?
 

“We” were told by “the pundits” that the Canucks haven’t had a plan since 2014, and that we are now into year 7 of our rebuild.  “The pundits” neglected to mention that the Canucks made the playoffs during Benning’s first year (thanks to bringing in Ryan Miller, Vrbata, and Bonino), missed the playoffs for 4 seasons after that, and then made the 2nd round in 2020, and have now positioned themselves for a very BIG 2022-2023.    
 

It really does make you wonder though eh?  If the Canucks are supposedly into year 7 of their rebuild “without a plan,” then what does that make Toronto?  Year 17?   Because the aforementioned “pundits” can brag all they want about Toronto’s deep team, but they still haven’t won a round since 2004!   Meanwhile, teams like Edmonton, Calgary, and Vancouver have all made the 2nd round Atleast once.  
 

While Edmonton and Calgary have yet to build on their 2nd round appearances, the jury is still out on Vancouver.  Despite this however, the important point I want to illuminate here is that “the pundits” shouldn’t be celebrating the fact that the Canucks missed the playoffs this year, but rather, recognize the simple truth that progression is almost never  a linear thing.   How did Philadelphia and Dallas do this year by the way?    
 

Remember a few years back when Jason Botchford (RIP) and Trevor Linden praised “The Winnipeg model?”  Winnipeg also serves as proof that progression isn’t linear.  After making the 3rd round in 2018, they lost in the first round a year later and then technically missed the playoffs last season.  
 

So the main points I’m making is this:

 

1) Anyone who praised “Shanaplan” should take this time to apologize for the error of their ways (We forgive you).

 

2) Given all of the other elite teams in the league, and how their progression hasn’t always been linear, fans and pundits should realize that Benning’s rebuild since 2014 is on par with most of the other teams that had to rebuild.  While progression hasn’t always been linear, the moving average has trended upwards.  All rebuilding teams have to eat turds for approximately 6-9 years and the Canucks are of no exception.

 

Sincerely.

 

Patel Bure.

 

Patel good stuff.   But would like to point out Crosby was on his next deal in 2009...and aside from Staal in CAR, a team full of vets too, and the first CHI only had a small bit of their emerging core on their ELC's.... that's mostly fiction.   Sure the window is there but it's really not too.  

 

Edit:  Lol... just saw the dates too...old things new again ..

Edited March 17, 2022 by IBatch

[Tom Sestito]

5 hours ago, tas said:

I don't care about botchford's drug habits, but even though his intentions were good, opening the flood gates of legitimizing bloggers by campaigning for them to receive press credentials was the worst thing that's happened in the history of vancouver sports media. 

Wow there are multiple patel’s this is so strange 

[tas]

43 minutes ago, Tom Sestito said:

Wow there are multiple patel’s this is so strange 

I don't understand the reference. 

[48MPHSlapShot]

7 hours ago, Tom Sestito said:

 

 

Geez, what a scumbag. He always seemed like a decent dude when he was kicking around here, but holy hell. Good riddance.

[ShawnAntoski]

On 5/31/2021 at 8:01 PM, Patel Bure said:

The funny thing about the Leafs is that they probably would have been better off avoiding Tavares altogether.   
 

Committing to depth players like JVR, Bozak, and Kadri, would not only have given the team more depth but also wouldn’t have blown the lid off the internal cap.  Guys like Nylander, Marner, Matthews, etc., would have been far more likely to take friendlier cap deals in order to “build a winner and serve the greater good” (a la LA, Chicago, Boston, etc.)

 

Cost controlled elite talent + depth = championships has been the model since 2010 Chicago.

Good points.  They got greedy; and not sure, who wanted to sign Tavares but the poorly constructed roster, is on Dubas

Edited March 17, 2022 by ShawnAntoski