Not even a little

Burkey. The GM who once drafted Tyler Biggs over Kucherov, Jenner and Gibson. He knows everything.

Over 40M for 4 fowards, TML will never be contenders with that defense

Ah yes, brian burke. That guy who brought in all that toughness to the leafs and was so successful for it.
Better listen to him

Just like those pens, cant win with a top heavy team!

Not really, 40 million dollars invested in four players leaves a lot of holes in the lineup.

love a good "leafs bad" thread to start my day

I think they are if each player plays for each other, and isnt so selfish

Just like how tampa couldnt win spending 20 million on just over half their middle 6, right?

Physicality is not the reason the lost in the playoffs the last 3 years. The fact that is what Burke is pointing too, tells you all you need to know about his opinion.

Yes, Simmonds is there for some toughness, but the main reason was to add a different element. A guy in the top 9 (or at least 2nd PP) that likes going to those tough areas to score. Leafs had too many of the same type of players on their team last year.

the idea that simmonds simply replaced clifford is absurd imo

clifford played 4 minutes a night and had like 1 big hit for us in the playoffs. Spezza had more hits/fights than he did

Simmonds on the other hand will play 12-15 minutes a night, he's simply a better hockey player, and plays with way more heart than clifford ever did

also lol, are brodie and bogosian not shutdown dmen?

and I would argue vesey is a pretty big physical middle 6 forward who can score

They had 2 holes on the team last year - #1RD (Barrie was attempted, but obv that failed) and backup goalie (they solved that during the season).

Bad coaching (to start the year), lack of overall team defence (again mostly a coaching/systems issue), lack of maturity/consistency, and below avg goaltending were the true downfalls last year - none of these are related to $40M on 4 fwds.

Yep, rhe 40 mill x 4 forwards narrative is just a lazy excuse people trod out when they cant be assed to do any critical thinking about the team.
Leafs over paying their top 4 guys by a combined 4 million max? The worst! Never win a cup!
Teams like vegas, tampa etc etc etc over paying their depth by a combined 6+ mill? Thems contenders baby!

People love to pretend clifford was brought in primarily to hit and punch when that was basically a fringe feature. He was a toss in in a trade for a backup goalie because he could fill depth cheaply and play decent defensive hockey during his limited ice time.

they just won 3 cups in the past 13 years

The Habs are a well suited team for the playoffs than the Leafs are, and I am a Leafs fan. The Leafs may win the division since they are a regular season performer, but not in terms of playoff performance. The Habs have one of the better defense groups in the league, with the best goalie tandem in the league. Tell me who you would rather have, with the additions:

Leafs: Simmonds (replaces Clifford), Bogosian (stanley cup champion), Brodie (hasn't seen anything more than second round), Vesey (useless and is bad), Thornton, Anderson (prospect), and Boyd (stanley cup champion but played only one game)

Habs: Toffoli (stanley cup champion), Edmundson (stanley cup champion), Allen (stanley cup champion), Anderson (power forward with high playoff experience. He is a playoff performer)

Wow! With that defence? I dont buy it, impossible

Re: Toronto being a contender-They should be. Brodie was a great add. RD was a huge hole last year, and he fits what they need perfectly. I don't know that Keefe is the right coach to get it done, but at least he gives his best players bigger minutes in the playoffs.

Re: Burkie-The guy has a cup ring for two reasons:
-Scott Niedermeyer wanted to play with his brother, so signed in Anaheim.
-He somehow snagged Chris Pronger.

With the Leafs and Anaheim, his draft record was absolutely atrocious, and hilarious to look back on. He vastly misjudged where they were at from a competitive point of view, especially by essentially giving up 2 top 5 picks for Phil Kessel.

Brian Burke was a pretty bad GM.

The habs defence is worse than the leafs. Edmunson sucks.
Josh Andersons playoff performances are worse than his regular season ones.
Carey price is bad every 2nd year and is old.

Not to mention the habs forward group is the 2nd worst one in canada and bottom 3rd in the league.

Maybe move away from your Leafs bias and look at the other side. Ignoring the Leafs top two lines, in which the Habs can't match, the Leafs have a bunch of fourth liners (other than Kerfoot). The Leafs defense is no where close to Habs defense group, and their goaltending is better is stronger than the Leafs, arguably one of the strongest tandems in the league.

The key difference between the Leafs and Habs forwards, they have depth on all four lines. Other than the top two lines for the Leafs, who else do they have?

Lol, no, thats not true at all.
The habs dont have anything at all that touches the keafs top 2 lines and their depth is middling at best. After 2 pretty good guys in gallagher and danault, they have a bunch of ok and maybe.
The habs defence is weber and petry and thats it. The leafs have more depth there easily, brodie is significantly better than anything they can trot out after petry and holl would probably be their third best guy.
And like i said, price is good every 2nd year. Allen is a backup who stunk 2 out of the last 3 years.
The habs are not even close to the leafs

That 2007 Cup winning Ducks team Burkey likes bragging about was built mostly by the late Bryan Murray. Burke added some very good pieces in Pronger and Niedermayer. But Getzlaf and Perry were already there.

brian burke kicked off the toronto rebuild by trading away two first rounders

i appreciate his insights into the game but i'm not impressed by how he decided to go about remaking toronto.

Are they cup contenders? I don’t think so. Not this year, anyway.

But saying they’re less tough is crazy. Everyone they signed this year is tougher than anyone they lost, with Clifford being the exception. But his 5 minutes on the ice every game didn’t contribute much.