i blame marleau for the matthews contract

I can get behind this strategy. For me:

Plan A is get him re-signed at an appropriate cap hit

Plan B is trade him for defensive help

Plan C is trade him for a young player and draft compensation (I didn't mind the Shane Wright type ones...something that gives us higher end potential that we can use at 3C and promote when JT is gone or a permanent winger)

Plan D is keep him as our own rental. No harm in playing the year out and seeing what you're getting out of him/Bert/Domi and deciding where is best to deploy the cap space. When we're a contending team, I don't understand how the same people that are okay to give up a 1st and picks/prospects for, say, a Timmo Meier rental, will also throw their hands in the air and say that losing Nylander for nothing as a free agent is unacceptable.

This..oh yes...this. The second the Marleau contract was announced I immediately hated that extra year he got

Honestly with all this Pesce rumour talk if you can work on a sign and trade man adding Necas and Pesce would be awesome if you can pull of a Willy sign and trade

It kills 2 birds with one stone

Would wait till Nov/Dec before pulling the trigger on any deal though like Van did with Horvat.

The Marleau deal was Lou’s terrible decision, which I agree was crippling if you believe in the Marleau “put yourself first” over the team mentality which I do.

I’m probably alone here but I personally would have liked to see a world where there was no John Tavares signing at all of Nylander, Marner, Matthews signed 8 year deals off their ELC and just continued to build a team around them

I was not happy about the Tavares signing at the time but I'll go even further back and say management did not accumulate enough draft picks, especially in that god awful tank season.

I've always felt this rebuild got short circuited because even though getting all these top picks which turned into these players, there was not enough other young players coming up behind these guys to force some competitiveness from within.

I feel like we had the draft picks, between 2015-2016-2017 they selected 27 times out of possible 21 times. They just need nothing with those selections outside of Marner, Matthews, and Liljegren. Like literally, that is it 😂 Hopefully Woll can be added to that list this year

ya...I think an argument can be made that few teams were able to hit as many times with their top 2 picks as the leafs have over the past decade...particularly the earlier years when we had top 10 picks

Ironically if Lou had not listened to Hunter in 2015 we would have had Aho over Dermott

Man Mark Hunter was a shift drafter lul

Should have had Dubas in charge of that and him something else.

Would have been the best draft year lul

But like you said, gotta be able to draft outside of your top picks consistently to have that in-organization competitiveness where players push each other to be better.

Honestly I forgot about Iginla's 18% lul

Also didnt realize of all competitive playoff teams next season Leafs will have the most cap space even with this extension

Should be interesting

I never buy into that kind of logic. Just because he was the next guy taken doesn't mean he was the next guy on the leafs' draft board.

Keep in mind for the first couple years following that 2015 draft, many were complaining about taking Marner over Hanafin.

By your logic, there's about 25+ GM's that listened to the wrong guy and passed on Aho.



I think the average percentage of players picked in the 2nd round to even play in the NHL is something like 35%, and it drops 5-10% each later round.

That's why for me, personally...I'm always on board to trade away 2nd and later picks for proven NHL'ers to fill out a roster. Over a 3-4 year period if we can get a couple of those later picks to be able to crack the roster on entry level deals, I think that's about the most you can realistically expect.

I understand your point and to MatthewsFan saying there was enough draft picks in those years...since the later picks have not had a competitive impact on the roster maybe having more 1st round picks would have been a better strategy.

Looking at teams rebuilding now, they just loading up on 1st's and even if they don't use them, it's still draft capital that can be traded away to improve the roster later.

You can go further. Basically anything past 20th overall isn't worth much intrinsically, and frankly I'm being generous by saying as late as 20

absolutely. In hindsight giving 1st rounders away for Foligno, moving Marleau's contract, and most recently, O'Rielly. They gave a first to also move Mrazek but that was really just trading down a few picks which wasn't as big a deal. Jake McCabe at least came with term and retention as well as Lafferty who plugs in to the bottom 6 as well.

The big thing for me is the trading away of 1st rounders to get rid of mistakes. Something tells me Dubas may be doing that again in the near future with Jarry.

Well it was reported by CJ Toronto was set to take Aho but then Hunter convinced them.to shift to Dermott either was it sucks lul

Also reported he was the one who pushed hard for Marner over Hanafin and others. Never gonna hit 100% of the time

No that was Babcock

But Bourne Debunked that rumour

https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/bourne-debunks-babcock-hanifin-marner-rumour/

As for Aho talk Bourne was there at the time but he never debunked that one

That radio hit doesn't really change anything...simply confirms that Babcock eventually got on board to draft Marner and it wasn't a battle in the end. Doesn't speak at all to the suggestion that Hunter, who obviously had Marner in London and knew him well...was pushing for him during draft prep over others who would have also been considered in that spot.

The scarier idea is that many were hoping to have the zona #4 pick and take Strome who was the big #1 center we hadn't had since Sundin left.

I like it. The more D depth the merrier and never bad to have a guy who will throw some hits around for league min. Welcome Benoit

Was hoping for Bear

But you aren't getting Bear at league minimum. I'd like to but not happening and he's sort of undersized.

hard to believe we'd get him at league min and idk, I don't mind having a young D that throws hits as an option at all

He probs comes later. Got a feeling its a mid-season signing but certain factors will need to happen

As I dont think league will be happy for us to sign him then shove him on LTIR.

Oh he's injured??