Zaitsev will be a Leaf for the next 3 years at least. Deal with it.
- AdamFrench

Trading him will leave us with 0 NHL RHD.

Trading him will leave us with 0 NHL RHD.
- walshyleafsfan

None of us like the contract, but someone has to play defense.

Bury him on the 3rd pairing, or second pairing with Muzzin next year. I don't think he is as bad as we make out sometimes.

or at least I hope not.

Man, even though people think the sharks shouldnt have gotten the major penalty maybe Vegas should have played a better PK.

Poor Pavelski. Gets a puck off the face and scores. Gets dummied in game 7. Rough.

game 6 and 7 made me miss the heart and effort of Grabovski.
didn't have nearly the skillset Nylander has.
but boy, you know he'd put 110% in to win a game.
eventually, that's what makes the difference in playoffs.
- MaximusAurelius

I'm glad they are in a position where they need some grinders, because they already have the Tavareses, Marners, Matthewses, Riellys. Those are really, really hard to get. That's why I'm optimistic they can add to that. They are not the Burke teams built on Komisarek, Phaneuf and Kessel. They already have the rarest commodities in place.

The Ennis signing was a good move. I suspect there will be other, similar moves. I have no idea what the Petan trade was about, then again, the cost was pretty much nil.

I am more interested in coaching changes somewhere.

I don't know how you explain away horrific special teams play, unless you chalk it up to effort... and if the whole team is made up of players unwilling to pay the price, they are F'd.
- Aetherial

Petan was a 2 for 1 special. Ennis replacement and to take away a Babs special toy called Par.

DJ Smith will be fired and we'll all be on board until the PP falters again.
- AdamFrench

You watch a lot of hockey... What is your take on the PP failure. It wasn't just the playoffs, it was abysmal most of the year.

One thing I read a couple days ago was the difference between Boston and Toronto. Boston left their first unit out there as long as they felt like they could go.

Toronto changes religiously. I feel like one failed zone entry, and they are off the ice.

Combine that with so few PP chances this year, and I wonder if that makes it impossible to just get into a rhythm?

Being realistic: San Jose was gifted a 5 minute power play with 10 minutes to play. Yes, they capitalized in a way I've never seen before, but if that's a 2 minute PP or nothing as it should have been, they lose that game, and there's no talk about their heart.
- Monkeypunk

Not true.
thats a penalty for sure.
they still could have come back with 2min penalty, we dont know.
Point is they took advantage......which the leafs cannot seem to do.

Petan was a 2 for 1 special. Ennis replacement and to take away a Babs special toy called Par.
- UsernameUnknown

Something really has to give between Babs and Dubas, you really sense it isn't great.

I'm glad they are in a position where they need some grinders, because they already have the Tavareses, Marners, Matthewses, Riellys. Those are really, really hard to get. That's why I'm optimistic they can add to that. They are not the Burke teams built on Komisarek, Phaneuf and Kessel. They already have the rarest commodities in place.
- Zezel

those are the positives, yes for sure.

Not true.
thats a penalty for sure.
they still could have come back with 2min penalty, we dont know.
Point is they took advantage......which the leafs cannot seem to do.
- Fakepartofme

Didn't they score 4 goals on that major? (heard that this morning) Yeah, pretty sure a 2 min pp would not have yielded 4 goals.

Agreed, a lot of hysterics today as expected.
- Zezel

Ditto and ditto.

It would have been nice, but this was not the year. I don't think it was ever really going to be.

It's just year 3 of the turnaround. 3 straight years of better than .550 hockey. Last time we did that was prior to the 2004 lockout when we could buy our way out of not building an organization properly.

I think it's easy to get impatient and frustrated. I also think we need to trust that it's a process. My first reaction is to fire the coaches, trade everyone over 25 and shoot the goalies.

But if I look objectively, I don't like that the points total in the season dropped (that could be literally laid right on Sparks) or that we didn't seem to improve too much over last year. But several key pieces - Rielly, Marner, Matthews, Dermott, Johnsson, Kapanen, Moore and even Tavares showed positive progression in their games. Some others - Marleau, Gardiner, Brown, Kadri and Zaitsev showed regression or out and out depreciation. I am leaving Nylander out of that because I think he was a total disappointment this year, but I still have faith that he will be better next year.

It's a net positive in the process ledger.

Not true.
thats a penalty for sure.
they still could have come back with 2min penalty, we dont know.
Point is they took advantage......which the leafs cannot seem to do.
- Fakepartofme

come on.
only reason SJ came back yesterday was that they were gifted a 5minute major penalty.
they were 3 goals down..

if that's a 5 minute major, leafs could have been on the PP for a good 30mins every single game vs Bruins.

Trading him will leave us with 0 NHL RHD.
- walshyleafsfan

If him and Muzzin can play next year how they did in the Boston series, then I'd call that a win, I think.

Still have nobody to play with Rielly though.

None of us like the contract, but someone has to play defense.

Bury him on the 3rd pairing, or second pairing with Muzzin next year. I don't think he is as bad as we make out sometimes.

or at least I hope not.
- Aetherial

His play, once removed from Gardiner was/is fine for a #4 dman. Look around the league and that is generally what you get. The biggest criticism i see of him is he's unable to hit a 100 foot stretch pass through 3 opposing forwards. My comeback would be we shouldn't be asking him to hit a 100 foot stretch pass through 3 opposing forwards.

the point is more that Dubas didn't do enough.

going on about Dallas; the recognized some gaps before the season.
added one of the best backup goalies in league, and addressed offensive and defensive issues through UFA.

then before deadline added Foligno, Zuccharello, Lovejoy, Oleksiak.
- MaximusAurelius

He brought in a 40 goal scoring all star and traded ahl'ers for Muzzin.
Good moves.
The only thing he missed and I mentioned this before was more depth D (5/6 dman that could be moved up in case of injury) to replace the garbage we had. However, we don't know if he tried to acquire some and just wasnt able to.

But....Muzzin and JT were good moves.

Great series again.... too bad it's a first round match-up; worthy of a Conference Finals.

Sucks that likely by October 10th next year we'll already know we're playing in Round 1 again.

those are the positives, yes for sure.
- Fakepartofme

It seems like they might already have some grit grinders too in Moore, and some Marlies. Already having first overall elite superstars will get you through times of no grit grinders better than grit grinders will get you through times of no superstars.

Something really has to give between Babs and Dubas, you really sense it isn't great.
- Aetherial

seems that it was Lou-Babcock-Hunter

vs

Shanahan - Dubas.

not sure what happened between Shanahan and Lou for Shanahan to pick a guy with 0 NHL GM experience over a guy that has done a great job for your team over last few years.

You watch a lot of hockey... What is your take on the PP failure. It wasn't just the playoffs, it was abysmal most of the year.

One thing I read a couple days ago was the difference between Boston and Toronto. Boston left their first unit out there as long as they felt like they could go.

Toronto changes religiously. I feel like one failed zone entry, and they are off the ice.

Combine that with so few PP chances this year, and I wonder if that makes it impossible to just get into a rhythm?
- Aetherial

It's hard to quantify, but the Leafs are terrible at sustaining pressure. This is a 5vs5 thing too. You watch the Bruins PP and they gain the zone and work. You watch any good PP (Caps) and it's all about movement and tiring the opponent to make them make a mistake. The Leafs PP is all about going in, pass it back, then hope a wrister causes a rebound. No sustained pressure.

They don't seem to have a lot of chemistry on the PP...which is weird because of the talent.

game 6 and 7 made me miss the heart and effort of Grabovski.
didn't have nearly the skillset Nylander has.
but boy, you know he'd put 110% in to win a game.
eventually, that's what makes the difference in playoffs.
- MaximusAurelius

wasnt he one of the players that was directly blamed for the 2013 game 7 loss?

The Ennis signing was a good move. I suspect there will be other, similar moves. I have no idea what the Petan trade was about, then again, the cost was pretty much nil.

I am more interested in coaching changes somewhere.

I don't know how you explain away horrific special teams play, unless you chalk it up to effort... and if the whole team is made up of players unwilling to pay the price, they are F'd.
- Aetherial

Petan is a minor deal, but it was basically two-fold: Trading Petan let them get Moore into the lineup instead of Lindholm, and because Petan was an RFA, they have insurance in case Ennis receives a significant bump in UFA (which he probably deserves, considering he did very well on the 4th line).

Agreed, a lot of hysterics today as expected.
- Zezel

I dont see hysterics.
I see the usuals going a bit too far and the usuals deflecting a bit too much.
So just another day.

He brought in a 40 goal scoring all star and traded ahl'ers for Muzzin.
Good moves.
The only thing he missed and I mentioned this before was more depth D (5/6 dman that could be moved up in case of injury) to replace the garbage we had. However, we don't know if he tried to acquire some and just wasnt able to.

But....Muzzin and JT were good moves.
- Fakepartofme

Agreed. All that Dubas bashing is ridiculous.

Not true.
thats a penalty for sure.
they still could have come back with 2min penalty, we dont know.
Point is they took advantage......which the leafs cannot seem to do.
- Fakepartofme

The Leafs weren't gifted a 5 minute major. I think you're ignoring how well Marleau and Nylander would have done for 4 minutes of that PP time.

In truth, when i see the current Stanley Cup Champs, the Caps to go along with the Blues, Stars, Sharks, Avs, Islanders, Bruins and Jackets, i wonder how much the game has really changed.
- walshyleafsfan

The regular season is the weekly Monday night RAW's and the playoffs are the PPV events. The cup final is the Hockeymania. This to me is looking more like sports entertainment every year.

I was entertained by this year of hockey thanks to most of the folks on here. I blame Hall and Oats.