Optics Don’t Look Good For Maple Leafs After Underwhelming Deadline Day

by | Feb 25, 2020 | News, NHL | 9 comments

 







9 Comments

  1. Good morning

    Dubas CAN NOT & SHOULD NOT be the GM of this team now or moving forward next year …

    He committed GM suicide this year in every way ……. IMO …he sucks …he had an opportunity to address serious issues …BUT in a post deadline interview he said

    QUOTE UNQUOTE….. ” I dont know why the team is playing the way they are ”
    Iam not sure what to do ????

    ….ITS BECAUSE THEY ARE TOO SOFT …dont work hard enough …and are too small on the ings and in the D zone and your BOTTOM 6 …SUCK and Dave Hakstoll who is the Defensive coach also sucks !!!

    thats why !

    YOU DONT KNOW?????….WTF
    Than who is suppose to know !

    there are a lot of people who know !!
    Thats for sure and we arent getting paid millions !

    just the most terrible deals and giving away draft picks and handed out way to much money per player with front loaded deals that warrant no desire to succeed after year one of the deal !

    Go back to the OHL ….please…. and hire Hunter back !

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Otm4RusESNU

  2. Everyone says Hunter. When did he prove himself in the NHL as a general manager. Why hasn’t any of the other NHL teams hired him.
    Kal El if you don’t like what their doing cheer for someone else.

    • OK Vinnie

      Thx

      GO PENS GO !

      • Good choice. Lol

      • Hold your assessment of Dubas until end of season. No way he gets fired. It was Shanshan that didn’t allow Dubas to fire Babcock in off season causing the brutal start they have been digging out from. If Dubas had his way, Keefe would have started season as coach and the leafs would be sitting comfortably in a playoff spot and likely would have then upgraded at deadline. It starts from the top. The president hires the gm then he should get out of the way and let the gm hire his coach. The Shanaplan was flawed from inception when the coach was hired before the GM.

  3. Good choice. Lol

  4. As a comment to this article, well “the optics” will always give a false sense of reality (as in this case not looking good) simply because it’s like trying to read a book by judging it by it’s cover. I

    I have not heard one rejected trade offer for Barrie, have you? Maybe it’s just the case of what was needed to help this team wasn’t available or the price was too high, should a GM still pull the trigger?

    Ok say you do trade him, who takes his place on the team? How much damage can you do to over playing your two young (19 and 20) dmen? Is trading away the only legitimate albeit not great NHL right shot Dman on the team while still holding and in a race to stay/make the playoffs a move a smart GM makes? Do people even realize the team is made of a bunch of guys are for the most part under 24 and have been in the league for less than 5 years?

    With that in mind, why let the team off the hook for their recent poor play by going out and get some “help”? How would that benefit these young and handsomely paid underachievers?

    • Agreed. What does a team with absolutely no cap space and limited draft picks do at the deadline? Outside of Florida, Tampa, and the Islanders, it looked as though everyone had concluded that the sellers’ market had become too expensive and were content to make only minor moves.

      Barrie is a good puck-moving defenseman as long as you don’t look too closely at the defense part. He’s got the worst plus/minus on the team and everyone holds their breath when the puck comes back to him at the point on the power play. Will he make a good play on it or will the puck get past him and lead to a shorthanded breakaway? With his contract up at the end of the season, how much would anyone offer for him?

      The teams with cap space decided they were either better off holding onto that cap space or using it to re-sign their own. Why overspend on a rental if you have no intention of re-signing that rental due to next year’s expansion draft?

      • Well-reasoned, which was why I kept saying there was no way he was bringing back a 1st. Yeah, the Leafs did essentially nothing for the reasons you state – and so did several other top teams for a variety of reasons – Dallas, Columbus, Colorado (even with all their cap space) jump to mind. Yes, Sakic got Namestnikov from Ottawa, but if anyone thinks he”ll be an adequate replacement for Rantanen and Kadri they’re dreaming in technicolor. To me, Colorado’s relative inactivity was the biggest surprise.