The Toronto Maple Leafs off-season has begun, and it has been nothing like riding a tourbus through Crazy Town.
The first week of the off-season began in the same manner as the Toronto Maple Leafs’ humiliating loss to the Boston Bruins (David Pastrnkak gets wide open, but Samsonov calmly watches the puck come out of the corner without cutting it off).
The absurd chain of events began on Saturday when the Professional Hockey Writers Association humiliated itself by removing a player with 70 goals scored from their list of finalists for the Ted Lindsay, Selke, and Lady Byng Trophies.
And Joseph Woll was unable to leave. Subsequently, Keefe teamed Matthews with Holmberg, benched Nick Robertson (a decision that was not widely debated), and skated the Edmundson-Lyubushkin-Benoit combination for around sixty minutes.
A Leafs penalty shot was not called, the referees called a penalty on a slash that wasn’t a slash, then there came the legendary Samsonov mistake in overtime.
Following that, we witnessed Leafs Nation turn against Mitch Marner, media outlets publish stories about trading him for a loss, the Leafs assign all the responsibility to the one player who appeared to have a terrific spring, and one of the greatest press conferences ever.
The only thing that stopped the wave of inanity was Sheldon Keefe’s elegant farewell film. I wish him well in the future and hope he enjoys the Stanley Cups that all former Leafs usually win when they depart!
Even for Leafs supporters who should be accustomed to it by now, the events of yesterday’s news conference, from the goal Boston scored to end Woll’s shutout with a tenth of a second left in Game 6, to the conclusion, were absurd.
The Press Conference, which marked a terrible beginning for the Keith Pelley Era, was the cherry on top, though.
The whole situation was odd; two guys, Shanahan and Treliving, tried to make excuses and gave hackneyed replies while assuming just the right amount of culpability and being modest enough to make the whole thing seem acceptable to the general public.
I detested it.
I detested the ambiguous responses and the obvious lack of tolerance from everyone in the room for what was being conveyed.
To paraphrase what was said: “we did our best, but we failed, and we’re going to try to do better, and EVERYTHING IS ON THE TABLE, but you know, we aren’t going to be specific, and if you have a brain you know that we aren’t trading Auston Matthews or resigning from our jobs, so technically we aren’t open to EVERYTHING and, well, here’s a few cliches to chew on until we hire a coach.”
The Leafs made a grave error when they decided to let go of Sheldon Keefe. They must believe we are foolish.
First off, let’s not sugarcoat the fact that the GM had a terrible first season, even while I don’t adore Keefe and I do think that maybe a fresh voice is required.
Whether they were hurt or not, the team’s five stars had a terrible series against the Bruins. The players in depth did not advance. Sheldon Keefe and Joseph Woll are the only two employees in the entire company who have exceeded expectations in the last three weeks.
Although Keefe was let go, a 1 for 23 power play does not reflect well on him; just take a look at the players on that play. Despite having the 24th best goalie, Keefe led the Leafs to eighth place overall. From a 3-1 deficit, he led his team to victory. He did the best he could with a roster that wasn’t well-balanced.
And he accepts the guilt. It’s foolish and unfair. He didn’t throw away $20 million in the previous off-season, and he didn’t give players with little clout No Movement Clauses. He didn’t design a blue line that the team’s forwards could not play with.
He kept Ryan O’Reilly as his third line center instead of switching to Pontus Holmberg. Ryan Reaves was responsible for the Leafs losing 1-0 in half of their playoff games, but he had to play him because he couldn’t embarrass the man who signed him to a three-year contract.
Thus, Shanahan and Treliving are staying while Keefe has left. Two hockey players, hardly competitive, clueless and without a plan. The Leafs are a nameless team. They are in the middle of being a blazing offensive squad and a stereotypical playoff gridiron side that emerges victorious in 2-1 games. They turn out to be poor at both.
These guys missed the trade deadline when Auston Matthews was probably at the height of his abilities. It’s undoubtedly one of his few best seasons.
They keep telling themselves that they can win even without the best goalkeeper or defenseman in the league. It’s not really “the Core Four” or how they use their pay cap that’s the issue. If you had an elite defensemen and an elite goalkeeper, you could win the way they have managed their squad.
That has long been apparent.
Keith Pelley had the opportunity to start over. He didn’t. We were fed a ton of bullshit that nobody could ever accept, and now we get to watch as Shanahan and Treliving compete for a single season to win or lose.
However, you might be wondering what that implies. They appoint a coach who is assigned to the following regime. For the following year, we can’t stop discussing who will eventually take their position. It’s going to be a long and wild season because everything they do this summer and next will be viewed as transient unless they win the Cup, which they can’t do until the very least of next year.
The Toronto Maple Leafs were given the opportunity to purge and rebuild. The main reason is probably that there wouldn’t be as much pressure on the next administration to deal Mitch Marner for pennies on the dollar.
But the foolishness has been almost nonstop this last week. If you can see past their recent losing streak, the Toronto Maple Leafs are actually doing quite well. With a long-term contract in place, Auston Matthews is already the finest player in team history.
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