He is waiting for green light from Shanahan.

That or just don’t overpay all your superstar players. If you paid them appropriately....like Boston. You could have a deeper team instead you had to dump brown and Zait for Ceci. You have great young talent but they are gojng to have to play great to help compensate for the massive contracts. Honestly Cap mismanagement might have shut the window before it opened

I agree Toronto has poorly handled cap kinda but there’s arguments that and mainly they had to keep these guys. But Boston is not a good point. Boston’s culture is kuch different and those guys bought in. It’s not the leafs fault their players didn’t take cuts. Bergeron Marchand Chara and go on took cuts and set a culture and mentality together. Tavares is the only guy that really took a pay cut. The players woulda made that money elsewhere the leafs had to keep them; I love knocking the leafs but it’s really the same situation as bosorn

Hmm. I'm all over the Babcock's time is almost up way of looking at things. But now that their centre depth just took a hefty hit with Kerfoot out, and with Marner being on the shelf for the foreseeable future, I wonder if bringing Keefe into this chaos is setting him up for any kind of success - and you gotta think Keefe is the next in line.

The best play might be to just give Babcock some more rope and wait things out some more until there's a half healthy roster in play. I dunno, this season has all the potential to turn sideways at this point. I could honestly see the leafs missing the playoffs.

Toronto has better depth than Boston, Boston is just better coached.

Patience is the key here. Babs has this regular season to sort things out, but that doesn't mean he's lasting much past there. I bet Babs gets fired if TO loses in the 1st or 2nd round or loses to Boston again regardless of what round that is.

Yeah, I agree with that. But they do need to make it to the playoffs first. I don't think thats going to be quite as easy as alot of people think it might be.

It’s nobodies fault I guess. Boston cares more about winning than personal gains. 30 years Matthews and Marner will be rich and that’s what really matters to them

It'll never be easy but lets be honest, when things are bad they are never really as bad as they seem, its the same when things are going really well, the peaks and valleys are just that, peaks and valleys. The truth lies somewhere in the middle. So if this is this team at its worst, perhaps when they swing back the other way and turn things around a little, they'll look much better. I am sure they'll have a run of success and people will go equally as crazy about that as they are about these tough times. Its a long season, another 62 games to go. I think the smart money is on the team with arguably the most talent in the league is going to bounce back in a big way.

Using Boston as an example of how to pay your stars is not a good one. Marchand signed his current deal prior to him really exploding offensively. I'd wager Pastrnak wishes he would have held out for more money or taken a bridge deal and Bergeron had never has as much offensive success as he's had recently until after his last contract was signed. Those 3 are all making way less than they should be, but its not because they all got together and decided to take less, they signed their deals and then exploded production wise. If they were all free agents now, none would be making as little as they are now.

I guess that’s your opinion. I personally disagree and the evidence is obvious when you look at the records. Coaching is the easy excuse. Capitals blamed Trotz before he won. Look at the islanders now. I personally was blaming him. Toronto’s defense is deeper? Goaltending is deeper? Offensively Toronto might be more talented but they are extremely soft. Boston is a harder team to play against. bostons defense is much much better. Their goaltending is much better. Starting and backup.

Krug has come out and said he’ll take a discount to stay in Boston. Again that’s your opinion. Boston’s players signed very fair deals and they set a standard for the rest of the team. Guentzel in Pittsburgh is a lot better than Nylander and signed for cheaper to help the penguins. Guys who want to win understand that they can’t sign 10-11 million dollar deals. Players want to be rich then win if possible. I don’t blame them. It’s a business at the end of the day

I like your optimism, Logan!

But I've been in enough situations to know that sometimes things are even worse than they seem. Nothing wrong with taking an honest assessment of a situation and recalibrating goals and expectations based on changing circumstances.

It'll be interesting to see where the leafs are at in January. If they're on the outside looking in, and if they're being honest with where this team is at right now in its development, it could make alot of sense to be selling Muzzin and Barrie for picks/prospects. Might as well put a kijiji ad up for Ceci, too.

So you are a Boston fan cool.

Forwards TO has much more depth than Boston
Defensively, I'd wager on paper they are closer than people want to admit but the defensive system in TO is not good. You look at good defensive teams and the players don't chase the puck in the corners and leave the slot open. That is because most good defensive teams are coached to not do that, TO on the other hand is told to go after the puck in a man to man setting all the time when I think playing more of a zone defence would make more sense given their speed and size (TO actually is a big team on the back end outside of Barrie).

TO needs to alter their system I think, keep the defenceman stepping up at the line to limit controlled zone entries but once the puck is in the zone, just switch to a zone defensive system and keep things to the outside. Wait for the opportunity to get a turnover and then turn it back up with speed and short passes and puck support. That would do a lot better than the whole chase everything and run around and leave the front of the net open. That isn't a personel thing, its all coaching.

Everyone is better than all the Leaf players, yeah I've heard this before and I just don't care.

What other options other than Sheldon Keefe are out there for a mid-season coaching change? Keefe has done well with the Marlies. Keep in mind the Leafs set the Marlies up to be successful. They want their prospects developing in a winning culture. They have a lot more older, mature, experienced players than most/all other AHL teams. So yes, Keefe has done a great job there, but he has been put in a position to succeed. I'm not sure if firing Babcock and promoting Keefe is necessarily going to improve the Leafs.

However, most AHL teams play the same systems as their NHL clubs. Because of this I cannot understand why the Leafs are usually one of the weaker NHL teams defensively and the Marlies are consistently one of the better AHL teams defensively. Is it personnel, the head coach, the D coach?? If the style of play and systems are the same then there aren't many other factors to consider.

You're not wrong with this at all.

The only thing that I'd add for context is a nod to the age difference between the teams cores. I'd kinda expect that Toronto should be trending up while Boston likely trends down as the leafs young core matures and Boston's start to age more. At a certain point the two will likely converge. Either way, I think we're set up good for lots of Bruins/Leaf hate for awhile to come..

You seem insecure. I didn’t say that. I simply compared a guy who took a team deal to another player on the leafs. I was just having a discussion didn’t mean to upset you. I think the leafs have good players but their massive contracts make it hard to just focus on their play. They have too 5 expectations now. People tend to look at the dollar amount instead of the players ability. If nylander made 4 million I’d certainly would have a different opinion on him. If Matthews scored 100 points and 55 goals I would still think he’s overpaid but I could justify it. If they won a Stanley cup with these players I could justify it.

You keep posting things that aren't wrong at all.

I half wonder if the leafs three young stars ever wish they didnt demand every penny they could get. I doubt they do, but I wonder..

Yeah I just don’t like when the face of you franchise signs a massive deal for 5 years to hit FA as a UFA. To me it sends the wrong message. That’s just me though

You sound surprised. I just want to be clear I’m not insulting the leafs or their players. I just question the thought process in signing them at the price on both ends. More on the players end. Do you want to get rich or win? At the end of the day wins don’t feed the kids but what’s the difference between 88million and 75 million? I mean when is enough money enough. Greed is toxic

Yeah, it's not ideal at all. But it still gives them a 5 yr window with the core that they've ID'd. That's lots of time to make something happen, if something's going to happen.

I have less issue with term than I do with the aav. But even that is what it is at this point. No point beating the three of them over their heads with their very fat wallets at this point.

There's bigger problems right now that need some tending to. I think alot of it sits with coaching but there could be more to it. Expectations. Personalities/ ego etc etc.

Regardless, I like they way they look going forward. It just might take them longer than expected.. that's ok. Gotta keep moving towards that north star

I can't handle this doom and gloom. The media spins it constantly and people just eat it up. This team could win their next 10 and you'd still have a tonne of people in the media saying they have this problem, or that problem and troll nation will go insane on every post and Leaf fans will panic or go overboard or whatever. Its all too much. The team isn't the worst team in the NHL. And they aren't the best team in the NHL, what they are is one of the most talented teams in the NHL and they aren't playing like it. They have be the best team on the ice for 50 minutes a night but then fall asleep for 10 minutes and just roll over. Earlier in the season that was half the game. So they are getting more consistent but need a full 60 of playing smart. Its not like they need to change a bunch of things. They just need to put it together for the whole game.

Look at teams with real issues, like Vancouver, they started well and looked great but their bottom 2 lines aren't very good and when the top 2 lines go cold, they lose. How do you fix that? Hope the bottom 6 can somehow get more talented? Or teams with goaltending issues, or a lack of speed, or poor centre depth or whatever. Those are issues that are really hard to fix on the fly, but consistency? That can be corrected rather easily.

Oh, I didnt take that as an insult at all. And no, I'm not surprised. I think the two of us are pretty much saying the exact same thing.. yup, i agree completely, greed is incredibly toxic.

I mean they can obviously win but you need to buy into the coaches system and leave your ego at the door. Look at Ovechkin and Trotz. He needed to learn to play defense. Could you imagine if those to couldn’t get on the same page. We won 2 press trophies and a cup In the last 3 years with him. Also when you have guys getting paid that much you need to draft and develop perfectly. No real room for error. Your 1st rounder need to play like it and you get the point. Imo they have draft really well luckily for the leafs