Toronto didn't have a chance to claim Valimaki. Arizona was higher in waiver order than Toronto

In general Vali looks good now but it could be a fluke year. You know new team new me.

McCabe's been a good Dman for years with only one hicup

Like when u saw his stats in Buffalo when they were terrible its pretty impressive what he did there.

This team is worse

McCabe has always been a good defenceman. Still you don’t pay a 1st for an established D when you can find that through development, which TOR cannot do.

And how is that?

I mean when you're a top 5 team in the standings, you go for it at the deadline and in the offseason. Many of the cup winners in the last few years- Colorado, Tampa twice, Pittsburgh twice, St. Louis, Washington made big swings that got them over the hump.

And look at the guys those teams got- Coleman, Goodrow, Manson, Lehkonen, Kessel, O'Reilly...the Blues gave up Tage Thompson to get O'Reilly. Would you say they should also have not done that, or because they won the cup do we kind of all shrug and move on? Is giving up futures only a smart move in hindsight?

Some of the Leaf's trades were swings and misses. Foligno was dumb. Barrie and Kerfoot for Kadri was dumb, even though I get why they did it. Why they didn't keep McCann I'll never understand. But like, Jack Campbell mostly worked out of them. Jake Muzzin was great for them. Their goaltending duo was held together with duct tape but that was good for them.

I would say if the team consistently is failing in the playoffs despite a varied collection of acquisitions then you need to start looking at the coach and the core players. And as much as we all like to bash on Matthews, Marner, Nylander, Tavares and Rielly, Sheldon Keefe hasn't really done a ton to inspire me as a coach, and it's a hell of a lot easier to replace him than trade those other guys.

As for Hakstol, until literally this year his status as a coach was very very low. And if you go look at how the special teams in Seattle did this year- the thing the coaching staff has most control over- maybe we all need to pump the brakes before anointing this guy "the one that got away" and instead look at Seattle's shooting percentage and say "oh well maybe their entire team has been scoring at an insane pace all year and that's why they're a wild card team"

Thats not true at all lul

U pay for good Dman

What did Boston do pay a 1st for Orlov, Tampa 2 years ago 1st for Savard, U pay for good players

Development takes time and Leafs are in win now mode not wait for a kid to become something in 5-6 years. If we look in their system nobody rn is even close to McCabe not even Sandin when he was here. We got McCabe for 2 more years at 2mill which is a steal as Dman like him cost 4.5-6.5mill rn.

They also didn't just pay a 1st for an established D.

They payed a first for an established (top-4) defenseman making 2million against the cap for three playoff runs. Orlov is a better player than McCabe but as far as like "bang for your buck" they're going to get a lot more miles out of McCabe for that 1st even if Dubas and Keefe aren't around to see it.

But if you know the way your team plays is flawed, the strategy doesn’t work for 90% of the players, and this was very evident for me during the regular season, then you have to think twice about going all in.

Keefe has been very adamant about building a tiki-taka type team, players apply high pressure & also move the puck in resistance of the forecheck. Yet the guys we add like Acciari, Lafferty, ZAR, Hunt, NAK, Kerfoot, Kampf, Holl, Schenn & Lyubushkin who are anything but that.

Rielly, Liljegren, and Sandin all are developed by TO, Holl despite being drafted elsewhere was also developed here. This is just a silly nonsense post

Rielly was developed by Babcock, Holl is one of the worst D in the league, Sandin was shipped cuz he couldn’t be developed and Liljegren is a scratch.

This is a troll post

You are the troll or the person who is blind.

You are here to tell Leaf fans everything the team does is bad. That is a troll

They have good players but they don’t fit together.

I guess being a top 5 team for 3 years in a row proves this hypothesis eh?

Yes. 7 straight first round exits does.

Troll speak. You bend your rhetoric around facts that aren't connected but defend because chirping leaf fans is fun. Regular season success proves everything you are saying is nonsense and you know it but you are enjoying trolling so have at it.