04/19/24
April 12, 2015
SportsFilter: The Sunday Huddle:
A place to discuss the sports stories that aren't making news, share links that aren't quite front-page material, and diagram plays on your hand. Remember to count to five Mississippi before commenting in anger.
Heading back to cheeseburgers and milkshakes territory for the Champions Dinner at next year's Masters. Unreal that it's been 18 years since Tiger's landmark victory.
posted by beaverboard at 07:33 PM on April 12, 2015
Leafs fire GM Nonis, interim head coach Horachek, 3 assistant coaches, Director of Scouting Kasper, 18 scouts
There hasn't been a house cleaning like this in a LONG time. It is interesting to note that the whiz kid assistant GM (Kyle Dubas) was spared and is, at this point, the interim GM.
It's now all in Shanahan's...uh...hands.
The Toronto/Canadian sports media is in full feeding frenzy mode now, with speculation about all of the available positions to be filled.
My long shot speculation for coach: Dale Hunter. His brother is the director of player personnel for the Leafs, and Hunter would essentially be given the job with a clean slate of players (assuming the house cleaning in the dressing room that is expected is going to happen). He's got a hell of a track record for working magic with young players, which I suspect the Leafs will be filled with after this summer...
posted by grum@work at 08:37 PM on April 12, 2015
Leafs fire GM Nonis, interim head coach Horachek, 3 assistant coaches, Director of Scouting Kasper, 18 scouts
Leafs need to somehow rid themselves of 4 or 5 players Nonis signed to high priced long term contracts with few or no interested parties.
The verdict is out on Horacek. Poor guy was brought in with a mandate and simply did what he was told.
The Leafs have drafted poorly for a long time. When they have managed to select a future all-star they have traded the player away. One wonders what the Leafs might look like with Tuuka Rask, Tyler Seguin, Alex Steen, and Dougie Hamilton on the roster instead of Kessel and Phaneuf.
Randy Carlyle certainly had a much better take on the Leafs when he was there than anyone else in the organization ... I wonder if he would consider a GM position.
posted by cixelsyd at 10:21 AM on April 13, 2015
Hunter would be an inspired choice - it's a pipe dream to think someone like Babcock joins a squad in a multi-year rebuild process (and the pressure to go out and sign a bunch of guys would go up), and they need a guy to own the dressing room and team culture, and Hunter's well-respected enough to be able to whip whatever veteran presence is left on this team by the end of the summer.
The Leafs have had a long-standing culture of paying full retail price for guys who are skill-wise 70-80% of what the particular position (star forward, #1 center, #1 defenceman) actually demands because they were always in need-to-improve-immediately mode. They routinely took the best they could get at whatever price it cost. It's good to see most, if not all, the guys involved in that process are now on the open market, as old habits die hard.
There's a lot of work to be done, but the Leafs are a 1/5ish chance away from getting one of two guys in this draft that is a top asset that 30 teams would ache to build around. They'll get young assets (probably not elite given the culture problems that they're responsible for as top guys in the dressing room) by dealing Kessel, Phaneuf, and maybe JVR. Lupul's contract probably sits on the books one more year, and if he's healthy, maybe you can move him at the trade deadline for a part.
They just need to stay the course, accept another horrifically bad season, deal what they can for assets, draft another elite young guy, and hire a guy to get Kadri, Reilly, Gardiner, Nylander, and the other few young guys with upside to play up to their potential, both as skilled players and as leaders. Hunter makes a lot more sense if you go that route than chasing Babcock and turning the gas back on their short-term expectations.
posted by dfleming at 11:55 AM on April 13, 2015
Tuuka Rask, Tyler Seguin, Alex Steen, and Dougie Hamilton
The Seguin pick would have been the same, but I still don't hate them going after Kessel. There is obvious scoring talent in Kessel, and he's shown that he can be dominating when necessary, and he was young when they got him. Nobody expected the Leafs to crater the year they actually dealt away their #1 pick....
The Hamilton pick might have been anyone, since it wasn't #1 or #2 overall. Who knows who the Leafs would have grabbed with that spot.
I HATED that they traded Steen away when they did, as I had this fantasy of him being the next Maple Leafs captain, almost from the beginning. That's because his dad was the model of a classy solid NHL professional/almost-star and I suspected that his son would be a chip off the old block.
Rask? He was the fourth goalie on the depth charts (behind the two they had in the NHL and Pogge), so I don't really blame them on dealing him. It's just that they then dealt him for a goalie that everyone should have known was going to be bad. Ugh.
They just need to stay the course, accept another horrifically bad season
Shanahan needs to say the hockey equivalent of "Rome wasn't built in a day", threaten to punch any reporter that even looks at him funny, and leave the press conference immediately. Anything else, and the media/fanbase are going to froth at the mouth next season.
posted by grum@work at 02:27 PM on April 13, 2015
Leafs fire GM Nonis, interim head coach Horachek, 3 assistant coaches, Director of Scouting Kasper, 18 scouts