L K said:
The frustrating thing for me is that the majority of the Core 4 stuff is the media. It's the media that can't go 5 seconds without talking about the Core 4 (including Friedman). I find that one of the most frustrating things about the Leafs is that the media creates stories and then uses those stories to indicate that there is a problem.
I don't think that's entirely it. It's obvious that over the past 5 years season after season we've seen a lot of roster turnover, especially at forward. Even in-season the line-up see's a lot of changes through trades or waivers or promotions/demotions or just moving guys around. But the one constant for the most part has been: the "core 4"
have to play together and everyone else is kind of just seen as window dressing and don't really have a permanent spot on the team.
I don't think that's necessarily an easy problem to fix, especially over the past few seasons where we've had the flat cap, but I could understand people seeing it as a legitimate issue.