Clarkson for horton

[KW Sluggo]

How long before someone buys a Leafs Horton jersey and throw it on the ice? ;D

Nonis may have just saved his job.

Really, really unbelievable.

Just amazing.

 

[Kin]

Anybody who thinks Nonis should get praised for this should think again.  All he did was take his own terrible financial commitment and kick it upstairs onto the MLSE books.  If I were Shanahan I'd be saying, "Thanks for getting rid of Clarkson.  You're fired."

I agree that his "great move" here is largely facilitated by MLSE's financial power but I don't think we can pretend that the decision to sign Clarkson was entirely on his shoulders either. There was internal pressure to improve and Clarkson was a highly sought UFA.

Remember, things "improved" so much under Shanahan that they then went out and tried to sign Bolland to what might have been an even worse contract.

 

[ZBBM]

Anybody who thinks Nonis should get praised for this should think again.  All he did was take his own terrible financial commitment and kick it upstairs onto the MLSE books.  If I were Shanahan I'd be saying, "Thanks for getting rid of Clarkson.  You're fired."

I agree that his "great move" here is largely facilitated by MLSE's financial power but I don't think we can pretend that the decision to sign Clarkson was entirely on his shoulders either. There was internal pressure to improve and Clarkson was a highly sought UFA.

Remember, things "improved" so much under Shanahan that they then went out and tried to sign Bolland to what might have been an even worse contract.

Well, that tells you more about Shanahan than Nonis I guess.

No way should this be seen as saving Nonis' job.  $26M for nothing is not good management.

EDIT: and it wasn't largely facilitated, it was TOTALLY facilitated.

 

[freer]

I'm making a vow right here, right now. I will literally never say a bad thing about Dave Nonis ever again.

Don't forget who got us in this mess to begin with.

Dave Nonis smells like roses and feeds starving children ever day.

Actually Nonis just did what Burke could never do. Admit he made a mistake and fix it, good on Nonis.

That's not exactly true.  Kris Versteeg was brought in by Burkie and was traded by the deadline.

IMO was not a mistake signing he did have 35 pts before getting traded

 

[Joe S.]

Just. Wow. I thought I was going to have to watch this jackass for the next 5 seasons.

 

[KW Sluggo]

Anybody who thinks Nonis should get praised for this should think again.  All he did was take his own terrible financial commitment and kick it upstairs onto the MLSE books.  If I were Shanahan I'd be saying, "Thanks for getting rid of Clarkson.  You're fired."

Uh no, you are wrong.

Nonis fixed the unfixable. At worts, at the very worts he is even.

For me, being uncharacteristically a "glass half full" on this, I would award Nonis the Order of Hockey.

After all until just over an hour ago, who thought trading Clarkson was possible?

Exactly nobody, that's who.

Give credit where credit is due.

 

[Frank E]

Just my take, but I don't think this was as easy as some think.

That's a $26 million dollar commitment to thin air vs. a hockey playing body on your third line.

The Leafs don't need the cap space for the next few years anyways, so I'm not sure this decision was a no-brainer at all.

 

[L K]

I'm making a vow right here, right now. I will literally never say a bad thing about Dave Nonis ever again.

Don't forget who got us in this mess to begin with.

Dave Nonis smells like roses and feeds starving children ever day.

Actually Nonis just did what Burke could never do. Admit he made a mistake and fix it, good on Nonis.

That's not exactly true.  Kris Versteeg was brought in by Burkie and was traded by the deadline.

IMO was not a mistake signing he did have 35 pts before getting traded

He wasn't a signing.  The Leafs traded for him with Stalberg, DiDomenico and Paradis.  They acquired Paradis with Tlusty.  Then they traded Versteeg to Philly for a 1st and 3rd round pick.

 

[Joe S.]

I think this thread should be 71 pages long to honour the worst free agent leafs signing in the cap era.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

For the record, I don't actually think Nonis is now the greatest thing to ever be. He did a great job not scaring off Columbus after they made the initial call.

 

[ZBBM]

Anybody who thinks Nonis should get praised for this should think again.  All he did was take his own terrible financial commitment and kick it upstairs onto the MLSE books.  If I were Shanahan I'd be saying, "Thanks for getting rid of Clarkson.  You're fired."

Uh no, you are wrong.

Nonis fixed the unfixable. At worts, at the very worts he is even.

For me, being uncharacteristically a "glass half full" on this, I would award Nonis the Order of Hockey.

After all until just over an hour ago, who thought trading Clarkson was possible?

Exactly nobody, that's who.

Give credit where credit is due.

Sorry Sluggo, but that comment could only come from somebody who thinks MLSE has endless amounts of cash to just piss down the drain.  It is real money, and it really matters, even to them.

The unfixable?  It was "unfixable" because of the complete incompetence of the guy you are praising.

 

[Kin]

Well, that tells you more about Shanahan than Nonis I guess.

No, I think it just tells you that anyone asked to do what Nonis was asked to do will make bad decisions because there aren't going to be a whole lot of good decisions available and they're being asked to pull rabbits out of hats. Nonis' job is fundamentally different now that he's being asked to do something that can work. He's not being asked to work miracles anymore and the reality is that a lot of what is going to be done as GM in the next few months isn't going to be the stuff of rocket science.

 

[Joe S.]

According to Jeff O'Neil, the team shares in the blame for how the Clarkson contract turned out because they undersold Clarkson as a 3rd line player and didn't give him enough PP opportunities.

He really said that?

 

[Deebo]

Anybody who thinks Nonis should get praised for this should think again.  All he did was take his own terrible financial commitment and kick it upstairs onto the MLSE books.  If I were Shanahan I'd be saying, "Thanks for getting rid of Clarkson.  You're fired."

Uh no, you are wrong.

Nonis fixed the unfixable. At worts, at the very worts he is even.

For me, being uncharacteristically a "glass half full" on this, I would award Nonis the Order of Hockey.

After all until just over an hour ago, who thought trading Clarkson was possible?

Exactly nobody, that's who.

Give credit where credit is due.

[tweet]571097592744042496[/tweet]

All he had to do was say "yes", it seeems.

 

[ZBBM]

Well, that tells you more about Shanahan than Nonis I guess.

No, I think it just tells you that anyone asked to do what Nonis was asked to do will make bad decisions because there aren't going to be a whole lot of good decisions available and they're being asked to pull rabbits out of hats. Nonis' job is fundamentally different now that he's being asked to do something that can work. He's not being asked to work miracles anymore and the reality is that a lot of what is going to be done as GM in the next few months isn't going to be the stuff of rocket science.

Not buying that.  He was the GM, he was in charge, the Clarkson contract was 100% his responsibility.

 

[Kin]

According to Jeff O'Neil, the team shares in the blame for how the Clarkson contract turned out because they undersold Clarkson as a 3rd line player and didn't give him enough PP opportunities.

He really said that?

And he gets paid to talk about hockey.

 

[barney_rebel]

This trade rules man...

 

[ZBBM]

Anybody who thinks Nonis should get praised for this should think again.  All he did was take his own terrible financial commitment and kick it upstairs onto the MLSE books.  If I were Shanahan I'd be saying, "Thanks for getting rid of Clarkson.  You're fired."

Uh no, you are wrong.

Nonis fixed the unfixable. At worts, at the very worts he is even.

For me, being uncharacteristically a "glass half full" on this, I would award Nonis the Order of Hockey.

After all until just over an hour ago, who thought trading Clarkson was possible?

Exactly nobody, that's who.

Give credit where credit is due.

[tweet]571097592744042496[/tweet]

All he had to do was say "yes", it seeems.

And there's this.  But the "yes" was only easy because he could snap his fingers at a $26M river of red ink on the books.

 

[cw]

link

Interesting quotes of Nonis in video above.

"This just fell together" "picked up speed today" "those don't happen very often"

This part
Q: (@3:55) (paraphrased) "Have you talked with Nathan - do you have any sense of where he's at and whether he'll play again?"

Nonis: "No, we'll be doing that over the next week or 10 days or so"

So they spent $30 mil on Horton without looking into his health (to get rid of Clarkson ... LOL)

They wanted Clarkson gone bad and they leaped at the chance to do so. I don't think there's any other way to interpret that. (Of course, that was probably Dave's thinking process when he signed Clarkson to that stupid deal!! ...)

 

[Kin]

Not buying that.  He was the GM, he was in charge, the Clarkson contract was 100% his responsibility.

I'm not saying it wasn't his responsibility. I'm saying that we've now got ten years of evidence that whether the GM is a well regarded newcomer or a Cup winning superstar or a well regarded industry guy bad decisions are going to be made in the service of a ridiculous expectation. If I make your job dependent on you overseeing the building of a skyscraper in two weeks then I can't turn around and say "Hey man, it looks like you were trying to cut corners, what's up?".