Lou Lamoriello named Leafs General Manager

[hockeyfan1]

I'm with you!

All this 'culture change', and 'hard work' stuff is starting to worry me a bit.  It's too soon!  Lie back down, damn it!!  8)

You gotta hire the architects and all that before you tear down your old house to build a new one. That's all that's going on now. The change has started at the top, but, really, there hasn't enough change to the significant parts of the roster to have much of an impact on their overall success. They're still a few seasons from getting up.

I have a sinking feeling your wrong. At least the part about them being a down and out, bad team for a few seasons still. I think you may be underestimating the impact of a well organized structured team. Once this squad plays with some discipline, I'm guessing we'll see a noticeable improvement, right off the hop. I think they may even challenge for a playoff spot this year.

Redleaf, we can see you are an optimist as towards this Leaf team's accomplishments this upcoming season.  But, reality I'm afraid, is most likely to be quite different, as Busta pointed out.

Don't get me wrong.  I am optimistic for the simple fact that the organization has undergone and done with the many changes as we've seen thus far,, both in the personnel and player departments, which so far seems and sounds (and will be all for the good), at least something is finally pointing in the right direction, and I expect the team itself over time to yield Improvement.

Just not so fast, this year.  I'd be surprised if the Leafs make the playoffs.  As optimistic as I am about this team's future, I doubt a playoff spot will be in the offing, so soon, so fast.

 

[rdowdall]

Wouldn't it be great if Lou traded a middling offensive d-man to New Jersey for their first overall pick, and that pick turned out to be the third overall pick, and then Lou used that pick to draft a generational d-man? 

 

[LuncheonMeat]

I'm with you!

All this 'culture change', and 'hard work' stuff is starting to worry me a bit.  It's too soon!  Lie back down, damn it!!  8)

You gotta hire the architects and all that before you tear down your old house to build a new one. That's all that's going on now. The change has started at the top, but, really, there hasn't enough change to the significant parts of the roster to have much of an impact on their overall success. They're still a few seasons from getting up.

I was saying that in jest.  Every time someone posts a potential lineup for this upcoming season I look and cringe.  I think the Leafs are going to be a really terrible team this year.  In fact, I would go friendly wager with RedLeaf and bet the Leafs will finish bottom-5 this season... comfortably.

 

[Heroic Shrimp]

Wouldn't it be great if Lou traded a middling offensive d-man to New Jersey for their first overall pick, and that pick turned out to be the third overall pick, and then Lou used that pick to draft a generational d-man?

Funny thought, though I have to say, I hate the massive overuse of the word "generational" instead of just "great" these days.  Not just in this case, but in general in hockey.  Niedermayer was a wonderful elite defenseman who won exactly one Norris Trophy.  That doesn't make him a once in a generation talent, regardless of how good he was.

 

[Redleaf]

I'm with you!

All this 'culture change', and 'hard work' stuff is starting to worry me a bit.  It's too soon!  Lie back down, damn it!!  8)

You gotta hire the architects and all that before you tear down your old house to build a new one. That's all that's going on now. The change has started at the top, but, really, there hasn't enough change to the significant parts of the roster to have much of an impact on their overall success. They're still a few seasons from getting up.

I was saying that in jest.  Every time someone posts a potential lineup for this upcoming season I look and cringe.  I think the Leafs are going to be a really terrible team this year.  In fact, I would go friendly wager with RedLeaf and bet the Leafs will finish bottom-5 this season... comfortably.

If the wager is better than bottom 5, I'm in.

Listen, I suppose I'm a bit of an optimist, but in reality, I'd rather they finish at the very bottom for another year or two for the top picks they would get. However, I honestly believe the management and new coach can make enough of a difference right away that they just won't be as terrible a team as many think they will be. Bad? Sure. One of the worst in the league? I don't see it.
So...What's the friendly wager?

 

[LuncheonMeat]

I'm with you!

All this 'culture change', and 'hard work' stuff is starting to worry me a bit.  It's too soon!  Lie back down, damn it!!  8)

You gotta hire the architects and all that before you tear down your old house to build a new one. That's all that's going on now. The change has started at the top, but, really, there hasn't enough change to the significant parts of the roster to have much of an impact on their overall success. They're still a few seasons from getting up.

I was saying that in jest.  Every time someone posts a potential lineup for this upcoming season I look and cringe.  I think the Leafs are going to be a really terrible team this year.  In fact, I would go friendly wager with RedLeaf and bet the Leafs will finish bottom-5 this season... comfortably.

If the wager is better than bottom 5, I'm in.

Listen, I suppose I'm a bit of an optimist, but in reality, I'd rather they finish at the very bottom for another year or two for the top picks they would get. However, I honestly believe the management and new coach can make enough of a difference right away that they just won't be as terrible a team as many think they will be. Bad? Sure. One of the worst in the league? I don't see it.
So...What's the friendly wager?

I'm an optimist as well. In fact, my wife gives me crap about it all the time. But that lineup, at this point, is pretty horrendous.

Friendly wager?  I have no creativity when it comes to that sort of thing. Perhaps if I win, you have to write a romantic poem for nutman? 

 

[Redleaf]

I'm with you!

All this 'culture change', and 'hard work' stuff is starting to worry me a bit.  It's too soon!  Lie back down, damn it!!  8)

You gotta hire the architects and all that before you tear down your old house to build a new one. That's all that's going on now. The change has started at the top, but, really, there hasn't enough change to the significant parts of the roster to have much of an impact on their overall success. They're still a few seasons from getting up.

I was saying that in jest.  Every time someone posts a potential lineup for this upcoming season I look and cringe.  I think the Leafs are going to be a really terrible team this year.  In fact, I would go friendly wager with RedLeaf and bet the Leafs will finish bottom-5 this season... comfortably.

If the wager is better than bottom 5, I'm in.

Listen, I suppose I'm a bit of an optimist, but in reality, I'd rather they finish at the very bottom for another year or two for the top picks they would get. However, I honestly believe the management and new coach can make enough of a difference right away that they just won't be as terrible a team as many think they will be. Bad? Sure. One of the worst in the league? I don't see it.
So...What's the friendly wager?

I'm an optimist as well. In fact, my wife gives me crap about it all the time. But that lineup, at this point, is pretty horrendous.

Friendly wager?  I have no creativity when it comes to that sort of thing. Perhaps if I win, you have to write a romantic poem for nutman? 

Done Luncheon meat. Loser posts a romantic poem at the end of the regular season. Silly, but a humiliating nonetheless. Lol. Leafs place bottom 5, you win. Anything above that, I win.

 

[LuncheonMeat]

I'm with you!

All this 'culture change', and 'hard work' stuff is starting to worry me a bit.  It's too soon!  Lie back down, damn it!!  8)

You gotta hire the architects and all that before you tear down your old house to build a new one. That's all that's going on now. The change has started at the top, but, really, there hasn't enough change to the significant parts of the roster to have much of an impact on their overall success. They're still a few seasons from getting up.

I was saying that in jest.  Every time someone posts a potential lineup for this upcoming season I look and cringe.  I think the Leafs are going to be a really terrible team this year.  In fact, I would go friendly wager with RedLeaf and bet the Leafs will finish bottom-5 this season... comfortably.

If the wager is better than bottom 5, I'm in.

Listen, I suppose I'm a bit of an optimist, but in reality, I'd rather they finish at the very bottom for another year or two for the top picks they would get. However, I honestly believe the management and new coach can make enough of a difference right away that they just won't be as terrible a team as many think they will be. Bad? Sure. One of the worst in the league? I don't see it.
So...What's the friendly wager?

I'm an optimist as well. In fact, my wife gives me crap about it all the time. But that lineup, at this point, is pretty horrendous.

Friendly wager?  I have no creativity when it comes to that sort of thing. Perhaps if I win, you have to write a romantic poem for nutman? 

Done Luncheon meat. Loser posts a romantic poem at the end of the regular season. Silly, but a humiliating nonetheless. Lol. Leafs place bottom 5, you win. Anything above that, I win.

Done!  Now I just have to figure out who I'll romance should I lose. Nik, perhaps? 

 

[rdowdall]

Wouldn't it be great if Lou traded a middling offensive d-man to New Jersey for their first overall pick, and that pick turned out to be the third overall pick, and then Lou used that pick to draft a generational d-man?

Funny thought, though I have to say, I hate the massive overuse of the word "generational" instead of just "great" these days.  Not just in this case, but in general in hockey.  Niedermayer was a wonderful elite defenseman who won exactly one Norris Trophy.  That doesn't make him a once in a generation talent, regardless of how good he was.

Maybe I was implying that the d-man would be greater than Niedermayer?

Generational does get overused.  It's supposed to imply a player that only occurs once a generation.  I guess it comes down to if you think the talent that Niedermayer had was something that didn't happen often.  He won everything at every level.  He played big minutes in those wins.  I put him up there with Lidstrom, and I think most consider Lidstrom to be a generational d-man.  Some say that Lidstrom is right there with Bobby Orr as the best d-man ever.  I'm not sure I would go that far with Lidstrom.  However the fact that I have now listed two d-man that played in the same generation would probably exclude both from being considered as generational talents in the strictest sense of the word. 

Where would you put Karlsson?  Would you say he is a once in a generation d-man?  He puts up points better than any other d-man.  He has won two Norris's.  If he keeps doing that, how would you classify him?

Is Crosby generational?  Is McDavid?  I do think people overuse the term as a way of saying "This player is really really really good." without thinking about what they are really saying.  It's the problem with society today.  Words have meaning but people use them as if they don't. 

 

[Redleaf]

Wouldn't it be great if Lou traded a middling offensive d-man to New Jersey for their first overall pick, and that pick turned out to be the third overall pick, and then Lou used that pick to draft a generational d-man?

Funny thought, though I have to say, I hate the massive overuse of the word "generational" instead of just "great" these days.  Not just in this case, but in general in hockey.  Niedermayer was a wonderful elite defenseman who won exactly one Norris Trophy.  That doesn't make him a once in a generation talent, regardless of how good he was.

Maybe I was implying that the d-man would be greater than Niedermayer?

Generational does get overused.  It's supposed to imply a player that only occurs once a generation.  I guess it comes down to if you think the talent that Niedermayer had was something that didn't happen often.  He won everything at every level.  He played big minutes in those wins.  I put him up there with Lidstrom, and I think most consider Lidstrom to be a generational d-man.  Some say that Lidstrom is right there with Bobby Orr as the best d-man ever.  I'm not sure I would go that far with Lidstrom.  However the fact that I have now listed two d-man that played in the same generation would probably exclude both from being considered as generational talents in the strictest sense of the word. 

Where would you put Karlsson?  Would you say he is a once in a generation d-man?  He puts up points better than any other d-man.  He has won two Norris's.  If he keeps doing that, how would you classify him?

Is Crosby generational?  Is McDavid?  I do think people overuse the term as a way of saying "This player is really really really good." without thinking about what they are really saying.  It's the problem with society today.  Words have meaning but people use them as if they don't.

Generational talent 'should' only refer to players that are the very best of their generation of hockey players. So theoretically , there should only be like 4 or 5 'generational talents' since the NHL began. Orr and Gretzky are definitely on that list, but Mario technically wouldn't be because he was of the same generation as Wayne. I wouldn't classify Crosby as one yet either as McDavid or Matthews or whomever could come along and steal that title way from him within the next 5-10 years.

That's how I understand the meaning of that term, at least.

 

[bustaheims]

While it's a pretty meaningless term, to me, a generational talent is the type that would be among the top players in the league regardless of what generation they played in (with, of course, the built in assumption that they went through equivalent off-ice fitness training and such as the generation they're being compared to). So, that would include guys like Richards, Gretzky, Lemieux, Orr, Howe, etc. In my mind, it would also probably include Lidstrom, Jagr, and probably Crosby and Ovechkin.

 

[Kin]

  I guess it comes down to if you think the talent that Niedermayer had was something that didn't happen often.  He won everything at every level.  He played big minutes in those wins.  I put him up there with Lidstrom, and I think most consider Lidstrom to be a generational d-man.  Some say that Lidstrom is right there with Bobby Orr as the best d-man ever.  I'm not sure I would go that far with Lidstrom.  However the fact that I have now listed two d-man that played in the same generation would probably exclude both from being considered as generational talents in the strictest sense of the word. 

Only if you buy the premise that Niedermayer was on Lidstrom's level, which I really don't think many people would.

Personally, Niedermayer wouldn't even be the second best D-Man of his generation on my list. For me it'd probably go:

1. Lidstrom
2. Pronger
3. Niedermayer
4. Leetch

And, honestly, I'd say Niedermayer is significantly closer to Leetch than he is Pronger.

 

[Frank E]

  I guess it comes down to if you think the talent that Niedermayer had was something that didn't happen often.  He won everything at every level.  He played big minutes in those wins.  I put him up there with Lidstrom, and I think most consider Lidstrom to be a generational d-man.  Some say that Lidstrom is right there with Bobby Orr as the best d-man ever.  I'm not sure I would go that far with Lidstrom.  However the fact that I have now listed two d-man that played in the same generation would probably exclude both from being considered as generational talents in the strictest sense of the word. 

Only if you buy the premise that Niedermayer was on Lidstrom's level, which I really don't think many people would.

Personally, Niedermayer wouldn't even be the second best D-Man of his generation on my list. For me it'd probably go:

1. Lidstrom
2. Pronger
3. Niedermayer
4. Leetch

And, honestly, I'd say Niedermayer is significantly closer to Leetch than he is Pronger.

Is Bourque #5?

 

[rdowdall]

  I guess it comes down to if you think the talent that Niedermayer had was something that didn't happen often.  He won everything at every level.  He played big minutes in those wins.  I put him up there with Lidstrom, and I think most consider Lidstrom to be a generational d-man.  Some say that Lidstrom is right there with Bobby Orr as the best d-man ever.  I'm not sure I would go that far with Lidstrom.  However the fact that I have now listed two d-man that played in the same generation would probably exclude both from being considered as generational talents in the strictest sense of the word. 

Only if you buy the premise that Niedermayer was on Lidstrom's level, which I really don't think many people would.

Personally, Niedermayer wouldn't even be the second best D-Man of his generation on my list. For me it'd probably go:

1. Lidstrom
2. Pronger
3. Niedermayer
4. Leetch

And, honestly, I'd say Niedermayer is significantly closer to Leetch than he is Pronger.

Interesting, you have Leetch before Bourque.  I would have gone the other way. 

I don't know about the closer to Leetch than Pronger argument.  Niedermayer and Progers PPG are almost identical.  Pronger had the monster year in 1999-2000 where he won the Norris and the Hart.  Niedermayer won the Norris in 2003-2004 and the Conn Smythe in 2006-2007. 

I could see giving the edge to Pronger because of his size, but I would still say they are both really close.

All this to say definitively that Niedermayer was not a generational talent.

 

[Kin]

Is Bourque #5?

Bourque's 12 years older than Niedermayer so I didn't really consider him in the same bracket. To me Bourque's generation would be him, Coffey, Chelios, Macinnis and those guys.

 

[Kin]

Interesting, you have Leetch before Bourque.  I would have gone the other way.

Like I said to Frank, I don't really consider Bourque to be of that age group.

I don't know about the closer to Leetch than Pronger argument.  Niedermayer and Progers PPG are almost identical.  Pronger had the monster year in 1999-2000 where he won the Norris and the Hart.  Niedermayer won the Norris in 2003-2004 and the Conn Smythe in 2006-2007. 

I could see giving the edge to Pronger because of his size, but I would still say they are both really close.

It's not "size". Like you say, Pronger and Niedermayer were roughly equals when it came to offense but I think Pronger was the significantly better defender. Pronger at his best, all due respect to Nik Lidstrom, is probably the best defensive defenseman I've ever seen play. He should have won the 2005-2006 Conn Smythe.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

Pronger to me is almost like a defenceman version of Eric Lindros, in the sense that during their prime years they were the most dominating players in their particular position. And I use the word "dominating" over "best" for a good reason, because that's exactly what they did. Pronger of course had a much longer career and was a legit top line player throughout his career whereas Lindros trailed off though.

I also think that it's very interesting that the 2nd half of Pronger's career was likely better than his first half, you don't see that very often. He basically carried 3 different teams to the Stanley Cup finals in the span of 5 years, that's amazing.

 

[Kin]

I also think that it's very interesting that the 2nd half of Pronger's career was likely better than his first half, you don't see that very often. He basically carried 3 different teams to the Stanley Cup finals in the span of 5 years, that's amazing.

It's funny you say that about his second half being better than the first because I was going to say roughly the same thing about Niedermayer.

Admittedly, though, with him it's a little different because the rule changes after the lockout were almost uniquely suited to his skills.

 

[Heroic Shrimp]

Full interview with Lou:

https://mapleleafshotstove.com/2015/08/21/toronto-maple-leafs-gm-lou-lamoriello-we-have-a-plan-to-grow-a-little-slower-and-not-get-teased-by-any-immediate-success-here-or-there/

 

[Kin]

That interview sort of brings into focus something I've sort of been thinking this summer but have been unable to articulate.

Right now there are pretty legitimate questions to ask about how this unconventional management structure will deal with conflict. The problem is the only insight we can really gain on that is by asking the people involved and asking that question to the people involved is a little like asking "How will you two settle a custody dispute" to a couple of newlyweds. Right now everything's rosy, so in their minds everything in the future can be reasonably worked out with everyone getting on the same page.

The real answer to those questions is that we don't know and, more to the point, we can't. So they do sort of have to linger which, while not fun, is probably something people like me are going to have to accept.