Mostar said:
Rebel_1812 said:
Mostar said:
No, we should accept being a bubble team and being laughed at by the media for expecting anything more.
But if we are a bubble team we should be well below the cap. We are capped out. So if talent equals dollars under the new cba we should have one of the best teams in the league. If we spent money on those without talent, well that is inefficient use of cap space and f's up any chance to correct the problem.
For whatever reason we are annually pegged as a bubble team, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a team that has bottomed out (and the leafs have previous to the last 3 or 4 seasons) to improve slowly.
It's too easy to look at it from a statistical standpoint and say, "The Leafs are going to continue on this directionless journey into perpetual abyss that is the NHL basement." I know 10 Canuck fans who can make that prediction, and they don't even watch the Canucks regularly, nevermind the Leafs.
One has to think that one of these years there will be a step in the right direction.
I'm almost starting to believe the tinfoil hat wearing crowd, that there is something inherently wrong with this market...that it breeds less than mediocrity.
I do not think the problem is with the market, but with those who were operating the organization. Examples:
- using a head-hunting firm to hire both Burke and Coangelo. The result was the Raptors made the playoffs only once (I believe) during their tenure as GMs. The Leafs...
- Burke came in with bravado indicating the type of team he wanted to develop, but the result was completely opposite.
- Wilson barely had a .500 coaching record with the Leafs. He gets an extension, the team sinks and he gets fired a few months after receiving the extension.
- MLSE hires a green GM in Ferguson. No explanations needed here.
- under Carlyle the Leafs went a long stretch with only 1 win in regulation time. There would have been enough time to replace him with someone else who could have a good look at the existing players, make a few changes and perhaps add some life into the team and prepare for the summer draft.
It is as if the organization has no idea how to win, and to have what it takes to win and any past plans set by coaches or GMs only resulted in prolonged failure.
What the organization needs is someone (Nonis?) to step up and make the coach accountable to winning and success, to develop a system for the players that will achieve that objective, to have the players accountable to that system and to remove those who refuse to play or are not capable of playing within that system. If the coach cannot develop a system that breeds success, there should be no hesitation to terminate that coach. Players have to be brought in who knows the sacrifices that have to be made to achieve success and who have achieved success and to instill that mindset into the other players on the team. Up until now it has basically been 'lets do something because it seems like a good thing to do' without actually thinking about the short and long term implications of these decisions.