The Toronto Maple Leafs Hot-Take Factory: Marner, Coach, Hart + Accountability
The Toronto Maple Leafs are looking for a new coach, the NHL Playoffs roll on without them, and everyone is still mad at poor old Mitch Marner.
The Toronto Maple Leafs are rumoured to be hiring Craig Berube, but he's also interviewing with other teams.
There is so much going on, so I figured I'd just do a little wrap up post and give you a bunch of takes on a bunch of topics.
Here goes:
On the Toronto Maple Leafs New Coach
I think the Leafs are making a mistake going so hard after Craig Berube. He's the most in-demand guy right now, and people love a hard-ass.
Unless he's their boss, that is. Berube is a fine choice, but I think he's the wrong one. The Leafs spent years trying to be innovative, and then they panic-hired Brad Treliving, the most middle of the road "hockey guy" there is.
I believe Berube follows this kind of uncreative, old-school thinking and I think that's a mistake.
In my opinion the Leafs should wait to see if Jon Cooper, Mike Sullivan or Rod Brind'Amour become available. These are progressive, new-school coaches with a ton of success. Pretty much everyone considers them the three best coaches in the NHL today.
If they wait and miss out, they can just circle back to Bruce Boudreau or maybe even try out Mitch Love. For a full list of options, check this out.
On Accountability
Accountability.
It's the catch-phrase of the week in Leaf-Land.
Only thing is, just like effort, humans really don't know what they are talking about when they try to judge it in a situation they are not apart of.
NHL players are held accountable by their coaches in all sorts of ways. According to the public, the only way to hold someone accountable is to rip them to the media, but that is often counterproductive and destroys trust and communication.
I guarantee you that Sheldon Keefe was perfect fine at holding his players accountable. Having some old man yell at you at work has never, ever, made someone a better worker. It doesn't work in factories and it doesn't work in the NHL.
This is a non-sense narrative. If I'm behind honest, as soon as someone mentions "accountability" my eyes glaze over faster than if they started telling me about their kid's sports team, their fantasy sports team, why CBDs are so good, or their takes on wine, the UFC, or Astrology.
On Mitch Marner
He'd score more in the playoffs, and be more popular, if he wasn't saddled with playing so much defense. (stats from naturalstattrick.com).
I see a lot of mainstream, printed in the actual newspaper takes about Leon Draisaitl doubling Marner's production.
— Editor in Leaf (@EditorinLeaf) May 14, 2024
At 5v5, last 3 playoffs:
w LD on ice Edm is winning 48-38 (56%)
w MM on ice TOR is winning 20-11 (64%)#leafsforever https://t.co/sRNt1NDdVM
Marner should be back. Trading him is silly. You don't get better by trading the second-best players in the entire history of your 100 year old franchise.
He suffered a high-ankle sprain in mid-March and was playing after one month even though it was a two-month recovery time. The Leafs still won his minutes.
On the Boston Bruins Series
The most frustrating thing watching the aftermath of the Leafs losing is the irony.
For years, Shanahan has preached patience in the face of the volitility of NHL Playoff Results.
Now, the team is on the verge of being ripped apart because people just want change for the sake of change.
No one seems to want to talk about the fact that the Leafs did better and went farther than they were expected to.
They were the 10th best team, and they over-achieved to finish that high. They came into the playoffs with nine NHL defenseman, seven of which are, at best, bottom-pairing guys.
They deployed John Tavares as a defensive centre. All three of their other super-star forwards were injured in some way. They started on the road against one of the best teams in the NHL.
I thought the Leafs played a good series. But the crazy thing is that, at best, they were a poorly constructed team whose only hope of a Stanley Cup was to get lucky.
It just seems ridiculous to blame Mitch Marner when your GM doesn't add anyone at the trade deadline and your starting goalie was on waivers in January.
The Hart Trophy
Auston Matthews was left out of the top three MVP candidates because he didn't score enough secondary assists (which are luck based and not repeatable) to properly pad his point totals.
Despite this, he was one of the three best defensive forwards in the NHL, and played nearly a quarter of his minutes with TJ Brodie on the ice.
How many goals does he score if the Leafs coach deploys him like Nikita Kucherov is deployed? 90? 100?
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I realize that Leafs fans are more concerned about winning the Stanley Cup, but this might be the most egregious snub in NHL history. Just an absolute joke.