Toronto Maple Leafs Must Be Joking: Press Conference a Total Disgrace
The first week of the Toronto Maple Leafs off-season has been like taking a tourbus through Crazy Town.
The Toronto Maple Leafs lost to the Boston Bruins in the dumbest possible way (David Pastrnkak gets wide open while Samsonov just watches the puck come out of the corner without cutting it off) and then the first week of the off-season opened in the same way.
The succession of stupid events started Saturday when The Professional Hockey Writers Association embarrassed itself by leaving a 70 goals scorer nominated for the Ted Lindsay, Selke and Lady Byng Trophies off their list of finalists.
Then Joseph Woll couldn't go. Then Keefe paired Matthews with Holmberg, scratched Nick Robertson (an under-discussed horrendous decision) and skated the combo of Edmundson-Lyubushkin-Benoit for nealry 60 minutes.
The refs called a penalty on a slash that wasn't a slash, a Leafs penalty shot was not called, and then the infamous Samsonov error in overtime.
Afterwards we saw Leafs Nation turn on Mitch Marner, we saw members of the media write articles about trading him for a loss, we saw the Leafs put all the blame on the one guy you could say had a successful spring, and then hold one of the dubest press conferences ever.
The succession of stupidity was broken only by Sheldon Keefe's classy goodbye video. Best of luck to him in the future, and I hope enjoys the Stanley Cups all ex-Leafs tend to win after they leave!
Toronto Maple Leafs Must Be Joking: Press Conference a Total Disgrace
Everything from the goal Boston scored to break Woll's shut-out with a tenth of a second remaining in Game 6 up to the end of yestreday's press conferene was a ridiculous series of events, even for Leafs fans who should be used to it by now.
But taking the cake was that Press Conference, which was a horrible opening to the Keith Pelley Era.
The whole thing was a bizarre, you have two guys (Shanahan, Treliving) giving cliched answers and trying to make excuses while offering just enough humilty and taking just enough blame to make the whole thing palatable to the masses.
I hated it.
I hated the wishy-washy answers and the fact that clearly no one in the room had any patience for what was being said.
To paraphrase the entire thing: "we did our best, but we failed, and we're going to try to do better, and EVERYTHING IS ON THE TABLE, but you know, we aren't going to be specific, and if you have a brain you know that we aren't trading Auston Matthews or resigning from our jobs, so technically we aren't open to EVERYTHING and, well, here's a few cliches to chew on until we hire a coach."
It was a massive mistake for the Leafs to fire Sheldon Keefe and think that's enough. They must think we are idiots.
Keefe Is a Scapegoat
First, while I don't love Keefe and I do agree that maybe a new voice is needed, let's not mince words here: The GM had a horrible first season.
The team's 5 x stars (injured or not) all had a horrible series against the Bruins. The depth players didn't step up. There are literally two people in the entire organization that exceeded expectations over the last three weeks: Sheldon Keefe and Joseph Woll.
Keefe was fired, but a 1 for 23 power-play is not on him, just look at the personnel on that power-play. Keefe got the Leafs to 8th overall despite the 24th best goaltending. He coached back from a 3-1 deficit. He got the most out of a poorly balanced roster and did what he could.
And he takes the blame. It's unfair and it's dumb. He didn't waste $20 million last off-season, he didn't give out No Movement Clauses to players with no leverage. He didn't build a blue-line that was completely incompatable with the forwards on the team.
He didn't change his 3rd line cetnre from Ryan O'Reilly to Pontus Holmberg. He couldn't embarass the guy who signed Ryan Reaves to a 3-year contract, so he had to play Reaves, only for him to be respoinsible for the Leafs going down 1-0 in half the playoff games they lost.
So Keefe is out and Shanahan and Treliving are staying. Two barely competant hockey-guys with no clue and no plan. The Leafs have no identity. They are stuck halfway between being a high-flying offensive team and a cliched playoff griding team that wins 2-1. They end up being bad at both.
These guys sat out the trade deadline in what is most likely the peak of Auston Matthews career. For sure it's one of his few prime seasons.
They keep thinking over and over that they can win without a #1 goalie or a #1defenseman. Their problem isn't really "the Core Four" or how they spend their salary cap. You could win the way they have run their team, you just need an elite defenseman and an elite goalie.
That has been obvious for years.
Keith Pelley had a chance to just wipe the slate clean. He didn't. We got a bunch of BS not one single person believed and now we get to watch as Shanahan and Treliving have one season to win or else...
But guess what that means? They hire a coach who the next regime gets stuck with. We spend the next year constantly talking about their eventual replacements. Everything they do this summer, and next season will be seen as temporary unless they win the Cup, which they can't do until next year at the earliest so it's going to be one long and crazy season.
The Toronto Maple Leafs had a chance to clean house and start over fresh. The biggest factor is probably that the new regime wouldn't feel a ton of pressure to trade away Mitch Marner at pennies on the dollar.
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But it's been a week of near-constant stupidity. The Toronto Maple Leafs are actualy in fine shape if you can ignore all the losing. Auston Matthews is signed long-term and he's already the best player in franchise history.