Maple Leafs 2017-2018 Season Thread
- Thread starter smuddan
- Start date
Lou stabilized a dysfunctional franchise now he's going to get the Islanders their new arena. The ethnic mix in Brooklyn has changed, the Islanders were never going to sell there. Now they can get back to being Long Island's team.
I wouldn't call the Shanaplan 'falling apart' except what I once considered "a dream team" is. Shanahan knew all along that eventually he would have to make a choice among Hunter, Lamoriello and Dubas and risk losing the other two.
I'm concerned with Dubas's inexperience in managing a NHL team and the timing makes his job that much more difficult. Dubas's experience has been all with minor league teams and the Marlies. A look at the Marlies' roster reveals that the core has Hunter's stamp on it. Sparks is contributing to the Marlies' success like Fleury is doing to the Knights and he has nothing to do with Dubas. He did hire Sheldon Keefe who's turning out to be a very good coach. A lot of critical decisions to make and but at least Dubas has a solid young core to work with.
With the firing of Casey, ownership showed that having a successful regular season doesn't guarantee job security. Even with a big contract, Babcock is not immune to scrutiny and criticism. He'll probably want even more involvement in player personnel if he feels his job is in jeopardy.
Kyle Dubas & Mark Hunter have both had the same amount of experience (or lack thereof) managing a NHL team.
When LL left and they named Dubas the GM, I thought that, due to Hunter's renown as a great evaluator of junior talent, which is so important, they would have given him a big bump in pay, since he didn't get the title, to keep him in the fold.
Hunter is pretty well off. I believe he owns the London Knights. Not enough money for him to swallow his pride for losing the job to a much young guy and the prospect of working directly under him, I guess.
It's too bad because that was potentially a good duo for ham and egging it. One on the recruiting/evaluating side and one on the operations side. I was hoping that Shanahan knew in advance who he was going to choose and would have approached Hunter to work something out. He may not have needed the extra money but maybe it would have indicated to him how valued he would have been to the organization.
Oh well. Let him go. His brother Dale is one of the biggest dicks that I ever saw play. In particular that play where he slammed a defenseless ************ Turgeon into the boards a good 3 or 4 seconds after he'd scored a big playoff goal against Dale's Caps. Total blatant, gutless move and he later claimed it was just a reactionary move. So Mark is guilty be association. LOL
This is the situation not all 3 (Lou, Mark and Kyle) are going to stay with the Leafs. No surprises, just the Toronto media loves to make a shit storm of it.
I'm not so sure if there weren't some miscalculations on Shanahan's part that he thought he could keep either Lamoreillo or Hunter to work with Dubas.
Leafs have hired Lawrence Gilman to be AGM, and probably GM of the Marlies. Former right-hand man to Mike Gillis in Vancouver, and was involved in creating the expansion rules for Vegas.
From a Canucks fan friend of mine, follows the team closely, pretty rational, so far as a fan can be, opinion of Mr. Gilman....
He's a very smart, capologist type AGM.
He and Mike Gillis were the masterminds behind building the 2011 Canucks
He'll try and convince players to take a discount, in order to fit/bring in the right pieces for a successful team.
You're very lucky to have him!!
He's a very smart, capologist type AGM.
He and Mike Gillis were the masterminds behind building the 2011 Canucks
He'll try and convince players to take a discount, in order to fit/bring in the right pieces for a successful team.
You're very lucky to have him!!
After a 4 game sweep of the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, the Marlies are going to the Calder Cup Final.
Sparks’ 31-9-1 record, six shutouts, 1.79 goals-against average and .936 save percentage easily earned him the Aldege “Baz” Bastien Memorial Award for the AHL’s outstanding goalie of the season. He's been with the Marlies for 5 years and his time for NHL should be next season. It'll be interesting to see what Dubas does with three competent goalkeepers.
Sparks’ 31-9-1 record, six shutouts, 1.79 goals-against average and .936 save percentage easily earned him the Aldege “Baz” Bastien Memorial Award for the AHL’s outstanding goalie of the season. He's been with the Marlies for 5 years and his time for NHL should be next season. It'll be interesting to see what Dubas does with three competent goalkeepers.
Impressive to say the least. A lot of credit is being given to Kyle Dubas for the Marlies success.
I agree, Sparks should be the Leafs backup next year, and they should play him more than they played McElhinney. I think a more rested Andersen heading into the playoffs can only help.
Lamoriello is President of Hockey Operations for the New York Islanders, don't sound like a part time consulting job to me.
President of the USA only works part time, so the same should be doable for Lou.
