Boooooooooooooooooooooo!
They can't win playing defensively when holding leads. They can't win by playing behind. They can't win, period.
What seems clearer, was how good a coach Carlyle was. He got this bunch into the playoffs, and the team was in a playoff position before he got fired.
This beginning to look like a total joke.
What the hell is Shanahan doing or thinking? Fuck, he should lace them up and get in the lineup. At least he played with a lot of heart.
But it was his mistake that created all this.
The surprise firing of the coach, not a surprise to Carlyle it seems now, but to the players yeah seemed like a surprise. Then the meeting where Shanahan puts the team on notice that we are watching you. Those are two glaring errors. That was so dumb.
Carlyle was replaced by a coach who cannot win because he misallocates his resources. Firing a good coach was the first mistake.
The second mistake was putting the individual players on notice. That was a huge mistake. When you play hockey, you gotta play hockey. You cannot play thinking, "I cannot make a mistake". And that is how the Leafs are playing, not to win, but to not make mistakes according to the defense first system of the new coach.
No one on the Leafs roster wants to get traded out of town, that is the Blue and White disease. Joe Nieuwendyk was in the papers, and he said that being a Leafs "was probably the greatest experience" of his career. Blue & White Disease is tough enough, why compound it with such stupid management decisions. First thing they got to do is fire Nonis. Maybe even fire Shanahan. Let him learn the job somewhere else if he does not smarten up.
Shanahan should just on the phone with Don Cherry. Grapes still cares about the Leafs. Get Mark Hunter to talk to Grapes, aren't the Hunter family close to Cherry?
This cannot continue. Players can come and go, but professional reputation could be tarnished forever.
:blabla:
I'm still not sure what "live in the city" means. If it means "have a permanent address in the city", I don't see what the big deal is. They spend so much time traveling to games, GM meetings, scouting trips, etc, that where their mail gets delivered doesn't mean much. It would be nice if they (and the players) "lived in the city" year-round, but that is a rarity.
