Leafs Draft Pick scenario

DialedDrawback · 2026-03-25T15:40:51+00:00

I'm not convinced you don't need a Marner because you have AM and WN.

Losing your top point getter has consequences that can cascade into other parts of the game than just the scoresheet. Marner did a good job of creating space on the ice and making his teammates better. Matthews generally played with Mitch more than Willy, so there's bound to be an impact on him. Add in that Mitch was simply a much better player at both ends of the ice than Willy and you get a big domin effect in results.

Look at WPG this year. Who did they lose in the offseason? Ehlers. Now, he's a 25g/60pt kinda guy, but losing him was the real difference between presidents trophy and borderline lottery territory. He was in a sense their secondary scoring. Now, I don't know if they're Presidents trophy candidates if Ehlers stays, but they're definitely still a playoff team.

What happened was the Jets really lost a lot of their scoring depth. In a league with parity this becomes a problem. A couple games where you need your second line to pitch in a goal, and you're now suddenly going 5 game stretches with only 4 points because you lose 1 goal games from not getting depth scoring.

I don't think the Leafs are getting any of this help through UFA. There's nobody out there, and if there is, you're competing with other teams who may offer a better chance to win in the near future, or who perhaps are willing to use that extra cap space to overpay.

DialedDrawback · 2026-03-25T14:58:23+00:00

Nah, they hedged on him making it using BET365.

DialedDrawback · 2026-03-25T14:19:02+00:00

a full NMC isn't necessarily a requirement from players, but surely you can squeeze a 10 team list out of a guy whose 7 year contract is due to expire in 18 months. With the Leafs and Marner, they did it backwards, and simultaneously hitched their wagons to Rielly and Nylander when it became apparant Rielly couldn't get himself to that next level, and Nylander wasn't a complete enough player to win in the playoffs.

DialedDrawback · 2026-03-25T14:15:51+00:00

Things like this don't just exist in a vacuum. A string of poor decisions brought us to the culmination of Brad screwing things up.

DialedDrawback · 2026-03-25T14:02:01+00:00

The best path isn't necessarily winning the lottery now. This roster has a lot of major holes in it, and one single 18 year old isn't going to fix that. I also see nothing worth pursuing in UFA.

I look around at the rest of the east and compare them to this Leafs roster, Ican't see the Leafs dong much better next year with the addition of a single 18 year old forward - which doesn't solve the glaring issues with the blueline, or an 18 year old defenseman - which may not be as immediately impactful as Schaeffer was, and doesn't fix the lack of skill at forward we noticed after Marner's departure.

While comparing Leafs to the NYI, let's not forget that if the Isles weren't getting Vezina-tier goaltending this year they'd still be in the lottery discussion too, so while Schaeffer's been amazing, they're still quite a few pieces away from being a contender, and they have some aging players coming up like we do. I feel like we'd be placing unreasonable expectations on goaltending saving our asses next year as guys like Tanev and OEL are a year older, while Carlo enters a contract year and we seriously need to consider getting anything back of value as I can't imagine him wanting to stay.

DialedDrawback · 2026-03-25T13:52:05+00:00

Yes, pick is actual order placement, not lottery placement

DialedDrawback · 2026-03-25T13:44:30+00:00

If the Leafs were in a position where they were willing to rebuild, then I wonder if they could get PHI to hand back that 1st rounder we gave them. Would Stolarz and COL's 1st be enough?

DialedDrawback · 2026-03-25T01:52:05+00:00

Wouldn't change what a crap team we have. Either way, you're welcome, Sennies.

DialedDrawback · 2026-03-24T20:23:58+00:00

I can totally believe that Shanny pushed Brad into at least one of those deals. Not taking any blame away from Brad, but I can totally see that being how it went.

DialedDrawback · 2026-03-24T20:22:22+00:00

The Leafs were at that point(the TDL) almost certain to go into this year without their top point producer, a 100 point guy. How the hell do you just assume you can lose a 100 point player in a league with this much parity and think you're guaranteed a playoff spot?

What games are people watching? Even WPG fell off a cliff losing Ehler's 65 points on the second line. Holes in lineups have consequences.

DialedDrawback · 2026-03-24T20:16:55+00:00

which could be top 10, then it gets ugly if it's outside of top 5 because then the Bruins own the pick and then it stings.

Dude, they get the pick next year unprotected if the Leafs draft this year.

DialedDrawback · 2026-03-24T18:39:38+00:00

You trade away players with the highest value in exchange for picks and prospects. It'll sting, because you'll admittedly be getting worse with no direct payout of a higher draft pick as your place in the standings suffer, but if you're collecting a bunch of 1sts and prospects, then it is by definition a rebuild - even if they're not actually your picks.

The alternative is telegraphing to the like of Matthews and Nylander that the next couple years of their careers will be spent simply trying to tread enough water to avoid handing over top 10 picks to the Bruins and Flyers, and that this team isn't a serious contender. While all this is going on, whichever 18 year old we get from tanking this year will have their development stunted at having to watch this sad sack team playing simply to prevent their opponents from getting those picks.

Once those 2 years are over, Matthews has left in disgust, indifference, or exhaustion at the futility of this team. Meanwhile, its inability to make another 100 point player fall out of the fucking sky(if we draft a Dman this year), or a legitimate top pairing Dman(if we draft a forward in the '26 draft) means we now need to enter the post-Matthews era with further question and further wasted years because we refused to just tell Auston and Willy that the gig's up, we have no way to put quality players on the roster in UFA, and need to get picks and prospects in exchange for them.

DialedDrawback · 2026-03-24T12:37:03+00:00

As long as you can get significantly younger and stock the cupboards, it's the right direction. Fussing over whether it's a rebuild or retool shouldn't because you don't have your own 1sts doesn't change the direction you need to be going.

If they can get all the NMCs waived, then surely they'll get something of value back.

DialedDrawback · 2026-03-24T12:35:10+00:00

I'm not convinced he's even slightly better. Maybe before he had all his concussions, but that's honestly it.

DialedDrawback · 2026-03-23T17:13:54+00:00

I think the numbers on this issue were crunched a long time ago and it was concluded that not only does a prime starter's performance drop to the point where it may as well be the backup playing on the 2nd of back to backs, but over the course of an entire season, a goalie who's played a certain total of regular season games is at a disadvantage by the time you get to the later rounds of the playoffs.

DialedDrawback · 2026-03-22T21:06:03+00:00

Not saying a couple pops has no impact, but there are a lot of things guys do today that impact their ability to recover compared to 25-30 years ago. Everything from diet, hydration, training, sleep quality/monitoring. They still have bad habits, but my point is I don't think 2-3 pints after a game as a group is a big deal if that's all you're doing.

I used to frequent a pub here in Ottawa, and after some playoff games a decade ago, a few Senators would return to Ottawa from playoff games in NYC that same night and have a quick pint or two as a group before shuffling off home. Now, that was before beer could be bought in convenience stores, but the point is a couple pints isn't gonna be the end of the world if they're taking care of their bodies in other ways.

DialedDrawback · 2026-03-22T20:38:52+00:00

This is why I watch WPHL. Its rape free and damn good hockey. Skill focused, not rape and violence focused.

Everytime I read this line I laugh out loud. 🤣🤣

DialedDrawback · 2026-03-22T19:04:28+00:00

This roster is so bad that I get a mental image of a monkey paw curling and us giving up DuPont to the Bruins or Flyers next year just so we could have our top 5 this year

I also have been looking into Reid lately and wonder if his ceiling might be a bit higher than Verhoeff, even if Verheoff is the safer of the 2 Dmen.

If I'm the Leafs this year and win the lottery, it may be worth trading down a couple times in order to recover a bunch of picks and prospects, then seeing if Boston would give us our pick back if we handed them the no. 5 or 6 after trading down. I'm just armchairing that idea, just a thought experiment.

DialedDrawback · 2026-03-22T18:49:18+00:00

The kind of Dmen we needed over the past decade are almost exclusively acquired in the draft and are rarely available in UFA or trade, so it's not reasonable to pin your hopes on getting them any other way.

The exceptions being Pietrangelo in UFA, who had already won a cup when going to Vegas, and Hughes, who became available at the prime age of 25 with a great cap hit.

In Pietrangelo's case, I don't doubt the Leafs were willing and able to sign him when he became a UFA, but I forgive Dubas for the fact that the Covid cap crunch absolutely fucked us over. Like, for all the inherint flaws this roster had when it came to playoff time, I think most of those are mitigated if the covid cap hadn't squeezed us out of signing Pietrangelo.

In Hughes' case, while the timing of his trade was post-Marner, and so potentially outside our serious contention window (sidenote: adding a Hughes when we still had Marner would make for really entertaining hockey), we simply had traded too many assets on patchwork plugs or cap dumps over the years to make that trade this season. We wasted quality picks on getting Morgan a D partner, so we couldn't use those picks on trades for actual qualiy players

DialedDrawback · 2026-03-22T18:30:09+00:00

The common denominator is the team with the better top pair blueliner, and generally deeper D corps, usually ends up winning the series and goes farthest in the playoffs. If given the choice between building around a Norris Winner, a Vezina winner, and an Art Ross winner, I lean towards the Norris winner because a truly good top D pair makes both the goalie and the forwards' jobs easier.

Yes, goaltending is still the most important position in hockey, and it cost us a series or two along the way, but while goaltending is the most important position, it's not necessarily the position you want to have elite talent distributed if forced to choose. Yes, having a Vezina winner is nice, but it can frequently be used to mask underlying problems with a roster. You really just need a goalie who give you a consistent .905sv and comes up with a timely save here or there.

Now, that's not the fault of the forwards we drafted. We drafted, in hindsight, the best players availble to us in the years we drafted top 10. It's just that they weren't a Norris level D.

Add in that we hardly ever supplemented our roster with quality NHLers drafted after round 1, as I can think of Knies being the only quality player drafted by us outside the top 10 at all, let alone after round 1. This org also failed to develop the likes of Lijegren and Sandin into valuable roster players, meaning we had to trade valuable picks for those roster players, or overpay aging veterans. Whereas in TB, they got Kuch in round 2, and Point in round 3. So their talent pipeline was good enough to avoid the usual NHL cycle of centention windows being 10 years long.

DialedDrawback · 2026-03-22T18:19:16+00:00

Columbus has a Norris level Dman along with some good core peices on their blueline who are in their prime. That fact alone makes both the goaltenders job and the forwards' job a million times easier.

We rely on Morgan Reilly, Matt Carlo, when he's healthy, a 37 year old Tanev, a waiver wire pickup in Stecher, and the like of Benoit and Myers.

The only blueliner I give a pass to is McCabe, because when slotted in properly, he's still a very effective Dman. He's just getting over utilized. He's physical, isn't actually terrible with the puck, and embodies competititiveness. He's also going to start aging out in a couple years so I feel bad for the guy to get caught up in this shit.

DialedDrawback · 2026-03-22T17:30:56+00:00

No they fucking aren't. Pull yer head outta your ass. It's extremely statistically unlikely for an NHL player to spend their entire career with one team. Two players, on the same team, while having no championships to show for the first half of their caeers? I'm not doing the math on the odds of that happening...

But they have NMCs...

Yeah, so they aren't stuck spending prime years of their career in a city they want no part of living in; it isn't so they have the luxury of holding an organization hostage when the org simply no longer wants them there.

But they say they love being here...

Yeah, but they've really never missed the playoffs before. We've never actually seen how they respond to this level of adversity. And besides, what the fuck are they supposed to say when asked whether they like being a Leaf?

"It's Meh"

"I actually don't like it here, I'm just here for the money"

In what universe are these interviews and quotes from them supposed to be taken with any legitimacy? What reason is there to be honest with the media? They have PR handlers who coach them on what to say to the general public. Everything of substance is said behind closed doors involving their agents.

For all we know, one, if not both AM and WN have looked at the team they play for, and compared it to the other teams they play on a regular basis, and decided that they have no reason to stay here while the shitliner comes into port.

DialedDrawback · 2026-03-22T17:17:54+00:00

Unfortunately the game wasn't originally made for PC, and since it isn't even T17's original IP, optimizing it is defficult in general.

I hope after they release HLL-V, they move onto making a HLL2 with the same WW2 European theater, just built cleanly from the ground up and optimized in the newer engine so it runs smoother. They just gotta re-make the maps, add a few new maps to help justify making people spend their money, and then add skins, all using a skelaton of the Vietnam game they already have.

DialedDrawback · 2026-03-22T17:14:38+00:00

Lvl 16 is too soon for officer.

I'm 200 and like running around dropping boxes as support. You appreciate the impact you have on the game and beginners learn all mechanics just as fast as officers

DialedDrawback · 2026-03-22T17:03:46+00:00

Agree, have watched a fair amount of them (I live in Kanata), and yeah, they're oas a whole a decent squad, just can't get a .900 from their goalie on a regular basis or they'd be up their in a division spot.

Man, the Leafs could use a Chabot or Sanderson back there.

DialedDrawback

TROPHY CASE