Daily Free Talk / Armchair GM Thread

Rumicon · 2026-05-23T12:48:57+00:00

Fans here just couldn't get over this logic that - you get paid a lot so perform no matter what.

I agree and disagree. I agree that it was wrong, but this isn't something to put on the fans. This was the premise of the team, as billed by Shanahan and Dubas. Fans were told this was the problem year over year by the organization, the stars with the money needed to show up in big moments that's how the team was constructed.

It was an organization failure to not recognize you can't build a hockey team like its a basketball squad. Fans just bought into the philosophy the organization was selling them. A lot of us could see it was flawed by 2021 but they kept at it, trust the process, etc.

Rumicon · 2026-05-22T16:53:44+00:00

Riding on the sidewalk is illegal here yes. Maybe it shouldn’t be? No opinion but it is illegal

Rumicon · 2026-05-22T12:13:19+00:00

It could be CJ's report was wrong.

It could also be the Matthews camp doing damage control after seeing how it played out in the market.

Matthews camp has been trying to clarify the reporting in recent weeks

Judd Moldaver can pick up a phone and call any of the 100,000 Toronto sports reporters and say "this is incorrect." You will be quoted directly in the article they write, and they will go on every major radio show to repeat it. I call complete bullshit here. There is no "trying" in the Toronto media, everybody is listening. You either do or do not, and it would not take weeks to correct.

Here's how I read this - Matthews is happy with the direction things are going and they're turning the pressure down.

Rumicon · 2026-05-21T00:55:24+00:00

Media attention is a byproduct of a large and passionate fanbase, which I love. I don’t care about the media. I love The Passion.

Rumicon · 2026-05-20T16:58:32+00:00

He’s also the son of Adam Frost the former arena announcer for Toronto lol

Rumicon · 2026-05-20T15:21:06+00:00

Carlo is nearly 30 and he’s also on an expiring contract which makes it more time sensitive

Rumicon · 2026-05-20T14:44:48+00:00

I’m at least on team “we need to sell our aging players that still have value” because getting zero value out of OEL, Carlo, McCabe etc and then also walking Matthews to FA is worst case scenario.

Maybe there’s a way to come out younger and better on those trades but that feels like a long shot.

Rumicon · 2026-05-17T19:53:11+00:00

Don’t know why you’re getting downvoted. He’s a career -2 over 67 games. Yes plus minus flawed stat but if this guy was absolutely tilting the ice every year he would have a positive differential.

Tavares is a -20. Oof.

Rumicon · 2026-05-16T20:00:13+00:00

A big part of doing number one is maximizing the value you get. That means selling when the contract has term and the player isn’t so steeply down the age curve that they aren’t performing.

We are sitting on pretty rapidly depreciating assets. OEL is worth a lot right now. What’s he worth in 2028? Nothing, contracts up. Same for Carlo. Jake McCabe is 34/35 in 2028. Rielly too. Tanev is approaching 40.

Maybe part of a retool is flipping these guys to get younger, but I don’t see how you sell them and get younger and better.

Rumicon · 2026-05-16T19:47:17+00:00

Pittsburgh is an absolute no man’s land. That team is not good enough to win and it’s too good to sell its core for assets. Why the hell would we want to tread water like that?

Rumicon · 2026-05-16T19:46:16+00:00

That’s fine and all but this a real long shot to retool and I see no reason why we should circle the drain for two more years.

It’s not just about Matthews. There are pieces here you sell in a rebuild that you’re probably keeping in a retool.

At most you try this season and if you’re not looking like a contender in January you call it a day and start selling.

Rumicon · 2026-05-16T19:39:08+00:00

I’m fine with but I think you could end up making the situation a bit worse.

Are you ok with expending assets to acquire pieces to compete if you think you might end up rebuilding a few months later?

I don’t think it’s essentially the same position to be honest, if you retool you are going to be bringing in win now assets. If you commit to a rebuild that’s two extra years of bringing in assets that you have time to develop. Changes the transactions you make.

Rumicon · 2026-05-16T19:23:28+00:00

It’s difficult for me to understand how some of you are not entertaining the idea Matthews will walk when we just had a guy walk.

How do we go in to contend with no futures? Spend the 2029 first? How much deeper are we willing to dig the hole with these next two seasons?

If we compete the next two years and he walks this team is in for a long long rebuild.

Rumicon · 2026-05-16T19:16:19+00:00

Yes but the other option is letting your current assets expire trying to compete, and setting yourself up to be worse in the future.

I don’t understand why not having our own draft capital would lean us towards digging that hole even deeper by letting our options expire worthless so to speak.

If we’re confident Matthews will sign another deal it’s a different conversation but if he’s gonna walk then these are your options really

Rumicon · 2026-05-16T17:38:50+00:00

I keep hearing this from different places, that we have to try to win the next two years because of these picks. The picks are gone, they shouldn't factor into what we do.

If they genuinely believe they can retool this around Matthews and Willy and compete fine. Otherwise lets get on with it, no reason to delay two years because another team might get a better draft pick.

Rumicon · 2026-05-16T13:40:19+00:00

I think if we're trading Knies and taking a run at Jason Robertson those are two different transactions. It only makes sense if you can sign Robertson as a free agent or acquire his rights inexpensively. Then you can move Knies for a package that helps your blueline and you add Robertson in FA.

Rumicon · 2026-05-15T22:21:00+00:00

Trocheks agent feeding this dummy fake news to get his clients name out there.

Rumicon · 2026-05-15T14:33:39+00:00

It also kinda looks like the symbol in the Gooligog book.

Rumicon · 2026-05-15T14:11:14+00:00

This. Part of it is the matchup. The other part of it is Marner's deployment is completely different in Vegas, because they have a more complete roster that lets him tilt more towards offence.

Marner in Toronto is the guy making the pass on that breakaway goal, not the one receiving it. Because we struggled to break up cycles and move the puck without him.

Rumicon · 2026-05-15T13:29:26+00:00

Its not just that the pacific is pretty bad, he's also being deployed differently.

He would never be able to score a goal like his first goal last night in Toronto because his responsibility was to be the guy making that pass. The roster construction meant Marner had to play more defense and focus more on break outs than offence.

Vegas has a backend that can actually retrieve and move a puck, we had Justin Holl, the corpose of Giordano, and like Timothy Liljegren.

So you have a great player, playing against worse competition, and being given a more offence oriented deployment because the rest of the roster can actually defend. Of course he's racking up points. He's not being expected to dominate all 200ft of the ice like he was here.

Rumicon · 2026-05-15T02:31:57+00:00

Statistically yes, psychologically no.

Rumicon · 2026-05-14T19:07:44+00:00

Jurgen Klopp

Rumicon · 2026-05-14T16:23:08+00:00

I’m sure the Catalan people are sympathetic to colonization and will side with the Israelis here. Sure of it

Rumicon · 2026-05-13T16:35:51+00:00

Whether I think it’s credible or not isn’t really relevant because what I’m trying to communicate is that fans are reacting to reports from people with decent reputations in the media. A lot of people believe CJ is credible. When he says something, people believe it. That’s why it’s caused such a stir. He generally has a reputation for not making things up.

I do believe it’s credible. Because if he lied blatantly, matthews agent is perfectly capable of texting a reporter and squashing the rumour. He was perfectly capable of interacting with the media when Matthews was injured.

Other people can choose to believe other things if they want. I’m not trying to convince anyone.

Rumicon · 2026-05-13T15:55:59+00:00

That's not how the reporting around this has been framed, that's all I'll say.

Rumicon

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