kipwinger

Then they should stop buying tickets and put pressure on the organization to make some fundamental changes. They're like Lions fans. If you're sick of losing stop giving them money.

Last year everybody was ready to trade Tatar "because we have Nyquist so he's redundant" and this year many are ready to trade Jurco "because we've got Mantha". About the time we draft and develop top six wingers folks are ready to trade them. Insane. To me, Nyquist, Tatar, Jurco, Larkin, Mantha, Quellet, Sproul, and Marchenko are untouchable. Which still gives us Jensen, Backman, Pulkkinen, and one of Nosek or Athanasiou as high end prospects for trade. Think about it. In five years the wingers on your top two lines can be some combination of Tatar, Nyquist, Mantha, and Jurco and your top four defensemen could be Sproul-Dekeyser, Ouellet-Marchenko (Lefty-Righty, offensive-defensive in each case).

The long suffering Maple Leafs' fans ought to be saluted each and every game for being the most fickle, arrogant, and entitled group of fans in all of professional hockey. Hard to imagine why a guy like Phil Kessel wouldn't be interested in saluting a bunch of folks who were calling for his head after a 37 goal, 80 point season. Ditto for Kadri. And Reimer. There's only one salute these s***birds deserve, and it involves something other than a stick in the air. Maple Leafs fans, you are the problem.

I hope you're both right. Weiss need repetitions and confidence and he's not going to get either of those on the bench. Hopefully Babs' understands and is on board with this. Weiss needs to be given a line, with competent wingers, and enough time to find his game. Which shouldn't be asking too much. Look how much time Babs has given Helm to find his game after his craptacular start. Weiss is going to have some bad games on the road to recovery. But if he keeps getting jerked after each bad outing, he's never going to gain any traction. For now I'd stick him on a line with Helm and Jurco as wingers, and just let him get his strength and speed back. They won't score much (or at all) but if they can play teams even (until Dats gets back and the lines shuffle again) I'll be happy.

Not to be the type of guy who criticizes others' ideas and doesn't provide any thoughts of my own, here are two theories I have. Feel free to destroy them as needed... 1) Last I heard, we were 3rd in the league in powerplay opportunities and 19th in the league in powerplay percentage. A better powerplay equals more goals, and on most nights, more goals equals more wins. In this case, inconsistency is borne out of missed opportunities. 2) Without and established (and reliable) top two centers, Babs' is forced to mix and match lines and combinations in an attempt to find offense. Most of the time he doesn't get it (because he has to use guys out of position etc.) and when he does (like with the current Tatar-Sheahan-Abby line) he'll be forced to change it as soon as Dats or Weiss gets healthy. In this case, ever changing lines equals little chemistry, and little chemistry equals inconsistent nightly productivity. Aaaaaand attack.

Ericsson isn't "well into his 30's" and Quincey has been very good this year, let alone good enough to be on the roster. You're distorting things to make an argument work that doesn't. Our defense has a good dispersion of veterans and youth, just like almost every other defense. I do agree with you that Dekeyser has been our best d-man, and that he occasionally makes mistakes, but every team and every player occasionally make mistakes. But that doesn't explain why we can't string together wins. Look, I'm not saying we don't have young guys on the team. We do. Every team does. I'm just skeptical of overly simplistic answers. Two years ago we were really inconsistent and it was because we had "too many veterans" and they weren't "hungry enough". It was wrong then, and this modern "too many young guys" theory seems wrong now. We are not noticeably younger than any other team, and older than many. The theory simply doesn't hold water.

Helm, Abby, Quincey, Ericsson, and Miller are all veteran players in "their prime". And then we've got quite a few older veterans, with a bunch of kids mixed in. I'd imagine our age dispersion isn't noticeably different than any other team. And it's not like we've got a 48 year old Chelios and a 41 year old Lidstrom on the team bringing up the average age. The average age his high because we've got a mostly veteran team. Now, if one were to say that young guys occupy extremely important roles on the team, I'd say they've got a better point. But then we'd have to look at other teams and see how many of them have young guys occupying top four, and top six spots. I'd imagine it's more that you think.

Don't we still have one of the oldest teams in the league? Edit: Yes, we do. http://stats.nhlnumbers.com/teams

Beats me. That's why I created the thread. To work through plausible theories.

Good luck getting Dats and Z healthy at the same time. And should one of them get hurt, who takes over that center spot? This has been the problem for a couple years now. We don't have two reliable centers, even with Dats and Z on the team because they're both injury prone. I agree with your approach though, and hopefully Ken Holland is somewhere doing this exact thing. Sitting down and figuring out who slots where and who doesn't fit into the long term plan for the team.

Sure, anything can happen. But all things being equal, you've got to admit that Jason Demers is a much better defenseman than Brenden Dillon, right?

It's not expensive for Jim Nill apparently. For that guy, getting good defense is a simple as identifying the biggest one dimensional thinker in the Western Conference and giving him EXACTLY what he wants....a big stupid meathead.

When in doubt I whip it out, got me a rock n' roll band, IT'S A FREE FOR ALL!!!!

We need a second line center. They've got a Jumbo one.

Haven't we been better without Datsyuk than with him? Not exactly the picture of consistency in that respect.

Careful. You know how that kind of talk is responded to around here.

I'm putting this here because I didn't want to start another thread. But did anybody else see Jim Nill absolutely fleece Doug Wilson on that Brendan Dillon for Jason Demers trade? Apparently if you've got a half assed hockey player, but he's bigger than 6'3 and 220 lbs. you should call the Sharks. Think they'd take Kindl lol?

That's definitely a theory that I've thought about, but the problem I have with what I'll call the "transition argument" is this...all those guys are playing great. The fourth line is playing awesome, the kids (other than Jurco) are playing very well, the prime guys have been good (minus Helm), and the vets are all playing well. Literally everybody on the team aside from Jurco, Helm, Lashoff, and Kindl are playing great hockey. And we don't really rely on any of those four to win games anyway. That's what's so irritating about all this for me. Everybody is playing pretty well. We've got a good offense, defense, goaltending, and special teams. And yet we can't string together wins. I just don't get it. Edit: The only thing that I can think of is that the absence of a second line center has forced Babs to mix and match lines constantly. Which hurts consistency since lines never have a chance to establish any game to game chemistry. Problem with this theory is that Babs would juggle lines every game whether we have a second line center or not, so why is it so much worse now than every other time he's mixed things up for the hell of it?

Why do you suppose that is?

Haha, I actually think Franzen has been excellent this season. So this is no knock on him. But I'll trade a second line winger for a top line center any day of the week. As would, hopefully, every other person in the hockey world.

Whatever guys, that's a great idea, we should be learning from them. I'm just going to throw it out there right now...Anybody want to trade their #1 center for Johan Franzen? Because if you play your cards right, I just might be willing to make that happen for you. Whaddya say?

Man I'd like to see a little bit more consistency out of this team. Like a good four game win streak would do my heart good. We've got a skilled team, and some guys are playing really well, but damn if they can't do it every night.

Because what's a good conspiracy theory without an evil genius? If Mr. McMahon...er...Bettman isn't in the house then the marks won't really believe Stone Cold Steve Austin is in peril of being thrown out of the Royal Rumble.

Just sour grapes. He didn't kick at anyone, and he celebrated like he usually does, which of course is offensive to Toronto fans' sensibilities unless Phil Kessel does it. f*** those whiners.

Lol. So it's safe to say you're incensed just because?