Quote:
Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina
Do you consider the Leafs to be in the mushy middle?
Your stance seems to be based on believing that the entire last 30 years is indicative of what the team will do in the future. That ignores the fact that there have been different approaches taken at different times, and that the organization seems to be doing some things differently now, then under the previous management.
Everyone knows this is not a successful franchise for the most part. But I don't know how relevant that is to what they are doing right now or what they will do in the future.
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Thank you- Yes, for the record, I feel like the leafs have been mostly in the middle through those years. Maybe slightly more competitive overall but obviously collapses in the playoffs have to come into play.
I disagree that is my stance, but I can understand and appreciate why it may seem like that. Please allow me to clarify.
I disagree that everyone knows it's not a successful franchise. Why?
Well, it is primarily because there is a lot of talk about building a winner, and team culture, and ensuring success, etc. But my reply is, what would anyone who is part of the flames right now actually know about this? I'm not trying to be mean, or rude, but honestly, what? We have Coleman and Kadri who have won cups recently and been part of clubs with success. So maybe, you argue that those are guys to keep around to impart those wisdoms. But in management? In ownership? In Coaching?
We need to build NEW culture. We don't have history we need to hang on to, or pride we need to hold up, or anything like that. We can start from scratch. Vegas is a great example. We don't need to be an expansion franchise to throw out the old book and start from scratch, we just need to admit the old book is dumb. No one seems to want to do that.
The old book i'm talking about is being overly loyal to players. It's putting feelings and desires ahead of raw statistics and data. It's holding on to players with the outside hope of them being "internal deadline rentals" and sneaking into the playoffs or whatever instead of trading at max value and putting yourselves in a better position. It's this fear of losing enough to have high draft picks!
We have been that way through multiple management teams. It's deeper than that. It's a core philosophy. And i see it emerging again. There's talk about holding Rasmus into next year... People asking why we should trade Vladar... etc. It's all just an endless loop!
We need to throw away that book. It doesnt work. We've been doing it for a long time. We got obscenely lucky drafting Gaudreau and then having Tkachuk slip to us, and that was the closest we got.
So my stance is that we need to throw away this talk of history, winning culture, etc. We don't know about that. The flames havent had that.