Weekly Takes - Monday, March 30th Edition
Weekly Takes - Monday, March 30th Edition
The Leafs have been committing malpractice for weeks by not shutting down the likes of Matthew Knies, not only risking unnecessary injuries heading into the offseason, but hurting their odds at keeping their first round pick.
That all came to a head on Tuesday when they beat the Bruins.
What an awful parting gift from Brad Treliving and Craig Berube, both of whom are surely going to be fired at season’s end, unless Keith Pelley is this generation's Richard Peddy.
I loved the bite from Easton Cowan, Dakota Joshua, and Oliver Ekman-Larsson against Boston, however.
This team, and those players in particular, have taken it physically to other teams since the Ducks game.
They did not have their captain’s back in the moment but they responded in the third period against the Ducks and have not looked back.
As for Pelley, I am not ready to level any criticism at him quite yet.
When he came to Toronto, it was the offseason that they fired Sheldon Keefe and hired Craig Berube, both no-brainers at the time. He left the Raptors alone, while beginning the build for Toronto FC.
In his second offseason, he fired Brendan Shanahan, which was the right call, and Masai Ujiri, which is debatable, but he believed it was time for Bobby Webster to take the reins. I do not disagree.
He, meanwhile, continued to get TFC out of the mess they were in.
Now, we sit here in his third “offseason.” This is where we find out what he is all about. Anything short of a house-cleaning for the Leafs is unacceptable.
He needs to fire Treliving and Berube and land a big fish who can take the team into a new era. It is now or never to save the Auston Matthews era.
I like the Golden Knights taking a shot on John Tortorella.
They are built to win now. Whatever they were doing this season was not working.
Tortorella has a lifespan as a head coach, but I would not rule out him coaching the hell out of that team for two months.
It is wild to think about, given how bad their tenures began (before a pitch was even thrown), how messy the initial rebuild was, their early playoff failures, their awful press conferences and media interviews, and the Shohei Ohtani pursuit, but Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins are as deserving as anyone for their recent contract extensions.
They have built a sustainable, championship-contending roster. The renovations at the Dome went better than anyone could have hoped for. Their Spring Training facility is the best in the league. Their analytics, player development, and scouting departments are world class.
Give me Shapiro-Atkins for the next half-decade over any other management team in baseball.
They are a World Series away from being as iconic as any executives in this city, ever.
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