What are you all complaining about?

[Lee]

again you are missing the point. I am not saying blake was a terrible player or bozak, yip or stalberg are better. I am just saying how could you so quickly dismiss a player when you love a player who took even longer to develope. That is where the fallacy lies and if you cant see that I am truely sorry.

I far from love Blake I just don't think he's bad at all let alone as bad as some people try to make him out to be

[Lee]

]
I guess big bad Bolland and Brouwer are much too elite to stop Stalberg from the top 6. What with their 47 and 40 point career highs, respectively.

both have Stanley cup rings , proven much more at the NHL level and play much more complete games not to mention those are 3rd liners where stalberg might slate in

[Nick]

both have Stanley cup rings , proven much more at the NHL level and play much more complete games not to mention those are 3rd liners where stalberg might slate in

brouwer played top line for a very good portion... bolland your correct is 3rd line.... however neither have the offensive tools of Viktor.

[Shep]

both have Stanley cup rings , proven much more at the NHL level and play much more complete games not to mention those are 3rd liners where stalberg might slate in

Who do you expect to play in the top 6 with Toews, Sharp, Hossa and Kane then?

The only options are: Brouwer, Bolland, Kopecky, Stalberg

[Lee]

You might be right if his hands ever catch up to his feet . Artyukin is in the same boat and look at him .

[Shep]

You might be right if his hands ever catch up to his feet . Artyukin is in the same boat and look at him .

He's played 39 NHL games and you're writing him off as if he's a 36 year old that has never hit 20 goals.

[bills09]

imo Chicagos forward lines end up

Troy Brouwer / Jonathan Toews / Patrick Kane
Viktor Stalberg / Patrick Sharp / Marian Hossa
Tomas Kopecky / Dave Bolland / Jack Skille
Bryan Bickell / Jake Dowell / Jeff Taffe

[MSP4LYFE]

You are one of if not the main idiot this thread was created for. I said almost a decade and imo a pernial playoff team yes but definatly not a contender. The Canucks have choked and that is why we have not done better in the past ten years. You had a consistant playoff performer in Curtis Joseph that allowed that team IMO to over achieve. IMO you were never that close to having a winning team since the early to mid 90's.

I am just saying, my fuck Kareem stop complaining!!! Everyone complains all the time about his lack of activity, if you deny that you either cant read the previous post's or your head is so far up your ass its incredible. People complain about his lack of activity on draft day, how he didnt sign so and so, how he didn't get savard/kovalchuk etc as if toronto had a shot lol. I think it is sad that other than facey and maybe scott, I am the biggest believer in the leafs. That is a sad statment but if you look at the fourms you will see it is very evident in them. That is all I was trying to say. I like arguing hockey with fans of other teams because they blindly love their teams and have different points of views. However, honestly if I didnt know you were a leafs fan kareem, I would think you hate them more than I do. You will argue that you are a realistic leafs fan, but no pesimistic leafs fan would be a better way of putting it. You might say well if you were a fan of a team that has missed the playoffs 5 years or what ever in a row you would be in the same boat, and I call that my childhood.

To sum up everything all I was trying to say is that I think its a good time to be a leafs fan and that is all. The sun is rising once again and the future is bright yet there is so much negativity. I didnt think you would come out with the "idiot" bomb on this one. I was expecting a few guys to agree with me and say yea alot of guys on here do bitch and wrongly so.

The team with Gary Roberts, Alex Mogilney, Mats Sundin, Bryan Mccabe, Tomas Kaberle, Brian Leetch, Owen Nolan, Ron Francis, Ed Belfour, Nik Antropov, Alexei Ponikarovsky, Joe Niewyndyk and Dmitry Yuskevich was most certainly a contender, there is a reason the Leafs challenged the 100 point mark each season, unfortunately we could never make it over the hump.

With regards to you're second argument, I think you have me confused with someone else, either that or you are making false accusations in an attempt to make an argument. In any event, allow me to clarify my position on the Leafs team, and Brian Burke. I think we are a young team with a potentially strong core in the next 2-3 seasons. I applaud Brian Burke for his ability to pickup Tyler Bozak, Jonas Gustavsson, Jussi Rynnas, Mueller and Christian Hanson for free, as well as his trade for Phil Kessel and Dion Phaneuf. The only moves I have questioned to date are the Luke Schenn pick (Cliff Fletcher move), the Francois Beauchemin signing (creates a glut on defence), Pavel Kubina trade (poor return) and inabilty to move Tomas Kaberle (handcuffs our forward core). All of which are fair critiques of the team, does that mean I dislike the Leafs or Burke? No, it means I'm a fan and agree and disagree with certain moves...

On an unrelated note, what does, "You are one of if not the main idiot this thread was created for." and, " I am just saying, my fuck Kareem stop complaining!!! Everyone complains all the time about his lack of activity, if you deny that you either cant read the previous post's or your head is so far up your ass its incredible." mean? I'm not trying to be an ass, but I can't understand what you are trying to say here.

P.S. Savard identifed Toronto as one of the two teams he would waive to play for aside from Ottawa, so obviously we had a shot...As for Kovy, there were strong rumours that he would consider playing for the Leafs, but Burke wasn't interested. This is a cyclical league, being a contender one season does not mean you are immune from mediocrity the next, and vice versa. You are naive if you think that is the be all and end all of signing high profile players. If it were Savard and Chara wouldn't have signed with Boston in the first place, ditto for countless others.

[MSP4LYFE]

We just finished 29th Overall and are likely going to finish bottom 5 again next season. There is change, yes, but we still suck.

Komisarek @ $4.5 million. Not a good signing.

Armstrong @ $3 million. Not a good signing.

Kubina for Exelby + Prospect. Awful trade. I don't care if it was for cap space, I'd take Kubina over Komisarek every day of the week and twice on Sunday. He is offensive and is JUST AS GOOD as Komisarek defensively.

Stalberg + Didomenico + Paradis for Versteeg. While I personally like the trade, it is extremely short-sighted. Stalberg could easily turn into a player as good or better than Versteeg, plus with everything else we gave up.

1st in 2010 + 2nd in 2010 + 1st in 2011 for Phil Kessel. Anybody that thinks this is still a fantastic trade, needs to put down the glass of kool-aid and take a breathe. We have given up Tyler Seguin, who looks to be an elite prospect for the Bruins. Jared Knight, who once again looks to be a pretty damn good prospect. Not to mention the potential of another top 5 pick next year. Until Kessel scores 40+ goals and gets 80+ points, this trade is a loss and could be one of the bigger trade busts in Leaf history.

We have $27,775,000 million locked up in our defence. Brian Burke is once again, like in Anaheim, proving he is bad at cap management.

I am fine with what Burke has done so far, but to call his work fantastic is Leaf bias to the max.

I'll leave it at that because I know I'll have to back up some arguments and don't want to get into too many at the same time.

Logic doesn't apply with these people...

[MSP4LYFE]

Considering what Burke has had to work with when he took over to the direction of the team.. I'm with the guys who think he's done a fantastic job.. but my opinion could change rather quickly! I just love how Burke never stops working (signing euros & ncaa fa's). You gotta think he has a few more tricks up his sleeve!

Are you bi-polar? For most of last season you were calling him an idiot, and senile old man...Too many of you are reactionary with you're opinion of Leafs management. It is FAR too early to deem the job done by Burke a sucess or a failure, and one or two moves alone won't tip the scale dramatically in one direction. Despite what Dion lovers and Kessel haters would have you believe.

[Robin Hood]

ANYONE who dislikes the kessel trade is stupid. Very stupid.

Nick, Mashley, Neel may be some of the few people in this league who can understand the concept behind what I'm about to say (i may not have mentioned someone else who does). Nick, Mashley and Neel may not agree with me on the Kessel trade but they will agree with the concept.

You NEVER judge a decision in retrospect. There is a very basic statistical concept called Expected Value:

The idea is this. What is your EXPECTED return BEFORE something happens. I.e. If I said, Let's flip a coin. If it comes up Heads, I will pay you $2. If it comes up Tails you give me $1. Your expected value would be:

E(v) = 50% ($2) - 50% ($1) = $0.50

I.e. if you flipped the coin 1 million times you would make $0.50 per coin flip. 1,000,000 (0.50) = $500, 000.

How does this apply to the Kessel trade?

At the beginning of the 2008-2009 season, what place were the Leafs EXPECTED to finish. Do NOT tell me the entire hockey universe predicted them to finish bottom 2 (because that is not true). Do NOT tell me You yourself thought the Leafs would finish bottom 2 (that was your opinion and your opinion as informed as it may be could not MORE accurately predict ANY team's performance in a given season going into it at the beginning THAN the ENTIRE hockey media's opinion as a consensus (the majority of which pegged the Leafs to be a bottom 10 team, finishing around 10th to 13th in the East) or or NHL executives like Burke and Nonis (I'd like to think Mickey Mouse isn't running the Leafs. Two tenured, reputable GMs with solid resumes do).

These are facts (and yes I classify these "Expectations" as facts because ANYONE ELSE in Burke's job would have produced an almost IDENTICAL forecast: the Leafs will finish 10-13th in the East) Burke's goal was the playoffs. But the consensus EXPECTATION was 10th - 13th.

Given these facts let's construct a probability chart. And let's construct it as a Bell Curve (I'm sure everyone has heard this term), where the mean position of the leafs has much higher odds than the tails of the curve (z-scores etc).

The West is Stronger. So finishing 10th -13th in the East equates to around finishing between 23-26th overall.


The Leafs odds of finishing:

29th-30th overall - 12.5%
27th - 28th overall - 15%
23rd - 26th overall - 55%
21st - 22nd overall - 10%
16th - 20th overall - 5%
Playoff team - 2.5%

There may be people in this league who say: "29th to 30th overall was WAY MORE LIKELY than 12.5%!" Fine. I'll make it 25% (overestimation believe me but whatever).

E(v) = 25% (Taylor Hall/Tyler Seguin) + 75% (Someone else).

75% of the time we got the BEST player. Kessel >>> anyone from the 3rd pick onwards.

25% of the time where we finish 29th - 30th:
In certain circumstances, we get unlucky in the lottery let's say 5% of the time.
Another fact is that Seguin became a STUD in 2009-2010. When the Kessel trade was made only Hall was the clear cut #1 pick material.
Another circumstance is that Kessel COULD end up being better than Hall and Seguin. Even if you say Hall/Seguin are hands down better prospects and higher ceilings, there is a CHANCE and it HAS TO BE FACTORED IN. even if we give Kessel a 15% chance of being better that's fine.

Now my question to all of you is: why would you give up a SURE bet like Kessel 75% of the time where you win the trade hands down vs. take a risk 25% of the time which is actually a MUCH bigger risk. even if the Leafs had 3rd overall, Kessel is a STEAL.

The problem is most people do not understand Expected Value. That is why they hate on the Kessel trade.

Mathematically, the Kessel trade was a HUGE WIN for the Leafs. The Bruins just got lucky (I always thought the job of a GM was to build a team with skill not luck). And might I add, the Leafs could STILL win that trade.

[MSP4LYFE]

ANYONE who dislikes the kessel trade is stupid. Very stupid.

Nick, Mashley, Neel may be some of the few people in this league who can understand the concept behind what I'm about to say (i may not have mentioned someone else who does). Nick, Mashley and Neel may not agree with me on the Kessel trade but they will agree with the concept.

You NEVER judge a decision in retrospect. There is a very basic statistical concept called Expected Value:

The idea is this. What is your EXPECTED return BEFORE something happens. I.e. If I said, Let's flip a coin. If it comes up Heads, I will pay you $2. If it comes up Tails you give me $1. Your expected value would be:

E(v) = 50% ($2) - 50% ($1) = $0.50

I.e. if you flipped the coin 1 million times you would make $0.50 per coin flip. 1,000,000 (0.50) = $500, 000.

How does this apply to the Kessel trade?

At the beginning of the 2008-2009 season, what place were the Leafs EXPECTED to finish. Do NOT tell me the entire hockey universe predicted them to finish bottom 2 (because that is not true). Do NOT tell me You yourself thought the Leafs would finish bottom 2 (that was your opinion and your opinion as informed as it may be could not MORE accurately predict ANY team's performance in a given season going into it at the beginning THAN the ENTIRE hockey media's opinion as a consensus (the majority of which pegged the Leafs to be a bottom 10 team, finishing around 10th to 13th in the East) or or NHL executives like Burke and Nonis (I'd like to think Mickey Mouse isn't running the Leafs. Two tenured, reputable GMs with solid resumes do).

These are facts (and yes I classify these "Expectations" as facts because ANYONE ELSE in Burke's job would have produced an almost IDENTICAL forecast: the Leafs will finish 10-13th in the East) Burke's goal was the playoffs. But the consensus EXPECTATION was 10th - 13th.

Given these facts let's construct a probability chart. And let's construct it as a Bell Curve (I'm sure everyone has heard this term), where the mean position of the leafs has much higher odds than the tails of the curve (z-scores etc).

The West is Stronger. So finishing 10th -13th in the East equates to around finishing between 23-26th overall.


The Leafs odds of finishing:

29th-30th overall - 12.5%
27th - 28th overall - 15%
23rd - 26th overall - 55%
21st - 22nd overall - 10%
16th - 20th overall - 5%
Playoff team - 2.5%

There may be people in this league who say: "29th to 30th overall was WAY MORE LIKELY than 12.5%!" Fine. I'll make it 25% (overestimation believe me but whatever).

E(v) = 25% (Taylor Hall/Tyler Seguin) + 75% (Someone else).

75% of the time we got the BEST player. Kessel >>> anyone from the 3rd pick onwards.

25% of the time where we finish 29th - 30th:
In certain circumstances, we get unlucky in the lottery let's say 5% of the time.
Another fact is that Seguin became a STUD in 2009-2010. When the Kessel trade was made only Hall was the clear cut #1 pick material.
Another circumstance is that Kessel COULD end up being better than Hall and Seguin. Even if you say Hall/Seguin are hands down better prospects and higher ceilings, there is a CHANCE and it HAS TO BE FACTORED IN. even if we give Kessel a 15% chance of being better that's fine.

Now my question to all of you is: why would you give up a SURE bet like Kessel 75% of the time where you win the trade hands down vs. take a risk 25% of the time which is actually a MUCH bigger risk. even if the Leafs had 3rd overall, Kessel is a STEAL.

The problem is most people do not understand Expected Value. That is why they hate on the Kessel trade.

Mathematically, the Kessel trade was a HUGE WIN for the Leafs. The Bruins just got lucky (I always thought the job of a GM was to build a team with skill not luck). And might I add, the Leafs could STILL win that trade.

That's all irrelevant Shiv, no one judges a trade on the probablity of it working out, or what it looked like at the time of the trade, they judge it based on what was recieved and what was given up. I like Kessel as much, if not more than the next person, but there is a very real possibility that we lost that trade, to ignore that fact that is just plain ignant!

[inferno31]

ANYONE who dislikes the kessel trade is stupid. Very stupid.

Nick, Mashley, Neel may be some of the few people in this league who can understand the concept behind what I'm about to say (i may not have mentioned someone else who does). Nick, Mashley and Neel may not agree with me on the Kessel trade but they will agree with the concept.

You NEVER judge a decision in retrospect. There is a very basic statistical concept called Expected Value:

The idea is this. What is your EXPECTED return BEFORE something happens. I.e. If I said, Let's flip a coin. If it comes up Heads, I will pay you $2. If it comes up Tails you give me $1. Your expected value would be:

E(v) = 50% ($2) - 50% ($1) = $0.50

I.e. if you flipped the coin 1 million times you would make $0.50 per coin flip. 1,000,000 (0.50) = $500, 000.

How does this apply to the Kessel trade?

At the beginning of the 2008-2009 season, what place were the Leafs EXPECTED to finish. Do NOT tell me the entire hockey universe predicted them to finish bottom 2 (because that is not true). Do NOT tell me You yourself thought the Leafs would finish bottom 2 (that was your opinion and your opinion as informed as it may be could not MORE accurately predict ANY team's performance in a given season going into it at the beginning THAN the ENTIRE hockey media's opinion as a consensus (the majority of which pegged the Leafs to be a bottom 10 team, finishing around 10th to 13th in the East) or or NHL executives like Burke and Nonis (I'd like to think Mickey Mouse isn't running the Leafs. Two tenured, reputable GMs with solid resumes do).

These are facts (and yes I classify these "Expectations" as facts because ANYONE ELSE in Burke's job would have produced an almost IDENTICAL forecast: the Leafs will finish 10-13th in the East) Burke's goal was the playoffs. But the consensus EXPECTATION was 10th - 13th.

Given these facts let's construct a probability chart. And let's construct it as a Bell Curve (I'm sure everyone has heard this term), where the mean position of the leafs has much higher odds than the tails of the curve (z-scores etc).

The West is Stronger. So finishing 10th -13th in the East equates to around finishing between 23-26th overall.


The Leafs odds of finishing:

29th-30th overall - 12.5%
27th - 28th overall - 15%
23rd - 26th overall - 55%
21st - 22nd overall - 10%
16th - 20th overall - 5%
Playoff team - 2.5%

There may be people in this league who say: "29th to 30th overall was WAY MORE LIKELY than 12.5%!" Fine. I'll make it 25% (overestimation believe me but whatever).

E(v) = 25% (Taylor Hall/Tyler Seguin) + 75% (Someone else).

75% of the time we got the BEST player. Kessel >>> anyone from the 3rd pick onwards.

25% of the time where we finish 29th - 30th:
In certain circumstances, we get unlucky in the lottery let's say 5% of the time.
Another fact is that Seguin became a STUD in 2009-2010. When the Kessel trade was made only Hall was the clear cut #1 pick material.
Another circumstance is that Kessel COULD end up being better than Hall and Seguin. Even if you say Hall/Seguin are hands down better prospects and higher ceilings, there is a CHANCE and it HAS TO BE FACTORED IN. even if we give Kessel a 15% chance of being better that's fine.

Now my question to all of you is: why would you give up a SURE bet like Kessel 75% of the time where you win the trade hands down vs. take a risk 25% of the time which is actually a MUCH bigger risk. even if the Leafs had 3rd overall, Kessel is a STEAL.

The problem is most people do not understand Expected Value. That is why they hate on the Kessel trade.

Mathematically, the Kessel trade was a HUGE WIN for the Leafs. The Bruins just got lucky (I always thought the job of a GM was to build a team with skill not luck). And might I add, the Leafs could STILL win that trade.

I follow the logic, but remember there was 2 other picks involved. Way I see it is simple, at the time of the day I would of done it. It didn't pan out the way we would of liked mostly due to Vesa, retroactively looking back on it yeah we'll likely lose it. But how could you have made that assumption earlier, its not like gambling on a prospect its about where the Leafs were predicted to finish, look back on it not many people pegged them to finish where they did. Right now I don't even see the deal as a loss, I'll have to see how this year plays out and where this first round pick ends up being before I can make up my mind on that.

Its flawed to look at in a retrospective way, it makes no sense cause you can't make a deal based on that fact. It wasn't just Brian Burke who thought our team would preform better, so did most of the media and the experts. Sometimes thats just the way things happened.

[Robin Hood]

That's all irrelevant Shiv, no one judges a trade on the probablity of it working out, or what it looked like at the time of the trade, they judge it based on what was recieved and what was given up. I like Kessel as much, if not more than the next person, but there is a very real possibility that we lost that trade, to ignore that fact that is just plain ignant!

you are wrong kareem. 200%. decisions should be judged based on the availability of information. retrospectively, the marketplace is perfect with perfect information. but that is not the case when the decision is made. we are here to judge if the right DECISION was made. and at that point in time the information was much lower. trust me on this. your counter to my argument sounds almost comical. if you have a better one i'll hear it. but the one you just said makes no sense.

[MSP4LYFE]

you are wrong kareem. 200%. decisions should be judged based on the availability of information. retrospectively, the marketplace is perfect with perfect information. but that is not the case when the decision is made. we are here to judge if the right DECISION was made. and at that point in time the information was much lower. trust me on this. your counter to my argument sounds almost comical. if you have a better one i'll hear it. but the one you just said makes no sense.

That is not how it works in the real world my friend...Nor should it be, GM's are judged on what they acquire and gave up, and rightfully so, no one gives a shit about odds, only results.

That being said, I understand what you are saying, and it's for that reason that nI would have made the same deal last season.

[inferno31]

That is not how it works in the real world my friend...Nor should it be, GM's are judged on what they acquire and gave up, and rightfully so, no one gives a shit about odds, only results.

Funny thing about odds.. is if you play them right you'll win more than you lose.
Great GMs do just that, win more deals than they lose. If you want to look at the premise of the deal Shiv is right based on the information available it was a good decision, and Burke will continue to make trades. Judge him on his results if you want, but if he makes sound decisions based on the odds of success it'll be the results your praising too.

[Robin Hood]

That is not how it works in the real world my friend...Nor should it be, GM's are judged on what they acquire and gave up, and rightfully so, no one gives a shit about odds, only results.

That being said, I understand what you are saying, and it's for that reason that nI would have made the same deal last season.

you are talking about something COMPLETELY different from what I am.

What you are saying is that Burke will be judged on this deal based on what happens with Seguin.
What I am saying is that regardless of how he is judged, the DECISION was correct.

Burke could technically end up being fired because of that trade. But it will be because of the PERCEPTION of the decision not its ACCURACY.

[Robin Hood]

Funny thing about odds.. is if you play them right you'll win more than you lose.
Great GMs do just that, win more deals than they lose. If you want to look at the premise of the deal Shiv is right based on the information available it was a good decision, and Burke will continue to make trades. Judge him on his results if you want, but if he makes sound decisions based on the odds of success it'll be the results your praising too.

Did I not say Neel will get this? If Burke continues to make such deicisions, he will GUARANTEED bring in more value than he gives up in the LONG RUN.

Like the coin toss. If I have to give you $1 when Heads comes up and you give me $2 when tails comes up, I may lose the first 5 coin tosses and have to pay you $5. But if i take the same bet 1 million times, I'll be $500,000 richer and you will be $500,000 poorer.

[inferno31]

Did I not say Neel will get this? If Burke continues to make such deicisions, he will GUARANTEED bring in more value than he gives up in the LONG RUN.

Like the coin toss. If I have to give you $1 when Heads comes up and you give me $2 when tails comes up, I may lose the first 5 coin tosses and have to pay you $5. But if i take the same bet 1 million times, I'll be $500,000 richer and you will be $500,000 poorer.

The trick is not getting fired after your fifth coin toss But hey Mike Milbury got to flip the full million it seems.

[MSP4LYFE]

Funny thing about odds.. is if you play them right you'll win more than you lose.
Great GMs do just that, win more deals than they lose. If you want to look at the premise of the deal Shiv is right based on the information available it was a good decision, and Burke will continue to make trades. Judge him on his results if you want, but if he makes sound decisions based on the odds of success it'll be the results your praising too.

I was commenting on that one specific deal Neel, nothing else. As I mentioned above, and at the time of the trade, I would have done the same, because the odds of it coming back to bite us were slim to none, but all of that is irrelevant now, because it did bite us, lol.