Beauchemin signed: Leafs now most boring team in hockey?

[Griff83]

Burke said he isnt even close to being done. Why is this so hard to understand? There are almost 3 full months before the season starts. Hes even on record to say hes had some trade offers that would have the team sending out a dman or 2 and parlay it into a forward. This is his first offseason, theres lots of work to be done before you see the final product and it certainly wont be happening in one offseason. Kaberle goes and he brings in a offensive player, if he stays you have one of the better offensive defencemen in the league.

Again why not wait until the offseason is over before proclaiming this team to be some offensively challenged squad. We dont even know the final roster. For all we know Burke could trade Kaberle, Tlusty, Stralman, pick for Marleau, Ehrhoff and Michalek. Burke isnt stupid. He knows that this team still lacks first line talent and Im sure hes not going to sit around too long before he attempts to trade for some.

for the simple reason that Toronto has few assets to trade out to get top guys in.
not sure how much value Stralman has. if he had it, he would be in Toronto's line-up.
Tlusty has less value than Stralman.

Burke also said he was going to trade up to get Tavares. talk sometimes is for show.
if you think him not being done means that 3-6 bona fide forwards will be coming in before this season starts, you are kidding yourself.
and i think Burke has done a pretty good job in revamping the team. i question some of the "toughness" he's brought in and would much rather see skilled 5'9" guys a la Mtl versus Exelby et al., but he has definitely changed the team.

still think it will be boring to watch.

Even if they cant get a full top line in this offseason and they are only able to get 1 or 2 first liners, its all part of the building process. You almost make it sound like this is some finished product and Burke is finished and hes going all in this season. Theres a rumour going around we are interested in trading for Sharp, there are teams looking to shake things up like the Sharks (will most likely deal Marleau), there is plenty of time left for things to happen and we actually do have assets. If this team doesnt make the playoffs next season and its mostly due to the fact we lack frontline talent, Im ok with that because I know this team is in the building process. We just drafted a player in Kadri that has first line potential and next years free agent crop has many elite level forwards.

Stralman hasnt found his way into this lineup because hes not the type of player that Wilson or Burke is too found of on the blueline. I gurantee he would have decent value to a team that rates skill and speed highly like the Wings or Canadians. I like Stralman but he certainly DOESNT have more trade value then Tlusty. Tlusty just had a huge year in the AHL, is younger then Stralman and has always been the more highly touted prospect.

Talk is sometimes for show, but in the case of Tavares, it didnt matter how much he wanted to aquire him because at the end of the day its not in his hands and Garth Snow had the final say. Its totally different when you have a bigtime surplus of defenders and teams are calling you trying to make a deal. I dont think its very hard to believe that a trade will happen where we send out a defencemen or 2 in return for a forward.

[Marmoset]

I'd rather watch a boring winning team then a exciting team that plays riverboat hockey. What in gods name would make you think we would play the trap? Wilson likes his defensive hockey but in no way will he be instilling a trap like system. Burke has said hes not even close to being done so Im not sure why your getting to hung up on a few of his first mega moves. Do you expect this to be the final product? His Ducks team that won the championship certainly wasnt boring.

I'd rather watch a winning team too but this doesn't look a winning team right now. Of course, there could be more to come. Unfortunately the roster as currently constituted could produce some painful games to watch.

I think a rule of pro sports is that if you're going to be boring, you'd better be good, because there's no worse combination than being bad AND boring. The last few years the Leafs were bad, but played exciting hockey more often than not.

To be fair to Burke, he probably tried to get some forwards, but just wasn't able to. He probably wanted forwards and defencemen, and when he couldn't get the forwards and Beauchemin was still available, he jumped to sign him. I give him credit for not drastically overpaying for anyone. But I also hope there's some offense on the way. I still think one more lottery season and one more high draft pick would be good for the long term, so if he doesn't get anyone else it's okay with me this year.

[Griff83]

I'd rather watch a boring winning team then a exciting team that plays riverboat hockey. What in gods name would make you think we would play the trap? Wilson likes his defensive hockey but in no way will he be instilling a trap like system. Burke has said hes not even close to being done so Im not sure why your getting to hung up on a few of his first mega moves. Do you expect this to be the final product? His Ducks team that won the championship certainly wasnt boring.

I'd rather watch a winning team too but this doesn't look a winning team right now. Of course, there could be more to come. Unfortunately the roster as currently constituted could produce some painful games to watch.

I think a rule of pro sports is that if you're going to be boring, you'd better be good, because there's no worse combination than being bad AND boring. The last few years the Leafs were bad, but played exciting hockey more often than not.

To be fair to Burke, he probably tried to get some forwards, but just wasn't able to. He probably wanted forwards and defencemen, and when he couldn't get the forwards and Beauchemin was still available, he jumped to sign him. I give him credit for not drastically overpaying for anyone. But I also hope there's some offense on the way. I still think one more lottery season and one more high draft pick would be good for the long term, so if he doesn't get anyone else it's okay with me this year.

I dont think this current team will be that horrible in terms of scoring. This roster up front really isnt that different from last years team that had no trouble scoring goals. You dont always have to have lots of frontline talent to be a decent scoring team, you can simply decide to play riverboat hockey and not pay as much attention to your defensive responsibilities and thus produces more goals for. Im also looking at it longterm, I dont think Burke is going to build some team that is too heavily balanced on defence with no goal scoring. I dont think hes done this offseason and hes even said there is more to come.

Toronto and Atlanta two teams lacking much quality talent up front both finished in the top 15 in goals scored last season.

[chargerxthirty]

I definately wouldn't rather have a bunch of 5'9 forwards a la MTL.

If you want to find out why, you'll see when the habs don't make the playoffs this year and the Leafs do. Not to mention, our bruising defence is going to beat those guys up. You think Gionta is going to win a puck battle in a corner against Exelby or Komisarek? Yea right. Same goes for Gomez.

Quite frankly, those type of guys aren't going to get it done for MTL.

[Griff83]

I definately wouldn't rather have a bunch of 5'9 forwards a la MTL.

If you want to find out why, you'll see when the habs don't make the playoffs this year and the Leafs do. Not to mention, our bruising defence is going to beat those guys up. You think Gionta is going to win a puck battle in a corner against Exelby or Komisarek? Yea right. Same goes for Gomez.

Quite frankly, those type of guys aren't going to get it done for MTL.

Agreed.

Its one thing to have one or even two tiny forwards but Montreal now has Gomez, Cammelari, Gionta and Plekanic who are all small and that right there makes up 4/6 of your top 6 forwards. I also wouldnt feel one bit comfortable come playoff time and expecting all these smaller type forwards to show up when the games get more physical and intense. The Habs badly need a first line center that can get where he wants in the offensive zone with his size.

Burke and Wilson believe in building from the net out and I'd say that history has shown this to be a sucessfull stragety over the course of the history or the sport.

[bryant08]

I do not like what the Habs did, and personally going with a small, speed lineup is not bad at all, but they did it at such a high price. Acquiring Gomez, signing Cammalleri to a pretty absurd deal IMO, signing Gionta to a high price as well, it just doesn't make enough sense. But I'll tell you that those types of guys can win them some hockey games with their skill, but as Griff mentioned, when it gets more physical and intense, I doubt they're able to handle it. Nevertheless, definitely lots of excitement/nerves for Habs fans with a totally different roster.

Burke just keeps stockpiling the defense and he mentioned this in the Gustavsson press conference, that there is finally competition for your job in Toronto. You're not going to come into training camp knowing you're on the first pairing defensively and the first PP unit. And I'm directing this one to Kaberle; you don't even know if you're going to be in a Leaf jersey. Even if we deal Kaberle for a forward, you've still got Komisarek, Schenn, Exelby, Stralman, White, Finger, Van Ryn, Jonas Frogren fighting for jobs. And what I love about it is the abudance of defensive d-men, and how they in particular will have to bring their A game. When you look at a guy like Frogren, we have so many guys that bring what he does. He's already an elite shotblocker, but to keep his spot in the top 6, he's going to have to be relentless in throwing his body around. At this point, the only real locks in my mind are Komisarek, Schenn, White and Exelby. That leaves two spots (and an extra) for Stralman, Finger, Van Ryn and Frogren. Man it's going to be tough to see who gets those spots, but I'd have to say Finger is not likely to be out of the squad either, but it would be nice to have a puck mover like Stralman if Kaberle is gone. Whatever happens it'll be really interesting.

[sanity]

Quality D-man are soon-to-be tradable assets. The Leafs have a lot of them... which creates some room to hopefully acquire a decent two-way forward some time down the road.

I think we might see Ian White playing on the wing for awhile, which I wouldn't mind, seeing as how a lot of these guys deserve ice time but sadly won't get it.