I'm going to read a quote to you from somebody else, Sir Kyle of Dubas. Perhaps the path needs to shift slightly. It needs to be adapted slightly. You get in between persistence and full belief in the process versus being a little too staunch and rigid. That's Kyle Dubas, May 2023. Later that week, Just being different doesn't solve something. Brandon Chanahan, May 2023. That's after Kyle Dubas was fired. I'm going to give you a stat here. Jonas Siegel of The Athletic put into his article. Playoff wins since 2014, 2015. And I'm talking about series wins. The top of the list, I'm going to give you the top three. Tampa, 18 rounds, one. Vegas, 11 rounds, one. Pittsburgh, nine rounds, one. Okay? Mm-hmm. Now, there are only three teams with zero. That's LA, Detroit, Buffalo. Toronto is tied with New Jersey, Philadelphia, the Coyotes, Minnesota, and Seattle with one round.

Oh, Minnesota.

That's going to... They won one.

The only one. I'm surprised that it's only been one.

Me too. I'm sure they would look at us and they'd say, Same, bro. I I think it's key here that we just kick off with this headline from CJ with The Athletic, 'Leaf's Latest Exit makes it clear. Time is up for Shana Plan.

In 2021, The leaves blew a 3-1 series lead. The LFR after that game, I went for 25 minutes straight. About year in, year out, year in, year out. Here was what you had in front of you. There were no more excuses. There was nothing ahead of you but a clear-laid path to the second round. And let's be honest, probably the third round. The Winnipeg Jets got swept by the Montreal Canadians. Smacked, smacked by the Montreal Canadians. And And then who knows? Then you're in the final four.

Anything can happen. And it did.

We were pretty staunch supporters of we can and we will and all that and holding all that together. Covid happened. Covid ruined everything. The cap didn't go up anymore. The plan was we're going to give these guys long deals. It's going to go into the future. They're going to age with the deals. They're going to age well. When the cap goes up, the cap should be close to $100 million by now.What if COVID didn't happen?Yup.

No, if COVID didn't happen, that was the projection. Yeah, he's running it.

Okay, 92. Yeah. 92. Shave 8 million off, 92. It was supposed to go up and up and up. 2021, you got a few things. One, you know it's been flat for a couple of years, and it's probably going to stay that way. Number two, these guys choke. It's their number one export. They had a third period lead again. And Do it again immediately after.

90 seconds. But you know that fans don't cheer enough. Fans are not loud enough.

I feel so bad for that one dude and his group friends. They caught a puck. Nylander scored. That happened within like 90 seconds of each other. That dude was the God of Massachusetts. And then the Leaps ruined it and his night.

Nylander definitely saw, too, because they panned to him on the bench. He had a little smile, and then he ducked his head for the rest of the time the camera shot was on. So he definitely saw that those guys caught the fuck, and he was a little... It was cheeky. Exactly.

So there's a lot revisionist history, but hindsight is 2020. I think in this case, hindsight is 2021. That was the year.

That was the time. I agree with that completely.

That was the year. And they're like, No, we're sticking to it.

They're talking about Montreal.

Montreal. And then the next year, they lost in the first round again. No.

Seventh game, though.

They finally win a series, only win one game in the next round. Their GM shows the slightest inclination at finally blowing up the core, and they fire him. It's going to cost the guy who fired him his job because we are now three playoff runs past the playoff run. That should have been it. That should have been it. Now, where do they even go from here?

So every year, just with that playoff run, there's always a built-in excuse. There's always been one. And that year, it was JT went out. Coming out of that one, that was like, Okay, Keef just got there, to be fair. That's what they said because they fired Babcock at the end of 2019, and then the pandemic happens 2020. Keef's never had the full team in a non-COVID situation. I mean, that's the excuse for not firing Keef. Yeah, and not making wholesale changes. You want to give them the opportunity.

They protect Justin Hall in the expansion bet and Kerfoot because- Over Jared McCamp.

Listen, the point I was just trying to make is that every year there was a built-in excuse by either the fan base or management, and they felt justified in their reasoning. But you were right in that they should have moved on. Let's be honest.

First off, we bought some of these and we made the same excuses. We did because we felt, and I felt honestly, okay. I was particularly tough on Marner in the Montreal series. I remember that. He was bad. That's why you were. It wasn't personal. Yeah. But it is bad.

Time has passed. He's played well. He was bad in those games.

Let me throw this. Don't ever apologize. Let me throw these quotes at you, okay? Neil Andrew doesn't think there's an issue with the core. He said, Look, I don't think there's an issue with the core. I think we effing battled their all series. We battled hard and got in a game seven and OT, and it's a shitty feeling. Austin Matthew said, I feel we say that every year, but it's an incredible group, incredibly tight. John Taveras, we're right there. It's a very small difference. One notable absence, in fact, two notable absences from any quotes, are Mitchell Marner and Morgan Reilly, both of whom are assistant captains with the Toronto Maple leaves. The reason for that is that they refused to speak to the media last night. Leaves PR all year long have done Double time. Nobody's been really reporting it, but they've done double time on preventing key players from coming out and talking. And the reporters haven't... I have to give the reporters credit. I've not seen one complain about it, but we know because we're hearing it from behind the scenes. And after a game seven, over time loss, if you wear an assistant captain or a captain on your jersey and you do not come out and speak to the press, you do not deserve to to have that.

That is not leadership. I don't care how upset you are. The reporters can wait for you to pull it together. My opinion, just to kick things off, just so we're clear, is that, and this will never happen, but if you're a leader on this team and you make money on this team, then you're accountable to the media. It's not Noah Gregor's job. It's not David Kempf's job. No offense to them. Nobody really cares what they have to say anyway.

Yeah, I was going to ask, were there microphones in their face?

I'm sure there It wasn't. Because here's the thing, the leaves don't allow you in the dressing room the way they used to. Now, they bring them out.

Hey, David, you finally scored after 50 minutes. Why did Keef decide to immediately put you on the ice?

We'll get to that. I want to be out front of this. I am completely so disappointed in both of those two players for not coming out and taking accountability for the team that they are part of the core five of. Because it really is a core five.

Adam, they're probably sick of saying it. What they could have done, and the leaves have the budget to have done this, what they could have done is instead of having to say any words at all into a microphone, just hold an iPad in front of your face with every end-of-season press conference you've done since 2017. It's the same. A compilation getting increasingly more depressed, but also saying the exact same damn thing.

Jessie, I just sent you a quote, and it's a video quote. It's on text. Do you mind bringing it?

Yeah, the Sheldon Keeve one? Yeah. Is that okay? Can we bring this? Not the one you sent because this Not with the graphics on it from that network. Oh, was there graphics on it? Let's do this one. Apologies. Here we go. Mitch Marner has been stealing money from the Toronto- We're getting into the Mitch Marner thing later, but I wanted to...

I need to say that- If we're talking about him not talking to the media, are we talking about that or are we doing Keef? We're talking to the media right now. We'll get into the performances and the game. But I wanted to set the tone because Keef got out and talked in front of the microphone. Sure. Matthews got out and talked in front of the microphone.

Matthews, again, looking like a character from Corpse Rye.

He looks like he's going to die out. He's exhausted.

We're going to find out something is horribly wrong with that guy. The tone of his... The skin under his eyes.

He looks pallid.

He looks like he's lost weight, too. A lot of weight. I'm worried for the guy.

Neylander spoke, Tavares spoke, Matthew spoke. Keef probably spoke for his last time as the head coach. For your team's perspective, what was the biggest challenge generating offense?

Well, they're a very structured team. They do a very good job to the neutral zone, and they protect their net as well or better than most any team in the NHL. And they were content to do that. They were content to do that. It's very evident. Teams play the least. They set up the game for the least to beat themselves. What a face, too. I thought we did that in game three and four. We beat ourselves with how we played at home. I thought in games one and two, parts of one were three and four, but game two, certainly, and five and six. The way we play, that's a way that can win and did win three of the games in this series and didn't beat herself.

What does he mean by that for a second here? What does he mean by... You said in there, Steve, you agree with what his summation of it was, especially in games three and four. I think Lee fans, on the whole, get that feeling and have had that feeling for a better part of a decade, but couldn't necessarily always put it into words. What does he mean?

The Leefs took a lot of penalties. They didn't get very many saves. But one thing that I've said from game one of the series, and I said from the beginning of game seven, too, game one of the series, I remember being like, Simone Benoît has had a lot of the park, offensively. And I think it's because it's nothing against him. He was making the right at the time, but it's like the Bruins are funneling it to him, and they're letting him have it. Game seven, the same thing happened. And then the Bruins didn't give up their zone, never gave up the... They made life very difficult in the neutral zone, never gave up their blue line. But when they did, it was always just hogging the wall. And it's like, hand it off to Tavares, especially on the power play, hogging the wall. And It just felt like the leaves feel nice and comfortable and nice and hugged in tight playing on the perimeter. And the Bruins were like, You go ahead, buddy. You go right ahead. We're going to let you have the fuck. Your possession numbers are going to look really good. Like, time with the fuck in the offensive zone.

It's going to look good. It's going to look like you're in this game.

And then your advanced stats staff might say, Keep doing I don't think so. No, no.

I will say this, the analytic staff for competent NHL teams know that that's all bullshit. They know that that's all right.

Which is why you should pay You should be careful with the type of stats that are publicly available because they're so based on things like that, and they don't tell you anything. They really don't tell you much.

It's important to have the information, but it's It's a gift to explain it. Just in conversations I've had with team staffs, and you can be like, Oh, it's Steve Dangle, he doesn't know. Okay, whatever you got to tell yourself. I've spoken to these people. But it takes a really competent smart team to be able to explain it. They just have a good staff. They know that that's all bullshit. And what I see in Sheldon Keef's face there, I know a lot of people want this guy fired. I see a frustrated guy who's like, I've told them over and over and over and over and over.