Mailbag: Playoff race in Eastern Conference; Tortorella’s impact
Do you think Toronto will get a new-GM boost the way Buffalo did? More importantly, will whoever … gets the job try to make a big splash ASAP or do you expect a more measured approach? I’m assuming the pressure is too great to be rational. — @akaJonnyT
There is not enough time for the Maple Leafs to get a new-GM boost this season, especially because they do not have a new GM yet. The search is just beginning. As for the pressure, yes, it’s intense in Toronto and, yes I can understand the desire to want to make a big splash right away. It’s certainly possible that happens, but a measured approach is more likely even if that leads to a big splash. There will be rational thought. A new GM in Toronto is not going to come in guns a blazing and do something irrational just because this hasn’t been a good season for Toronto. Whoever it is will inherit a draft without a pick in the first- or second-round. It’s hard in the NHL to make a splash without draft capital to move.
The first order of business will be deciding on the coach. Is Craig Berube staying or will he be replaced, and by who? Pelley said that decision will be left in the hands of the new management team. Once that decision is made, there will be an evaluation of the current roster and the prospect base. Is it good enough? What are the immediate needs? Who could be moved? These are all rational things that new general managers do. There still needs to be a full evaluation of the organization from top to bottom.
The Maple Leafs will have to have some hard conversations with their star players, including forwards Auston Matthews and William Nylander. Do they fit in the current plan to re-tool the roster? Do they want to be a part of it? Those conversations will be mandatory for the new management group before any decisions are made about the makeup of the roster for next season.
The point is there is a lot to do before the Maple Leafs get to a point where they can consider making a splash. Right now, the pressure is on Pelley and MLSE to make good decisions in the hiring process.
Is a long offseason and a potential top-10 draft pick just what the Florida Panthers needed to keep the dynasty going? Will they be able to pick up where they left off next season? — @bobwallsky
Well, you better hope they don’t pick up where they left off next season because they’d be picking up from this season. But seriously, I agree with the premise of your question, because the Panthers have been through a lot and the games and mileage on their players have piled up along the way. It stinks for them that they won’t have a chance to Threepeat, but this type of season, unfortunately, seemed inevitable when they lost Aleksander Barkov to his knee injury on the first day of training camp. That was the sign of what was coming. Credit to the Panthers for staying in it through January, but the injuries were too much to overcome.
They are still set up for success next season with Barkov returning and everybody from the core of last year’s championship team still under contract except for Sergei Bobrovsky. They’re going to have to figure out Bobrovsky’s future, his next contract, if it’s with the Panthers, but a long offseason, their first full offseason of training since 2022, with months to heal and recover for next season will do wonders for the Panthers.
It’s a different NHL now, but the New Jersey Devils had a similar thing happen in the mid-1990s. They reached the Eastern Conference Final in 1994, won the Stanley Cup in 1995 and missed the playoffs in 1996, but recovered with the same core to be a perennial playoff team and to win two more Stanley Cup championships in 2000 and 2003.
The Panthers’ window to be a Stanley Cup contender will still be wide open next season.
