Hounsy wrote:
Matthews was not an issue for me he was by far the best player on the Leafs. D have no structure and nothing Dubas has done addresses that in fact his d move was to bring in Barrie maybe the most unstructured d man in the league. As well not sure what Tavares is like in the room but on ice he does not have the appearance of a guy who can wake a team up.
Dubas paid a premium for all his stars and does not have the budget to fill out the D. I can give him another season but his inability to negotiate has hamstrung his ability to dig out of the problem he has with the balance of his team.
I'm obviously biased against Tavares, but he seemed to be too quiet to be an NHL Captain to me. I know there are different types of Captains, and some try to just quietly lead by example. But to me, hockey Captains need to be a little more outgoing than he is. I can definitely say the Isles have looked far more like a team since he left, but that could be due to coaching, Lee as Captain, the rest of the team being pissed that he left, etc. Who knows? Could be a combination of any of those.
But I said when he signed that the Toronto media/fans would give him 2 years before they started to turn on him. I saw that he said responsibility starts with him. He's great at saying the right things (Sign in Toronto? "That's never gonna happen!") But his actions don't back up the words. Not sure what he could do better on the ice, he's still an amazing player. But he needs to learn to lead, and not just in his robotic, monotone way.