B/R Experts Weigh In: What Will It Take to Fix the Toronto Maple Leafs?

On Tuesday, the Toronto Maple Leafs fired coach Randy Carlyle. On Wednesday, the team named Peter Horachek as interim head coach, a role he held last season with the Florida Panthers.

Is this enough to make the Leafs a playoff team in 2015? Are there other moves required to improve this team now and in the future? If so, what are they? Is trading Phil Kessel the answer? Dave Lozo and Jonathan Willis discussed all this via e-mail Wednesday. Here are the results of that conversation.

Dave: Hi, Jonathan!

How are you? How's everything? Did you happen to see this news about Randy Carlyle being fired Tuesday? What a mess in Toronto, eh?! I don't know about you, but I have a lot of thoughts about what's wrong with the Leafs, a lot of thoughts about what people think is wrong with the Leafs, and I assume you have a lot of thoughts about this too. What are they, if you don't mind my asking?

Jonathan: Well, we should probably hold off on writing the obituary just yet; Toronto is still in a playoff position, albeit barely. And I think they just got significantly better by sending Randy Carlyle to the unemployment line (or wherever it is that coaches with a year left on their contracts go; I assume a beach house without a telephone).

It was always hard to reconcile the team's decision to hang on to Carlyle with the rest of its moves this summer, so finding a coach who is moving in the same direction as management should help significantly. 

Gene J. Puskar/Associated Press

Dave: And I like the timing of the move and the decision to make Peter Horachek the interim coach. The Leafs were still winning over their past 20 games despite getting crushed in five-on-five shot attempts but still pulled the trigger on firing Carlyle. That didn't happen last year. And if you look at what Horachek did when he took over the Panthers last season, he got that team playing much better at five-on-five with what I consider inferior talent and goaltending compared to the Leafs.

And if Ron Wilson is any indication, unemployed coaches call sports radio shows to rip the players they used to coach. So I expect Carlyle to phone in from his beach house (or cottage, as you Canadians all seem to have) to tell everyone Phil Kessel is the worst. "First time, long time, I'd like to talk about how Phil Kessel is the problem in Toronto."

We seem to be on the same page on the coaching decision here. I like the Horachek move too, both because of what he did in a fill-in role last season in Florida and because it defers a permanent decision until the summer, when a thorough search can be conducted.

Jonathan: And if Horachek can get the Leafs' game at five-on-five turned around, all of a sudden this team really isn't in bad shape. The power play is pretty good, clicking on better than 20 percent of its opportunities, while the penalty kill is just outside the top 10 percentage-wise but leads the league in shorthanded goals. With those kinds of special teams and Jonathan Bernier in net Toronto can probably make the playoffs even if it's a touch below average at evens.

As for Wilson, you may be on to something. Maybe that's why so many coaches head overseas when they're between NHL jobs; that way, every time Mike Keenan gets itchy to call talk radio he can just remind himself what long-distance charges from Magnitogorsk look like until the feeling goes away.

Ann Heisenfelt/Associated Press

Dave: "Mike in Magnitogorsk, you're on the air."

"Hey guys, I'd like to talk about Alexei Kovalev..."

I just don't get how with all the problems the Leafs have, the focus falls mainly on Phil Kessel. This happens everywhere. The Capitals are bad: It's Alex Ovechkin's fault. The Oilers are bad: Taylor Hall needs to do more. The Penguins lose in the second round: What's wrong with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin? It's such a wacky coincidence that when a team is bad, it's always the best player who gets the brunt of the blame.

The Leafs had a bad coach. He's gone. They had an organization that believed grit was the most important thing for years. That's gone, mostly. They have a GM who paid massive money for a third-line grinder in David Clarkson and let guys like Mikhail Grabovski and Clarke MacArthur walk. They also have a really shoddy group of defensemen with a miscast No. 1, a couple of guys who skate like they are in cement and a couple of young guys still learning their way.

But yeah, it's Phil Kessel. His moodiness is why they allow 35 shots per game.

To me, the Leafs problems require incremental fixes, and they've been making them. Whatever the next fix is, "trading Kessel" isn't it.

Ann Heisenfelt/Associated Press

Jonathan: My pet theory is that as much as we like to expound on the virtues of hockey as a team sport, there's an undercurrent of belief in some circles that a truly great player can win anytime he wants to, that Jonathan Toews can single-handedly push the Chicago Blackhawks to the Stanley Cup because he's a born winner with an indomitable spirit or some such nonsense. It's why writers talk about Stanley Cup rings as though they were an individual award for outstanding personal performance rather than something that a group of 20-odd guys won together because they were the best group of 20-odd guys in the league that year.

For really dynamic players like Kessel, I always try to imagine what they would look like in Chicago in place of Patrick Kane. I firmly believe that if Kane played for a less successful team we'd hear all the time about how he doesn't play defence or is a terrible person or whatever; we don't because the Blackhawks are a good team and have found a way to make use of an exceptional offensive talent. Stick Kessel on Chicago's second line (and with Toews when the need arises), and where would the Blackhawks be? Probably right about where they are right now.

Instead of keying in on Kessel, maybe people should look at a centre depth chart that features Tyler Bozak in the No. 1 role.

Dave: Hockey is always the consummate team game until the team is bad; then it's about an individual. And somehow that individual is Kessel and not Bozak. 

I think these next 40 games are about three things:

Tony Ding/Associated Press

• They are an audition for Horachek. If the Leafs show marked five-on-five improvement and make the playoffs, the job can be his next season.

• If it's more of the same or there's mild improvement, and if the Red Wings don't lock up Mike Babcock, I think the Leafs can make a pitch to him with something along the lines of, "Hey, we've got a few good players, and this team isn't far from being a playoff team. If you can turn it around and win a Cup with this team in the next five years, you're a legend." I think that would appeal to him. 

• They are a 2015-16 tryout for some guys, perhaps Dion Phaneuf, maybe Bozak. If certain players don't show any signs of improvement under a new coach, moves could be made.

My final thought: The Leafs could be a playoff team this year. Or not. That's my hot take with 42 games to go.

Jonathan: That's more or less how I see it, too; I don't really think Babcock is a factor (remember when the Leafs used to lust after Ken Holland? Good memories), and I probably would have phrased my fence-sitting a little differently, but otherwise I could have written that.

If this team can make the playoffs, that'll probably say a lot about the new coach and the state of the roster, and the emphasis next summer will be on bolstering the existing group. If it can't, I think we'll see wholesale change as management (likely including a new GM) decides which pieces he wants to build around and which he wants to trade in for other parts.