The Leafs are absolutely SCREWED...

This is a full-blown disaster as the Maple Leafs are absolutely screwed right now. They have lost seven out of their last eight games. And quite frankly, everyone is livid and begging for changes to happen to this team. We're going to break down some comments after the game from Matthews, from Jim Hiller. Some new updates as recent as this morning into this afternoon. But Darius, huge changes are hopefully coming for this team. And at the end of the day, this has hit a point that. We haven't seen in a very long time. We're gonna break down all the latest and discuss what it means going forward. Before I get into it, hopefully you guys are at least enjoying the content. Now, Darius, we're going to dive into a quote in just a sec here. I just want to paint this picture. They have lost seven of their last eight. They've lost every game at home. And the Leafs might be completely screwed right now because they do not have, and we'll dive into everything, people are talking about potentially trading William Nylander, which is possible, potentially trading Austin Matthews, which who knows at this point, firing Jim Hiller. They don't own their first-round picks. And all of a sudden now, are we hitting the panic button too early? I'm not entirely sure, but you've lost seven out of your last eight. You're falling quickly, quickly into the into the abyss here when it comes to the playoff race. And they are they don't really have a lot of room to actually make changes. No, they don't. And it's not impossible. A lot of people over the last couple of days are saying that's basically impossible to make a trade right now. It's not impossible. It's just very difficult with the tagging and all that stuff. Right. We don't have to talk about that today. We can talk about that on the weekend. I'm sure we're going to be talking about trades, especially with the Blackhawks coming up on the schedule. But there's a lot to get into today. And fans are upset, and rightfully so, because this team is not playing well. And they're in a bad, bad way right now. And if you think that Kroll Marchenko coming back is going to solve everything, I don't know what to tell you. It will certainly help. He's a great player, that's for sure. But it will not change everything. Now. A lot of people are making a lot about this quote from Austin Matthews last night. Oh my God, Jim Hiller doesn't speak after games. He should be fired. No way. Guys, this is a very common thing for a lot of coaches in the NHL, including guys like Mike Babcock, Hitchcock, John Tortorella. There is a lot of coaches. Peter Laviolette. That don't do this. And it's fine, right? Because you're in the NHL. You're not in house league. This is not something where you have to come into the room and scold the guys. They know that they lost. Let's reload and go after it the next game. There's a lot of coaches that go about their business this way. So I'm not worried about that at all. But I'm a little bit worried about how the team is playing and some of the systems and Jim Hiller. Now, a lot of people are talking about Nylander on the play last night and his play overall. I did a watch long. I watched the whole game. I think Nylander played better than he did on Tuesday. It was a better game for him. That being said, it wasn't great still, obviously. And you need big performances from your top guys, right? This team needs defensive help. They're in a bad way. They're depleted in terms of injuries. They're depleted in terms of assets. Like they can't even call anyone up. You would ideally in terms of young guys that can skate, move the puck, call up Ben Danford, let's say he's hurt, right? So like they're in a bad way right now. And I'm trying to stay somewhat optimistic because it's still somewhat early. It's falling off of a cliff right now, right? But they're still in the mix in the Atlantic division. They can slowly climb their way back into things if they put some, some games together, but with the roster they have, the way that they're playing, you can tell that it's slowly slipping. So now the conversation, Nick, and I guess we can get into it is how long does this go until you start talking about Matthew's contracts up next year? Do we look at trading him? Do we approach Nylander to waive his no-movement clause, which I don't think has happened. A lot of people speculated about that as well. I think he's just in, like the rest of the team, not feeling it right now and not playing well. But you do, your top guys have to get back into it. You have to lead the way. You have to lead the team back into that. So they're in a bad way right now. And it's like, I don't even know if I have an answer. And according to James Myrtle, too, the organization, everyone's tense. Like, it's very intense right now. But they're also very hopeful that they can get back into things. And I just don't know if that's blind optimism at this point. I feel like something needs to happen. Yeah, you can see it here. I think a trade of William Nylander is actually, I'm not going to say likely, but I think there's a good chance at some point this season they go to him and at least ask. Because you're probably not going to trade Austin Matthews, even if things completely hit the fan. But William Nylander. I could see a world where that happens. Now, regarding hope, Jim Hiller sees hope. He says, I see it. I see lots. I see lots of hope. I see lots of hope. I see lots of hope. I see it all over the place. I really do, which almost seems like a joke of a quote, but it is a real quote. And to be fair, he probably knows. I mean, is Jim Hiller on the hot seat? Probably. Like, I don't really know at this point. I don't even know the terms of his contract. And MLSE is still paying Craig Berube there. Do they want to pay? And does that Rogers want to pay two coaches to kind of go through and actually I mean lose the team games is basically what's happening now. Again, Hiller, he talks about it here. He talks about one of the neutral zone plays, talks about the Willie Nylander play. That's kind of going viral within Leafs land. We screwed that up in the neutral zone. To be honest with you, it shouldn't have gotten to that point. Willie Nylander said basically him and OEL. I think it was just kind of lost, lost their man. And OEL didn't think that Nylander was going to just leave Hartman and Hartman left them regardless of that, which I don't think necessarily is like. It kind of is the epitome of what this team is going through right now. Just consistent struggles. Nylander has been struggling, barely getting shots on goal. Is it, does it come to a point where the team just tries to sell off as many pieces as they can, but get guys back that are young, but can also remain somewhat competitive. Cause if you're going to make a trade for a hypothetically William Nylander, even Austin Matthews here, it's not going to be for just picks because you need to actually be somewhat competitive and win games, probably not playoffs, but. Keep your pick out of the top two or three because the ones that have your pick are Philadelphia and the Boston Bruins, which is kind of a disaster. So it is wild. Anthony Stolar spoke out as well. He basically said no one's feeling sorry for us. So it's for us to crawl out of it. There is lots of time to crawl out of it. The problem is it's about as bad of a stretch of play as I've seen in multiple years. I've seen this team play well. They're shooting themselves in the foot right now. And I do think they need help. Like when I say they played well, we've seen flashes this season where you go, okay, you can be a competitive team. I'm not saying that they are a contender. I think they need long-term help on the blue line. That is for sure. They need to make a move there. And things are very difficult right now with the salary cap structure and that type of stuff. But, um... A couple of things you brought up there too. It was a mistake in the neutral zone. A lot of people are blaming William Nylander for this play. It's not him and him alone. That was the problem on this play. This play was ruined in the neutral zone. There was two attacking at the time, two attacking Minnesota Wild forwards. OEL probably should have picked up Hartman himself and then Nylander can pick up the trailing forward. And if they're playing man to man, which we know that they are, the Leafs this season in the defensive zone, then this is miscommunication. But I would almost blame OEL more. I'm just going to blame, for the lack of effort, William Nylander this morning, and it's easy, right? And we're going to continue to pick on him, just like people have been for the last 10 years. When Nylander is on his game, he has a very particular skill set. We're all doing, and it's not, sorry, not all of us, but a lot of people in the narrative right now is the exact same thing that happened to Phil Kessel. So let's not drive, and when I say let's, it's not Leaf fans, it's Leafs media, or Toronto media, sorry, I should specify that. Let's not drive another guy out of town. I don't think it's... necessarily Leaf fans. I think you can win with a guy like William Nylander when he's on his game. He's not on his game right now. He has to find it. And that goes for everyone. I still think that Austin Matthews is playing very well. But as a team, the system, there's a lot of mistakes. In the neutral zone, you could see it last night. It was way more prevalent to me on Tuesday against Colorado. I thought that was a way worse game. Yesterday was a little bit tighter, but still. These little, little mistakes are costing you games and then it starts to pile on. Then you take stupid penalties and it just continues to snowball in a game and you're losing game after game after game and your only win in your last eight games is against Vancouver, who has three wins this season. They're horrible, right? It's tough. If you're going to Saturday against Edmonton, try to win one game here on home ice, and then you're going out on the road against Chicago. You can definitely win that game, but the confidence is absolutely soured right now in the team. And the answer, Nick, again, I don't think a help is coming in a big way, in a substantial way, or anytime soon. It might come this season. The answer has to be in the room, and we have seen that you can play well, right? They just have to continue, they have to execute, not continue, they have to start executing in all areas of the ice, and they have to figure it out themselves, and us as fans, we're sitting through this right now, I know a lot of people want, like, changes, I think things would have to get astronomically bad for Jim Hiller to be fired, not that I agree with the hire even at the time, if you go back and watch the videos, like, we were kind of puzzled by it, but... They're in a bad way right now, and it's tough. I'll throw it back to you, Nick. Can you even rebuild right now? You don't have your first-round picks the next two years, right? You would be, depending on, hopefully, a return if you were to trade Matthews that would include, like you mentioned, players that can compete right now, like guys that can play in the NHL right now, including some futures, so you don't fall completely out of the race. Give these top 10 picks or top 15 picks to these teams in Philly and Boston, and then hope that the picks that you got back are not, you know, Great picks or, uh, you know, the teams are doing great and doing well in the playoffs. So it's a, it's a bad situation and they went cheap with the hires. We know that, right? Like at this point, we can talk about that till we're blue in the face too. They went cheap with the hires, but on paper, it looked like, all right, I like the moves that they made. There's some questions with the coaching. There's some questions with the systems right now. And the other thing. I wanted to bring up quickly before we wrap up with the way that they're playing. Would it be the worst thing in the world? Considering a lot of the top guys are making mistakes and a lot of the team is shooting themselves in the foot, making these mistakes. Would it be the worst thing in the world to give Gavin McKenna just some more ice time to see if you can score a little bit more with some top players, right? Would it be the worst thing in the world? I don't know. Try it. Do you have anything else to lose at this point? It's funny. You can see there are 10 minutes. Dakota Joshua has been pretty rough this season. Like the team on paper, I'm looking at it now again. They don't look that bad. The problem is they're playing. I don't even think they're playing that bad. I actually think they're having a lot of good close games against really good teams. They just have too many mistakes, and then they have a terrible blue line. And that's kind of what makes it where we're at now, talking about potentially trading star players that all have no trade clauses. So that'll be interesting. Let us know down below what your guys' thoughts are on all this. Where do you guys stand? Do you think it's over? Do you think there's time? Either way, we'll continue to make videos, and we'll see you guys later tomorrow.