Welcome to another episode of Back to Excited. We’re a little delayed, thanks to some life stuff and Mother’s Day. But we’re back with about 90 minutes of scintillating Leafs discussion. On this episode:

  • Fulemin discusses why every fanbase hates the Leafs [1:54]
  • We talk about Kyle Dubas [8:23] and the tough job he has ahead of him
  • Is too much made of Dubas’ analytics background? [11:05]
  • Fulemin discusses why being a GM is harder than it seems [19:30]
  • The Leafs tough road to improve from where they are, and why any defence upgrade won’t be for a guy that is great right now [25:55]
  • [30:08] The dependence the Leafs have on the development of Dermott and Liljegren to fix their defensive core.
  • [34:47] Why John Carlson’s contract is going to be awful
  • [39:17] The types of moves the Leafs will likely have to make to improve
  • [45:16] We have basically the same discussion, but regarding centres instead of defencemen
  • [55:06] When does sheltering your third line make sense versus getting a group that can play versus everyone
  • [63:03] Arvind gets subtweeted!
  • [67:02] Why Kapanen isn’t really much of a trade chip
  • [74:00] Why tactical adjustments may be the most likely thing to help the Leafs
  • [76:10] What the Leafs can learn from the conference finalists/

In the podcast, we mention a couple articles written by Katya that are worth a read. They are:

Kyle Dubas, AHL goons, and the long, slow journey to a modern development system

The grass is always greener in Toronto

As always, you can find the podcast on Soundcloud, iTunes, and just about everywhere else. Let us know what moves you’d like to see from Dubas this offseason, and thanks for listening.