This is getting to be a habit.

I like to sit in the recliner and read for an hour at least every afternoon. And then when I'm done, I take a quick look at my hockey feed to see if anything happened before I ignore the internet for some hours.

And Sportsnet posts a Justin Bourne article.

Up I get, and now I'm writing about his article. Again.

One thing I've noticed, and it's really cool to still discover things about your own brain works well past the age where you wonder how well it still works, but I find people I almost agree with much more useful as imaginary argument foils than people who have dramatically different points to make.

This is interesting to contemplate in light of the workout the worry beads have had lately over people's polarized social media interactions.

If someone lays out their thoughts on the Leafs, and I almost agree, like Bourne's last article about Treliving meeting the fork in the road and trying to just go straight on – to nowhere as it turned out, not to morning or to hell or to any of the other places roads go – I get more out of nibbling at the edges than if someone just says: They're terrible, they're whateverth in Corsi, burn it all down!

That just makes me roll my eyes. X playoff losses in y years. Or x dollars in cap hit for y players. Or "what is it about the roster that makes you think..." or any other easy one liner just makes me roll my eyes. It says that this person has guessed the future, considers the present inevitable and not one of any number of variable outcomes from past decisions and therefore wants to cut their losses... you know that's an interesting turn of phrase, isn't it?

What it refers to is getting out of a bet that you believe can't ever pay out. It's deciding you know the future. But what it says is a lie. You don't cut anything, you are stuck with those losses, and the only thing you've cut is the imaginary ones you've decided are due you. If you apply this line of thinking to the Leafs and their current choice of direction – and here I'm going to use my own terms for it: trying to win or setting out to be bad on purpose for years – then you are suggesting that future losing has a cost only if you weren't doing it on purpose.

Back to Bourne, and if you haven't closed this article and just gone and found his and read it, I don't know what's wrong with you. But first, I posted a segment of Overdrive in comments yesterday with Pierre LeBrun. They discussed very ably something I hadn't mentioned regarding Keith Pelley's presser, and that is that he came right out and said the Leafs are going to keep trying. He opened the door to whatever the new head of hockey operations decides, but as the Overdrive guys said, he's the guy hiring the new head, so he's hiring a guy who is on the same page.

I agree with this as the correct top-level strategy, and I thought it was obvious that's where Pelley was coming from. In the Overdrive bit, LeBrun does an aside about Kyle Dubas and his hiring by the former Penguins owners. The salient point about Dubas here is that he presented to Fenway an idea that the Penguins could keep their elite core and also transition to some younger players and gradually add prospects and try to win. This is considered by standard NHL orthodoxy as trying to have your cake and eat it too.

And yet, that's what he's doing. When the cake is Sidney Crosby, damn straight that's what you do.

Bourne starts here as well. Throwing aside the tiresome (to me, I'm not speaking for him) discussion about trying or not because it's already been decided. And he also starts with Dubas and the Penguins. I think Tampa is another place to look at hard, as well as Vegas, LA, Columbus, and then also teams that have tried and failed like Calgary or Nashville.

How the Maple Leafs can return to being much better in just a few easy steps
Never mind how they fared this season, the Toronto Maple Leafs can still be good next season, with a few simple moves. Justin Bourne lays out the plan for success.
Sportsnet.caJustin Bourne

I love this headline because it has to be self aware.

He starts with talking about the big "well duh" which is replacing the coach. And I enjoyed his thought experiment about Colorado with no coach and the Canucks with Jon Cooper. I agree with his take on this as well. And for the record, because I've been shouted at before that coaching matters: the coach is irrelevant if the team is bad. If the team is elite the coach needs to get out of the way (this is why I think Bruce Cassidy was fired, he didn't), and if the team is good but not great, the coach needs to be a plus not a minus.

I think almost everyone overestimates how much of what the Leafs have done is what Craig Berube wanted them to do, and also how much of a difference a different coach would make. However, Berube is not a coach to add value to skilled players, and they need someone who does.

Bourne then surprises me a little by talking specifically about the players on the team and usage as well as the roles that need to be filled. This is not rocket science, this is obvious stuff, and I nodded along to almost all of it.

There's been so very much carrying on about how the team is terrible and broken and Matthews is broken – more comforting nihilistic future prognostication – that this actually does need to be relentlessly repeated that the missing pieces are not elite-level players.

When I most recently said the team has the hard to get players and they actually need to add some of the secondary easier to get players, the immediate response was pretty intense outrage because the standings! And the Corsi! And they're all broken and doom despair and agony on me, and one of these days I'll just put that song up as the theme of the day.

Bourne takes it right down to projected lines, ideas for players. Go read it!

But then at the end of that good read, I came to this: What is the most likely outcome of this plan of Bourne's? Let's prognosticate a rosy future for a change instead of the usual doomer gloom that slowly becomes truthy in everyone's head after they've written or read the misery horoscope so often. Let's say the Leafs hire Smart Guy as President, Data Nerd as GM, Can Actually Do Player Eval as AGM, and Bruce Cassidy as coach.

Then they get the obvious needs filled: someone on defence with the right skills, a winger better than Maccelli but not quite Nylander. Run that team out there on the ice playing a system that actually understands how you get more goals than the other team, while having so much culture everyone smells faintly of yogurt.

What's the most likely outcome?

That the Leafs don't win the Cup. They might not even hit whatever magic number of playoff rounds it is to be considered not a disaster. One more than they get, by past experience. But they likely won't win it all.

Because that's how this sport works. If you can't take a joke, you shouldn't have signed up.

But what if, just what if the Leafs are actually fun? Because the real problem with this season that will soon be over is that none of it was any fun. Trying to win might scare you, but it's the only way there is any return on the fan investment of time and attention. It's the only way it gets fun.

‘It’s been my life’: How Craig Berube is dealing with lack of job security
Craig Berube knows his days may be numbered, but he’s found a way to deal with the uncertainty.
Sportsnet.caLuke Fox

Lots of thoughts on the state of things, I'm sure, but not much said:

Isn't it great we get to do this again in two weeks? A little considered aspect of the timing of this firing.

Remember tonight's game is at 10 pm.

From The Branches