Egy vélemény a Globe and Mailről:

"This is a bad hockey team playing very bad hockey right now, a group being made worse by some of the bizarre decisions made by head coach Randy Carlyle night after night. Smaller, offence-first defencemen like Gardiner and John-Michael Liles have been benched in favour of underperforming big men like Mark Fraser and Paul Ranger, despite the fact the blueline’s play with the puck has been a huge contributor to their possession woes. Enforcers are dressed every night, but their line almost never sees the ice, with Colton Orr’s 33 seconds of ice time in Thursday’s first period evidence of a trend that only puts more pressure on the other units. And useful player after useful player has been ostracized, pushed out or limited under Carlyle’s watch, with former Leafs like Mikhail Grabovski and Clarke MacArthur speaking publicly against the coach’s methods and current players like Gardiner and Nazem Kadri now being spun through the trade rumour mill due to their incompatibility with the system. Grabovski and MacArthur, by the way, are having terrific seasons elsewhere, with the first on pace for more than 60 points and the second on course for a career high 28 goals.

Forget the analytics – which Nonis and the rest of the management team abhor – that so accurately forecasted their demise; the Leafs have been outscored 102-69 since the start of November and are failing on almost every basic level possible. They can’t score. They can’t defend. They can’t make simple plays with the puck, and they suddenly look very much like the disjointed bunch that they were under former coach Ron Wilson by the end. Their record these last 31 games, in fact, is worse.

If Nonis – who “celebrated” the one-year anniversary of his promotion to GM attending this punch to the gut in Raleigh – can’t see that his coach has played a role in that demise, it’s a bigger problem than simply an inability to turn around this season. After all, giving up on young players like Gardiner and Kadri for their failures under this coaching staff could cripple the organization for a lot longer than the next 37 games."

Most nem azért hogy itt okoskodjak mert nyilván erre van most a legkevésbé szükségetek, de annyira vészesen azért nem meglepő szerintem a dolgok ilyen állása. Ez a Burke-Carlyle filozófia, egy szempont van: legyen benga és favágó. Kutyából nem lesz szalonna, ezzel voltak sikeresek amikor egyszer éppen azok voltak, de az se tegnap volt. Ez a csapatépítési és hoki elképzelés egyszerűen SZAR és antipatikus, és csak ideig-óráig sikeres, ha az tud lenni egyáltalán. Még azelőtt kéne észrevennie a legfőbb döntéshozótoknak (nem tudom ki a tulaj vagy president), mielőtt olyan emberek is áldozatul esnek ennek az elbaltázott filozófiának, akik nélkül megint a nulláról kéne indulni. Ez a franchise jobbat érdemel.