Simmons Says – the usual collection of thoughts, dots and shots

Article content

Craig Berube is a fine man, a champion, highly likeable and one of my favourite people to ever coach the Maple Leafs.

Article content

And that shouldn’t mean a lot right now.

Article content

Article content

Mike Babcock was easy to fire. He overstayed his welcome with the Leafs. Ron Wilson was reasonably easy to fire, same with Randy Carlyle: They did their time in Toronto. Some of it well.

Even Pat Burns and Pat Quinn, two of the most successful coaches in modern Leafs history, were let go at the right times and became more important figures as the years went on.

It’s been only two years for Berube with the Leafs but this season has unravelled so badly in Toronto that the club can’t possibly be considering bringing him back. Assuming they are bringing anyone back.

The biggest disconnect in two seasons of Berube is how Auston Matthews has gone from the premier goal-scorer in the game to just another offensive player of consequence.

Article content

Article content

He has played 124 games for Berube and has scored 59 goals — which is scoring at a 39-goal pace. Great for some players. Not for Matthews. In the previous 124 games, he scored 94 goals — a 62-goal pace. That’s a 37% drop for Matthews, the second-highest paid player in hockey.

In his career before Berube, playing for Babcock and Sheldon Keefe, Matthews was the top goal-scorer in the game. In two seasons with Berube coaching and this season without Mitch Marner on his line, Matthews has dropped to 24th in goal-scoring in the NHL.

Among those he’s behind: Cole Caufield, Alex DeBrincat, Alex Tuch and Jason Robertson — none of whom were chosen for the U.S. Olympic team.

The job of a head coach, any coach, is to get the most out of your best players. Berube has failed in that area, as the team around him has collapsed.

Article content

The Leafs are worse this year in almost every conceivable way and the time is now to begin searching for next year’s coach.

Chris Pronger for president of Leafs

If I were in charge of the Leafs, I’d be bringing in a team president to head up hockey operations. My first phone call be with Chris Pronger, the Hall of Fame defenceman who led three different NHL teams to Stanley Cup finals and one championship. Pronger is wired differently than almost anyone I’ve come across in the game. He would not accept anything but winning. The Leafs need that kind of cut-throat mentality at the top … My understanding is the Leafs have no interest in hiring a president … If you have a Bill Zito, a Jim Nill, a Bill Guerin or a Julien BriseBois as your general manager, you may not need a team president. But Cam Neely in Boston, Jeff Gorton in Montreal, Colorado’s Joe Sakic and George McPhee in Vegas are all doing just fine as hockey presidents … Struggling: Jeff Jackson and Stan Bowman in Edmonton, where the Oilers have won just 30 of 63 games and have two of the five best players in hockey in Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. But they still don’t have a goalie. Bowman won a Stanley Cup in Chicago with Antti Niemi as his goalie. And another playoffs started with Scott Darling in net in Chicago. Seems like Bowman seems to be pushing for a Cup with a longshot in net … The Leafs did raise ticket prices for next season. But the dumb narrative that is forever out there: All Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment cares about is money. It doesn’t care about winning. Well, understand this: The more playoff games the Leafs play, the more money MLSE makes … Ken Holland has taken a lot of grief in his first season as GM of the Los Angeles Kings. But all he’s done in less than a year on the job is fire coach Jim Hiller, trade away veterans Phil Danault, Warren Foegele and Corey Perry, traded for Artemi Panarin and Scott Laughton, signed Panarin and Adrian Kempe to contract extensions, brought in veterans Joel Armia, Brian Dumoulin and Cody Ceci. It’s not all great stuff, but it sure beats being inactive.

Article content

NHL missing big opportunity with Hellebuyck

I’ll never understand the NHL. Connor Hellebucyk is basically the MVP of the Olympics and it wasn’t until a day or two ago that he was available to the Winnipeg media. Doesn’t the league want to take advantage of the Olympics bump? Hellebuyck should be everywhere, talking to everyone, about everything especially considering that the Winnipeg Jets aren’t going anywhere this season … Heading into Saturday night, the Leafs were 0-6 since the Olympics break and Matthews, who captained Team USA to gold, had zero goals scored … The Leafs don’t have a deep roster, but they should be top-heavy with Matthews and William Nylander. Teams with a better 1-2 punch up front, or a similar 1-2 – McDavid and Draisaitl in Edmonton; Nathan MacKinnon and Martin Necas in Colorado; Jack Eichel and Mitch Marner in Vegas; Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin in Pittsburgh; and Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point in Tampa; That’s the only reason for any kind of Maple Leafs optimism … Wonder what it will feel like to be Colton Parayko, out of the playoffs, watching the Buffalo Sabres win a round or three come April. It would bother me … If you listen closely enough, Morgan Rielly is having a dreadful season and Oliver Ekman-Larsson is the Leafs’ best defenceman. That’s the word out there. At 5-on-5 this season, Rielly ranks last in the NHL, being on the ice for 66 goals against. Second last is OEL at 64.

Article content

SGA keeping some heady company

This is Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s fourth season in a row in which he will average more than 30 points per game in the NBA. To put that into some kind of historical perspective, consider this: That is something that LeBron James, Steph Curry, Oscar Robertson, Allen Iverson and Kobe Bryant never managed in their careers. Wilt Chamberlain began his career with nine straight 30-plus scoring seasons when he was a giant among regular men. Michael Jordan had eight 30-point scoring seasons in his career, seven of them in a row … SGA, by the way, remains the betting favourite to win MVP of the NBA for the second straight season … What a perfect way for the World Baseball Classic to begin: Shohei Ohtani hitting a grand slam for Japan and Aaron Judge hitting a home run for Team USA. If only all the best of the available Canadians were playing … Attendance has ranged in WBC games thus far from just more than 10,000 to a high in Tokyo of 42,000 plus … Funny, how difficult it is to get baseball players to represent their countries and basketball players to play international events, but if you ask a hockey player to report, he’ll be there tomorrow. Unless it’s to Buffalo … By the way, friends of mine and professional colleagues who have lived and worked in Buffalo love Buffalo. Everything but the winter weather. Just ask Jack Armstrong or Scotty Bowman, Darryl Sittler or Harry Neale … The Charlotte Hornets, who haven’t won a playoff round since 2002, are 16-4 in their past 20 games. The defending-champion Oklahoma City Thunder is 13-7 over that same period of time … The first beat I ever had was covering the Alberta Junior Hockey League in 1979. The three best players in the AJHL at the the time were Brent Sutter, Mike Vernon and Troy Murray, who passed away the other day after a long battle with cancer. Murray was coached at the time by Mark Messier’s father, Doug … There’s nothing I love more than media members who wouldn’t know Graham James from David Frost from Brad Aldrich lecturing others on how to cover the troubles in hockey which, by the way, are the same troubles in just about every other sport you can name … The post-Olympic boost: PWHL games at the most famous sports arena, Madison Square Garden, and the almost-as-famous TD Garden in Boston have been sold out for women’s professional hockey games. That’s a first … Drew Doughty should have won the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoffs MVP in 2014. Here’s what happened: In Game 4, with Los Angeles leading 3-0 in the series, a vote was taken late in the game for playoff MVP. Doughty won the vote. The Kings lost the game. The Kings then won the series in Game 5. A vote was taken late in Game 5 and Justin Williams was voted Conn Smythe winner. He played 12 minutes a game less than the workhorse Doughty, who was clearly the dominant player in the series. He should have a won the vote twice, which would have got him a Conn Smythe. It’s a little like McDavid winning Olympic MVP in Milan with a vote taken before the overtime loss to Team USA.

Article content

Starting pitchers today have it easy

The Blue Jays are babying Trey Yesavage as he prepares for the start of the baseball season. It’s not the pitcher’s fault that this is how baseball works today. It’s baseball’s fault. It has taken the approach that pitchers are to be protected, no matter what. There aren’t a lot like Nolan Ryan or Jack Morris throwing 12-inning games any longer. It’s five or six and out for most pitchers. They think it’s good business. I think it’s bad baseball … A former Blue Jay on Toronto losing Game 7 of the World Series: “Here’s what I didn’t understand. They used three starting pitchers in relief with a lead. All three of them get scored on. That wouldn’t have happened with relief pitchers, believe me.” … The Raptors fall into the same problem too often in the fourth quarter of close games. Instead of moving the ball and taking advantage of their lineup depth, they play 1-on-1. They become too easy to defend. And too often they lose the close games doing it. Coach Darko Rajakovic has to be better than that … Can’t even begin to comprehend what this season has been like for Tampa Bay defenceman Darren Raddysh, having a giant breakout year while his dad, the quintessential hockey dad, was fighting for his life. Dwayne Raddysh, father of NHL players Darren and Taylor of the New York Rangers, lost his battle with cancer the other day. Condolences to family and friends … Not sure how any team beats a healthy Colorado team in the playoffs, with MacKinnon centring the first line, Brock Nelson the second line, Nazem Kadri the third and Nicolas Roy on the fourth. That’s almost three front-line centres and a third-liner on four lines. Who else has anything to compare to that? … Nothing is more overrated than a second-round draft pick in the NHL. GMs love them. Fans love them. Nobody seems to do the math. In a 10-year-period, 309 players were selected in the second round of the NHL draft. Four became stars. A quarter of those 309 players don’t have NHL careers. Odds are 25% for, 75% against, getting a top half of the roster player. Odds are 75% for getting a guy who can’t play or a guy who can play on the bottom half of your team. It’s no real way to rebuild your team … In 1982, a minor-league hockey player named Frank Beaton made a request to his GM: Could you trade me to the Minnesota North Stars. Beaton, a minor-league fighter, wanted to stay in Birmingham, where he had played in the World Hockey Association and after that in the Central Hockey League. The North Stars were moving their farm team from Nashville to Birmingham. So Bill Torrey, GM of the New York Islanders called Lou Nanne, GM of the Stars and asked: ‘Would you like Frank Beaton?’ Nanne wasn’t impressed. Torrey explained why Beaton wanted to be traded. So the two GMs decided, next time Nanne was in New York he would buy Torrey dinner at The Palm steakhouse in Manhattan. The trade was agreed to and sent in to the NHL registrar: Frank Beaton to Minnesota in exchange for dinner at The Palm. The league registrar, Brian O’Neill, vetoed the trade. “You can’t trade a player for dinner,” he apparently said at the time. A few days later, the deal was made. Beaton to Minnesota in exchange for future considerations. It isn’t known to this day whether dinner at The Palm ever took place … Happy birthday to Ivan Lendl (66), Larry Murphy (65), Lynn Swann (58), Joe Carter (66), Rasmus Sandin (26), Dylan Strome (29), Kenny Smith (61), Jeff Kent (58), Jim Rice (73) and Bushwacker Luke (79) … And hey, whatever became of Jason Bay?

Article content