Mike Johnson

and you forget at some point you need the puck to play the game.

And, you know, last year was driven a lot by goaltending, power play, star players.

Some of that's dropped off, but a lot of it is, frankly, as you know, they never get the puck out of their own end cleanly.

And when you just don't get it there, you force yourself to defend, goaltending's average, all of a sudden the team is not bad.

I mean, they're going to get 90 points, but they're not good.

And I think that's,

the unfortunate realization of this team right now as they are built is that they're fine, but they're not really good.

And I think that's sort of where they're at.

I mean, the murky middle is the absolute worst, especially when you plan on being good.

So that's a troubling place to be.

Yes, Noodle, I think...

Ideally, you get in the bottom five because the worst thing that can happen for Leafs is finish, what, 27th, 26th, and give up the sixth or seventh pick and watch Carson Carls go to whoever, to Boston, as a first-round pick.

That would be the absolute worst.

But I don't know, Noodles, with the amount of time left,

and the state of the Western Conference, that they'll be able to get to the bottom five.

I think they might be, unfortunately, with the team they have, even if they make trades, Lawton, McMahon, Carlo, OEL, whoever.

I'm just throwing names out there.

If they trade some of those, all those guys, I don't think they bottom out fast enough to get to a bottom five pick, even if you could say, all right, listen, guys, in the boardroom, the best case scenario for the Leafs is,

We're going to miss the playoffs.

Let's be the worst team in the league.