After 20 games.......

[ACC1224]

After 10 games who is your biggest surprise and biggest disappointment relative to expectations. (You can have more than one.)

For me,
Surprise
1. Stolarz
2. Max Patch
3. OEL

Disappointment
1. Holmberg
2. Woll

Click to read more...

 

[HockeyVirus]

Agreed on surprises.

Disapointments:
Liljegren - I thought he was going to finally get some real playing time and found himself even more in the dog hourse

Tavares - Right after a hat trick, but he was awful for a lot of those 10 games. Hopefully he is getting up to speed

Our PP - Good god.

 

[ACC1224]

Agreed on surprises.

Disapointments:
Liljegren - I thought he was going to finally get some real playing time and found himself even more in the dog hourse

Tavares - Right after a hat trick, but he was awful for a lot of those 10 games. Hopefully he is getting up to speed

Our PP - Good god.

Good call on the PP, I was just thinking individual players. I guess Savard and/or Berube could take some blame there.

For me both of your disappointments match my expectations for them.

 

[Confucius]

Biggest diaappointments
Robertson, after his preseason thought he would continue and breakout. 1 point and no toughness after 10 games doesn’t bold well for us.

Mathews leading the entire league in shots, shooting 8.5% for 4 goals after 10 games is bad as well. Pacing for a 32 goal season….

 

[Rare Jewel]

OEL for Surprises. He's been the best D man so far.


For Disappointments: Marner just doesn't look right, and Robertson, at least in terms of production, but it's not surprising either.

 

[LeafGrief]

Surprises

Pacioretty - Wow, was not expecting this. He seems to have dialed back the years. I think he'll probably do better if we load manage him a little, he doesn't need to play every night. But if he plays ~60 games he'll be a perfect scoring depth piece.

Knies - I've been a Knies believer since he made his NHL debut, but he's already a big problem for the league. Power forwards don't usually blossom this early, and it still feels like he's got so much room to grow. Boy might score 30g this year and is going to get PAID. That move on the PK last night where he faked the spin to the outside then cut across the inside for the shot was absolutely barbaric. Skill, size, shot, work rate, physicality, and IQ, he's the real deal.

McMann - Guy is a player, proving that last year wasn't just a flash in the pan, but rather just the beginning. Perfect middle sixer.

OEL + Stolarz - Both have far exceeded expectations and look like solutions in their positions, rather than role players.

Disappointments

Robertson - King of the preseason. He's just not able to contribute consistently at the NHL level. McMann ate his lunch.

Core 4 - Powerplay is ASS, dawg. Matthews and Marner have been well below themselves (though Marner has been finding his groove) Nylander has been fine, and JT has been atrocious asides the hat trick last night. Solid C- for them as a group.

 

[Fogelhund]

Good

1. Stolarz has been excellent
2. Our division has so much parity, that we are still right there.
3. OEL was a fantastic signing, and has played very well.
4. Pacioretty has been better than I expected.
5. Knies has been excellent.


Bad
1. The lack of effort and execution, that has been a hallmark of these team continues. We've had two really good games so far... and then the rest.
2. Our PP has really been a problem so far.
3. Our PK has been ok.. but I wouldn't call it good.
4. Outside of Stolarz, we haven't had good goaltending yet... but it's early
5. Robertson - Preseason MVP hasn't repeated the success in the regular season. He always seems to score when he gets back in the lineup, so lets see if that gives him some momentum if he gets back in.
7. 3rd pairing RD. I've always liked Timmins, but still feel that Liljegren "should" be better... I'm not understanding what is going on here. Myers wasn't good enough. Timmins is always a health risk as well, so it's difficult to depend on him, and move Liljegren, until either Hakanpaa is healthy enough, and good enough to play, or some other RD emerges as effective insurance.
8. Holmberg needs to be better.. I don't think he's been horrible, but we need more from him.

 

[notbias]

Will frame this by saying it is early and this can change, and also will focus on new players/fringe players mostly.

Surprise:
Stolarz
OEL

Disappointment:
Tanev
Benoit
Liljegren

Tanev is in the disappointment column as I think that contract will end up aging horribly, and he is not this other worldly defender like he was framed by a lot here.

A lot of disappointments have been players on our team from previous years, so I left them off.

 

[1specter]

Surprises are the same as yours, maybe less so on Patches though. I was a bit more optimistic that he would turn out to be a good acquisition based on how he produced in Vegas, dude just had some horrible luck with injuries the last couple of seasons.

Disappointments - Holmberg, Robertson, Woll, Benoit. Also not particularly impressed with Marner's start so far (minus the Boston game), he's getting his numbers but he's not really playing the way he needs to for success in Berube's system, but I'm not gonna quite call him a disappointment.

Special teams are a f***ing joke.

 

[1specter]

Will frame this by saying it is early and this can change, and also will focus on new players/fringe players mostly.

Surprise:
Stolarz
OEL

Disappointment:
Tanev
Benoit
Liljegren

Tanev is in the disappointment column as I think that contract will end up aging horribly, and he is not this other worldly defender like he was framed by a lot here.

A lot of disappointments have been players on our team from previous years who have it, so I left them off.

Tanev is a strange choice. It's one thing to hate the contract, but in terms of his play IMO he's been exactly as advertised, and the numbers generally back it up. He has been on the ice for more GA than I'd like, but a lot of that can be chalked up to variance / luck, and also a PK unit that is undergoing reconstruction. At 5v5, xGA/60 is second lowest on the team (only Kampf who plays 4th line minutes is better), and lowest of all the D. xGF% is ~60%, and his CF% is around 53%. Meanwhile, the on-ice sv% (which has very little to do with him individually) is only a measly .879%, which is good for third lowest on the team. Hard to say that is disappointing.

 

[Community]

I personally don't think it's fair to label Woll or Liljegren as disappointments at this point since they've each only played 1 game. I understand some people are rating them based on Woll having another injury and Liljegren being unable to crack the lineup, but I think Liljegren isn't getting a fair shake (it's not like Timmins/Benoit/Myers have been great so far) and I'm not going to say Wolls a disappointment this year based solely on an early short term injury.

Still early and these can easily change after just 1-2 good/bad games:
- MaxPac is the biggest surprise. I thought he could be a useful depth scorer, but I dont think anybody was expecting his physicality after back to back achilles injuries in addition to playing at a 60pt pace.
- Given Robertson's preseason performance, he's been the biggest disappointment so far. Not much else to say, but he's definitely running low on time. His plays been okay, but his usefulness is directly tied to his offensive production.
- Holmberg has been a disappointment. Wasn't expecting a ton of him and was concerned he could be a weak link, but hes made it look like a glaring hole in the bottom 6 when I was at least expecting a replacement level player.
- Savard/Powerplay have been a big disappointment, but you can see some small tweaks occurring and hopefully a bit of puck luck gets us rolling on the powerplay.

I think OEL and Stolarz have been slight surprises, but are getting a bit overhyped at the moment (probably because any decent new players usually get overhyped at first). OEL has been more physical than anticipated, but other than that I think he's "only" been good, not great... maybe he moves up my list when our PP gets going. Stolarz had an amazing start, but his last two games haven't been good and given the small sample size that's impacted his overall rating. Both of these players could move to the top of the list with a few good games, but at 10 games i think their overall gameplay is only slightly better than I was expecting (glad to have both though either way and could jump up the list quickly).

 

[notbias]

Tanev is a strange choice. It's one thing to hate the contract, but in terms of his play IMO he's been exactly as advertised, and the numbers generally back it up. He has been on the ice for more GA than I'd like, but a lot of that can be chalked up to variance / luck, and also a PK unit that is undergoing reconstruction. At 5v5, xGA/60 is second lowest on the team (only Kampf who plays 4th line minutes is better), and lowest of all the D. xGF% is ~60%, and his CF% is around 53%. Meanwhile, the on-ice sv% (which has very little to do with him individually) is only a measly .879%, which is good for third lowest on the team. Hard to say that is disappointing.

It's a 6 year contract ending at 40 and he has been good so far in year one of it.

That is disappointing.

I also said it is 10 games, so who cares, but so far, not as impressed as I think I should be, it's relative to expectations.

 

[1specter]

It's a 6 year contract ending at 40 and he has been good so far in year one of it.

That is disappointing.

I also said it is 10 games, so who cares, but so far, not impressed as much as I think I should be.

Ok, doesn't really seem like what this thread was going for but you do you I guess.

 

[notbias]

Ok, doesn't really seem like what this thread was going for but you do you I guess.

"After 10 games who is your biggest surprise and biggest disappointment relative to expectations."

Seems like it is, you just don't like the answer.

I expected much higher level of play since he will be regressing as he ages, I expected this year to be amazing, not good/average.

 

[1specter]

"After 10 games who is your biggest surprise and biggest disappointment relative to expectations."

Seems like it is, you just don't like the answer.

I expected much higher level of play since he will be regressing as he ages, I expected this year to be amazing, not good/average.

Nah, you're in here bringing up how you hate the contract, and you don't really have a good argument otherwise for why his play has been 'disappointing'. You use the numbers when it's convenient, but when it disproves your narrative you ignore it lol. Anyways I have no interest in continuing this further, you have a tendency to drag on these semantic-based discussions for pages and pages and you often argue in bad faith.

 

[notbias]

Nah, you're in here bringing up how you hate the contract, and you don't really have a good argument otherwise for why his play has been 'disappointing'. You use the numbers when it's convenient, but when it disproves your narrative you ignore it lol. Anyways I have no interest in continuing this further, you have a tendency to drag on these semantic-based discussions for pages and pages and you often argue in bad faith.

Tanev has the worst real numbers of any D on the Leafs, they have been losing the most while he is on the ice.

He was brought in to be the solution to Rielly needing a partner but has been moved off of that pairing because it wasn't good enough.

The PK has not been good either.

I am happy with Tanev and having him on the team but disappointed with his play relative to what I was expecting.

Not sure why you are crying about my opinion.

 

[Nineteen67]

Stolarz Pacioretty and Knies have been better than expected.

Special teams are disappointing.

Tanev hasn’t been great. Ok but not great.

 

[Madap]

Stolarz and OEL as you mention. I’ll add Knies to the list. Really happy to see him continue his good play from the playoffs. Just looks way more confident than last year.

Disappointments - Matthews and Marner leading the charge. Liljegren. Not even him so much but the whole situation. Berube is handling him so poorly and hasn’t given him a fair shot after Treliving commits a lot of money to him.

 

[Skullz]

Happy:
Stolarz and OEL have both really exceeded my expectations. A+ so far.
Patches and Knies have both been a lot better than I thought as well.
McCabe continues to be really solid.

Sad:
Matthews has not been good enough.
Benoit: thought he would take a step, but seems to have gotten worse.
PP is ludicrously bad.

 

[colchar]

After 10 games who is your biggest surprise and biggest disappointment relative to expectations. (You can have more than one.)

For me,
Surprise
1. Stolarz
2. Max Patch
3. OEL

Disappointment
1. Holmberg
2. Woll

Captain America doesn't make your disappointment list?!?!

Agreed on surprises.

Disapointments:
Liljegren - I thought he was going to finally get some real playing time and found himself even more in the dog hourse

Tavares - Right after a hat trick, but he was awful for a lot of those 10 games. Hopefully he is getting up to speed

Our PP - Good god.

Tavares was also sick and/or recovering from illness for most of those games. Cut the guy some slack.

 

[colchar]

Tanev is in the disappointment column as I think that contract will end up aging horribly

Oh ffs, this is about how they have performed thus far, not what will happen in the future.

 

[ACC1224]

Captain America doesn't make your disappointment list?!?!

His history earns him some slack. I doubt it'll last.

 

[notbias]

Oh ffs, this is about how they have performed thus far, not what will happen in the future.

Did you skip the rest of the sentence? He has not been as good as advertised, which is disappointing.

Oh ffs, learn to read.

Such a whiny bunch in this thread... prove that I am wrong and stop complaining.

 

[DarkKnight]

Surprises. OEL is much more physical defensively than I thought. Stolarz as a legit 1 now looks possible, he’s been fantastic. Pac looks a nice add.

Happy. Knies is developing into a force, a real comer this year. Tanev as advertised, a selfless warrior and processes plays quickly. Berube has set a good tone, I like what he wants us to be, and his understated style is a welcome change from Keefe.

Disappointed. Holmberg, Kampf, neither is much on the PK either, what’s the point then? Over rated defensively as well. Matthews finishing, but that will change.

Overall, pretty much exactly where I thought we’d be after 10. Old habits still apparent at times, but when we’re on, we look dominant. I’m really not concerned at all, our D looks better, goaltending isn’t an issue and we’re generating chances. The special teams will improve, it’s hurt us so far.

Looking forward to see how we develop over the long season.

 

[weems]

Surprise

- Stolarz
I had a feeling he would be solid but also knew he put up last seasons stats playing in front of a stingy team defensively, so was skeptical.
He has looked like the real deal so far and hasn't let in many goals where I say, "He should have had that".
With Wolls injury concerns already popping up again, this looks like an impact signing.

- OEL
Have always kind of liked this player going back to his ARZ days and knew his offensive ability, especially his ability to move the puck was legit but his overall defensive ability and moreso his physicality has been a big surprise. Not sure I love the idea of him longterm on his offside but so far his overall play has earned him some tougher minutes.

- Knies
I would say my opinion of Knies early career was the opposite of how I thought it would go. I was more convinced he'd light it up offensively, especially given the possibly line combos he could play on but wasn't sure about his all around game. He is actually already a beast all over the ice and showing he can be relied upon to play in many different situations. He is the one player outside of our core that can really have a huge breakout offensively and his playstyle should really translate to postseason hockey.

Disappointing

Benoit, Holmberg, Woll, Liljegren

The biggest disappointing thing is the PP though. It now goes back into last season, plus the playoffs where we weren't converting anywhere near where we should. Whether this is a personel problem or coaching issue, it's nowhere close to acceptable for the amount of talent we can run out there.