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Around the League - ...in 56 Games

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1specter said:
Trotz has reinvented trap hockey
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Trotz is pretty smart, so is Lou.

I was just curious, I haven't been following closely but IIRC, Zeke and co were gleefully mocking Lou for all the "dumb" moves he made saying how it would be impossible for Lou to avoid cap hell and so on but now, Barzal signed a bridge deal and they're cruising along in a division that seems at a glance to be much tougher than ours. Not trying to give anyone a hard time here, much of what Zeke and co said made sense at the time but I wonder if they were maybe overstating things a bit? I can't remember the exact narrative but weren't they supposed to have fallen off the proverbial cliff by now instead of being neck and neck with TB near the top of the overall standings?
 
We've seen some horrible teams in the last few decades when the expansion boon was happening. But man, is there a more inept franchise than the Sabres? They are all-time bad now. And with Eichel and Ullmark both out long-term, they look like an expansion team.
 
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TheTotalPackage said:
We've seen some horrible teams in the last few decades when the expansion boon was happening. But man, is there a more inept franchise than the Sabres? They are all-time bad now. And with Eichel and Ullmark both out long-term, they look like an expansion team.
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Is Ullmark out for the season or just a few more weeks.
Is he any good? should the Leafs try to get him as a possible goalie? Anderson/Ullmark/Campbell

Being on LTIR might make a trade and quarantine easier. His quarantine time wont count towards our cap.
 
ToneDog said:
Winners of 9 straight and 9-0-1 in last 10. Not to worry COVID won't save them this year :sarcasm:
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11-0-1 in their last twelve games, but that includes four wins over Jersey and four more against Buffalo. Maybe they're just good at beating up the bottom dwellers.

Let's see how they do against the Caps tonight, missing their best player.
 
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Gary Nylund said:
Trotz is pretty smart, so is Lou.

I was just curious, I haven't been following closely but IIRC, Zeke and co were gleefully mocking Lou for all the "dumb" moves he made saying how it would be impossible for Lou to avoid cap hell and so on but now, Barzal signed a bridge deal and they're cruising along in a division that seems at a glance to be much tougher than ours. Not trying to give anyone a hard time here, much of what Zeke and co said made sense at the time but I wonder if they were maybe overstating things a bit? I can't remember the exact narrative but weren't they supposed to have fallen off the proverbial cliff by now instead of being neck and neck with TB near the top of the overall standings?
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Because there is more to hockey than just Corsi and advanced stats.
The prettiest players don’t always make the prettiest team.

There is a lot of buying in, mental, blue collar and machine like efficiency to it.
 
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Gary Nylund said:
Trotz is pretty smart, so is Lou.

I was just curious, I haven't been following closely but IIRC, Zeke and co were gleefully mocking Lou for all the "dumb" moves he made saying how it would be impossible for Lou to avoid cap hell and so on but now, Barzal signed a bridge deal and they're cruising along in a division that seems at a glance to be much tougher than ours. Not trying to give anyone a hard time here, much of what Zeke and co said made sense at the time but I wonder if they were maybe overstating things a bit? I can't remember the exact narrative but weren't they supposed to have fallen off the proverbial cliff by now instead of being neck and neck with TB near the top of the overall standings?
Click to expand...

I think it is mostly just the case of them feasting on weaker teams who can't score.

BUF: 6-0-0
NYR: 2-1-0
NJD: 5-1-0
BOS: 4-0-0

Boston is the only good team they've done well against, but they are really struggling to score this year. Most of their offense comes from their top line so the Islanders can shut that down and Boston has nothing else. Boston is a bubble playoff team at this point of their contention window. All of the teams above have scored fewer goals than literally every team in our division this year (including Ottawa), so it works well for the Islanders.

Against the stronger teams who can score, they are awful:

PIT: 2-4-0
PHI: 0-2-0
WSH: 0-2-0

Seems like they either need to figure out how to stop PHI and WSH, or they could be outside of a playoff spot (or at least out early). I also doubt they finish with anything close to a perfect record against Boston and the Rangers could still be a handful for them. They don't have too many games against Buffalo and Jersey to pad their record anymore.
 
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This season doesn't help Lou's case at all. What it does show is when a coach falls on your plate who was coming no matter the GM, it can cover up an incompetent GM and thats what is happening there.
 
TBH Lou's inherited most of his team anyway, he's just riding out the same core with a new coach and a different goalies.

He and Trotz are clearly on the same page as the few acquisitions Lou's made have fit well within their system.
 
Trapper said:
Because there is more to hockey than just Corsi and advanced stats.
The prettiest players don’t always make the prettiest team.

There is a lot of buying in, mental, blue collar and machine like efficiency to it.
Click to expand...
Amen.
 
Gary Nylund said:
Trotz is pretty smart, so is Lou.

I was just curious, I haven't been following closely but IIRC, Zeke and co were gleefully mocking Lou for all the "dumb" moves he made saying how it would be impossible for Lou to avoid cap hell and so on but now, Barzal signed a bridge deal and they're cruising along in a division that seems at a glance to be much tougher than ours. Not trying to give anyone a hard time here, much of what Zeke and co said made sense at the time but I wonder if they were maybe overstating things a bit? I can't remember the exact narrative but weren't they supposed to have fallen off the proverbial cliff by now instead of being neck and neck with TB near the top of the overall standings?
Click to expand...

Lou wins everywhere he goes, HOF GM ..,
 
BertCorbeau said:
TBH Lou's inherited most of his team anyway, he's just riding out the same core with a new coach and a different goalies.

He and Trotz are clearly on the same page as the few acquisitions Lou's made have fit well within their system.
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Didn't Lou acquire the goalie? Looks like a good one. Imagine where we'd be today if we had a goalie that good!
 
SeaOfBlue said:
I think it is mostly just the case of them feasting on weaker teams who can't score.

BUF: 6-0-0
NYR: 2-1-0
NJD: 5-1-0
BOS: 4-0-0

Boston is the only good team they've done well against, but they are really struggling to score this year. Most of their offense comes from their top line so the Islanders can shut that down and Boston has nothing else. Boston is a bubble playoff team at this point of their contention window. All of the teams above have scored fewer goals than literally every team in our division this year (including Ottawa), so it works well for the Islanders.

Against the stronger teams who can score, they are awful:

PIT: 2-4-0
PHI: 0-2-0
WSH: 0-2-0

Seems like they either need to figure out how to stop PHI and WSH, or they could be outside of a playoff spot (or at least out early). I also doubt they finish with anything close to a perfect record against Boston and the Rangers could still be a handful for them. They don't have too many games against Buffalo and Jersey to pad their record anymore.
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Pittsburgh, Philly, and Washington records aren't quite right, as half of those losses were in OT.

Pit: 2-2-2
Phi: 0-0-2
Wsh: 0-2-0
 
Gary Nylund said:
Trotz is pretty smart, so is Lou.

I was just curious, I haven't been following closely but IIRC, Zeke and co were gleefully mocking Lou for all the "dumb" moves he made saying how it would be impossible for Lou to avoid cap hell and so on but now, Barzal signed a bridge deal and they're cruising along in a division that seems at a glance to be much tougher than ours. Not trying to give anyone a hard time here, much of what Zeke and co said made sense at the time but I wonder if they were maybe overstating things a bit? I can't remember the exact narrative but weren't they supposed to have fallen off the proverbial cliff by now instead of being neck and neck with TB near the top of the overall standings?
Click to expand...

Can't believe they're playing this well tbh. Good on them.

But I have to disagree with your take on their division...it's not very good imo. BOS WSH PIT are all aging deteriorating teams and PHI overachieved last year.
 
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Jamason said:
Pittsburgh, Philly, and Washington records aren't quite right, as half of those losses were in OT.

Pit: 2-2-2
Phi: 0-0-2
Wsh: 0-2-0
Click to expand...

Right, I was using natural stat trick and they just looked a what were wins and not where they came from.

Should have just used their schedule but that would have taken longer.

Regardless, a 2-4-4 record against the possible playoff teams in their division is not looking great. Although I am sure Boston will start looking better once they play against Buffalo, so one of those 4 teams (including the Islanders) could be out of the playoffs altogether and the Islanders are 4-0-0 against them right now.

Compare that to the Leafs record against MTL, EDM, and WPG:

WPG: 2-2-0
MTL: 3-1-0
EDM: 5-1-1

Even CGY, who could slip into the playoffs, we are 3-1-0.

We had some trouble against WPG, but a lot of that came down to goaltending more than our play. We were the much better team for 3/4 of our games against them. We are just 3-2-0 against VAN and 3-2-1 against OTT, but we've played some of our worst games against those two and they were both barely able to beat us both in most of our losses.
 
Jamason said:
11-0-1 in their last twelve games, but that includes four wins over Jersey and four more against Buffalo. Maybe they're just good at beating up the bottom dwellers.

Let's see how they do against the Caps tonight, missing their best player.
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I wish we were as good at beating up the bottom dwellers.
 
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SeaOfBlue said:
Right, I was using natural stat trick and they just looked a what were wins and not where they came from.

Should have just used their schedule but that would have taken longer.

Regardless, a 2-4-4 record against the possible playoff teams in their division is not looking great. Although I am sure Boston will start looking better once they play against Buffalo, so one of those 4 teams (including the Islanders) could be out of the playoffs altogether and the Islanders are 4-0-0 against them right now.

Compare that to the Leafs record against MTL, EDM, and WPG:

WPG: 2-2-0
MTL: 3-1-0
EDM: 5-1-1

Even CGY, who could slip into the playoffs, we are 3-1-0.

We had some trouble against WPG, but a lot of that came down to goaltending more than our play. We were the much better team for 3/4 of our games against them. We are just 3-2-0 against VAN and 3-2-1 against OTT, but we've played some of our worst games against those two and they were both barely able to beat us both in most of our losses.
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Philly is another one that's not looking so good against the better teams. They're 8-1-1 against Buffalo, Jersey, and the Devils, but only 6-8-2 against the contenders.

Islanders are 13-2-0 against the weak teams, and 6-4-4 against the contenders.

Pittsburgh is 7-1-0 against the weak teams, and 11-8-1 against the contenders.

Boston is 5-4-1 and 9-4-3.

Washington is 9-2-1 and 9-4-3.
 
Steve776 said:
I wish we were as good at beating up the bottom dwellers.
Click to expand...

Even our bottom dwellers are not as bad as Jersey and Buffalo right now. Jersey is effectively Ottawa, the Rangers are a little bit better than Vancouver right now, and then they also have Buffalo who is easily the worst team in the league and practically a free 2 points for anyone in that division except Jersey.

Buffalo has 3 wins (1 in OT) against Jersey, 1 win against Philly, 1 OT win against Washington, and 1 win against the Rangers.

Pretty much the Islanders have to hope they can improve their record against the non-BOS contenders or they could have trouble getting out of their division (or if they play anyone except Boston, out of the first round).
 
SeaOfBlue said:
Even our bottom dwellers are not as bad as Jersey and Buffalo right now. Jersey is effectively Ottawa, the Rangers are a little bit better than Vancouver right now, and then they also have Buffalo who is easily the worst team in the league and practically a free 2 points for anyone in that division except Jersey.

Buffalo has 3 wins (1 in OT) against Jersey, 1 win against Philly, 1 OT win against Washington, and 1 win against the Rangers.

Pretty much the Islanders have to hope they can improve their record against the non-BOS contenders or they could have trouble getting out of their division (or if they play anyone except Boston, out of the first round).
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Oh for sure. I'm just thinking that it's a shame that we haven't been taking more points out of our bottom teams considering our remaining schedule. Still lots of games against Winnipeg that Edmonton would love if we split and if we're not picking up enough of these easier points first seed is far from guaranteed. No doubt we'll be making the playoffs, but in our division there's going to be a big difference in the quality of our first round opponent depending on if we're first or second/third seed.
 
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