Auston Matthews Discussion Thread

[TheTotalPackage]

@meecrob
You aren't wrong

View attachment 451375

Even without the porn stache, Matthews remains one unattractive dude. LOL

 

[PromisedLand]

Spreading out the talent and feasting on matchups is 100% the call. The question is will Keefe wake up from his outdated top 6 bottom 6 configuration?

Keefe is so STUPID that the hockey gods fed him his 2 dollar lunch right in between where the sun don't shine

moron had said "we won't worry about line match ups and just roll our lines"

then you have a cup winning coach (Cooper) making use of his last change by taking point-kuch away from the danault line at home.

Keefe like dubas thinks he is smarter than everybody.

 

[PromisedLand]

Actively sabotaging the team. 12-15-88 is going? Let’s break them up and put 71 in. Such a horrible coach

he pissed me off when he wasnt giving Willy minutes; when Nylander was HOT in the playoffs. I have never seen such a MORONIC coach ever in my life.

Hell even Wilson/Carlyle played the hot hand to get something going

 

[egd27]

I know a lot of people have been hating on Keefe but is it too soon to write him off?

It is not, grab a pen.

 

[Antropovsky]

Keefe is so STUPID that the hockey gods fed him his 2 dollar lunch right in between where the sun don't shine

moron had said "we won't worry about line match ups and just roll our lines"

then you have a cup winning coach (Cooper) making use of his last change by taking point-kuch away from the danault line at home.

Keefe like dubas thinks he is smarter than everybody.

Sheldon Keefe won't waste much time with hard line matching in this series: "I'm not going to be hiding our best people from anyone."

Sure didn't age well... such a disrespectful comment. Rookie coach acting like coaching in the NHL is easy and the experienced guys have done it wrong. Reminds me when Dallas Eakins was hired by Edmonton and in one of his first interviews he said that during his playing career he would carefully analyze his coaches and determine what worked and what didn't work.....he said this before even coaching one NHL game! Anyways he now four seasons under his belt for Anaheim and Edmonton...none above .480 winning percentage and three pretty much below .400. Not the best rosters...but still a very premature statement on his part.

There is a big difference between coaching AHL players and NHL players....many many coaches have found this out.

Remember Dubas in the zoom meeting with Chayka, Dubas, Guerin (can't remember the fourth guy)... he said something to the effect that there was a gm meeting after Lou left and he was nervous and said to Shanahan "what do I do?"... and Shanahan said just go there and take notes. Anyways Dubas kind of showed his cards with how out of place he was.

 

[Stonehands1990]

Keefe is so STUPID that the hockey gods fed him his 2 dollar lunch right in between where the sun don't shine

moron had said "we won't worry about line match ups and just roll our lines"

then you have a cup winning coach (Cooper) making use of his last change by taking point-kuch away from the danault line at home.

Keefe like dubas thinks he is smarter than everybody.

Cooper is masterful. He starts the Gourde line every period. Even if Montreal gets the matchup they want it’s much more difficult to maintain it on the fly. I can’t get over how terrible Keefe is. The roster isn’t perfect but it’s a lot better than the coaching it’s getting

 

[Stonehands1990]

It is not, grab a pen.

Agreed. It’s not an experience issue it’s a complete lack of aptitude issue

 

[Stephen]

I'm curious how much of our hierarchy is Keefe and how much is Dubas, because they were paid like superstars before they were played like superstars. Perhaps they're playing borderline #1D minutes to justify their AAV, or maybe Keefe actually thinks that's what they deserve. Maybe both. Plenty of blame to go around regardless, but I'd really like to determine what the origin of our classism is and snuff it out, stuff like that divides a locker room.

Feels like there was tension early in the build and it was always a struggle for Uncle Lou and Babcock to maintain tight control on the core while they achieved stardom early and there was the desire to hand them the keys to the franchise. The annual Arizona summits. The way Marner was handled in negotiations and singled out etc.

 

[Dreakmur]

Cooper is masterful. He starts the Gourde line every period. Even if Montreal gets the matchup they want it’s much more difficult to maintain it on the fly. I can’t get over how terrible Keefe is. The roster isn’t perfect but it’s a lot better than the coaching it’s getting

To be fair, we don't have a good 3rd line. Keefe is horrid, but we can't really do what Tampa and New York did, since we don't have the depth.

 

[PromisedLand]

To be fair, we don't have a good 3rd line. Keefe is horrid, but we can't really do what Tampa and New York did, since we don't have the depth.

then you "manufacture" depth with three 11 AAV guys running their lines and creating match up problems.


they could have easily run

Hyman-Mathews-Spezza
Galchenyuk-Kerfoot-Nylander
Mikheyev-Engvall-Marner


its not like the so called "stacked lines" were generating any goals to begin with....

There is no money left for quality depth because of three 11AAV guys all forwards. So you have to run seprate lines. Hell even boston changed it up when offense wasn't coming and ran Krejci-Pastrnak and Bergeron-Marchand to spread out offense

Keefe is a MORON and Dubas is a SUPER MORON

 

[Stephen]

then you "manufacture" depth with three 11 AAV guys running their lines and creating match up problems.


they could have easily run

Hyman-Mathews-Spezza
Galchenyuk-Kerfoot-Nylander
Mikheyev-Engvall-Marner


its not like the so called "stacked lines" were generating any goals to begin with....

There is no money left for quality depth because of three 11AAV guys all forwards. So you have to run seprate lines. Hell even boston changed it up when offense wasn't coming and ran Krejci-Pastrnak and Bergeron-Marchand to spread out offense

Keefe is a MORON and Dubas is a SUPER MORON

The stacked lines obsession seems to be one of the weird by products of going up against the Perfection Line vs Boston and wanting to have the equivalent to that. With 4 high end scorers we should be able to spread the wealth around and still have the firepower to beat other teams.

 

[IPS]

I know a lot of people have been hating on Keefe but is it too soon to write him off? In his defense they were capped out so he was mainly stuck with the same guys throughout the season. I didn’t like the obsession with playing Thornton especially in the playoffs so hopefully he’s learned going into this season.

He's Dubas' puppet.

I refuse to acknowledge any coach in the league would give Thornton the minutes/offensive opportunity that he got with the Leafs. Dubas made some deal with him that if he signs with the Leafs he's guaranteed a spot. And for some inexplicable reason Thornton was always the first one to get a top-line spot when the lineup got shifted around. He was a sub-NHL player for large portions of the year yet somehow was never a healthy scratch.

 

[Stonehands1990]

To be fair, we don't have a good 3rd line. Keefe is horrid, but we can't really do what Tampa and New York did, since we don't have the depth.

Fair but if you look at a Trotz, Laviolette or Quennville lineup you’ll see that the coach can create depth by spreading talent. There’s only 1 puck on the ice right.

 

[Dreakmur]

then you "manufacture" depth with three 11 AAV guys running their lines and creating match up problems.


they could have easily run

Hyman-Mathews-Spezza
Galchenyuk-Kerfoot-Nylander
Mikheyev-Engvall-Marner


its not like the so called "stacked lines" were generating any goals to begin with....

There is no money left for quality depth because of three 11AAV guys all forwards. So you have to run seprate lines. Hell even boston changed it up when offense wasn't coming and ran Krejci-Pastrnak and Bergeron-Marchand to spread out offense

Keefe is a MORON and Dubas is a SUPER MORON

That just looks like 3 mediocre lines.

 

[Dreakmur]

Fair but if you look at a Trotz, Laviolette or Quennville lineup you’ll see that the coach can create depth by spreading talent. There’s only 1 puck on the ice right.

They have more good players. They aren’t rolling with 4-5 useless forwards like Toronto did this year.

 

[DarkKnight]

To be fair, we don't have a good 3rd line. Keefe is horrid, but we can't really do what Tampa and New York did, since we don't have the depth.

We had a really good second line going in the series, then Keefe decided he needed damaged goods Foligno in there and it went to shit immediately. Great instincts to break up the best thing going.

 

[Stephen]

They have more good players. They aren’t rolling with 4-5 useless forwards like Toronto did this year.

The purpose of having a guy like Marner or Matthews or Tavares at their cap hit is they can drag up guys into being more productive offensive players. The way our top two forwards were deployed this season was optimized for winning scoring titles and having those big individual numbers.

 

[meefer]

At the time I laughed. Now it pisses me off.

 

[robertmac43]

moron had said "we won't worry about line match ups and just roll our lines"

In his defense when he claimed this JT was healthy. JT going down drastically changed the dynamics here.

 

[Gallagbi]

The purpose of having a guy like Marner or Matthews or Tavares at their cap hit is they can drag up guys into being more productive offensive players. The way our top two forwards were deployed this season was optimized for winning scoring titles and having those big individual numbers.

We lost because they stopped scoring themselves. Not because they didn't improve others production.

They're paid to win matchups and produce at elite levels. They didn't.

 

[Stephen]

We lost because they stopped scoring themselves. Not because they didn't improve others production.

They're paid to win matchups and produce at elite levels. They didn't.

We’re arguing deployment vs production. If the Big 4 can be split up and distributed on 3 lines and they can be shifted around to create mismatches and also to spark offense from less productive players, that’s a positive. The caveat here is we would likely be looking at something closer to Babcock’s utilization, which might mean each of these guys takes a hit in raw production. That’s unsatisfying in some ways but at the same time those guys have all been paid.

 

[Stonehands1990]

That just looks like 3 mediocre lines.

12-34-88 - still a bonafide 1 line
65-91-11 - Tavares excels with grinders
89-15-16 - matchup nightmare against 3rd pairs/lines
24-77-19
For the upcoming season

 

[Stonehands1990]

They have more good players. They aren’t rolling with 4-5 useless forwards like Toronto did this year.

Washington has great depth. Islanders are decent. Fla is meh

Keefe would put Huberdeau-Barkov-Hornqvist on one line and play them 25 minutes a game with 3 useless lines

 

[saffronleaf]

At the time I laughed. Now it pisses me off.
View attachment 451661

look who is laughing now. habs are 3 wins away

 

[Aashir]

look who is laughing now. habs are 3 wins away

Habs won as many games this playoffs as we have in the entire Matthews era. Lol I don’t even know where to start with this team