Toggle sidebar

Speculation: DJ Smith Extended

I still like DJ and appreciate his work with the young guys. Can't support the D pairings but he adjusted last year a bit and if they actually have a plan to round out Brannstrom's play to get him be up and stay up with the big club then we have to deal with the pain in the shorter term.

He can also only play the guys who are on the roster and make the best of it BUT if I have to hear how Brown is our deterrent I will lose it - the guys isn't really that physical and certainly isn't looking after our guys. He would have had opportunity to "speak" to Ovi about that hit on Paul at some point in the game but nothing.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Cosmix and JackieDaytona
OD99 said:
I still like DJ and appreciate his work with the young guys. Can't support the D pairings but he adjusted last year a bit and if they actually have a plan to round out Brannstrom's play to get him be up and stay up with the big club then we have to deal with the pain in the shorter term.

He can also only play the guys who are on the roster and make the best of it BUT if I have to hear how Brown is our deterrent I will lose it - the guys isn't really that physical and certainly isn't looking after our guys. He would have had opportunity to "speak" to Ovi about that hit on Paul at some point in the game but nothing.
Click to expand...

Brown is not a deterrent and might be more than a little intimidated to role up on a legend. Someone who is more of an established player, or an up and coming star, has to do that.
 
I still can't understand how he rolled the fourth line out there after Ottawa, with all the momentum in the world, tied the game 4-4
 
It's strange. If we have a lead going into the third, it seems we try and lock it down instead of getting 1 or two more goals and putting it away. I remember a game I was at in Carolina, 3-1 going into the third and my Father said "1 more and we're good." I said "Nope, we will try and trap". We lost in a shootout. Cameron was the coach then. I think this is a team philosophy..not a coaching one.
 
Loach said:
It's strange. If we have a lead going into the third, it seems we try and lock it down instead of getting 1 or two more goals and putting it away. I remember a game I was at in Carolina, 3-1 going into the third and my Father said "1 more and we're good." I said "Nope, we will try and trap". We lost in a shootout. Cameron was the coach then. I think this is a team philosophy..not a coaching one.
Click to expand...
More like a hockey philosophy. Every team does that in this situation
 
  • Like
Reactions: The Expert and Loach
I remember the Jacques Martin days where we just expected every player to be responsible defensively but otherwise our offense was consistent. We could build on leads by taking advantage of other teams being more aggressive giving us more odd man rushes and more goals.

Didn't matter if we were up or down, we played the same way. He just knew that if you player responsible defensively and counter attacked effectively, you'd score more goals then you'd allow and win more games than you'd lose. Let the numbers play out over the long run.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tuna99 and Agent Zuuuub
jbeck5 said:
I remember the Jacques Martin days where we just expected every player to be responsible defensively but otherwise our offense was consistent. We could build on leads by taking advantage of other teams being more aggressive giving us more odd man rushes and more goals.

Didn't matter if we were up or down, we played the same way. He just knew that if you player responsible defensively and counter attacked effectively, you'd score more goals then you'd allow and win more games than you'd lose. Let the numbers play out over the long run.
Click to expand...

The good old days where Toronto embarrassed us every year in the playoffs.

We were solid defensively but had very little flair as our horses were never let loose, and we had zero bite to our game and we’re easily intimidated.

I don’t miss those days at all.

I do think Jacque was a great coach, but had his limitations. He could be good as the D coach, or perhaps a higher up postion.
 
Ice-Tray said:
The good old days where Toronto embarrassed us every year in the playoffs.

We were solid defensively but had very little flair as our horses were never let loose, and we had zero bite to our game and we’re easily intimidated.

I don’t miss those days at all.

I do think Jacque was a great coach, but had his limitations. He could be good as the D coach, or perhaps a higher up postion.
Click to expand...
I miss winning. Don't miss getting gooned out of the playoffs. I think those teams where always in the top of the league in scoring.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ice-Tray
Ice-Tray said:
The good old days where Toronto embarrassed us every year in the playoffs.

We were solid defensively but had very little flair as our horses were never let loose, and we had zero bite to our game and we’re easily intimidated.

I don’t miss those days at all.

I do think Jacque was a great coach, but had his limitations. He could be good as the D coach, or perhaps a higher up postion.
Click to expand...

Oh ya, not saying it was perfect or anything haha. We just knew what we were getting, I guess.
 
Loach said:
I miss winning. Don't miss getting gooned out of the playoffs. I think those teams where always in the top of the league in scoring.
Click to expand...

Yup regular season darlings, and man I loved those teams, but as we know given that we all had lead fan friends, it was scarring by the time the third match up came around.
 
jbeck5 said:
Oh ya, not saying it was perfect or anything haha. We just knew what we were getting, I guess.
Click to expand...

Yeah no doubt. Man I remember team announcers HATING us and our trap/defensive play lol…. Just such disdain for our guys suffocating other teams and then leaving with the 2-1 win.
 
Ice-Tray said:
The good old days where Toronto embarrassed us every year in the playoffs.

We were solid defensively but had very little flair as our horses were never let loose, and we had zero bite to our game and we’re easily intimidated.

I don’t miss those days at all.

I do think Jacque was a great coach, but had his limitations. He could be good as the D coach, or perhaps a higher up postion.
Click to expand...

wasn't it basically goaltending that won Toronto most of those series?

Belfour, Joseph they always seemed to outplay Lalime.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Alf Silfversson, Tuna99 and Loach
Ice-Tray said:
Yup regular season darlings, and man I loved those teams, but as we know given that we all had lead fan friends, it was scarring by the time the third match up came around.
Click to expand...
Got in a fight at Minglewoods, now Pub 101, when we got swept in 2004, with Leaf fans. Sens fans are tough, Leaf fans have refs/bouncers.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Alf Silfversson
Ice-Tray said:
Yeah no doubt. Man I remember team announcers HATING us and our trap/defensive play lol…. Just such disdain for our guys suffocating other teams and then leaving with the 2-1 win.
Click to expand...

Except we were always one of the top scoring teams too.

So we'd be up 2-1 going into the third but would then get an insurance goal and then maybe an empty netter. Win 3-1 or 4-1.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Loach and Ice-Tray
Tuna99 said:
DJ was wrong about the D at the start of last season - Zub didn’t even dress. And he’s doing it again with bad, old slow vets when what we need is something more dynamic. The entire fan base was asking for Brannstrom to play last year at the exact same time.

His slow D let in 7 goals - common man.
Click to expand...

It was one bad game. If you remove that one game we have the 6th best goals against average in the league.

You're sorely mistaken if you think Brannstom would have made a difference that game.
 
It wasn’t even a bad game, it was a great game in a lot of ways in terms of offence and in terms of competitiveness and battling back.

It was not a good defensive effort, but we have been pretty good defensively up to that point.

Consistency is the big issue with a young team so we shouldn’t be surprised that we struggle sometimes.

In truth, this was a game with poor defence outside of Chabot and Zub, and excellent offence. It doesn’t really sound like a game that needed an injection of EB specifically to me.

He’ll be back, and I’m looking forward to seeing if he’s tweaked his game.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Ad

Ad

Top Bottom