Do you like this team?

[Bluelines]

You couldn't even see the blatantly obvious tactical weaknesses in babcock's system.

You can't even seem to get a reasonable idea of quality chances allowed from watching the games. Like you're not even close.

What does Babcock have to do with this discussion, I sense you think you are running our of runway with your BS and are now just grasping for any life vest you can find? Did the kid next door reject you too?

I can't get to a reasonable idea of quality chances? Ok I will bite, how so?

Your all over the board there Zeke running from one false conclusion to the next.

 

[DarkKnight]

The funny thing is an odd man rush is a very very easy thing to observe. Anyone can see it, no matter how little they understand the game.

It takes a much more knowledgeable eye to understand whether a team is actually good or bad at preventing them overall.

It is absolutely classic casual fan am radio nonsense to see one game with 3 rush goals allowed and claim its a team weakness, when it clearly has not been all year long.

You’re always the smartest guy in the room when you’re alone.

 

[DarkKnight]

I like this team more than any since the rebuild. We have good balance, the best D core I can remember, can play different ways and a new maturity with the former “young guys”. There are no guarantees, but this team has a chance to do something special, injuries and clarity in goal the caveats.

 

[Bluelines]

Acknowledging other teams, understanding how much these things happen to them, and utilizing the valuable tools that exist would help you realize that the Leafs are actually one of the better teams in the league in the things you complain about. You will never be satisfied (with any team ever) if you are looking for zero mistakes.

I'm not asking them to be perfect, I'm expecting that pro athletes have the mental focus to not make mistakes that I see kids making. Defencemen are taught to have their head on a swivel, to take the stick away from the attacker, forwards are taught that when their d pinches they are suppose to cover the point, these are not unique or high level thinking concepts. Just last game alone, simple pee wee type mistakes cost us the game. They don't have to be perfect but they do have to play like pro's.

I'm not asking for them to make zero mistakes, I am however asking for the people who reply to me to have basic English comprehension skills

 

[Bluelines]

Here's what professional players think of your guys' eye tests:

Yep pro athletes are ALWAYS right ...

Lions' Darius Slay believes the Earth is flat just like Sammy Watkins, Kyrie Irving

 

[Bluelines]

The funny thing is an odd man rush is a very very easy thing to observe. Anyone can see it, no matter how little they understand the game.

It takes a much more knowledgeable eye to understand whether a team is actually good or bad at preventing them overall.

It is absolutely classic casual fan am radio nonsense to see one game with 3 rush goals allowed and claim its a team weakness, when it clearly has not been all year long.

Everything you just bitched about, isn't that what YOU do every day with your stats? You present yourself as an expert on advance stats, belittle anyone who suggest your conclusions may not be accurate ... jesus poor @Gary Nylund how you belittled him and stalked him through the threads recently, sad display of character TBH.

So it takes a knowledgeable eye to understand if a team is good or bad but a guy like you, every day joe, can just look at a stat and EUREKA you know everything about the team...

Casual fan AM radio nonsense... what do you call your nonsense?

 

[CanadasTeam]

Yes I do like this team, however I am NOT a fan of the group that started last September.

My take in terms of stats? I think a majority of us fans can relate to this:

Have Analytics Killed The Fun of Being a Sports Fan?

I’m a devoted reader of FanGraphs, an annual buyer of Baseball Prospectus and a paid subscriber to two fantasy-focused websites that help me win the waiver wire.

And yet I can’t shake the feeling that I could be better off as a sports fan — the kind who lives and dies with every touchdown, home run and goal — without numbers.

 

[DarkKnight]

Yep pro athletes are ALWAYS right ...

Lions' Darius Slay believes the Earth is flat just like Sammy Watkins, Kyrie Irving

Almost every pro athlete hockey analyst says the sport isn’t math like baseball. They see things fans can’t and they know value that isn’t necessarily all theorem. Analytics are important, interesting and valuable but just a tool in the tool box. Recall last year how certain posters tried over and over to argue our D was actually good, supported by selected this and that(there’s something for everyone, every argument it seems). Well look at this year? Now that’s a real defence and it makes it even more apparent how it wasn’t good last year. And yet, bombarded with all these stats to discount what every pro player analyst knew and said, the Leafs need to upgrade their D. Luckily Kyle agreed.

 

[Bluelines]

That seems to be the biggest issue with those that have no opinion or understanding of the game. They rely on the fancy graphs and thoughts put out by ‘JFresh’ and ‘Jeffler’ as some type of proof. I guess having a Twitter account makes them some type of authority.
Dubas has put together a pretty good team here who are talented enough to go as far as their will takes them. We saw last year when missing the playoffs that graphs won’t carry you anywhere, you have to show up and play.

Pretty spot on with your statement.

Stats are that stats, with our context they are easily misunderstood.

A forward that does not cover for his pinching d man and the other team gets a 2 on one, that is pretty basic stuff, someone that is watching the game for the first time would pick up on that a mistake was made somewhere, they might not know who made a mistake but they would know a mistake was made. With stats, they are just a number that has no context. There is no stat that says Galy didn't pick up the pinch and cover the point for his pitching dman. Stats are useless with out context.

I think stats have value, advance stats have value, arm chair QB's that use stats exclusively and intentionally misinterpret them to suit their own bias, has zero value and I see that often on this forum, fortunately is only a select few posters.

 

[Bluelines]

Almost every pro athlete hockey analyst says the sport isn’t math like baseball. They see things fans can’t and they know value that isn’t necessarily all theorem. Analytics are important, interesting and valuable but just a tool in the tool box. Recall last year how certain posters tried over and over to argue our D was actually good, supported by selected this and that(there’s something for everyone, every argument it seems). Well look at this year? Now that’s a real defence and it makes it even more apparent how it wasn’t good last year. And yet, bombarded with all these stats to discount what every pro player analyst knew and said, the Leafs need to upgrade their D. Luckily Kyle agreed.

Yep

 

[Bluelines]

The funniest part is that literally ALL of the elite teams in hockey at the moment - TB, COL, VGK, TOR, CAR - are extremely analytics-heavy teams.

Time to wake up, MTHL experts.

Of course they do , and they have people who have the ability to use those stats in an educated manner. Just because you know the #10 is the number 10 it does not make you a stasticial analyst.

 

[Jimmy Firecracker]

I’m not even sure why we’re still having this analytics argument. Seems that the Leafs and the NHL in general have all moved in the direction of using them seriously. Even if it isn’t the same stats we all have access to as fans, they’re using some form of them. Hell there are plenty of former “Twitter Nerds” who have gone on to work in NHL front offices due to their work.

The Leafs from the 04/05 lockout for a decade ignored analytics, most notably under Burke and Nonis. That approach led to signings like Komisarek and Clarkson, and some of the worst hockey this franchise has played.

People are arguing with shadows on here. No one exclusively uses stats to judge the game, certainly no NHL team. But let’s not act like how the game is viewed and analyzed hasn’t changed.

 

[makbeer]

Yep pro athletes are ALWAYS right ...

Lions' Darius Slay believes the Earth is flat just like Sammy Watkins, Kyrie Irving

When it comes to being a pro athlete and what goes on in the room they obviously know more than us.

 

[zeke]

What does Babcock have to do with this discussion, I sense you think you are running our of runway with your BS and are now just grasping for any life vest you can find? Did the kid next door reject you too?

I can't get to a reasonable idea of quality chances? Ok I will bite, how so?

Your all over the board there Zeke running from one false conclusion to the next.

You literally couldn't see the obvious flaws in babcock's system, despite your vast MTHL experience.

 

[zeke]

You’re always the smartest guy in the room when you’re alone.

The leafs are in first place with a 113pt pace with a top 10 borderline top 5 offense AND defense.

Who is alone, exactly?

 

[zeke]

Yep pro athletes are ALWAYS right ...

Lions' Darius Slay believes the Earth is flat just like Sammy Watkins, Kyrie Irving

Ah - so your Major Junior experience is unchallengable expertise, but professional experience means nothing.

Nice!

 

[zeke]

Everything you just bitched about, isn't that what YOU do every day with your stats? You present yourself as an expert on advance stats, belittle anyone who suggest your conclusions may not be accurate ... jesus poor @Gary Nylund how you belittled him and stalked him through the threads recently, sad display of character TBH.

So it takes a knowledgeable eye to understand if a team is good or bad but a guy like you, every day joe, can just look at a stat and EUREKA you know everything about the team...

Casual fan AM radio nonsense... what do you call your nonsense?

I don't present myself as an expert on anything.

I present simple facts that expose bullshit opinions. That's all.

 

[Jimmy Firecracker]

Almost every pro athlete hockey analyst says the sport isn’t math like baseball. They see things fans can’t and they know value that isn’t necessarily all theorem. Analytics are important, interesting and valuable but just a tool in the tool box. Recall last year how certain posters tried over and over to argue our D was actually good, supported by selected this and that(there’s something for everyone, every argument it seems). Well look at this year? Now that’s a real defence and it makes it even more apparent how it wasn’t good last year. And yet, bombarded with all these stats to discount what every pro player analyst knew and said, the Leafs need to upgrade their D. Luckily Kyle agreed.

It’s not like Dubas was ignorant to the defensive deficiency. Lest we forget his original target in the Kadri trade was Brodie, but Naz nixed the trade.

Barrie didn’t work out but the logic was there. For example Colorado this season has 3 defensemen in Makar, Girard, and Toews who play a puck movement and possession style and they’ve been running roughshod over their division. Didn’t work out that way with Barrie and the Leafs unfortunately, but seeing what Colorado is doing with three similar defensemen and you can see what exactly Dubas had in mind with that trade. And Barrie was at least serviceable when Babcock was removed from the team.

 

[Dekes For Days]

We outscore our problems

Only in the sense that every good team ever "outscores their problems". That's called hockey.

The system we play is possess the puck, outside of that we are a hot mess.

Not true at all.

I'm not asking for them to make zero mistakes, I am however asking for the people who reply to me to have basic English comprehension skills

My English comprehension is perfectly fine, thanks. The problem here is that you claim that you're not asking for zero mistakes, but you're simultaneously making wildly incorrect statements about the team based on isolated examples of normal mistakes that we see from every team. So yes, you are essentially asking for zero mistakes. All teams and players make mistakes. The majority of goals are a result of some sort of mistake or defensive breakdown. Contrary to your baseless claims, we are actually quite good at preventing and limiting those relative to other teams.

 

[Dekes For Days]

Recall last year how certain posters tried over and over to argue our D was actually good, supported by selected this and that(there’s something for everyone, every argument it seems). Well look at this year? Now that’s a real defence and it makes it even more apparent how it wasn’t good last year. And yet, bombarded with all these stats to discount what every pro player analyst knew and said, the Leafs need to upgrade their D. Luckily Kyle agreed.

What was actually stated last year was that our defense was bad from 2016-2019, but it improved last year to around average, and that was something to be happy and hopeful about. The difference you're seeing this year is the move to elite, and actually supports that we did see improvement last year that was hidden (to some) by bad goaltending. Nobody said we didn't need to upgrade our defense; they just called out the uninformed individuals who denied the improvements.

 

[Racer88]

So much wrong with this post. Looks like it was written by Babcock.

The weirdest thing is saying we have a finite window with Matthews and Marner. No player can play forever. Even Gretzky had a finite window to win cups. What point are you trying to make?

Would you feel better if I said that they have a short window.
As far as your comment about so many things wrong with my post well that’s you opinion. You pointed out 1 thing you didn’t like. Being as you are so high on your own opinion I would love to hear what and why you think the rest of it is wrong especially the part about how much of the cap is spent on 4 forwards
Finally I would love to hear why you think Babcock would make a post like this.
Your turn

 

[zeke]

Would you feel better if I said that they have a short window.
As far as your comment about so many things wrong with my post well that’s you opinion. You pointed out 1 thing you didn’t like. Being as you are so high on your own opinion I would love to hear what and why you think the rest of it is wrong especially the part about how much of the cap is spent on 4 forwards
Finally I would love to hear why you think Babcock would make a post like this.
Your turn

They literally have the longest window in all of hockey.

 

[DarkKnight]

The leafs are in first place with a 113pt pace with a top 10 borderline top 5 offense AND defense.

Who is alone, exactly?

Sure, like I just said this is the best team we’ve had. It’s your never ending arrogance that amuses me.

 

[DarkKnight]

What was actually stated last year was that our defense was bad from 2016-2019, but it improved last year to around average, and that was something to be happy and hopeful about. The difference you're seeing this year is the move to elite, and actually supports that we did see improvement last year that was hidden (to some) by bad goaltending. Nobody said we didn't need to upgrade our defense; they just called out the uninformed individuals who denied the improvements.

What was said last year by every former player who watched the team, was despite middling advanced stats, we had a very suspect D core, the way it was constituted. They were mocked here by many, Hey, look, I always defer to players perspectives, or at least give it more weight than some selective stats posted here by agenda posters. I like advanced stats as well, a lot of times they support my eye test, amateurish perspective. It’s thinking you can puke out a data set and snub your nose at people who’ve actually been along a wall in a playoff, blocked a shot when it count., etc, that’s where I depart. Anyways, round and round. People get it or they don’t.

 

[DarkKnight]

It’s not like Dubas was ignorant to the defensive deficiency. Lest we forget his original target in the Kadri trade was Brodie, but Naz nixed the trade.

Barrie didn’t work out but the logic was there. For example Colorado this season has 3 defensemen in Makar, Girard, and Toews who play a puck movement and possession style and they’ve been running roughshod over their division. Didn’t work out that way with Barrie and the Leafs unfortunately, but seeing what Colorado is doing with three similar defensemen and you can see what exactly Dubas had in mind with that trade. And Barrie was at least serviceable when Babcock was removed from the team.

Sure, and I love Brodie. That said, Barrie was the last type of D man we needed, he isn’t even a D, he’s a rover really if we’re being honest. The other Colorado guys you mentioned, nobody is against puck movers, but we actually had to shelter a supposed top 4, a Bigfoot sighting was more likely than a D zone start from Barrie. ( please don’t anyone stat me it’s a joke). Barrie was awful here, he wasn’t better under Keefe, and I note after 10 games he too was sheltering him and avoiding having him on the ice when it mattered.

I think it fair comment to say Kyle has evolved sightly, this team is objectively bigger, harder, gritter than any other configuration under his tenure. This fact isn’t a coincidence and I love the balance we have, still highly skilled, still puck possession, no dump and chase, but more jam and harder to play against, particularly in our end.