Eastern Conference playoff picture: Leafs HOST Tampa Bay

[fahad203]

Curious what you believe?

A) Great goaltending stops great shooting
B) Great shooting beats great goaltending

I think both are true. Which is truer? In my view, that is outcome dependent. If you score, then great shooting beat great goaltending. If a save is made, great goaltending stopped great shooting.

The reality is, if you claim you were "goalied" ...your shooters were not good enough. There is a ton of responsibility that should be shouldered by the shooters who couldn't beat the goaltender. People who like the term, "goalied" use that to deflect from this concept of the shooters bearing any responsibility for their lack of scoring.

This came up with the idea Price "goalied" the Leafs. Yet, Nylander beat him 5 times in 7 games which is well above Nylander's GPG average by a significant margin. William Nylander had no issues beating Price and was not goalied. The Matthews acolytes can't bear to put any blame on him so ...goalied, with fingers in ears is what happens in response. Matthews with the best set up man in the league beat Price, once. Fans should levy blame on him for not getting it done. Some do. Some don't. The ones who don't can't stand the ones who do.

I guarantee if he performs vs. Tampa as he did vs. Montreal, the same people who made excuses for him will do the same things again, save for throwing in "he was injured" on top of Vasilevskiy goalieing him. You already know what's going to happen before it happens. For the record, Matthews has a tremendous track record vs. Tampa. If he fails in the playoffs, perhaps the charge that Matthews is built for regular season hockey and or chokes should be considered?

EDIT: If Jack is terrible, and Leafs lose another series, should we say we got "shootered" so it isn't considered Jack's fault because we're fans and we like him? Every playoff series the Leafs have lost must be because they got "shootered", if I'm trying to protect the goalie from bearing any responsibility.

Good points but adding to that though

Nylander had 4 goals in first 4 games. Then he had 1 in final 3

That's the thing about great goaltending. You can give 10 goals, but if you can save the ones most important, everything else is irrelevant

James Reimer had this issue. Will save 50 only to give up 2 really bad ones bad times. Same with Andersen

Price locked it down when it mattered. So we did get goalied

Also lost in all these how badly we got outcoached. All Keefe had to do with home ice was line match. He didn't want to

 

[Stephen]

Just looking at the standings and results of the series.

But tell me more about them playing pretend in the visitors room instead of actually preparing. Or are we going to ignore this because you know it's bullshit?

Let me put it another way for you. What elements of that series would you suggest the Leafs executed well in and what areas did they show utterly amazing preparation or work ethic?

They no showed in Game 1 and couldn’t solve a tandem goalie after which Marner said they weren’t physically in the game. Game 2 they dominated. Game 3 they dominated and then blew the lead and lost it. Game 4 they no showed for 90% of the game before they realized they were on the verge of elimination and laid an egg in Game 5. Other than Game 2 when did they put forth a complete effort?

 

[Gallagbi]

Let me put it another way for you. What elements of that series would you suggest the Leafs executed well in and what areas did they show utterly amazing preparation or work ethic?

They no showed in Game 1 and couldn’t solve a tandem goalie after which Marner said they weren’t physically in the game. Game 2 they dominated. Game 3 they dominated and then blew the lead and lost it. Game 4 they no showed for 90% of the game before they realized they were on the verge of elimination and laid an egg in Game 5. Other than Game 2 when did they put forth a complete effort?

....and this is because they practiced from visitors locker room and didn't actually prepare?

Or are we going to agree that was a garbage hot take?

Here it is again if you want to take another look

Seem to recall the Leafs were extra disrespectful towards CBJ, practicing using the visitors dressing room and other fluff nonsense as opposed to understanding the Jackets strengths, weaknesses and take down of Tampa in 2019.

 

[Sypher04]

I mean I don't entirely disagree but thats an incredibly lazy take and is wrongly discrediting a team that went to the SCF. If they got swept in RD2 you may have a point.

The Habs were a beatable opponent for a team that is as good as Leafs fan claim their team to be, but the reality is Montreal still won that series by being the superior team

Not lazy at all. I’m a firm believer that any team that blows a 3-1 series lead beat themself. Especially when multiple of their attempts to clinch went to overtime.

70% The Leafs
30% Carey Price

I don’t think Montreal at any point was the superior team. They did win however. Those are different things.

 

[IPS]

Let me put it another way for you. What elements of that series would you suggest the Leafs executed well in and what areas did they show utterly amazing preparation or work ethic?

They no showed in Game 1 and couldn’t solve a tandem goalie after which Marner said they weren’t physically in the game. Game 2 they dominated. Game 3 they dominated and then blew the lead and lost it. Game 4 they no showed for 90% of the game before they realized they were on the verge of elimination and laid an egg in Game 5. Other than Game 2 when did they put forth a complete effort?

All while excusing our star players for their lack of production attributing it to just running into a crazy hot goalie only for the Lightning to figure out said goaltending the next round in 5 games.

 

[JKG33]

Not lazy at all. I’m a firm believer that any team that blows a 3-1 series lead beat themself. Especially when multiple of their attempts to clinch went to overtime.

70% The Leafs
30% Carey Price

Beating themselves implies they were somehow a much better team and deserved to win. Neither of which is true about the Leafs

 

[riffle]

Well, I’m not going to answer for the thoughts or claims of other fans, but I don’t think it’s incorrect to say the concept of being goalied is a real thing. That doesn’t mean I specifically think that’s what happened with us the last 2 years either though. I do however think Carey Price was the single largest factor (on montreals side) that lead to the Leafs losing that series. I also recognize that Vasi has all the ability to steal a series on his own. So can it happen? Yeah. I don’t expect the Leafs to go down without a hell of a fight this year though.

As for it being a lazy argument. Yeah, it is. I said as much earlier. Disregarding the ability of or ignoring the occurrence of a goalie to steal a series however is equally lazy.

I hate when there's a post where you like parts of it and don't like others so you end up not liking it. I was close to liking this one. Some good points.

Will never say a goalie can't be the best player for a team and be the main reason they won. The reality of that, though, is the opposing shooters simply were not good enough. I don't know how you could argue otherwise. That is what it is.

When it's come to the last 4 series, the Leafs, overall, did not have shooters who were better during the series than the goalie they faced. Conversely, the winners of the 4 series against us all had shooters that were better than our goalies. I could claim we got "shootered" in the last 4 and you would think that was CRAZY TALK, yet, this is exactly what claiming goalied is.

 

[Sypher04]

Beating themselves implies they were somehow a much better team and deserved to win. Neither of which is true about the Leafs

They beat themselves by letting off the gas. They beat themselves by having young D making completely unforced errors at critical moments. Sandin and Dermott single handedly cost the Leafs games 5 and 6.

Mostly though their loss was between the ears.

 

[X66]

@Mess do you even try to do any research when you make claims, or are you just a contrarian for no reason, which is odd behaviour for a mod...

This is from the Columbus series, as you can see the Leafs got more shots off from in tight and prime scoring positions than Columbus throughout the series, and it was Andersen letting in goals from the perimeter...

Game 1 CBJ
Game 1 Leafs

Game 2 CBJ
Game 2 Leafs

Game 3 CBJ
Game 3 Leafs

Game 4 CBJ
Game 4 Leafs

Game 5 CBJ
Game 5 Leafs

 

[Gary Nylund]

Beating themselves implies they were somehow a much better team and deserved to win. Neither of which is true about the Leafs

It implies they were the better team, not sure why you'd say it implies they deserved to win, that's not true at all.

They were the much better team but the played well below their capabilities and therefore deserved to lose.

 

[riffle]

They beat themselves by letting off the gas. They beat themselves by having young D making completely unforced errors at critical moments. Sandin and Dermott single handedly cost the Leafs games 5 and 6.

Mostly though their loss was between the ears.

Who signed those players and who played them? Any responsibility on those shoulders?

 

[Sypher04]

I hate when there's a post where you like parts of it and don't like others so you end up not liking it. I was close to liking this one. Some good points.

Will never say a goalie can't be the best player for a team and be the main reason they won. The reality of that, though, is the opposing shooters simply were not good enough. I don't know how you could argue otherwise. That is what it is.

When it's come to the last 4 series, the Leafs, overall, did not have shooters who were better during the series than the goalie they faced. Conversely, the winners of the 4 series against us all had shooters that were better than our goalies. I could claim we got "shootered" in the last 4 and you would think that was CRAZY TALK, yet, this is exactly what claiming goalied is.

Maybe it’s my forgetful brain here but I don’t really recall goalscoring being much of a real issue vs Boston or Washington, at least not in the same way. The last 2 years it has been. Some of that is failure to execute, no doubt. Some is injury issues. Some is the play of opposing goalies (Moreso vs montreal than Columbus imo). I’d never argue these things can’t be all true at the same time.

One thing we all can agree on though is win or lose, this year, we wanna see the Leafs putting up goals and being in each game. Especially if we see another game 7

 

[Mess]

Against Columbus in 2020 Freddy Andersen put up 1.84 GAA & .936 SV%
Against Montreal in 2021 Jack Campbell put up 1.81 GAA & .934 SV%

In both cases the Leafs lost and the main reason they were simply "outgoalied" and those Leaf personal goalie stats not good enough to win a series. However most should be thrilled with those stats.

Curious to know what stats Jack Campbell will be require to deliver in this years playoffs for the Leafs to oust the reigning Conn Smythe winning netminder Vasilevskiy and his Tampa Bay teammates who played in 23 games last playoffs with 1.90 GAA and .937 SV% with 5 shutouts.

Jack Campbell has started 48 games this year and has a 2.70 GAA and & .913 sv% on the season..

 

[Tufted Titmouse]

Against Columbus in 2020 Freddy Andersen put up 1.84 GAA & .936 SV%
Against Montreal in 2021 Jack Campbell put up 1.81 GAA & .934 SV%

In both cases the Leafs lost and the main reason they were simply "outgoalied" and those Leaf personal goalie stats not good enough to win a series. However most should be thrilled with those stats.

Curious to know what stats Jack Campbell will be require to deliver in this years playoffs for the Leafs to oust the reigning Conn Smythe winning netminder Vasilevskiy and his Tampa Bay teammates who played in 23 games last playoffs with 1.90 GAA and .937 SV% with 5 shutouts.

Jack Campbell has started 48 games this year and has a 2.70 GAA and & .913 sv% on the season..

I think both can be true. The goalies did well enough to win, and the Leafs also got goalied. We haven't had the better goalie in a series with this core yet.

 

[fahad203]

Against Columbus in 2020 Freddy Andersen put up 1.84 GAA & .936 SV%
Against Montreal in 2021 Jack Campbell put up 1.81 GAA & .934 SV%

In both cases the Leafs lost and the main reason they were simply "outgoalied" and those Leaf personal goalie stats not good enough to win a series. However most should be thrilled with those stats.

Curious to know what stats Jack Campbell will be require to deliver in this years playoffs for the Leafs to oust the reigning Conn Smythe winning netminder Vasilevskiy and his Tampa Bay teammates who played in 23 games last playoffs with 1.90 GAA and .937 SV% with 5 shutouts.

Jack Campbell has started 48 games this year and has a 2.70 GAA and & .913 sv% on the season..

One thing to make a lot of saves, one thing to make timely saves. They are not the same

When we won, we won by large margin. We won games like 5-1 and 4-0 last year

Habs on 3-1, 3-2 and 2-1

Timely saves what makes great goaltending great.

 

[JKG33]

It implies they were the better team, not sure why you'd say it implies they deserved to win, that's not true at all.

They were the much better team but the played well below their capabilities and therefore deserved to lose.

It's a 7 game series, this ain't the NFL with a one game playoff round. The better team won.

One of those teams has won several playoff rounds over the last few years including a trip to the SCF. The other hasn't won a single round. To say the Leafs were the better team is an extremely laughable take

 

[CDN24]

I think both can be true. The goalies did well enough to win, and the Leafs also got goalied. We haven't had the better goalie in a series with this core yet.

That is not really unexpected, generally speaking when you are playing against a team that has more money tied up in goalies you should be expecting the other team to get better goaltending- they are paying for better goaltending.
Last year -Price- highest cap hit on his team
2020 _Columbus- may be the exception
2018 and 2019 Rask 2nd highest cap hit on his team
2017 Holtby 3rd highest cap hit on his team.

Last year I wouldn't say the Leaf's got goalied, They got outcoached by a guy who this year showed himself to be possibly the worst coach in the NHL. Yeah Price played well but at $10.5M he is paid to. For all intents and purposes the Leaf's big 2 got shut down by Phil Danault, especially in Game 5-6-7. Same thing happened to Vegas stars Stone went pointless against Mtl, Pacioretty had 1G and 2A. The question to be asked was why were the always matched up against Danault? Game 5 and 7 Keefe had last change and made no effort to avoid that matchup. Vegas same. Game one of the finals in Tampa what did Jon Cooper do. He matched his top guys up against the Suzuki line. Result Point and Kucherov had 3 points a piece, set the tone for the series. The Suzuki line could not handle them and the added benefit by making Suzuki line play defense all night he effectively neutralized Montreal's best scoring line too.

Leafs were outcoached more than out goalied IMO last year.

 

[Gary Nylund]

It's a 7 game series, this ain't the NFL with a one game playoff round. The better team won.

One of those teams has won several playoff rounds over the last few years including a trip to the SCF. The other hasn't won a single round. To say the Leafs were the better team is an extremely laughable take

MTL was the better team over that 7 game period because like I said, the Leafs didn't play up their capabilities. But before those 7 games and after those 7 games the Leafs have been so much better and you disputing this obvious fact is what's laughable.

The Leafs were the better team, that's why they were heavily favoured going in. That's also why they had a much better regular season and a much better regular season once again this season and it's not particularly close either.

 

[riffle]

Good points but adding to that though

Nylander had 4 goals in first 4 games. Then he had 1 in final 3

That's the thing about great goaltending. You can give 10 goals, but if you can save the ones most important, everything else is irrelevant

James Reimer had this issue. Will save 50 only to give up 2 really bad ones bad times. Same with Andersen

Price locked it down when it mattered. So we did get goalied

Also lost in all these how badly we got outcoached. All Keefe had to do with home ice was line match. He didn't want to

I understand your point of view, I just don't like the term goalied any more than I would if "shootered" was a thing. Can't say one thing without another thing being true. Being goalied means your shooters failed.

Being shootered means your goalie failed. To me, we have to call things what they are and not focus on one aspect of what it is.

Many, many, many times "goalied" is used, you'll see our guys firing pucks on great chances into the midsection of the goalie. That's not a great save...that's a poor shot. Hard to quantify and is subjective, but one of my pet peeves with the calling of hockey game is calling saves "great or big saves" when it is more a function of a lousy shot.






One thing can't be true without the other one being true, also.

 

[Mess]

I think both can be true. The goalies did well enough to win, and the Leafs also got goalied. We haven't had the better goalie in a series with this core yet.

That is the case with being "goalied" in that you have the 2nd best goalie in the series when you lose.

The team with the best goalie performance wins the series, that is why "defense wins championships" .

How confident are you, or like the odds of Campbell outgoaling Vasilevskiy the reigning Conn Smthe playoff MVP in 4 games in the series for Leaf wins?

 

[JKG33]

MTL was the better team over that 7 game period because like I said, the Leafs didn't play up their capabilities. But before those 7 games and after those 7 games the Leafs have been so much better and you disputing this obvious fact is what's laughable.

The Leafs were the better team, that's why they were heavily favoured going in. That's also why they had a much better regular season and a much better regular season once again this season and it's not particularly close either.

The mental gymnastics done here to try and discredit the Habs is hilarious. The Leafs may have been the better team "on paper" but clearly they aren't the better playoff team. Thankfully playoff hockey isn't played on paper

 

[ACC1224]

The mental gymnastics done here to try and discredit the Habs is hilarious. The Leafs may have been the better team "on paper" but clearly they aren't the better playoff team. Thankfully playoff hockey isn't played on paper

Thankfully???
More like unfortunately

 

[riffle]

I think both can be true. The goalies did well enough to win, and the Leafs also got goalied. We haven't had the better goalie in a series with this core yet.

Or, we haven't had the best shooters in a series, yet.

 

[Steven1562]

The mental gymnastics done here to try and discredit the Habs is hilarious. The Leafs may have been the better team "on paper" but clearly they aren't the better playoff team. Thankfully playoff hockey isn't played on paper

Yeah we were the better team until after game 4. Game 5 we were down 3-0 before we came back and lost in OT. Game 6 same thing down 2-0 comeback and lose in OT. Game 7 down 3-0 and lay down and die. Give credit to Montreal that team made it to the cup final.

 

[riffle]

That is the case with being "goalied" in that you have the 2nd best goalie in the series when you lose.

The team with the best goalie performance wins the series, that is why "defense wins championships" .

How confident are you, or like the odds of Campbell outgoaling Vasilevskiy the reigning Conn Smthe playoff MVP in 4 games in the series for Leaf wins?

Not confident at all that Jack will outplay Vasilevskiy. Also, not confident our shooters will be good enough when it really matters.

I'm not a "defense wins championships" guy at all. By definition, that means your offense failed/just wasn't good enough. It is my most hated sports cliche, but "goalied" is gaining. There was an old piece done by Allen Barra that debunked the 10 myths of pro football. Defense wins championships was tops on the list. I had a chance to speak with him back in my old broadcast days. It's always stuck with me. He was a foreshadowing of analytics for his time.