First 10 Games: HF Leafs' Impressions

[The Iceman]

I am saying it's part of the problem for a fan base to reward mediocrity. I think in the big picture, that's a problem. Giving an A- to a team that was outworked and outplayed almost every game so far this season is setting the bar incredibly low. If the power play regresses to a reasonable number and our 5v5 play doesn't improve, watch out.

7-2-1 is not mediocre.
10 games in 18 days hinders rest, practice and growth.
BRAVO TML. Just win baby.

Anyone not giving the team an A hopefully isn't a teacher.

 

[Gary Nylund]

Our record's good but then again, the quality of our competition has been extremely low and if it wasn't for covid and divisional re-alignment I don't think we'd be sitting in a playoff spot today. Don't let the record fool you, our division sucks, period.

Winning games is good so I guess could go as high as a B- but that's probably being overly generous. Still lots of time to improve before the playoffs, I sure hope we use that time wisely.

 

[Critical13]

7-2-1 is not mediocre.
10 games in 18 days hinders rest, practice and growth.
BRAVO TML. Just win baby.

Anyone not giving the team an A hopefully isn't a teacher.

I would give them an A for result, C for performance.

The problem lies in that you don't often get better results than performance over a full season.

They need some big improvements if they want to be keep up with the Montreal Canadiens.

 

[leaffaninvancouver]

Can't argue with results. I think the team can play better, but they are finding ways to win. I can't believe we gave Ottawa it's one win though so B+.

 

[TorontoTrades]

Anyone saying any lower than B is an absolute clown.

I gave them an A-.

The fact that everyone expects a perfect team with perfect play in all areas of the game are either new to the game or dont understand hockey. Show me one team ever that plays perfect hockey.

 

[Notsince67]

What part of this looks "a bit below average"?

View attachment 391240

You realize that the chart is cumulative and that it is saying we are only a 2.5 goal expected goal differential over 10 games from even. A reasonable margin of error could eat this up pretty quick.

 

[TheGroceryStick]

Anyone saying any lower than B is an absolute clown.

I gave them an A-.

The fact that everyone expects a perfect team with perfect play in all areas of the game are either new to the game or dont understand hockey. Show me one team ever that plays perfect hockey.

It's a B to B+ start.
Not at all that I want more points or trying to micro analyze .... but there have been a few issues with playing while in the lead, we have a hard time with the extra pressure when up.... that being said, I think we are one of the better teams when the games are close. I just want to become a team that puts our foot on teams throat; not leave the goalie out to dry when opposing teams are down and cheating defense.

 

[Notsince67]

If this is a B+, what is an A?

xGF%: 24th
xGA/60: 25th
Scoring Chances Against/60: 19th
High Danger Chances Against/60: 27th

We are being buoyed by the power play. Like I said, if our PP goes cold, we will start losing games hand over fist unless something major changes in our 5v5 play.

We mock Edmonton for being bad defensively, they are 10+ spots ahead of us in some of these categories...

The stats mean little as a rank order tool within teams and far less as a comparison of teams with such little data.
It is particularly egregious once one considers the excess pp vs pk differences.

 

[willmma]

7-2-1 is not mediocre.
10 games in 18 days hinders rest, practice and growth.
BRAVO TML. Just win baby.

Anyone not giving the team an A hopefully isn't a teacher.

100% agree.

Our play is not perfect. Not team is perfect. But we have been able to pull off wins in difficult games.

Our defense is no longer a liability. We have good defense.
Our power play has been killing it.

As for everyone's favorite complaint, 5v5 play, we have held our own. At 5v5 we have 17 goals for and 16 goals against.
If we take out the first Ottawa game, which was an outlier, it would be 16 vs 12. That's not too shabby

My concern is our PK. We are 20th in the league with 76.9%. The top 3 teams in the league are above 90%.

 

[Critical13]

The stats mean little as a rank order tool within teams and far less as a comparison of teams with such little data.
It is particularly egregious once one considers the excess pp vs pk differences.

I guess we will just have to look back on this comment later and see how it holds up.

 

[Twine Tickler]

there is massive room for improvement. As many poster's have said, the 7-2-1 record is a tad fraudulent. That said, this team has put themselves in a spot to win each an every game, regardless of underlying metrics not being in our favor, this needs to be appreciated. One thing they have done this year, which is especially important this year, is they have only taken won in OT 1 time. Finding ways to close out, or coming back to get the 2 pts is massive growth from years past. My hope is the 5v5 play improves, as most her would say the same. But overall have to be pleased

 

[Notsince67]

I guess we will just have to look back on this comment later and see how it holds up.

Yup.
Will bookmark

 

[Oscar Peterson]

I'm pretty happy with the team so far.
Previous iterations of the team looked like world-beaters offensively but tended to fold when the going got tough and couldn't really be trusted defensively.

This year there seems to notably be more focus on more responsible play and as a result they are still figuring out how to get the offense going at a rate they are capable of. We've seen flashes of it, let's give it a little more time still. Reffing has been HORRIBLE so far and frequently disrupts the game flow any time we're generating momentum.

Love the approach they are taking to the powerplay this season.

 

[willmma]

Our record's good but then again, the quality of our competition has been extremely low and if it wasn't for covid and divisional re-alignment I don't think we'd be sitting in a playoff spot today. Don't let the record fool you, our division sucks, period.

Winning games is good so I guess could go as high as a B- but that's probably being overly generous. Still lots of time to improve before the playoffs, I sure hope we use that time wisely.

This is an interesting take to hold the covid divisions against the team. Heck, with this argument no result can mean anything.

In an average year we are hoping for .600 or better. Today, 10 games in, we are at .750.
But I guess if we managed to get .900 or better it will not change the fact that we are in a covid based North division. So not good enough. B-, generously?

 

[JT AM da real deal]

I am saying it's part of the problem for a fan base to reward mediocrity. I think in the big picture, that's a problem. Giving an A- to a team that was outworked and outplayed almost every game so far this season is setting the bar incredibly low. If the power play regresses to a reasonable number and our 5v5 play doesn't improve, watch out.

That is not fair we won 3 games real easy on da eye test out of 7 where we dominated play ... and 1 of the Edmonton games it was like men playing boys ... we could have won that game playing a man down entire game (and truth is we almost did due to refs) ... your point is made we won 4 of 7 games with PP ... but we still won 3 games real easy ... and remember this team has a tendency to let up still ... what we really have to learn is how to finish a team off completely rather take foot off gas ... some of that is personnel related and some is softness of quite a few guys

 

[Gary Nylund]

This is an interesting take to hold the covid divisions against the team. Heck, with this argument no result can mean anything.

In an average year we are hoping for .600 or better. Today, 10 games in, we are at .750.
But I guess if we managed to get .900 or better it will not change the fact that we are in a covid based North division. So not good enough. B-, generously?

Not holding anything against anyone, just trying to look at facts objectively. Our division is weak and therefore our schedule is much easier then it has been in years previous. Do you disagree?

 

[hamzarocks]

We need to play better but have gotten points which am happy with

Andersen hasn't been bad but has below a .900 sv%.

Really weird start. We need to start pounding the shitty teams in this division. Matthews/Marner/JT/Nylander hopefully have an offensive explosion soon with the defensively weak canucks coming up. Our player's play and production have been a bit underwhelming but defensively as a team, we don't give up 30 shots too often, which is promising to see.

Mikyehev hopefully scores a goal sometime in the near future, has been given and gotten on his own a lot of high quality looks.

Nylander+JT were quite unlucky 5v5 with chances bouncing over sticks, puck mismanagement, and poor decisions from support players

Matthews+Marner should really be turning it on. Marner should have had 2 goals vs the oilers but got robbed. Matthews should have another goal or two and a few assists. They will eventually take off and dominate. While neither is as good as the 97+29 duo they are probably a top 4 duo league-wide along with Bergeron/Marchand and Mack/Rantanen.

 

[willmma]

Not holding anything against anyone, just trying to look at facts objectively. Our division is weak and therefore our schedule is much easier then it has been in years previous. Do you disagree?

My issue is with grading them, generously, B- because their division is weak.

If you're pointing out flaws and weaknesses and then graded them a C that would be fine.

But your grading the team based on other teams performance.

They are sitting on top of the division, albeit a weak division,what else can you ask for.

Again, if you're just focused on the weak division then nothing they do matters anymore, right?

Are they cup contenders? I don't know.

But when grading them I think we should grade them on how they are performing on the ice, not on the weaknesses of the division.

 

[rumman]

I just hope they can start winning in a more dominating style. All these tight one goal wins (not counting empty netters) reminds me of Buffalo last year and the 10-game winning streak they were on early in the season, all the wins were one goal (including OT). I'm still not too confident yet with this team.

I'm not convinced yet because until they start dominating games, I can't stop thinking about those 3 losses to the California basement dwellers just before Covid shut the season down. Those games just didn't make any sense, those teams didn't need a win but we did as we were fighting the Panthers for 3rd spot. We have much better players yet we lost all 3.

IMO, they should be destroying their opponents considering they’re so much more talented, having said that it’s probably a good thing they’re learning to win tight games, it can’t hurt come playoff time.......

 

[rumman]

A-, winning is like lipstick on a pig.........

 

[Gary Nylund]

My issue is with grading them, generously, B- because their division is weak.

If you're pointing out flaws and weaknesses and then graded them a C that would be fine.

But your grading the team based on other teams performance.

They are sitting on top of the division, albeit a weak division,what else can you ask for.

Again, if you're just focused on the weak division then nothing they do matters anymore, right?

Are they cup contenders? I don't know.

But when grading them I think we should grade them on how they are performing on the ice, not on the weaknesses of the division.

You say grade them on performance which contradicts what you said earlier - top of the division, "what else can you ask for".

Grading them on performance is exactly what I'm doing. Noting how weak our division is just explaining why I'm not bamboozled by our record as so many people seem to be.

I agree completely - grade them on how they are performing on the ice. Grading them on their W/L record is a mistake as that looks a lot better then our team has looked on the ice and pointing out how weak the competition has been is providing context for the W/L record, nothing more than that.

I believe they can play much better, hoping to give them better grades going forward.

 

[zeke]

Not holding anything against anyone, just trying to look at facts objectively. Our division is weak and therefore our schedule is much easier then it has been in years previous. Do you disagree?

What's funny is that this is true for us but untrue for van/edm/cgy - as the North division is better than the Pacific division was.

 

[Morbo]

They're starting to emphasize the right things. It won't happen in only a few games, but the team is playing a more sustainable style defensively.

to me that's the most exciting takeaway.

no names in particular but it may be that certain players won't be as effective or flashy as they were in a more offensive risk taking style. the roster will continue to evolve to meet those changes.

 

[Brobust]

Tavares and the bottom six are really hurting the team right now. If they don't turn it around then they're ******.

 

[ToneDog]

Tavares and the bottom six are really hurting the team right now. If they don't turn it around then they're ******.

I think Leafs are better with Matty and Willie and JT and Mitch on the first and second lines. JT is pretty much on his own on nights Willie "takes off".