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Post-Game Talk: Hot Garbage, Leafs Lose 3-2 In OT

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How hard is it to fix the damn powerplay?

Washington has their deadliest PP weapon stand in one freaking spot for two minutes. Barely has to move his feet. Plant Matthews somewhere, let Marner and Tavares play pitch and catch like Carlson and Backstrom do and feed Matthews one timers. Sticking guys in the bumper spot is a complete waste of a man advantage and for some reason our guys completely forget how to cycle when they're up one. All they ever do is bump it Marner-Rielly-Matthews back and forth along the blueline until they get antsy and take a crappy shot that gets blocked. Get some freaking urgency going.
 
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This is on the coaching staff. Malhotra clearly has no idea what he is doing. A powerplay with the horses he has to work with should be near tops in the league, not struggling to even enter the zone. Keefe is making the most idiotic line-up decisions. I get paid nothing and can see that Thornton shouldn't be playing, let alone in the top 6. Simmonds and him have no business on the powerplay. Rielly also has zero clue defensively and doesn't actually do that much offensively. Point totals aside he never gets his shots through and picks up his points through low danger passes that convert into secondary assists. I'd trade him this offseason. He will for sure not live up to his next contract.
 
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We weren't going to go into the playoffs like 20-0-1, I'm ok with getting a bit of a losing streak over with now before the playoffs.
 
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Bad habits creeping into the leafs game and some players are noticeably regressing.

That PP is just beyond repulsive.

Time to sharpen their game and round out the roster before the playoffs
 
CapspaceKiller said:
> Matthews didn't have his legs all night and it impacted his line the whole night
> Engvall's not an NHLer, he doesn't have anything
> Simmonds was straight up off
> Tavares and Hyman played hard, but that line missed Nylander badly
> I thought Rielly and Brodie played well all things considered
> Riddich was good

They need time off
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Yeah. Matthews and Marner had a rare dud game.
 
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TheDoldrums said:
One other positive, Tavares looked good too. And he was looking rough for a stretch there. Could be rounding into form for the playoffs.
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Yes agreed, he’s starting to look better! Just want to see him finish better cause he’s creating a ton of chances
 
For all those blaming Rielly for that OT goal, it was clearly, clearly just a terrible defensive effort by Matthews and Marner:



Garbage/useless gambling in the neutral zone, both forwards gambling on the puck carrier so unnecessarily. Then Matthews stops skating when, even after the bad gambling, he could have caught up with Gaudreau.
 
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Maplebeasts said:
This is on the coaching staff. Malhotra clearly has no idea what he is doing. A powerplay with the horses he has to work with should be near tops in the league, not struggling to even enter the zone. Keefe is making the most idiotic line-up decisions. I get paid nothing and can see that Thornton shouldn't be playing, let alone in the top 6. Simmonds and him have no business on the powerplay. Rielly also has zero clue defensively and doesn't actually do that much offensively. Point totals aside he never gets his shots through and picks up his points through low danger passes that convert into secondary assists. I'd trade him this offseason. He will for sure not love up to his next contract.
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At this point, they should just coach the powerplay by running old Rock Em Sock Em videos. Can't understand what a career PK'er is going to design for a PP.
 
I rather them go cold now than 1 month from now. Need to start ramping it up in about 2 weeks time. Hopefully that’s enough for Foligno to settle in and the PP to figure it’s shit out
 
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fahad203 said:
Gally looks like he's cooling off. I mean he's not a threat to score at all it seems
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yeah, I think the top 6 experiment should be just about over. I wasn't expecting anything at all from this guy, but he's not a top line winger, we know that much so far.

I think once Nylander and Foligno are in, it's time for some long overdue line changes. Simmonds and Thornton are doing absolutely nothing for a long time now, and we can't afford to keep on leaving them in there. they're not good enough to be everyday players anymore.
 
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ponder said:
For all those blaming Rielly for that OT goal, it was clearly, clearly just a terrible defensive effort by Matthews and Marner:



Garbage/useless gambling in the neutral zone, then Matthews stops skating when, even after the bad gambling, he could have caught up with Gaudreau.
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I think it's a solid group effort.
 
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ponder said:
For all those blaming Rielly for that OT goal, it was clearly, clearly just a terrible defensive effort by Matthews and Marner:



Love matthews but he gave zero f***s tonight

Garbage/useless gambling in the neutral zone, then Matthews stops skating when, even after the bad gambling, he could have caught up with Gaudreau.
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Love matthews but he gave zero f***s tonight
 
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CantLoseWithMatthews said:
the power play doesn't have "some" issues. Our goal differential on the PP over the last month is worse than the worst team's goal differential at 5v5. it's almost impossible to overstate how massive of a weakness it is
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That can't be true. Maybe from a % standpoint, but not actual numbers
 
ponder said:
Love Matthews and Marner, but man, SERIOUS brainfarts by those 2 in OT. Marner put in great work to win us the initial possession, but then completely wasted it by going 1-on-3 and throwing a garbage shot on net. Hold on to the puck in OT!!!

And then when the puck was going the other way, the forwards were terrible. Gambling for takeaways that clearly weren't going to work, basically useless defensively, allowed Gaudreau to walk in for an easy, uncontested breakaway goal. Terrible defence by both Matthews and Marner on that one.

People blaming Rielly, go back and watch it. It's a 2-on-2, not a 2-on-1, Rielly takes the puck handler (Lindholm), Matthews is supposed to take Gaudreau. Should be a nothing play, but Matthews is lazy and tries to intercept the pass vs. just skating hard and keeping up with Gaudreau. That's almost all on Matthews, and a bit on Marner, who was weak and gambling in the neutral zone (and gave up possession in the first place with a clearly awful shot).

Rittich was good, PP was bad, OT play was shockingly dumb.
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Rielly apologist noted.
 
Good game by Rittich. Not on him at all. Also, I find it funny for all the hate he gets, how badly we miss Nylander out there. The balance is way off. Matthews-Marner line is a big threat but I felt lost their legs as the game went on. But I thought JT's line played a solid game, however Hyman-JT-Mikheyev just isn't as threating as having Nylander there. Willy makes me feel like we have back to back dangerous lines coming out and I thought we missed that tonight. Top 6 of Foligno-Matthews-Marner followed by Hyman-Tavares-Nylander is going to be fun to watch come playoff time. Shrug this one off, onto the next.
 
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GQS said:
Its just weird that the Leafs PP was so on fire early in the season and then all of a sudden it goes to being the worst in the league for so many games and Malholtra is the coach throughout that huge swing.
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This hot and cold PP thing has happened to the leafs nearly every year in this era... they start out on fire, teams adjust, and they can’t adjust back
 
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Mitchy said:
Don't know what the hell Marner was thinking on that shot he took. Just pass it to Matthews and get out of the way
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The way Matthews played tonight I doubt he would've done anything with the puck either tbh.

They wasted a glorious opportunity with that 4 min PP, just didn't have anything going for them tonight.

Lucky to get a point, Rittich was good.
 
They're playing so poorly these last few games and I think a ton of it has to do with the coaching decisions. They were usually playing at a 60-40 expected goals clip but it's been closer to 50-50, which I can't help but think means that they're content with playing down to their competition.

Thornton and Simmonds have been non-factors yet they get minutes on a regular basis; Spezza has been playing the PK and putting up excellent production was scratched? There needs to be some accountability, even if Spezza sits for maintenance reasons, there is no reason for Jumbo to be getting the usage he gets.
Sabourin and Robertson played 4:29 and 8:56 respectively... why not give Robertson some more ice time and play him on the struggling PP?
Speaking of a struggling PP: why not play Sandin as the 7th D and incorporate him as a PP QB since Muzzin looks out of his depth there?
The team as a whole is wasting the Matthews-Marner chemistry with brain-dead puck decisions in their own end - how is this any different that what the Oilers do? At least they're getting goaltending this year...

For all the players underperforming, I'm irate with the version of Rielly we're seeing this year so I'll try not to be too hard on the guy... but the gist of my complaints is this: has he been given the go-ahead to shirk on his defensive responsibilities this year? These are rookie mistakes exacerbated by a shot heavy offensive game that should be converting at a higher rate and skating that isn't enough to correct positional deficiencies. Teams have seem to invite him to shoot more on the PP.

There are other players I'm a little annoyed with - the Muzzin-Holl pairing, Matthews's reluctance to shoot, etc... but I think all of this goes back to Keefe and how he's allotting his minutes. Team just needs to be better from the top down.
 
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