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Is our defence now dare I say it good?

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Bit funny seeing extra skater get mentioned here, the guy is now one of thr main personnel in the Leafs analytics department.

The original post I dont think should be particularly controversial. The Leafs now have 3 D - Brodie Rielly and Muzzin who can all eat up a ton of minutes and then you have Holl whose emerging as a very useful guy in thag top 4 too. And then the bottom pairing has a good mix of different guys.

The eye test seems to match up well with the analytics - they remain good at limiting high danger chances against. Id say unfortunately a decent number of the more "hurtful" goals against this season have either been softies by the goalie or complete flukes (like that Oilers one from two games ago).

If the goalies can remain stable/average the team should do fairly well among more defensive metrics by seasons end
 
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Simple remedy here. Addition by subtraction. Who knew we had decent enough pieces here.
Only thing missing is that booming shot from the point.
 
Mats13 said:
I’ve always been critical of Justin Holl, but wow he’s been really good this year.

Makes me a little annoyed that Babcock benched him for an entire season smh
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Babcock benched him for the better part of 3 seasons from when he first broke out as a key dman for the very good Marlies at age 24, actually.

And if he had got his first taste of NHL at 24, and become a regular at 25, like he deserved, then POOF goes the narrative of this 2nd round pick being some long shot out of nowhere late breaking career arc story.
 
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zeke said:
Babcock benched him for the better part of 3 seasons from when he first broke out as a key dman for the very good Marlies at age 24, actually.

And if he had got his first taste of NHL at 24, and become a regular at 25, like he deserved, then POOF goes the narrative of this 2nd round pick being some long shot out of nowhere late breaking career arc story.
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But was Holl a gudpro then? :sarcasm:
 
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The defense will also take a big jump forward if and when Rielly figures things out. He seems to be playing the game on panic mode and a guy in his position as the 1D should really be more of a calm and cool influence.
 
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Bomber0104 said:
I'm not criticizing distance from the net data.

I'm criticizing a model where that's 85% of the input data while completely ignoring shooter quality as if it doesn't exist.

Pretty big difference and I've made that crystal clear.

Knowing how close a team shoots from the net has only a limited amount of meaningfulness, since we know different teams and coaches strategize differently in terms of quality vs quantity of shots directed at the net.
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But it's not just distance from the goal, it also incorporates game type (pp, es, 3 v3 etc.), type of shot (off a rush, breakaway, after a zone entry) and whether or not the shot was preceded by a pass or not. It's not perfect and certainly there is a pre shot element that this stat does not adequately capture yet, but as part of a broader contextual analysis it has a ton of value.
 
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It's ironic that Babcock didn't like Holl because he checks off all the boxes of being a natural big wing span RHD.

I think his success illustrates the importance of having that body type in the system, so for fans who get pretty negative about a Braden Schneider, just remember that having a couple of these types stocked in the system at various levels an change the complexion of your blueline at the pro level. So as unglamorous and unsexy as it might be on draft day, drafting for a tall, long reach RHD defenseman who can play a role is absolutely a must once in a while.
 
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zeke said:
Just a reminder as to what the team qualities were last year.

TOR #13 pts%, #8 rpts%, #12 rgpts%, #11 xgf% 5v5, #8 xgf% All, #21 sv%
MTL #24 pts%, #26 rpts%, #26 rgpts%, #3 xgf% 5v5, #11 xgf% All, #25 sv%
CGY #19 pts%, #20 rpts%, #21 rgpts%, #15 xgf% 5v5, #16 xgf% All, #13 sv%
EDM #12 pts%, #13 rpts%, #8 rgpts%, #21xgf% 5v5, #22 xgf% All, #14 sv%
VAN #17 pts%, #17 rpts%, #20 rgpts%, #22 xgf% 5v5, #24 xgf% All, #11 sv%
WPG #20 pts%, #16 rpts%, #15 rgpts%, #31 xgf% 5v5, #28 xgf% All, #5 sv%
OTT #30 pts%, #30 rpts%, #30 rgpts%, #20 xgf% 5v5, #23xgf% All, #19 sv%

All in all I don't really get why people like the flames so much.
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What are your thoughts on the Leafs declining xGF% this year. It seems to my eyes that they struggle to generate quality chances and defend at a high level at the same time but the sample size is also small.
 
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zeke said:
Babcock benched him for the better part of 3 seasons from when he first broke out as a key dman for the very good Marlies at age 24, actually.

And if he had got his first taste of NHL at 24, and become a regular at 25, like he deserved, then POOF goes the narrative of this 2nd round pick being some long shot out of nowhere late breaking career arc story.
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Just Babcock things right :laugh:
 
Scion said:
What are your thoughts on the Leafs declining xGF% this year. It seems to my eyes that they struggle to generate quality chances and defend at a high level at the same time but the sample size is also small.
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Not a good sign.

Very weird discrepancy between cf% and xgf% this year. They've been great in shot attempts i.e. overall control of gameplay but not so good at creating quality chances to score.

The good news is that they've continued their solid defensive play that they've shown since Keefe arrived, but offensively they're just not getting the slot chances they should yet.

And of course, it's early.

Numbers:

CF% #4
FF% #7
SF% 7
xGF% 13

Not awful in terms of xgf but nowhere near good enough imo.

Defense

CA/60 #5
FA/60 #6
SA/60 #5
xGA/60 #13

Defense has been solid though still letting too high quality per shot.

Offense

CF/60 #5
FF/60 #14
SF/60 #9
xGF/60 #23

Big problem there - plenty of possession and volume but not near enough quality scoring chances created.

But it's early.
 
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zeke said:
Not a good sign.

Very weird discrepancy between cf% and xgf% this year. They've been great in shot attempts i.e. overall control of gameplay but not so good at creating quality chances to score.

The good news is that they've continued their solid defensive play that they've shown since Keefe arrived, but offensively they're just not getting the slot chances they should yet.

And of course, it's early.

Numbers:

CF% #4
FF% #7
SF% 7
xGF% 13

Not awful in terms of xgf but nowhere near good enough imo.

Defense

CA/60 #5
FA/60 #6
SA/60 #5
xGA/60 #13

Defense has been solid though still letting too high quality per shot.

Offense

CF/60 #5
FF/60 #14
SF/60 #9
xGF/60 #23

Big problem there - plenty of possession and volume but not near enough quality scoring chances created.

But it's early.
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More shots would be nice problem with our team they try to do the fancy play to much instead of shoot Tavares has been guilty of this a lot this year not crapping on him he is playing good hockey
 
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acrobaticgoalie said:
I wouldn't call it good. Much, much better but not good enough. Freddy was saving their bacon at times last night. We gave up 3 odd man rushes in the 1st few minutes of the game.

Collectively the team looks much more engaged on the back check and breaking plays up. Its still very early in the season though as normally this would still only be preseason games at this point. Still a good sign that we look better. Brodie was a good add.
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That's Freddy's job
 
zeke said:
Babcock benched him for the better part of 3 seasons from when he first broke out as a key dman for the very good Marlies at age 24, actually.

And if he had got his first taste of NHL at 24, and become a regular at 25, like he deserved, then POOF goes the narrative of this 2nd round pick being some long shot out of nowhere late breaking career arc story.
Click to expand...

It was truly remarkable how bullheaded Babcock could be. Imagine not only being ok with this, but cheering for it like some of the pro-Babcock folks on here did.
 
zeke said:
Not a good sign.

Very weird discrepancy between cf% and xgf% this year. They've been great in shot attempts i.e. overall control of gameplay but not so good at creating quality chances to score.

The good news is that they've continued their solid defensive play that they've shown since Keefe arrived, but offensively they're just not getting the slot chances they should yet.

And of course, it's early.

Numbers:

CF% #4
FF% #7
SF% 7
xGF% 13

Not awful in terms of xgf but nowhere near good enough imo.

Defense

CA/60 #5
FA/60 #6
SA/60 #5
xGA/60 #13

Defense has been solid though still letting too high quality per shot.

Offense

CF/60 #5
FF/60 #14
SF/60 #9
xGF/60 #23

Big problem there - plenty of possession and volume but not near enough quality scoring chances created.

But it's early.
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You think its a good idea to start ranking teams against only other teams in their divisions? It doesn't make much sense to me to compare Toronto against other teams they are never going to play.

I dont mind pointing out Vancouver's 31st ranked GA/60 overall but thats sort of because it is so astronomically high, you just gotta do it for the luls but we gotta a 4 way American league/National league thing going on here.
 
No. They played a really bad play driving team in Winnipeg and they played a bad Edmonton team playing miserly Dave Tippett hockey.
 
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