Speculation: Justin Holl Discussion Thread

[weems]

It's bizarre when people call Holl slow. It's like they don't even even watch.

Will player tracking be able to show these things nowadays?

It's basically recording how fast all the players are moving around the ice.

 

[Jimmy Firecracker]

If holl is your number 2 you aren’t winning a cup

He is slow and soft

Cant clear the front of the net

Ignoring the rest of this post, Holl has never been the #2 defenseman on this team.

 

[Zybalto]

Yes I get that. Tampa uses McDonagh/Cernak how Toronto uses Holl. And I'm pretty certain there defensive stats referenced last year where Holl came out ahead of these guys. Personally I just can't wrap my head around Holl being better defensively than either of those guys.

Eventually, the actual GA's are going to have to start reflecting how allegedly elite Toronto is defensively. They've been in the 10-15 range for years now and it's been a constant. Blaming the goaltending just looks like the easy thing to do to justify this, but Toronto's high risk style has a lot to do with it as well. Our D get the green light to pinch basically at will and while that's good for jacking up the possession numbers, it really does make it so the opposing team doesn't need many HDSC's to score on us. I don't know if there's a stat that tracks odd-man rushes / breakaways but I would wager Toronto is near the top of that.

Well, from the point Keefe was hired to January 14 of this season (before Campbell started his bad stretch of 10 games or so), the Leafs ranked:

xGA: 6th best in the NHL
Goals Against: 10th best in the NHL
Team save%: 13th in the NHL (mostly due to Andersen's poor numbers his last 2 years)

That's a solid sample size from Nov. 20th 2019 to January 14th, 2022 showing the Leafs as a top 10 defensive team over that stretch any way you want to look at it and they had some pretty bad stretches of injuries too.

The recent stretch has also been so obviously goaltending related it should be even in the discussion. The team has needed stability in net for forever and keeps getting teased with great stretches of regular season play and then weak shots going through goalies for stretches (including every game 7 in the playoffs as well)

Just looking at the rankings for the team for defensive stats since Jan. 15th:

Shots against: 7th best in the NHL
Scoring Chances against: 4th best in the NHL
High Danger Chances against: 4th best in the NHL
xGA (which isolates location, rush chances, rebounds, etc.): 3rd best in the NHL
Team save: 31st in the NHL

I think isolating rush chances to try and prove defensive issues as being the problem is done because its the only thing that even below average on the team league-wide rankings (just into the bottom third on the year) but I think it's a silly thing to do when goalkeeping has been so obviously atrocious and the teams top 10 D stats have tightened over that period.

I do think Campbell will come back strong (especially due to the rest) and I hope he's able to go on a run and not tail off like against the Habs last season.

 

[zeke]

Since Keefe replaced Babcock Toronto's 12th in GA

In the 19-20 season they were 25th in GA

In the 20-21 season they were 7th

This year they're 17th thus far

The larger body of work says they're in that 10-15 range.

Total since Keefe:

TOR: 2.88ga/60 (#16), 2.57xga/60 (#5), .903sv% (#20)
TBL: 2.60ga/60 (#6), 2.55xga/60 (#3), .910sv% (#6)


Personally i don't find it hard to believe that Vasi has been significantly better than our goalies.

 

[Dreakmur]

2 minutes for interference

 

[IPS]

Well, from the point Keefe was hired to January 14 of this season (before Campbell started his bad stretch of 10 games or so), the Leafs ranked:

xGA: 6th best in the NHL
Goals Against: 10th best in the NHL
Team save%: 13th in the NHL (mostly due to Andersen's poor numbers his last 2 years)

That's a solid sample size from Nov. 20th 2019 to January 14th, 2022 showing the Leafs as a top 10 defensive team over that stretch any way you want to look at it and they had some pretty bad stretches of injuries too.

The recent stretch has also been so obviously goaltending related it should be even in the discussion. The team has needed stability in net for forever and keeps getting teased with great stretches of regular season play and then weak shots going through goalies for stretches (including every game 7 in the playoffs as well)

Just looking at the rankings for the team for defensive stats since Jan. 15th:

Shots against: 7th best in the NHL
Scoring Chances against: 4th best in the NHL
High Danger Chances against: 4th best in the NHL
xGA (which isolates location, rush chances, rebounds, etc.): 3rd best in the NHL
Team save: 31st in the NHL

I think isolating rush chances to try and prove defensive issues as being the problem is done because its the only thing that even below average on the team league-wide rankings (just into the bottom third on the year) but I think it's a silly thing to do when goalkeeping has been so obviously atrocious and the teams top 10 D stats have tightened over that period.

I do think Campbell will come back strong (especially due to the rest) and I hope he's able to go on a run and not tail off like against the Habs last season.

Doesn't seem like the most honest thing to do to purposely exclude a stretch where the Leafs allowed 118 goals over 33 games.

Goaltending hasn't been very consistent since Keefe has been hired. Seems like the only time we've gotten consistent goaltending has been last year in the shortened season with the strange divisional format where goalies faced the same 6-7 teams all year long.

Outside of that - mixed results at best. What we have seen however is a goalie who the Leafs basically ran out of town have a career year on a different team in the Canes and have their goalie come to Toronto and be putting up a career worst so far. And Campbell's solid 22 games last year has so far looked like an aberration in the big picture - with his SV% falling back into his career average this year through almost twice as many games.

 

[Zybalto]

Doesn't seem like the most honest thing to do to purposely exclude a stretch where the Leafs allowed 118 goals over 33 games.

Goaltending hasn't been very consistent since Keefe has been hired. Seems like the only time we've gotten consistent goaltending has been last year in the shortened season with the strange divisional format where goalies faced the same 6-7 teams all year long.

Outside of that - mixed results at best. What we have seen however is a goalie who the Leafs basically ran out of town have a career year on a different team in the Canes and have their goalie come to Toronto and be putting up a career worst so far. And Campbell's solid 22 games last year has so far looked like an aberration in the big picture - with his SV% falling back into his career average this year through almost twice as many games.

Honest?

From the time Campbell was acquired (Feb. 5th, 2020) to January 14th of this year, Campbell had the 2nd best save% in hockey (and yes, this included having to face much better offensive teams than most goalies being in the North division). He obviously got run down (which was the big worry, having never played a huge workload in his career) and Mrazek was supposed to be playing tandem to take the workload off him but Mrazek has been destroyed by injuries this season, including his first game and didnt play his 5th game for the team until January.

As far as Andersen goes, he was absolutely brutal the last while for the Leafs, regressing hard since early 2019, a lot of it due to injuries and has been remarkably healthy this season which has brought him back to the same goalie he was for the Leafs back in 2017-2018. Last season, Andersen got outplayed by Hutch....as a backup. Need I say more? No one in their right mind would have resigned him and the Canes rolled the dice hoping he would stay healthy and are winning so far.

I'm not really spinning anything here.

 

[IPS]

Total since Keefe:

TOR: 2.88ga/60 (#16), 2.57xga/60 (#5), .903sv% (#20)
TBL: 2.60ga/60 (#6), 2.55xga/60 (#3), .910sv% (#6)


Personally i don't find it hard to believe that Vasi has been significantly better than our goalies.

Vasi is obviously better than our offerings yes. But if Carolina can take crappy Freddy and put up the 2nd best GA/60 totals (a team that you've claimed we're better defensively than) then it's not too hard to see the bigger picture.

 

[zeke]

Vasi is obviously better than our offerings yes. But if Carolina can take crappy Freddy and put up the 2nd best GA/60 totals (a team that you've claimed we're better defensively than) then it's not too hard to see the bigger picture.

and Reimer went from a .906 with carolina to a .917 with SJ.

goalies can be good, or bad.

 

[IPS]

Honest?

From the time Campbell was acquired (Feb. 5th, 2020) to January 14th of this year, Campbell had the 2nd best save% in hockey (and yes, this included having to face much better offensive teams than most goalies being in the North division). He obviously got run down (which was the big worry, having never played a huge workload in his career) and Mrazek was supposed to be playing tandem to take the workload off him but Mrazek has been destroyed by injuries this season, including his first game and didnt play his 5th game for the team until January.

As far as Andersen goes, he was absolutely brutal the last while for the Leafs, regressing hard since early 2019, a lot of it due to injuries and has been remarkably healthy this season which has brought him back to the same goalie he was for the Leafs back in 2017-2018. Last season, Andersen got outplayed by Hutch....as a backup. Need I say more? No one in their right mind would have resigned him and the Canes rolled the dice hoping he would stay healthy and are winning so far.

I'm not really spinning anything here.

If this is true it seems like very poor foresight from management to not have a contingency plan in place for Mrazek's injuries preventing him from taking the load off Campbell.

But if we're going to get into the argument of goalie workloads, I'd have to take some time and look through some examples of goalies' stats tanking when they get tasked with a bigger workload.

 

[IPS]

and Reimer went from a .906 with carolina to a .917 with SJ.

goalies can be good, or bad.

Mostly good on truly elite defensive teams.

 

[Zybalto]

If this is true it seems like very poor foresight from management to not have a contingency plan in place for Mrazek's injuries preventing him from taking the load off Campbell.

But if we're going to get into the argument of goalie workloads, I'd have to take some time and look through some examples of goalies' stats tanking when they get tasked with a bigger workload.

Both Carolina and the Leafs had their contingencies in place for the starters. Raanta for the Canes and Mrazek for the Leafs. Gotta remember Mrzaek is coming off a .923 season with the Canes last season (not far off Andersen's numbers eh?) Goalies are voodoo though and both Canes goalies have stayed relatively healthy and the Leafs goalies have not (there's even wonder if Campbell may have been playing through injury for the bad stretch but that still ties into wearing down right?)

Goalies being voodoo may mean that a rested Campbell might bring the Leafs the cup this year too though.

All I can say here is that almost every defensive stat says the Leafs are in a good place defensively and the only reason their Goals against are outside the top ten the last 3 years has been goaltending issues, mainly due to injury.

 

[Golden_Jet]

Will player tracking be able to show these things nowadays?

It's basically recording how fast all the players are moving around the ice.

Teams get access to the player tracking atn each game, general public doesn’t.

 

[ANDI P IS CUTE]

Injury update

 

[MapleLeafsMats]

 

[Lightsol]

I've been defending this management, but if Keefe can't see that Holl is the WORST D-man on the Leafs, he needs to be fired. NOW.

 

[Gabriel426]

Honestly, thats such a bad question to response to.
So now, if Holl is in the press box next game, which means Keefe knows Holl sucks but continued to use him for two games. While Holl and his teammates will have no confidence in Holl for the rest of the playoffs.
If Keefe dresses Holl as a sign of confidence, but if they lose or Holl makes a mistake(which all Dmen do), it is on Keefe for dressing him.

 

[Stephen]

Sometimes you wonder if Keefe has any sense of pecking order with his team. You can go from a healthy scratch in Game 1 and 2 to starting Game 4 and not be considered the worst defenseman (Holl). Or you can be a 19 year old OHL call up and get top six minutes, score a goal and get scratched (Robertson). Or you can be a 20 year old defenseman and be gifted PP1 QB minutes (Sandin). Or you can be a young defenseman who can nearly generate 2 goals (6-0 goal called back and the Vasi robbery) and get scratched for inexperience (Liljegren).

 

[IPS]

It's a nepotism based pecking order. Dubas' guys always get the first dibs on key positions. They need to have a huge string of horrible games to lose their spot but you mess up once when you're not one of Dubey's boys you're gonna have to work your tail off just to get another try out. The amount of games they gave Nick Ritchie on the top line was hilarious - it was clear from day 1 he was a useless slug who'd never hack it but it was incredible how he got such an extended tryout.

 

[LeafsOHLRangers98]

I've been defending this management, but if Keefe can't see that Holl is the WORST D-man on the Leafs, he needs to be fired. NOW.

I mean Boosh is the worst of the 6 guys playing now but he's the most physical and sitting him basically forces you to re-unite the Muzzin-Holl pairing.

If Keefe goes:

Rielly-Liljegren
Gio-Brodie
Muzzin-Holl

or

Rielly-Brodie
Gio-Liljegren
Muzzin-Holl

you're stuck. Brodie is okay with Muzzin but then that leaves Holl with either Rielly or Gio and I would trust neither of those pairs.

The best option may be to actually sit both Muzzin and Boosh and throw Sandin in the mix as well who has positove results with both Holl and Liljegren. Keefe would never.

 

[Shooter2x]

lmao which one of you snuck into the press conference

 

[Hoglund4MvP]

After expansion draft holl went on trade block. Remained there until trade deadline. Healthy scratch twice.

Nobody wanted him at the price they set. They know what we know. Obvious signs he has weakness make him unplayable against teams like Tampa in playoffs.

So naturally Keefe starts him in game 4 while leaving a better player benched. Not even Babcock would do something that stupid

 

[Squiffy]

God damn it I hate Simmons. I just posted sit Holl for Lilly, but that's bush league, just ridiculous Sun shock value. You can ask that question respectfully. Leafs media shouldn't bother recognizing a question from him again after that,

Stevey, bud, tells us more about the Sundin injury that's ending his career please. I don't remember the follow up from that, might have missed the retraction I guess. You had the big scoop Mr. Reporter, yes?

 

[Knies iT]

I've been defending this management, but if Keefe can't see that Holl is the WORST D-man on the Leafs, he needs to be fired. NOW.

Keefe earned praise post-hire for his lack of stubbornness with lines/favouritism, but Holl is his version of Hyman under Babcock, only significantly worse as a player (not to mention his rushing of Sandin over Tim).

What's more questionable is him explicitly highlighting Liljegren's inexperience while incessantly defending Holl's mistakes. That interview was a total misplay.

Imagine starting Holl on the road, against an embarrassed team that is 16-0 after a playoff loss. Simply start your best players.

 

[Mr Bill Waters]

For the first time ever, I'm starting to doubt choosing Holl over McCann. Dubas is still right more often than wrong. Here's to 15 more years of Dubas' reign.