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Post-Game Talk: Leafs Lose In Columbus

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keonsbitterness said:
Problem is we didn't get much from older drafts other than the first round, and most of our recent prospects are at least a year or two away from being contributors.
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We aren't using Hunter anymore though. Dubas has had 4 drafts, and this is what he has put together:

Sandin - Full time NHLer, and a guy who could be starting to get top 4 minutes as a 22 year old.
Durzi - Full time NHLer (actually surprises me a little bit); used to get Muzzin.
Robertson - One of the top young forwards outside of the NHL and could be a full time NHLer at 21 if his injuries don't hold him back.
Abruzzese - Olympian.
Holmberg - Olympian.
Knies - Olympian.
Niemela - T-2nd in Liiga scoring for a defenseman at 19, and on pace to break the U20 defenseman scoring record in that league.
Hirvonen - Top 6/9 forward in the Liiga at 19.
Kokkonen - Top 4 defenseman in the Liiga since he was like 17.
Abramov - Excellent two-way center that led Victoriaville to a championship as Captain.

And then you have Koster, SDA, Kral, Villeneuve, Voit, Miettinen, etc. who are all achieving various levels of success. And that is with Amirov, a mid-1st rounder, suffering from very unfortunate circumstances as well.

Now Dubas has done well without draft picks too. Trevor Moore is a full time NHLer. Alex Steeves is almost a PPG AHLer as a recent 22 year old and could trend like Moore. Erik Kallgren and Kristians Rubins may be a solid depth options for the Leafs. Justin Holl is a legit #4 in the NHL.
 
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Leafs don't win rugged games which doesn't bode well for the playoffs. In my unexpert opinion, their top forwards being mega talented are ultra soft. Defense is to soft also. I like all the players on the team but other than Simmons and Bunting everyone is what Keefe said himself in a moment of truth, SOFT. I've stated what I think is the problem. Don't know the solution.
 
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SeaOfBlue said:
We aren't using Hunter anymore though. Dubas has had 4 drafts, and this is what he has put together:

Sandin - Full time NHLer, and a guy who could be starting to get top 4 minutes as a 22 year old.
Durzi - Full time NHLer (actually surprises me a little bit); used to get Muzzin.
Robertson - One of the top young forwards outside of the NHL and could be a full time NHLer at 21 if his injuries don't hold him back.
Abruzzese - Olympian.
Holmberg - Olympian.
Knies - Olympian.
Niemela - T-2nd in Liiga scoring for a defenseman at 19, and on pace to break the U20 defenseman scoring record in that league.
Hirvonen - Top 6/9 forward in the Liiga at 19.
Kokkonen - Top 4 defenseman in the Liiga since he was like 17.
Abramov - Excellent two-way center that led Victoriaville to a championship as Captain.

And then you have Koster, SDA, Kral, Villeneuve, Voit, Miettinen, etc. who are all achieving various levels of success. And that is with Amirov, a mid-1st rounder, suffering from very unfortunate circumstances as well.

Now Dubas has done well without draft picks too. Trevor Moore is a full time NHLer. Alex Steeves is almost a PPG AHLer as a recent 22 year old and could trend like Moore. Erik Kallgren and Kristians Rubins may be a solid depth options for the Leafs. Justin Holl is a legit #4 in the NHL.
Click to expand...

if you have to argue whether the guy is top 4 or not it means they are not a legit top 4.
 
SeaOfBlue said:
We aren't using Hunter anymore though. Dubas has had 4 drafts, and this is what he has put together:

Sandin - Full time NHLer, and a guy who could be starting to get top 4 minutes as a 22 year old.
Durzi - Full time NHLer (actually surprises me a little bit); used to get Muzzin.
Robertson - One of the top young forwards outside of the NHL and could be a full time NHLer at 21 if his injuries don't hold him back.
Abruzzese - Olympian.
Holmberg - Olympian.
Knies - Olympian.
Niemela - T-2nd in Liiga scoring for a defenseman at 19, and on pace to break the U20 defenseman scoring record in that league.
Hirvonen - Top 6/9 forward in the Liiga at 19.
Kokkonen - Top 4 defenseman in the Liiga since he was like 17.
Abramov - Excellent two-way center that led Victoriaville to a championship as Captain.

And then you have Koster, SDA, Kral, Villeneuve, Voit, Miettinen, etc. who are all achieving various levels of success. And that is with Amirov, a mid-1st rounder, suffering from very unfortunate circumstances as well.

Now Dubas has done well without draft picks too. Trevor Moore is a full time NHLer. Alex Steeves is almost a PPG AHLer as a recent 22 year old and could trend like Moore. Erik Kallgren and Kristians Rubins may be a solid depth options for the Leafs. Justin Holl is a legit #4 in the NHL.
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I'm not arguing any of that, just saying that counting on multiple prospects to be solid NHL players before 23-24 is unrealistic.
 
SeaOfBlue said:
Now Dubas has done well without draft picks too. Trevor Moore is a full time NHLer. Alex Steeves is almost a PPG AHLer as a recent 22 year old and could trend like Moore. Erik Kallgren and Kristians Rubins may be a solid depth options for the Leafs. Justin Holl is a legit #4 in the NHL.
Click to expand...

See now I just knew you were going to take some crap for this. :laugh::laugh:

Nice post though.
 
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keonsbitterness said:
I'm not arguing any of that, just saying that counting on multiple prospects to be solid NHL players before 23-24 is unrealistic.
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Fair enough, but remember that some of these guys are getting up to 23-24 years old.

Joey Anderson (not listed) is 24 years old this year. Abruzzese and Holmberg will be 23.

Robertson, Knies, and Sandin have looked like guys who could be NHLers within 2-3 years of getting drafted. If Dubas can maintain that, we can have guys who are stepping into bottom 6/pairing roles at least for cheap, and that opens up some money to spend in the top 6... Or you have guys who step into a bottom 6 role and then work their way up to a top 6 role after a couple of years in the NHL.

Apex Predator said:
if you have to argue whether the guy is top 4 or not it means they are not a legit top 4.
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He handles 2nd pairing competition playing 20-21 minutes a night, both with and without Muzzin, and has been above-average (or better) defensively for most of that time.

I don't think there is much of a debate about whether he is a #4 as much as people's opinions of him are overly critical of him while they hype up guys who are no better than him.

I think the debate is more about the expectations are out of a #4. I feel like people think we need another Muzzin to be our #4, except Muzzin has been more of a #2/3. A #2/3 in our #4 spot is better than a #4 in our #4 spot, but that doesn't diminish the fact that the other guy is still a #4.
 
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Apex Predator said:
if you have to argue whether the guy is top 4 or not it means they are not a legit top 4.
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Justin Holl's 5v5 rankings since Nov. 1st (out of the 146 dmen to play at least 500 minutes):

xGF%: 56.77 (15th out of 144)
xGF% REL: +2.97 (30th out of 144)
GF%: 61.03 (17th out of 144)
GF% REL: +7.29 : (33rd out of 144)

Has he been a good or great #4 the last few months?

;)
 
I felt confident earlier in the year, now I don't trust any of our goalies in net. Shitting the bed night after night, if we got average goaltending we easily win that game. Been the same story since January. We need better goaltending, needs to be addressed asap. Either internally or externally. I'm hoping Soup can get his shit together but this is not good.
 
Zybalto said:
Justin Holl's 5v5 rankings since Nov. 1st (out of the 146 dmen to play at least 500 minutes):

xGF%: 56.77 (15th out of 144)
xGF% REL: +2.97 (30th out of 144)
GF%: 61.03 (17th out of 144)
GF% REL: +7.29 : (33rd out of 144)

Has he been a good or great #4 the last few months?

;)
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He had the best numbers of all of our defencman against Montreal and he was arguably the worst defencman that game. These stats seem to be a bit misleading. My opinion is he’s a bottom pair dman and others are he’s a top 4.
 
Zybalto said:
McDavid draws around 7 times more penalties than Matthews.

Kinda crazy.
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Because of his speed.

You have to haul him down.

Perimeter players also don’t draw penalties.

People are also more physical with McDavid because McDavid is more physical
 
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Gary Nylund said:
See now I just knew you were going to take some crap for this. :laugh::laugh:

Nice post though.
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I know. I don't really care.

A lot of it comes back to physicality more than ability.

And the same thing happened with Ceci but Ceci has actually gone on to do fairly well as a #4/5 in PIT and #4 in EDM. Better than he did here anyways; not that I think he was particularly bad here.

Neither are perfect defensemen, but then again, any legit #4 is far from perfect.
 
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Apex Predator said:
He had the best numbers of all of our defencman against Montreal and he was arguably the worst defencman that game. These stats seem to be a bit misleading. My opinion is he’s a bottom pair dman and others are he’s a top 4.
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Do you have anything objective to back that up? Because that top pairing of Rielly-Brodie looked a lot worse to me, and the numbers seem to back it up.

Muzzin also looked worse than Holl (and he actually had fairly good numbers himself).

I thought Dermott was solid. Liljegren had some mistakes himself but I think he was fine for the most part too. I would put Holl in the same category as Liljegren.

In the grand scheme of things, in a game where almost everyone of the Leafs looked like ass for most of the game, I don't think Holl was anywhere near the largest issue on defense or otherwise.
 
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zeke said:
its not even analytics.

most anti-analytics people love, say, plus/minus, and Holl looks good there too. and the fact is both his analytics and surface numbers sucked early in the year, but both have been very good lately.

and of course, some people also think that playing on the top tough usage pairing on one of the better defensive teams in the league is prettty good, especially when your partner isn't playing very well.

Then again, most of us who think Holl is good also like all the other dmen and don't mind if some of the other guys get a chance in his spot, either.
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I think the defensemen on the Leafs can be criticized for their individual in game play and not have it spill over to other big picture ideas. Sometimes a big turnover is just a big turnover and sometimes a healthy scratch is just a healthy scratch.
 
SeaOfBlue said:
I know. I don't really care.

A lot of it comes back to physicality more than ability.

And the same thing happened with Ceci but Ceci has actually gone on to do fairly well as a #4/5 in PIT and #4 in EDM. Better than he did here anyways; not that I think he was particularly bad in his own right.

Neither are perfect defensemen, but then again, any legit #4 is far from perfect.
Click to expand...

Yup, Pens and Oiler fans love Ceci. The comment "I thought he was supposed to be bad" is the most common one I saw early from both fanbases.

Solid 4 earning his contract is what he was here as well (despite having to play out of place with Rielly after Barrie flamed out).

Saw a few posts on the Oilers board saying that he may have been the best pickup from the offseason for them.
 
SeaOfBlue said:
I know. I don't really care.

A lot of it comes back to physicality more than ability.

And the same thing happened with Ceci but Ceci has actually gone on to do fairly well as a #4/5 in PIT and #4 in EDM. Better than he did here anyways; not that I think he was particularly bad here.

Neither are perfect defensemen, but then again, any legit #4 is far from perfect.
Click to expand...

everything true except the bolded - he's not playing any better on those places than he did here. this is just leafs fans not understanding that all dmen get burnt.

also, Holl outplayed him on the leafs and is outplaying him now.
 
Zybalto said:
Yup, Pens and Oiler fans love Ceci. The comment "I thought he was supposed to be bad" is the most common one I saw early from both fanbases.

Solid 4 earning his contract is what he was here as well (despite having to play out of place with Rielly after Barrie flamed out).

Saw a few posts on the Oilers board saying that he may have been the best pickup from the offseason for them.
Click to expand...
I had no issues with Ceci but I'm sure most would agree he's a much better player than Holl.
 
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