Post-Game Talk: Leafs lose to MONTREAL. This team is no gangsta. Lyubushkin is needed, hard.

[BackPassChampions]

If this team doesn’t get some more pushback and sandpaper rest assured a first round exit is coming.

Boy do I have some news for you…

It feels like we’ve been saying this for YEARS now. It almost feels like, it is what it is at this point.

Our highest paid players need to incorporate some serious “I’m willing to put it all on the line” attitude, throw the body and fight this playoffs.

Otherwise, we are cooked.

 

[SeaOfBlue]

He let in 13 goals over 7 games. How much more can you ask for? Those goals came off brutal turnovers, but agree to disagree.

You can play that anyway you want it "If the team scored more than 3 combined goals in game 6 and 7 they probably would have won the series." Usually a .934 is good enough to win a series if the team in front of you is competent, pretty hard to argue that historically.

9 of those goals came in those last 3 losses. That is unacceptable given our defensive play. He was excellent in the first 4 games, but who cares if he drops the ball in 3 of those games? We need wins, and he wasn't good enough for us to win.

Price bailed out his team countless times, and he won them that series. We haven't had a goalie win us a series yet, and usually, they are either the #1 reason, or among the top reasons, why we lose a series. Last year was no different... And it does not surprise me that goaltending is again the main reason why we are underachieving right now.

 

[Gabriel426]

Don’t you notice that whenever Leafs lose, it is pretty much, opposing goalie played amazing, Leafs needs to be more physical and gritty and Leafs top guys need to lead.

Hmm, getting tired with the same stuff.
Anyhow, hope the boys show up tomorrow.

 

[Superstar]

It's really embarrassing...you would have thought Price, Weber and Danault were playing for the Habs tonight...what killer instinct?! Leafs still haven't got it!

 

[Gallagbi]

Don’t you notice that whenever Leafs lose, it is pretty much, opposing goalie played amazing, Leafs needs to be more physical and gritty and Leafs top guys need to lead.

Hmm, getting tired with the same stuff.
Anyhow, hope the boys show up tomorrow.

Opposing goalie wasn't great at all tonight. Ours was awful, but theirs wasn't anything special

 

[SeaOfBlue]

Don’t you notice that whenever Leafs lose, it is pretty much, opposing goalie played amazing, Leafs needs to be more physical and gritty and Leafs top guys need to lead.

Hmm, getting tired with the same stuff.
Anyhow, hope the boys show up tomorrow.

Montembault actually did play quite well. In the end, he actually did probably make a difference. If he didn't stop some of those breakaways, this is a game that was well within reach for the Leafs... And he had 35 saves.

It wasn't the main reason we lost today though. We weren't in it from the start. But this is not "man this roster has fundamental flaws" either... There are just people who have been bringing that up forever and will never change their tune regardless of what the Leafs do. Honestly, they probably won't be satisfied until we either win a Cup, which will happen only if we ignore the vast majority of what they say, or do exactly what they say and become a non-playoff team.

 

[JSn0w93]

9 of those goals came in those last 3 losses. That is unacceptable given our defensive play. He was excellent in the first 4 games, but who cares if he drops the ball in 3 of those games? We need wins, and he wasn't good enough for us to win.

Price bailed out his team countless times, and he won them that series. We haven't had a goalie win us a series yet, and usually, they are either the #1 reason, or among the top reasons, why we lose a series. Last year was no different... And it does not surprise me that goaltending is again the main reason why we are underachieving right now.

I could tell from the first post we weren't going to find a common ground on this so all I'll say is Campbell could have only allowed 1 goal if the team was going to win game 6 and he would have needed a SHUTOUT in game 7 for the ONE goal of support he got. He did not get the run support when it mattered either.

 

[glue]

Don’t care if we destroy CBJ tomorrow, this game leaves a bad taste in my mouth.....This team has definitely not convinced me they are beating either Florida or Tampa in rd 1...assuming they finish 3rd that is..maybe they even avoid both and face Carolina since Boston is catching up

 

[SeaOfBlue]

I could tell from the first post we weren't going to find a common ground on this so all I'll say is Campbell could have only allowed 1 goal if the team was going to win game 6 and he would have needed a SHUTOUT in game 7 for the ONE goal of support he got. He did not get the run support when it mattered either.

Letting in weak goals changes the complexion of the game. You don't need to take chances. It becomes a lot easier to defend when you have a lead, especially in the playoffs.

If our goalies don't spot them goals, they can't play that way, and we probably get more goals. Good teams also find ways to win without a ton of goals, because they get shutouts. In three of Tampa's series winning games, they only had 4 goals in total. 0 goals against.

Our goalies typically need at least 3 or 4 goals a game to win, and in the playoffs, you can't rely on that. Not when refs put their whistles away and the other goalie can win with 1 or 2 goals going in the opposing net... Which is all Vasilevsky needed for most of his two Cup wins.

 

[BushFireRecordsRedux]

Don’t care if we destroy CBJ tomorrow, this game leaves a bad taste in my mouth.....This team has definitely not convinced me they are beating either Florida or Tampa in rd 1...assuming they finish 3rd that is..maybe they even avoid both and face Carolina since Boston is catching up

New plan, crossover to the Metro

 

[Stephen]

Don’t you notice that whenever Leafs lose, it is pretty much, opposing goalie played amazing, Leafs needs to be more physical and gritty and Leafs top guys need to lead.

Hmm, getting tired with the same stuff.
Anyhow, hope the boys show up tomorrow.

Habs didn't even look like they were doing anything special. They just played an up tempo game (which the Leafs sometimes don't like, with their preference for the mid tempo, frilly bump backs, east west stuff), and played a fire drill pressure the puck carrier kind of defense. Nothing a team with their head screwed on right with the skill advantage we have shouldn't have broken down easily.

 

[Stephen]

Don’t care if we destroy CBJ tomorrow, this game leaves a bad taste in my mouth.....This team has definitely not convinced me they are beating either Florida or Tampa in rd 1...assuming they finish 3rd that is..maybe they even avoid both and face Carolina since Boston is catching up

I think Columbus is going to give them some problems tomorrow. They're 7-3-0 in their last 10.

 

[WildWolfdog]

The core should've been Marner, Matthews, Nylander, Rielly, and another top 2 defenseman. Round it out with some picks the Leafs developed after an additional year of being mediocre without JT (and some of the firsts we pissed away), and some decent secondary scoring that wasn't just league minimum, and you'd have a much better team than today's Leafs.

The problem was that Shanahan and Dubas rushed the rebuild, set a terrible precedence for contract value, and left the team crippled. Plus COVID ruining what little hope they had to recover.

Everyone with a brain could see that by the time the young core was peaking, JT would be in serious decline.

While this is true - JT was the first high profile FA in a long long time, who actually wanted to join the Leafs and not just because he was declining and wanted to live out his childhood dreams just before retirement.

Would the Leafs be better without his contract - yes. But has he been the problem? No. Most of us would've signed him.

 

[Aashir]

After a lot of time playing nhl 21 and careful consideration:

I’ll see you f***ers at 7 tonight

I better not be let down with another game like this one

 

[LastOne2100]

While this is true - JT was the first high profile FA in a long long time, who actually wanted to join the Leafs and not just because he was declining and wanted to live out his childhood dreams just before retirement.

Would the Leafs be better without his contract - yes. But has he been the problem? No. Most of us would've signed him.

I'm so glad we can be a nice home for declining stars who also want giant contracts to play for us.

I do agree that most of us would've signed him, but most of us aren't cut out to be NHL GMs, either.

 

[WildWolfdog]

I'm so glad we can be a nice home for declining stars who also want giant contracts to play for us.

I do agree that most of us would've signed him, but most of us aren't cut out to be NHL GMs, either.

He was 27/28 years old when he signed and was hardly declining though.

And he's been a PPG player every year since signing with the Leafs, including 47 goals in the first year.

Even this year he's pacing to be PPG - so it seems like recency bias plus an exaggerated "JT is declining hard" phase.

 

[LastOne2100]

He was 27/28 years old when he signed and was hardly declining though.

And he's been a PPG player every year since signing with the Leafs, including 47 goals in the first year.

Even this year he's pacing to be PPG - so it seems like recency bias plus an exaggerated "JT is declining hard" phase.

$11M dollars. The 6th highest paid forward in the NHL. To earn that you have to be dominant.

JT in his first season with us - arguably dominant. Now? Maybe worth $7-8M? In 2 years? Yeah that'll be a tough pill to swallow in our last year of Matthews.

You don't get a pass on a long term contract because it makes sense in year one.

 

[7even]

If I am dubas I don't bet on this core until I see they can adjust in game when things aren't going their way, No more 1st rounders to help these guys; who don't help themselves.

Pathetic!

No not an overreaction. It is the same every time with these Core4 guys. THings get tough they go into a f***ing shell

Award winning regular season heroes. Unfortunately, our horse is already hitched. 1st round picks, prospects, these are small potato investments. Multi-million multi-year contracts, those are the investments. The only one it would be easy to get out from under is Matthews, who's also the only one of them I'm married to keeping.

I don't count Nylander here. He plays like he's getting paid. Zero issue with him.

 

[JSn0w93]

Award winning regular season heroes. Unfortunately, our horse is already hitched. 1st round picks, prospects, these are small potato investments. Multi-million multi-year contracts, those are the investments. The only one it would be easy to get out from under is Matthews, who's also the only one of them I'm married to keeping.

I don't count Nylander here. He plays like he's getting paid. Zero issue with him.

I agree, but I’d argue it would be pretty easy to move Marner as well. The Tavares deal is a problem as he’s not an 11 million dollar player and could be in the process of beginning his decline.

 

[Willchel Marlynder]

9 of those goals came in those last 3 losses. That is unacceptable given our defensive play. He was excellent in the first 4 games, but who cares if he drops the ball in 3 of those games? We need wins, and he wasn't good enough for us to win.

Price bailed out his team countless times, and he won them that series. We haven't had a goalie win us a series yet, and usually, they are either the #1 reason, or among the top reasons, why we lose a series. Last year was no different... And it does not surprise me that goaltending is again the main reason why we are underachieving right now.

Look at our salary cap structure. We aren't built to win off goaltending. We aren't built to win off a strong back end. We aren't even built to win off a complete balanced attack. Half the cap is going to 4 forwards. We can can bitch and moan about a goalie being outplayed by a goalie making 15x the money but that doesn't matter (and quite frankly, isn't fair). At the end of the day Matthews, Marner, JT, and Nylander have to win you games nothing else. If they can't do that then we've allocated our resources incorrectly. We'll know if that's the case after this year, although some might think they've already known the answer for years.

 

[Antropovsky]

Look at our salary cap structure. We aren't built to win off goaltending. We aren't built to win off a strong back end. We aren't even built to win off a complete balanced attack. Half the cap is going to 4 forwards. We can can bitch and moan about a goalie being outplayed by a goalie making 15x the money but that doesn't matter (and quite frankly, isn't fair). At the end of the day Matthews, Marner, JT, and Nylander have to win you games nothing else. If they can't do that then we've allocated our resources incorrectly. We'll know if that's the case after this year, although some might think they've already known the answer for years.

Pretty much...they make us a good team, but their contracts will prevent us from being a Stanley Cup winning team.

 

[francis246]

He's going to move everything not nailed down.

The sad news is that I'm not convinced there's anything he can do at this point to win a round.

Tampa or Florida both match up really well to us.

I think we can beat florida but I agree with you in some fashion

 

[Clyde Brewer]

The core should've been Marner, Matthews, Nylander, Rielly, and another top 2 defenseman. Round it out with some picks the Leafs developed after an additional year of being mediocre without JT (and some of the firsts we pissed away), and some decent secondary scoring that wasn't just league minimum, and you'd have a much better team than today's Leafs.

The problem was that Shanahan and Dubas rushed the rebuild, set a terrible precedence for contract value, and left the team crippled. Plus COVID ruining what little hope they had to recover.

Everyone with a brain could see that by the time the young core was peaking, JT would be in serious decline.

My uncle and I have talked about this too. After signing Tavares, they got too good too fast. That jumped Marner from a 70 point player to a 94 point player. Without Tavares, they'd have not only saved the 11 million, they'd have saved another 3-4 million on Marner's deal.

 

[francis246]

The core should've been Marner, Matthews, Nylander, Rielly, and another top 2 defenseman. Round it out with some picks the Leafs developed after an additional year of being mediocre without JT (and some of the firsts we pissed away), and some decent secondary scoring that wasn't just league minimum, and you'd have a much better team than today's Leafs.

The problem was that Shanahan and Dubas rushed the rebuild, set a terrible precedence for contract value, and left the team crippled. Plus COVID ruining what little hope they had to recover.

Everyone with a brain could see that by the time the young core was peaking, JT would be in serious decline.

hindsight is 2020. For years we cried about not being able to sign Marquee Free Agents and we got one of the best in years. The JT signing was not the demise of the team.

the demise of the team will always be Dubas’ inability to convince the kids to take bridge deals to keep all the other young talent around them and have a balanced team. Ultimately, Marner and Matthews in particular will look back in 20 years and realize that had they just taken a 2-3 year bridge deal, the team would be balanced and they would still get their money and probably have a cup or a few deep playoff runs to go with it.

also I hate to say it but Covid absolutely f***ed the leafs. It completely threw the salary projections off, which is unfortunate. You cannot really blame the organization for not seeing that coming. Not a single person in the world did. But it’s a harsh reality and we have to live with the implications.

ultimately, it’s just a series of unfortunate events that have plagued the leafs.

 

[geo25]

Leafs will not go anywhere with Keefe as our coach. We need an experienced,battle tested,Cup winning coach that KNOWS how to win and how to use his players. How's giving the job directly to your buddy, a rookie working out Dubas? Passing up on world class coaches with a winning pedigree? Hello Florida!
Dubas & company need to go...we are not going to win a round with this shinny bunch of players. Savvy new mgmt will do what Dubas refuses to....see the truth & make the needed changes all around.