Post-Game Talk: Leafs win 2-1 in OT

[The Podium]

I'm not spinning anything, just stating facts. I also didn't say this isn't a good team, decimated on the back end far more than any other team, that I would however classify as hyperbole. It's like when people complain about how Brodie/Giordano have lost it and are now pretty useless, it's not that big a deal when they miss a few games. Our biggest injury problem was then Rielly got suspended, and then we won every game.

Funny that you complain about spin when you're the one spinning here the way you focus on injuries to our D, and ignore that our forwards have been in close to perfect health all season. I mean come on now, if you want to complain about spinning, you should make more of an effort to be objective yourself.

BuT rEgUlAtIoN p%€¿ aNd GiMmIçKş

 

[Judas Tavares]

For me with the gimmick. The problem is it's there. It exists. Should we not play it? Should we lose it? It's part of the game, so if you're there, take it and move on. You got the two points. Doesn't have to be a Picasso every time.

That 5-0, 60-minute dominant game where the big guys and the depth scored, both on the pp and in regulation, while not allowing too many shots, but allowing enough to test the goalie to your liking - is not going to happen every night. Not for us, not for the big bad scary contenders. 2 points. When it's not a Picasso for the other team, they found a way to win like good teams do. When it isn't a Picasso for us, we fell ass backwards into a pile of diarrhea and somehow found the two points but unfortunately it's the reason for war and hunger in the world.

 

[Gary Nylund]

The Leafs have 7 gimmick points…. Even if we get rid of them and include only regulation points (tie point included), they would still be in a playoff spot.

Seems like a non-issue

Of course it's not "an issue". We're 9th by one number, 11th by another and either way it is what it is - we're a playoff team, but not one of the top contenders.

 

[rumman]

I wonder if there's some sort of parallel to be drawn between this, and our inability to win in the playoffs? Like the standard reason people give for not being able to beat Ottawa, MTL etc. even though those teams are far below us in the standings is that "beating us is their Stanley Cup". So basically those teams "get up" for us, they decide that they really want to win, and instead of saying f*** you, we also want to win and we're better than you so we're going to win, we just sort of shrug and say OK if you want it that badly, take it I guess. So we just aren't able to raise our effort level to match the opponent, not against our divisional rivals, not in JT's return to Long Island (the most embarrassing regular season example), and not in game 7 in the playoffs.

I love the term WIM = "wants it more". The team with the most WIM usually wins, and it's usually not us.

Vegas runs a team that is the envy of the league, they know how to build a winner and have been competitive every year if their existance. Who else is jealous of this fact……..

 

[egd27]

Normally this would be true (and maybe it is true in this case as well). Would be interesting to back long enough, say 10 years and see what our record is against OTT/MTL/BUF. It feels like we can't beat those teams no matter what but I could be easily be wrong. I do remember one year we lost to Boston in the playoffs we swept them during the regular season so there is that.

it is a bit deceiving

Couldn't find stats going back 10 years, but for the last 10 meetings with those 3 teams (30 games) the Leafs are 17-12-1

 

[Gary Nylund]

Vegas runs a team that is the envy of the league, they know how to build a winner and have been competitive every year if their existance. Who else is jealous of this fact……..

Me.

it is a bit deceiving

Couldn't find stats going back 10 years, but for the last 10 meetings with those 3 teams (30 games) the Leafs are 17-12-1

Huh, interesting.

 

[shaner8989]

Boring? Yep. That’s perfect. We need boring in the playoffs.

 

[Zybalto]

I'm not spinning anything, just stating facts. I also didn't say this isn't a good team, decimated on the back end far more than any other team, that I would however classify as hyperbole. It's like when people complain about how Brodie/Giordano have lost it and are now pretty useless, it's not that big a deal when they miss a few games. Our biggest injury problem was then Rielly got suspended, and then we won every game.

Funny that you complain about spin when you're the one spinning here the way you focus on injuries to our D, and ignore that our forwards have been in close to perfect health all season. I mean come on now, if you want to complain about spinning, you should make more of an effort to be objective yourself.

We'll leave out Muzzin and Klingberg even though the latter was supposed to be a big part of the team this year.

Did you forget about Liljegren missing a month and a half after Marchand took him out?
McCabe has been banged up at many points and missed a few games earlier in the season.
Brodie has had injuries
Gio has had multiple injuries and is out now
Timmins has been out forever

These all hurt us bad. It's hard to find any flow when your backend is continually in a state of flux.

"...but what about the forwards"

What about all the teams that have been relatively healthy?

It's not spin to bring up our bad injury luck on the backend. No one would deny it was bad this year. It's spin to ignore it.


I mean, geez, we've had to play Marner of D a couple times this year due to Dmen getting knocked out of games. It's been a little crazy.

Thanks heavens for Benoit turning out to be a find and the team gutting out some important points earlier in the season when it was really rough.

 

[Nineteen67]

Of course it's not "an issue". We're 9th by one number, 11th by another and either way it is what it is - we're a playoff team, but not one of the top contenders.

The Leafs are laying all their hopes on Matthews, Marner and Nylander. To date, they haven't demonstrated that they can carry a team in the playoffs. Time will tell.

 

[Gary Nylund]

We'll leave out Muzzin and Klingberg even though the latter was supposed to be a big part of the team this year.

Did you forget about Liljegren missing a month and a half after Marchand took him out?
McCabe has been banged up at many points and missed a few games earlier in the season.
Brodie has had injuries
Gio has had multiple injuries and is out now
Timmins has been out forever

These all hurt us bad. It's hard to find any flow when your backend is continually in a state of flux.

"...but what about the forwards"

What about all the teams that have been relatively healthy?

It's not spin to bring up our bad injury luck on the backend. No one would deny it was bad this year. It's spin to ignore it.


I mean, geez, we've had to play Marner of D a couple times this year due to Dmen getting knocked out of games. It's been a little crazy.

Thanks heavens for Benoit turning out to be a find and the team gutting out some important points earlier in the season when it was really rough.

LOL at Brodie, Gio or Timmins being out "hurting us bad". Might have even helped us considering it gave Benoit a chance to play and he's been really good.

Spin is when you talk about injuries to the D, ignoring the big picture. If you want to be objective, look up man games lost to injury across the league, see where we are compared to everyone else, then consider the quality of the players injured and get back to me.

The Leafs are laying all their hopes on Matthews, Marner and Nylander. To date, they haven't demonstrated that they can carry a team in the playoffs. Time will tell.

Hopefully the next 7 years will bring us more playoff success than we've had so far. Hard to be any worse, that's for damn sure.

 

[Evilhomer]

Me.

Huh, interesting.

The running narrative of this team being bad against weak teams has always been false, or has been limited to early-season games. I bet if someone searched their record against sub 500 teams after January 1 it would be dominant.

 

[Zybalto]

LOL at Brodie, Gio or Timmins being out "hurting us bad". Might have even helped us considering it gave Benoit a chance to play and he's been really good.

Spin is when you talk about injuries to the D, ignoring the big picture. If you want to be objective, look up man games lost to injury across the league, see where we are compared to everyone else, then consider the quality of the players injured and get back to me.

Brodie was really good for us last season and has looked pretty rough recently. Maybe the injuries hurt him? He looks to be slowing down for sure.

Gio hasnt been bad for us this year and it sucks having him out, especially as he was playing great before hitting his head the other night.

Timmins has been great for us this year. great underlying numbers, 60% goal differential but the kid just cant stay healthy. Getting mono is just plain bad luck.

Why am I even having to justify the fact we've been wrecked on the backend this year?

....and despite all of that, we're still one of the hottest teams in hockey right now and one of the best defensive teams in the league once we got things sorted a bit on the D side.

Hell, the Leafs have also been really sick this year too for some reason.

Are you happy the team is playing so well lately though?

2nd best team in the league over the last 20 games? Does that make you happy?

I'm just not sure.




.

 

[Gary Nylund]

Brodie was really good for us last season and has looked pretty rough recently. Maybe the injuries hurt him? He looks to be slowing down for sure.

Gio hasnt been bad for us this year and it sucks having him out, especially as he was playing great before hitting his head the other night.

Timmins has been great for us this year. great underlying numbers, 60% goal differential but the kid just cant stay healthy. Getting mono is just plain bad luck.

Why am I even having to justify the fact we've been wrecked on the backend this year?

....and despite all of that, we're still one of the hottest teams in hockey right now and one of the best defensive teams in the league once we got things sorted a bit on the D side.

Hell, the Leafs have also been really sick this year too for some reason.

Are you happy the team is playing so well lately though?

2nd best team in the league over the last 20 games? Does that make you happy?

I'm just not sure.

Every team has their ups and downs so I don't read too much into a good or a bad stretch and try to keep my eye on the big picture. I care mostly about the playoffs, and this team has a history of being good during the regular season followed by not so good in the playoffs so why would I get excited about a hot stretch in February?

If you're excited because we're "hot", that's great, be happy. But for me personally, I've seen it all before and the big picture is that our current team is substantially inferior to the one that took to the ice in last year's playoffs and disappointed, as usual. I always hope for the best and when the playoffs start I'll be hopeful as always but ATM I just don't see much chance of us going deep.

 

[Gary Nylund]

The running narrative of this team being bad against weak teams has always been false, or has been limited to early-season games. I bet if someone searched their record against sub 500 teams after January 1 it would be dominant.

Yeah maybe, I do remember early season was pretty bad for us. I think we lost about 5-6 games against teams like Chicago, Anaheim etc. before Christmas. But whatever, big picture is what counts, not sure it matters who we win/lose against, I'm actually pretty sure it doesn't. Just win in the playoffs, that's all that really matters, the rest is just details that might be fun to talk about, but not all that relevant.

 

[rumman]

Yeah maybe, I do remember early season was pretty bad for us. I think we lost about 5-6 games against teams like Chicago, Anaheim etc. before Christmas. But whatever, big picture is what counts, not sure it matters who we win/lose against, I'm actually pretty sure it doesn't. Just win in the playoffs, that's all that really matters, the rest is just details that might be fun to talk about, but not all that relevant.

It would be nice if they played division rivals harder though……..

 

[Beaumaris]

The overtime was the best part of the game

Always is.

 

[arso40]

Okay so I know we have our reservations about Bertuzzi-Domi-Nylander, but hear me out:

Bertuzzi-Nylander-Domi.


Boom.



....Can Jarnkrok play 2C?

switch bert and domi around and perfect

 

[Zybalto]

Every team has their ups and downs so I don't read too much into a good or a bad stretch and try to keep my eye on the big picture. I care mostly about the playoffs, and this team has a history of being good during the regular season followed by not so good in the playoffs so why would I get excited about a hot stretch in February?

If you're excited because we're "hot", that's great, be happy. But for me personally, I've seen it all before and the big picture is that our current team is substantially inferior to the one that took to the ice in last year's playoffs and disappointed, as usual. I always hope for the best and when the playoffs start I'll be hopeful as always but ATM I just don't see much chance of us going deep.

There's a few upsides to this season....

Matthews has been better this year and Nylander is having a career year.

The team itself has more jam and character.

The D is far tougher to play against.

If they can just sort out the 2nd/3rd lines and more importantly, if Tre can get off his ass at the deadline, this team can make some noise for sure. If he only does some minor thing and blows a prime year away I'll be pissed.

The big problem is that we will likely go against a team with a possible vezina winner for this year as the starter and last year's winner as the backup while starting either a rookie or a guy that crapped out of the league this year.

You know my feeling on this though....and yes I'm still hopeful.

It's part of being a fan right?

If Swayman does win the Vezina, it will make things more comical (2 in one series)in that we will have faced an average of 1 Vezina winning goalie for every playoff series during the Matthews era lol.

That would have to be some kind of record.

 

[Gary Nylund]

It would be nice if they played division rivals harder though……..

Yeah, for sure. I mean I'm always more interested in games against MTL, OTT etc. then I am in games against ANA, SJ, MIN, NSH etc., would be nice if that extra emotion was reflected on the ice. Much easier for me to stomach a loss against some random team than it is to stomach for example a loss to MTL but do our players care? Maybe the ones who grew up in Toronto care and the others don't, that might make sense I guess.

 

[Gary Nylund]

There's a few upsides to this season....

Matthews has been better this year and Nylander is having a career year.

The team itself has more jam and character.

The D is far tougher to play against.

If they can just sort out the 2nd/3rd lines and more importantly, if Tre can get off his ass at the deadline, this team can make some noise for sure. If he only does some minor thing and blows a prime year away I'll be pissed.

The big problem is that we will likely go against a team with a possible vezina winner for this year as the starter and last year's winner as the backup while starting either a rookie or a guy that crapped out of the league this year.

You know my feeling on this though....and yes I'm still hopeful.

It's part of being a fan right?

If Swayman does win the Vezina, it will make things more comical (2 in one series)in that we will have faced an average of 1 Vezina winning goalie for every playoff series during the Matthews era lol.

That would have to be some kind of record.

I'm hopeful as always. I'm just hopeful very quietly because deep down, I don't see much reason to expect things to be any different this time around.

Your point about the goalies is valid and there are other excuses/explanations as well for our playoff misery. We still should have had a lot more success then we've had to this point, we've still underachieved and that's why I'm loath to make excuses for this bunch. Don't let that get in the way of your optimism though, positive vibes can't hurt.

I actually feel pretty good about our goaltending this year, perhaps better than any other year with this core. Woll is a rookie but rookies have led their teams to cups before and Sammy is back and looking better than ever! Goaltending is everything in the playoffs and if one of our guys gets hot, that would be huge.

GLG!!

 

[Seath The Scaleless]

If you want to be objective, look up man games lost to injury across the league, see where we are compared to everyone else, then consider the quality of the players injured and get back to me.

Among current playoff teams, aren't the Leafs only behind Vegas in terms of man games lost and quality of players? I guess maybe Colorado as well with Landeskog

 

[ToneDog]

Among current playoff teams, aren't the Leafs only behind Vegas in terms of man games lost and quality of players? I guess maybe Colorado as well with Landeskog

What quality players have we lost? Woll is the only one I can think of.

 

[Zybalto]

I'm hopeful as always. I'm just hopeful very quietly because deep down, I don't see much reason to expect things to be any different this time around.

Your point about the goalies is valid and there are other excuses/explanations as well for our playoff misery. We still should have had a lot more success then we've had to this point, we've still underachieved and that's why I'm loath to make excuses for this bunch. Don't let that get in the way of your optimism though, positive vibes can't hurt.

I actually feel pretty good about our goaltending this year, perhaps better than any other year with this core. Woll is a rookie but rookies have led their teams to cups before and Sammy is back and looking better than ever! Goaltending is everything in the playoffs and if one of our guys gets hot, that would be huge.

GLG!!

I too like Woll ( a fun stat of his is that if all the PKs were played with Woll in net we'd be 3rd in the league for PK) , probably better than any keeper since pre-injured/sulky Andersen but it just seems ridiculous to me.

I mean, in the best division in the best conference in hockey over this stretch and everyone else has elite goaltending and then we get hit with a flat cap after we sign all the big contracts. Just craziness.

It's why I wanted a Saros/Carrier trade earlier when Nashville was floundering. Put Saros on our team and see what happens. (while solidifying the D)

 

[Gary Nylund]

Among current playoff teams, aren't the Leafs only behind Vegas in terms of man games lost and quality of players? I guess maybe Colorado as well with Landeskog

I have no idea. I tried googling this morning but couldn't find the numbers but I'd be surprised if that was the case, unless everyone else has been super healthy?

The only injuries that mattered much to me are Liljegren and Woll. Jones stepped up in net so I don't see much impact there so not a big deal overall. I mean sure Klinberg impacts the numbers but he was pretty bad so we might be better off without him. Our big guns have been healthy, I just don't know.

What quality players have we lost? Woll is the only one I can think of.

Liljegren is the only other one I can think of.

 

[Gary Nylund]

I too like Woll ( a fun stat of his is that if all the PKs were played with Woll in net we'd be 3rd in the league for PK) , probably better than any keeper since pre-injured/sulky Andersen but it just seems ridiculous to me.

I mean, in the best division in the best conference in hockey over this stretch and everyone else has elite goaltending and then we get hit with a flat cap after we sign all the big contracts. Just craziness.

It's why I wanted a Saros/Carrier trade earlier when Nashville was floundering. Put Saros on our team and see what happens. (while solidifying the D)

That was indeed a big blow. I know many people seems to think that "the cap is the same for everyone" etc. but not true at all.

What I wanted to do was to shop Marner after losing to MTL. Imagine the return we might have gotten for a water bug coming off a 1st team all-star season who was under contract for 4 more years (granted, with a massive cap hit) and how different the playoffs might have been with say a #1D, or maybe a couple of #2-3 guys or WE in his place. I mean you never know, maybe we even win the cup at some point. A bit of a stretch you say? Sure it is but I'm just trying to be "optimistic".