Post-Game Talk: Leafs Win 4-1 | "Corsi Enthusiasts Hate Them!"

[happyaccident]

Raymond's pp goal, what an incredible shift by Lupul. And he didn't even get an assist. This guy is good at hockey.

 

[hockeywiz542]

Jonas Siegel: Leafs grind out another ugly win

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=434252

TORONTO – As he does throughout most games, Randy Carlyle kept his arms tightly and tensely crossed on the Toronto bench as his team swiped another victory, now six in the first seven games this season.

"Every win is not going to be a work of art," he would say shortly after the finish of a 4-1 win against Minnesota.

Though not the least bit pretty in their performance, the Leafs (6-1-0) found another avenue for manufacturing victory, with special teams and sturdy net-minding the difference on this night. Without the puck for most of the evening, the Leafs were badly outshot 37-14, totaling just 30 attempts on the net compared with 68 for the Wild. They also dropped 62 per cent of the faceoffs.

But as has been the case in the opening weeks of a strong start, one with many incomplete victories, Carlyle couldn't harp too strongly on the negatives in light of his team ultimately finding success.

"It's hard to be critical when you're getting points," he said. "[But] we're not going to continue to accept what's happening. We have to find a way to mold this from a different angle. Our level of play has to increase. We were on the receiving end. You can't continue to play that way and expect to have success."

As one of the more prominent flaws in their performance as a team thus far, the Leafs remained far "too loose" in their defensive play against the Wild (more on this in Five Points) and were again sloppy with the puck. They have allowed an unmanageable 35 shots per game so far this season, good for 14 more on average than first-ranked Minnesota.

Such flaws have been masked with strong and timely goaltending, elite special teams and plenty of offence. Carlyle fears this will catch up with his team soon though, especially with far superior opponents from Chicago, Anaheim and Pittsburgh looming soon on the calendar.

"The message has to be delivered and framed in the proper way that you're not tearing them down," he stated of his approach in the days ahead. "Even though we're not playing the way we'd like to play, we're still finding a way to win hockey games. This is what the league is about. You're here to win. You can talk and describe and there's ample footage and there's ample evidence that we're not playing to the high enough level, but we're playing high enough to win hockey games."

Carlyle concluded his thoughts bluntly.

"The worry for coaches is that some night we're going to get our butt kicked playing like this."

 

[The_Chosen_One]

Kadri did seem a bit like Gilmour. A potential #1C who could be used in all situations. In fact, Stamkos or Tavares don't even have that kind of all-round game despite elite offensive abilities.

Our D TOI is pretty interesting as well:

Phaneuf 22:18
Gardiner 21:59
Ranger 20:13
Gunnarsson 19:28
Franson 19:11
Rielly 17:57

 

[hockeywiz542]

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=434252

2. Goaltending decisions

Earlier in the day, Carlyle spoke to the decision of going with Reimer against the Wild, Jonathan Bernier making the previous three starts. "You try to balance and you try to do an assessment on performance of individuals and how our team has played in front of [the goaltender] and the chances that we're giving up and the quality of chances," he said. "And all those things go into the decision-making process along with number of games in a row. You don't want people to get stale. We have a decision to make based upon three or four factors."

 

[Jimmy Firecracker]

Really?


He played normal ES and PP minutes, and was even given a few shifts on the PK. Not sure he's still in it... unless you're being sarcastic? haha

Yeah he's definitely being sarcastic.

 

[weems]

Josh Leivo played well again.
Solid in all 3 zones and looks really comfortable for someone playing there first few games.

 

[mikebel111*]

1. It's just not fair to other teams that gardiner-rielly is our 2nd pp pair....and deservedly so, because dion-cody are one of the best pp pairs in the league. Our pp is going to be absolutely unstoppable this year.

2. Love love love kadri getting pk duty. He is very good at it, with speed, smarts, and poise. I still say we win game 7 if kadri is out defending the lead in those dying minutes. The fact that he's playing well in all game situations now might mean that he finally starts getting the #1c minutes he deserves.

3. Reims was rusty but still made it look easy. He's really good.

4. People always crap on bozie but he was great tonight, winning board battles and defending like a boss.

5. If kessel had touched the puck i would have been pissed. He didn't deserve that goal. Kessel was dogging it all night long. Pretty pathetic effort from him.


In general i just love watching a team with so much elite skill all over the lineup. Even in games when we clearly miss the physical board presence of jvr, clarkson, and kuky, the skill is still enough for us to win and win big.

This is a very easy team to root for.

I didn't watch the game but nice to see kadri on pk. I love his forchecking. he tries to use his stick to knock the puck away. and is very intense in getting the puck on pk. pretty active stick when other team sets up too.

 

[Sokil]

1st star : Reimer
2nd star : Parise
3rd star : Bolland

I thought Rielly deserved a star.

raymond had 2 goals and didn't get one, that, i do not understand

 

[JackJ]

We're deadly once all the regulars (JVR, Clarkson, Kulemin, Fraser) make their return.

 

[Lapa]

Good game guys, just frustrating as hell from a Wild fan's POV. Congrats on the win.

Reimer was a beast for you guys. I also liked Rielly and Raymond.

 

[BIitz]

In a sense I feel bad for teams that play the Leafs

They always (almost) outshoot us, they said they "totally dominated us", they say they should have won or we got lucky, they get mad their shots aren't going in, they laugh at how we only have like 3 shots and 2 seem to go in. I feel bad for them because this is a typical game for us usually. No you didn't dominate us, no we weren't lucky, and no you shouldn't have won and you wouldn't win on another night.

We give them an inch and they take an inch, we are one of the best transition teams and our offensive cycle game is really good.

I'm not sure the exact science, but god we are good at finishing. Whenever I watch other teams get shot after shot on us, I'm never really worried.

 

[legendinblue]

Good game guys, just frustrating as hell from a Wild fan's POV. Congrats on the win.

Reimer was a beast for you guys. I also liked Rielly and Raymond.

Thanks. Really like your team! You have a promising future.

 

[Defense]

Can the playoffs start now?

 

[weems]

In a sense I feel bad for teams that play the Leafs

They always (almost) outshoot us, they said they "totally dominated us", they say they should have won or we got lucky, they get mad their shots aren't going in, they laugh at how we only have like 3 shots and 2 seem to go in. I feel bad for them because this is a typical game for us usually. No you didn't dominate us, no we weren't lucky, and no you shouldn't have won and you wouldn't win on another night.

We give them an inch and they take an inch, we are one of the best transition teams and our offensive cycle game is really good.

I'm not sure the exact science, but god we are good at finishing. Whenever I watch other teams get shot after shot on us, I'm never really worried.

One of the reasons the Leafs are such a good finishing team is because they get themselves into prime scoring areas alot more then some other teams. I would say overall team speed is one of the reasons for this and have a plethora of gamebreakers in Kessel, Lupul, JVR, Kadri and now also Raymond. When I watch other teams play the one thing I notice instantly is how much slower they seem then the Leafs and arent nearly as dynamic.

I remember Burke always talking about team speed and how important it was to him and the Leafs defenitely have one of the best skating teams in the league and that leads to getting to prime scoring areas more frequently.

 

[Daisy Jane]

Can the playoffs start now?

i woke up this morning wishing the same thing!

The only thing better than winning the game with only 14 shots on net is winning the game by a 3 goal margin

Despite the shot difference, I didn't think most of their shots were very threatening. It was a nice combination of boxing out the opposition along with solid goaltending that came up huge when it needed to, especially on those two breakaway opportunities for the Wild. I say it all the time, Reimer doesn't look great doing it but he gets the job done. He's shown time and time again that he can bounce back from a bad performance and tonight was no different. Getting solid goaltending by your two young goalies isn't a problem in my books.

What a great play by Kessel on the empty netter.

First we win a game in the shootout. Then we tie a game with our goalie pulled and 30 seconds left in regulation. Now we've scored an empty netter. These are all things that don't seem to happen all that often for the Leafs and we've already seen all 3 of them happen in the span of 7 games into the season. Hopefully that's a good sign.

it's like Bizarro World.
I like it!

In a sense I feel bad for teams that play the Leafs

They always (almost) outshoot us, they said they "totally dominated us", they say they should have won or we got lucky, they get mad their shots aren't going in, they laugh at how we only have like 3 shots and 2 seem to go in. I feel bad for them because this is a typical game for us usually. No you didn't dominate us, no we weren't lucky, and no you shouldn't have won and you wouldn't win on another night.

We give them an inch and they take an inch, we are one of the best transition teams and our offensive cycle game is really good.

I'm not sure the exact science, but god we are good at finishing. Whenever I watch other teams get shot after shot on us, I'm never really worried.

I think this is what confuses me the most. I guess - yes. would we like to take more than 14 shots a game? yes. but what's the point of outshooting a team 50 times (which we did last year) and lose (which we did last year). Sometimes we pass too much looking for the pretty goal, but they also are very lethal when the puck actually hits the net. a lot of teams AREN'T

and truly - this is kind of weird. so many teams people would waltz into the ACC, beat us up, take the two points and say "deuces!" on the way out...that's totally gone now. and I think that's what's frustrating a lot of people. they are expecting the easy two points.

One of the reasons the Leafs are such a good finishing team is because they get themselves into prime scoring areas alot more then some other teams. I would say overall team speed is one of the reasons for this and have a plethora of gamebreakers in Kessel, Lupul, JVR, Kadri and now also Raymond. When I watch other teams play the one thing I notice instantly is how much slower they seem then the Leafs and arent nearly as dynamic.

I remember Burke always talking about team speed and how important it was to him and the Leafs defenitely have one of the best skating teams in the league and that leads to getting to prime scoring areas more frequently.

we are super fast. my mouth was to the ground when i saw Rielly, coming under Kadri (that sounds dirty), and then BOOM he was at the offensive blue line. like.. who can do that?
(well, Kessel, JVR, Lupul, Kadri, Raymond, lmao)

 

[ErnieLeafs]

Kadri is working his way up the ranks, and with the added PK responsibility, it looks like RC is starting to trust him more. They should, because he provides a threat on the counter attack, much like Bozak does.

I'm not biggest fan, but he definitely does work on the PK.

 

[BoredBrandonPridham]

Felt good man. I'm disappointed that nhl.com didn't sport the pun "Tic-Tac-Bo-zak"

 

[thewave]

We only need 15 shots a night, we are so accurate 5 of those will go in. 33% chance of scoring over here.

Lupul is awesome. I am one of 8 that voted him over Kessel. This was with assumption of good health. *if I were a GM given choice, Kessel for that reason but, Lupul all day.

 

[LEAFSIN4]

that first goal was a thing of beauty

 

[Center Ice Scrum*]

I don't get why people are so stubborn with this corsi ****. Leafs are a very selective team shooting wise. We don't have the Jason Blake types on our team who just skate down the wing and put a shot into the goalie's chest. Our players are very opportunistic with their shots and know how to finish. Almost everyone in our top 9 is a good finisher. Like tonight, Leafs had atleast 6-7 grade A scoring chances and finished on 3 of them. Only goal the goalie messed up was that 5 hole goal by Smith. Other then that goalie had no chance on the other 2 goals.

Minny on the other hand dominated the shot clock right off the bat because of the lopsided # of pps they got in the first. They didn't actually have too many great scoring chances. Majority of their shots were perimeter shots. If there was a way of calculating high quality scoring chances, Leafs would have probably out chanced them by a few or at worst tied. People are getting their panties tied in a knot over such flawed statistics. This ain't moneyball.

Oh and to those apologetic Leaf fans who always go say sorry for our win on the other teams board/ main board, grow a pair.

 

[Stephen23]

Hey guys, I am a little late coming out of the shadows on this part. But who (or what?) is Corsi?

 

[Yosho]

Minnesota looked really damn impressive. They are A LOT faster than the team that came to the ACC two years ago. Their powerplay was realllllly unique and they had a ton of chances, the Leafs just had very active sticks and got in front of most of the shots. Wild fans have a good team to cheer for... plus Suter is damn gem.

Leafs took advantage of everything given to them. I was really impressed with the young guys (Rielly, Leivo, Broll, Kadri). Lupul, Kessel, and especially Raymond had SOLID games too.

Phaneuf and Gunnar played like garbage. I can forgive Phaneuf with an off-night, but Gunnarson has been very suspect all season (IMO). He looks to be second guessing every decision he makes, which in turn slows him down two steps. Maybe playing through the early season will help him out, or maybe sitting for a game or two to regroup.

This team seems like a very tight-knit group right now, but comfortable enough that they can play a "loose" game and let mistakes roll off of their shoulders.

Loving it.

 

[dballislife2]

with his gifts and vision, i think its about time randy puts rielly on the PP...rielly and franson would be some elite passing on the blueline

 

[ConnorTO]

Can the playoffs start now?

it is early for that, not yet

 

[Stats01]

Raymond's pp goal, what an incredible shift by Lupul. And he didn't even get an assist. This guy is good at hockey.

Damn right!! What a shift is right. Holy **** Lupul went into beast mode, that was all him on that goal pretty much.