Post-Game Talk: Leafs win 4-1

[CabanaBoy5]

He was great. As the broadcast pointed out several times.

Marner was great. As a guy who called him every name possible in the playoff series against Montreal, some that I still cringe at, I see a difference in attitude this year. He always had the skill, but his defence, especially on the penalty kill is stellar, and he seems to be shooting more. I agree though, keep him away from Matthews 5 on 5.

 

[Aashir Mallik]

just an interesting tidbit of useless info I found:

We are on pace to score the least goals we have scored since 2016-2017. This year we are on pace for 253, that year we had 251....we were 5th in league scoring and finished wildcard 2 and 14th leaguewide

go to present day, we are 1st in the atlantic and 6th leaguewide

the defence and goaltending of the team has changed alot of how we win

 

[Sypher04]

just an interesting tidbit of useless info I found:

We are on pace to score the least goals we have scored since 2016-2017. This year we are on pace for 253, that year we had 251....we were 5th in league scoring and finished wildcard 2 and 14th leaguewide

go to present day, we are 1st in the atlantic and 6th leaguewide

the defence and goaltending of the team has changed alot of how we win

Yup. I also think being without the best goalscorer in the world, among several other forwards, directly contributed as well. If we can get reasonably healthy, and upgrade our 3rd line to be more of a contributor, we are going to be extremely hard to beat.

 

[Ianturnedbull]

Just sayin', I had this poster as a kid on my wall in the 70s. I didn't like the Pepsi stuff so I used scissors to cut all around him and put it back up.

I remember him as a kid. My Dad and I appreciated him.

I remember watching the line brawl game vs. Atlanta where he jumped off the bench to join the scrap. Somehow Atlanta had an extra player on the ice. He (The Flame) was literally running around punching any leaf who was tied up with someone else. Turnbull was yelling and screaming from the bench, but the Refs lost control. Risking fine/suspension, he jumped off the bench and pummeled the rat.

To me that was the ultimate show of heart for a hockey player.

I love that poster BTW. Thanks for sharing.

 

[notbias]

just an interesting tidbit of useless info I found:

We are on pace to score the least goals we have scored since 2016-2017. This year we are on pace for 253, that year we had 251....we were 5th in league scoring and finished wildcard 2 and 14th leaguewide

go to present day, we are 1st in the atlantic and 6th leaguewide

the defence and goaltending of the team has changed alot of how we win

I think our record is inflated by the goalies playing well (specifically Stolarz), but also, we have been short-handed for large chunks of the season... we probably should be around this spot with a healthy team and what I assume will be above-average goaltending, goalscoring should improve too.

Goal scoring is a concern though since it is usually our issue in the playoffs, but the season is young.

 

[The Hanging Jowl]

I remember him as a kid. My Dad and I appreciated him.

I remember watching the line brawl game vs. Atlanta where he jumped off the bench to join the scrap. Somehow Atlanta had an extra player on the ice. He (The Flame) was literally running around punching any leaf who was tied up with someone else. Turnbull was yelling and screaming from the bench, but the Refs lost control. Risking fine/suspension, he jumped off the bench and pummeled the rat.

To me that was the ultimate show of heart for a hockey player.

I love that poster BTW. Thanks for sharing.

Not lying BTW, that's the exact poster I had as an 8 or 9 year old. LOL, I don't even remember how he played. I was just reacting to your forum name.

 

[SprDaVE]

 

[notDatsyuk]

Eh i thought Nylander was disinterested and Matthews was just ineffective.

That line got hemmed in just felt like after two zip they shut it down knowing how ridiculous the schedule is going to be.


Mitch and JT were solid though sans that dumb little drop pass and the pp shenanigans

Odd that the 'disinterested' player led the team in takeaways and had easily the best assist of the night, and he and the 'ineffective' goalscorer led the team in shots.

 

[arso40]

I disagree on a few things here:

I don't think Liljegren playing good on the sharks should mean Berube blew it. I have a couple of reasons for that:
1) It's the sharks, playing well on a bad team shouldn't be the standard. He couldn't crack our lineup and not many teams probably wanted it
2) His issue is consistency, he has very low low points and it hasn't even been 20 games on the new team, I'd say give it some time before saying we "blew it"
3) Liljegren was a non-option come playoff time, he was soft, timid, and just passed problems on to his teammates with shit passes. He brought no offence and was a beacon to rally behind for the other team after he gets knocked on his ass for the tenth time. He couldn't play tampa, or florida, or boston.

I also don't think OEL is a terrible signing when he is playing more than liljegren, has the same on ice differential as liljegren (+3), has better relative to team stats, more points, and actually pks 1 minute per game vs 1 minute in 15 games. So he is better than Liljegren in every facet of the game, yet he is terrible and liljegren is amazing? I don't think so.


things panning out are credited to treliving though. I think you gloss over stolarz a little too much, he has been trelivings best signing and has been awesome. He has a .924 and even a healthy woll isn't the defacto starter with how good he has been.

Maybe I look at it from a different view point than you, but IDGAF about 5 years from now, we have this matthews contract left. I used to believe you want to try and build with both future and present in mind, and whilst I still do, I'd much rather mortgage the future to try and make deeps runs vs doing the same thing the previous regime did and remain status quo (first round exits). Even if this means our window closes with no cups a bit early, I'll accept that this is what I wanted and won't complain that management tried going for it.

Some stuff I do agree with though is Reaves, Minten and Kampf. Minten especially since I thought he was a long-shot with his awful production in the WHL last season. Thought he could be the david kampf 4C replacement, starting to think maybe there's more to him. Reaves is awful, but he has found a way to be a 0 through his games, so at least he isn't costing us as much as last year. Kampf could've been replaced by dewar or holmberg, but I guess we really liked what we saw. I think you could probably get out of him fairly easy but we probably like him a lot so we will keep him around.

All our dman should look better than lily in plus minus we have 2 of the best goalies save % wise this same d core with last years goalies would look completely different that’s just a fact

Odd that the 'disinterested' player led the team in takeaways and had easily the best assist of the night, and he and the 'ineffective' goalscorer led the team in shots.

Some people’s takes never cease to amaze me

 

[Hellcat]

Does anyone like the Black Jerseys? I don't usually care about such things but find the numbers very hard to make out, particularly live.

Leafs should always be Blue and White.

From an aesthetics perspective I don't mind them but they kind of look sloppy, poorly made, like a grade 10 Home Economics class sewed them together.

 

[ITM]

Does anyone like the Black Jerseys? I don't usually care about such things but find the numbers very hard to make out, particularly live.

Leafs should always be Blue and White.

Not really. I didn't really like the move to black as a general fashion across the league years ago. I'm certainly a traditionalist at heart when it comes to team colours, and prefer a variation of colours versus variations of black with colour accents.

Black suits Boston. Even Pitsburgh looks better to me when the primary colour is blue (The city's colours notwithstanding.)

Leafs in blue and white except for St. Patrick's Day - when they look sensational in the green and white - should be the rule - agreed.

 

[GoonieFace]

Odd that the 'disinterested' player led the team in takeaways and had easily the best assist of the night, and he and the 'ineffective' goalscorer led the team in shots.

Yeah but Marner had 2 assists. No shots on goals though. He was good on the PK, but so was Lorentz and Dewar. Unknown to some, there are also 2 defenders and a goalie on the Pk as well.

 

[Macallan18]

Hakinpaa brings different attributes and is much cheaper. You can't have 3mil being scratched every night and no way he's cracking the current top 6.

True, Hakannpa can’t skate or pass.
Oh and he is going to Robidas Island which was very predictable

 

[ACC1224]

True, Hakannpa can’t skate or pass.
Oh and he is going to Robidas Island which was very predictable

Yikes and he's still preferred over Lilljgren.

 

[TorMapleJays]

Leafs play boring hockey and…..

It’s about time. This is how you win in the playoffs.

 

[Niagara Bill]

The biggest problem with Liljegren is we have/had to go through Boston, Tampa and Florida in the playoffs. He can't play in those series.

Right...not good enough. Add Jets, Oilers, Avs, Nashville, Carolina,.The Ducks were not in the playoffs, do he wouldn't be effective until next, October

 

[weems]

I think our record is inflated by the goalies playing well (specifically Stolarz), but also, we have been short-handed for large chunks of the season... we probably should be around this spot with a healthy team and what I assume will be above-average goaltending, goalscoring should improve too.

Goal scoring is a concern though since it is usually our issue in the playoffs, but the season is young.

How many points did our PP cost us in the first 12 or so games?

 

[Dekes For Days]

How many points did our PP cost us in the first 12 or so games?

Probably about as many as it gifted us in the next 12 or so games.

 

[weems]

Probably about as many as it gifted us in the next 12 or so games.

We're still only running at a 19.5% clip over the full season and we should be better than that.

I wouldn't say our record is all that inflated.

 

[Dekes For Days]

We're still only running at a 19.5% clip over the full season and we should be better than that.
I wouldn't say our record is all that inflated.

Our PP was almost 31% during that time though, and it really saved us in some games. The point is, it helps balance out the earlier stretch. There are often other areas balancing out things like that in small samples. You can't just say that we struggled in one game state in one portion of the season, so our overall record is ______.

In truth, we have some things underperforming (like our PP), and some things overperforming (like our 5v5 play, where our goal differential is +12 better than our underlying metrics), and we're probably right around where we'll end up overall. Slightly overperforming our underlying metrics (+1.66%) in a sustainable way.

 

[BertCorbeau]

I love this kid

Give him bigger AHL minutes when he returns and let him refine some of that raw skill. Lots to like about his game.

 

[CabanaBoy5]

I think our record is inflated by the goalies playing well (specifically Stolarz), but also, we have been short-handed for large chunks of the season... we probably should be around this spot with a healthy team and what I assume will be above-average goaltending, goalscoring should improve too.

Goal scoring is a concern though since it is usually our issue in the playoffs, but the season is young.

I agree goal scoring has been a problem in the playoffs, and hopefully we can trade for someone at the trade deadline. But a bigger reason was our goalie’s penchant for giving up weak goals in key games in those playoffs. Inevitably, games are tight, goals are hard to come by, and we can’t give up softies.

I also agree our goaltending is a big though not the biggest reason we have a good record thus far. The defensive structure and style of play along with the excellent play of Tanev and McCabe allows the goalie to make the saves that need to be made. I honestly can’t think of any goals given up by our goalies that would be considered soul crushing weak goals.

 

[weems]

Our PP was almost 31% during that time though, and it really saved us in some games. The point is, it helps balance out the earlier stretch. There are often other areas balancing out things like that in small samples. You can't just say that we struggled in one game state in one portion of the season, so our overall record is ______.

In truth, we have some things underperforming (like our PP), and some things overperforming (like our 5v5 play, where our goal differential is +12 better than our underlying metrics), and we're probably right around where we'll end up overall. Slightly overperforming our underlying metrics (+1.66%) in a sustainable way.

30% isn't that outrageous of a number though.
Over that same stretch New Jersey has a PP of 40% and Winnipeg had a PP hitting at almost a 44% clip through it's first 12.
Sure it obviously helped us out but I would say our PP being 10% through the first 13 games which ranked 31st is a much more egregious number.

 

[notbias]

How many points did our PP cost us in the first 12 or so games?

Probably as many as our goalies got us...

 

[weems]

Probably as many as our goalies got us...

Fair but then our record isn't really that inflated.