Post-Game Talk: Leafs win 4-3 (SO)

[Gary Nylund]

The keys to winning this year in the playoffs are going to be goaltending (check), the PP (who knows) and not having the depth fall off a cliff. Matthews' big struggles are hopefully behind him and he can get his numbers back up, Tavares and Nylanders numbers have spiked huge which is great but depth performance looks worse in the regular season than others. As bad as its looked, its been a rockstar compared to its past playoff performance though. A lot of new faces though and guys probably more suited to the playoff style means we might get an increase (or at least I'm hoping).

Pretty weird that you don't mention the core forwards as being a key. Nylander's been fine but M&M/JT have seen massive production hits in the playoffs and such a huge chunk of cap goes to those 3 guys, why are you fine with them producing in the regular season but not in the playoffs?

 

[ACC1224]

I just don't feel we are as good as we should be. +16 goal differential, while Florida is at +41 and TB at +55. At the end of the day, top teams have a goal differential way better than +16. Metro is a joke, but even teams like Carolina and NJ are at +29 and +28 respectively.

yeah, this is certainly a concern, shows a lot of close games, not many easy nights.

 

[CabanaBoy5]

Morgan Rielly, now a -20, and a very telling stat regardless what others may say. It's one of the times that this stat is reflective of a player's game. That first goal where he let his man blow by him to the centre of the ice for a tip into the net was brutal. Not to mention his giveaways, loss of puck battles, etc. I almost hate to say this but he looks overweight, which causes his loss of speed. He's always been a low IQ defensive player, but he's having a monstrously terrible year defensively.

 

[fahad203]

Pretty weird that you don't mention the core forwards as being a key. Nylander's been fine but M&M/JT have seen massive production hits in the playoffs and such a huge chunk of cap goes to those 3 guys, why are you fine with them producing in the regular season but not in the playoffs?

Part of our reason is inability to produce in PP. What was our PP percentage last year, like 8%?

None the less, nobody escapes more criticism than Matthews. He has yet to own a series. I dont' mean just scoring goals but owning a series like Barkov has, Kuch has, Mackinnon has. I am not going to even ask about McDavid.

He has to assert dominance but he doesn't. Does is best to do bare minium and goes home.

Other night all I hear was Mackinnon, he was all over the ice. It felt like he played the entire game. He couldn't have scored a single point and still be force

 

[Gary Nylund]

Part of our reason is inability to produce in PP. What was our PP percentage last year, like 8%?

None the less, nobody escapes more criticism than Matthews. He has yet to own a series. I dont' mean just scoring goals but owning a series like Barkov has, Kuch has, Mackinnon has. I am not going to even ask about McDavid.

He has to assert dominance but he doesn't. Does is best to do bare minium and goes home.

Other night all I hear was Mackinnon, he was all over the ice. It felt like he played the entire game. He couldn't have scored a single point and still be force

So many sources of frustration! Matthews, the PP, Marner, JT, the list goes on and on.

 

[fahad203]

Morgan Rielly, now a -20, and a very telling stat regardless what others may say. It's one of the times that this stat is reflective of a player's game. That first goal where he let his man blow by him to the centre of the ice for a tip into the net was brutal. Not to mention his giveaways, loss of puck battles, etc. I almost hate to say this but he looks overweight, which causes his loss of speed. He's always been a low IQ defensive player, but he's having a monstrously terrible year defensively.

Morgan Rielly is the player that watched and let Pstarnak score game winner in game 7
his game has gone south long time ago, we just keep believing that he's that young kid we drafted and going to be a star

His bread and butter was his skating, but even that has gone

 

[rumman]

Nylander's the only star player we have who doesn't stop producing offence in the playoffs. He's the last guy anyone should be worried about but whatever, you do you.

The fact that Nylander’s our best playoff performer says everything you need to know about why playoff success has eluded this team……..

I never have much confidence in this group. That being said, I think they match up well with Tampa. After that, all bets are off.

I do worry about how the goalies hold up, since both have already exceeded their career high in games played in a season.

Woll’s annual groin injury is what I worry about, Stolz is ahead of him in my mind, but Hildabeast as a backup gives me plenty of concern………

 

[rumman]

Part of our reason is inability to produce in PP. What was our PP percentage last year, like 8%?

None the less, nobody escapes more criticism than Matthews. He has yet to own a series. I dont' mean just scoring goals but owning a series like Barkov has, Kuch has, Mackinnon has. I am not going to even ask about McDavid.

He has to assert dominance but he doesn't. Does is best to do bare minium and goes home.

Other night all I hear was Mackinnon, he was all over the ice. It felt like he played the entire game. He couldn't have scored a single point and still be force

I don’t think mentioning Mathews is the same breathe as McKinnon is a fair comparison, McKinnon’s light years ahead of 34 in every aspect of the game because he palys with heart every shift, 34, not so much……..

 

[Zybalto]

Pretty weird that you don't mention the core forwards as being a key. Nylander's been fine but M&M/JT have seen massive production hits in the playoffs and such a huge chunk of cap goes to those 3 guys, why are you fine with them producing in the regular season but not in the playoffs?

Probably because outside of Tavares, they have been positives compared to the other things and even then, Tavares has nothing on the fall from grace the non-core guys have been over 3 playoffs.

I really don't think you are taking just how seriously the bottom 6 have underperformed on this team. It's not like they are getting caught out against other teams good players or anything either.

These guys play no roles other than to play the other teams to standstills and maybe chip in an odd big goal. (Like Paul, Coleman, Goodrow, etc. did for Tampa for years for peanuts)

The problem is actually worse than I put out even before.

Put Rielly into the mix as he's seen as a "core player" as well I think most would agree.

5v5 Goal differential 2021-2024 regular seasons:
Matthews: 62.39%
Marner: 60.66%
Nylander: 51.58%
Tavares: 52.10%
Rielly: 53.58%

Rest of team: 50.31%

5v5 Goal differential 2022-2024 playoffs:
Matthews: 57.71%
Marner: 64.20%
Nylander: 46.47%
Tavares: 48.51%
Rielly: 66.54%

Rest of team: 32.96%

The slight drop off down to a 50% mark is certainly fine in the regular season but I cant put into words just how catastrophic the drop off in non-core players is. It would be like taking a simlar 5v5 team like Edmonton (50.22 5v5 this year overall), dropping them to be the worst team in the league (beating out Nashvilles 41.73% 5v5) and then dropping them down that much AGAIN............and then saying their 5v5 play wasnt a big deal in them being failures.

We can get on the core players for the PP, sure (its been so bad it is literally the reason why they dont have point totals matching their regular season) but those supporting player outcomes look insane. Getting run over by the other teams lines at the same time as producing next to nothing.

We can take solace in the fact the revamped lineup is going to produce better than we have had. I don't think its possible to play any worse. We could have replaced the entire bottom of the lineup with the top 2 lines from the Marlies and had better results.

 

[notDatsyuk]

- Did he made some good thing at time, yeah for sure but the number of shift off he's actually taking are phenomenal.

-How many time Phil Kessel had been bashed publicly for doing it over and over again in Toronto?
-It's the same thing we saw from Patrick Laine whatever where he played and made his actual reputation.

But nylander because leafs still winning despite, that's okay let's continu that's doesn't matter


Exemple against Colorado on 1st goal, he made a mistake on turnover ... okay he made a mistake like everyone. That goal was not a mistake, was a lack of work and at this time of season, get one of your leader working only between 2 to 10 min of the 20 hes on the ice, it's pretty alarming. It's not how leafs gonna reach 1st seed and win in playoff. Can he play hard for a complete game, that's what i'm want to see from him and didn't see for a while

I like the Nylander playing a complete 60 min game, i hate the Nylander playing 10 to 50% of game.

You totally missed the point, but that's expected.

 

[notDatsyuk]

yeah, I don't know why there is so much hate for this gentleman, he has ratcheted his game up another level, second in goals in the nhl, and produces in the playoffs as you say.
I am his fan. And the TTC commercials!!! He is to Toronto what Marner pretends to be.

I think that's the problem - some posters think Marner is better, and their only argument is that Nylander occasionally looks lazy.

 

[thusk]

You totally missed the point, but that's expected.

His work ethic, that was i'm talking about since the 1st post, so if you're not talking about that... It's you who missed the point because it was the only thing i was talking about.

 

[Gabriel426]

Probably because outside of Tavares, they have been positives compared to the other things and even then, Tavares has nothing on the fall from grace the non-core guys have been over 3 playoffs.

I really don't think you are taking just how seriously the bottom 6 have underperformed on this team. It's not like they are getting caught out against other teams good players or anything either.

These guys play no roles other than to play the other teams to standstills and maybe chip in an odd big goal. (Like Paul, Coleman, Goodrow, etc. did for Tampa for years for peanuts)

The problem is actually worse than I put out even before.

Put Rielly into the mix as he's seen as a "core player" as well I think most would agree.

5v5 Goal differential 2021-2024 regular seasons:
Matthews: 62.39%
Marner: 60.66%
Nylander: 51.58%
Tavares: 52.10%
Rielly: 53.58%

Rest of team: 50.31%

5v5 Goal differential 2022-2024 playoffs:
Matthews: 57.71%
Marner: 64.20%
Nylander: 46.47%
Tavares: 48.51%
Rielly: 66.54%

Rest of team: 32.96%

The slight drop off down to a 50% mark is certainly fine in the regular season but I cant put into words just how catastrophic the drop off in non-core players is. It would be like taking a simlar 5v5 team like Edmonton (50.22 5v5 this year overall), dropping them to be the worst team in the league (beating out Nashvilles 41.73% 5v5) and then dropping them down that much AGAIN............and then saying their 5v5 play wasnt a big deal in them being failures.

We can get on the core players for the PP, sure (its been so bad it is literally the reason why they dont have point totals matching their regular season) but those supporting player outcomes look insane. Getting run over by the other teams lines at the same time as producing next to nothing.

We can take solace in the fact the revamped lineup is going to produce better than we have had. I don't think it’s possible to play any worse. We could have replaced the entire bottom of the lineup with the top 2 lines from the Marlies and had better results.

The thing is that our bottom 6 are depth/supporting players while true contenders have secondary players playing in the bottom 6.
We never have the luxury of that due to having THREE and now FOUR 10mil plus forwards on the team while at one time three of the top 7 salaries in the league.
To me, you can’t point to our depth players and expect them to raise their game while not pointing out how big a disappointment AM, JT and MM are esp in elimination games.
The only year where we won a round was having a 3rd line of ROR, Knies/Bunting and Accari. And Calle playing on the 4th line.

That’s why if our top guys don’t perform like scoring, the team will lose.

if only our top guys can perform like McD, that’s actually unfair as McD makes more money. But if they only perform like Barkov-who makes 10.5mi, or Drai, Kuch, Tkachuk, Point, Mack, Makar, Stone, Marchessault and even Eichel, we probably won a few more rounds even with our depth players.

 

[Phion Keneuf]

Rielly has went from a lower tier #1D to an extremely overpaid #5D. The fall off must be studied. Hopefully he’s saving an extra gear for the playoffs… (doubtful)

 

[notDatsyuk]

His work ethic, that was i'm talking about since the 1st post, so if you're not talking about that... It's you who missed the point because it was the only thing i was talking about.

Right - four excellent defensive plays in the game, one where he wasn't even one of the most responsible for the goal against, but that's the only one you see? I'm not the one missing things.

 

[Gabriel426]

Rielly has went from a lower tier #1D to an extremely overpaid #5D. The fall off must be studied. Hopefully he’s saving an extra gear for the playoffs… (doubtful)

Just a down season. At least that’s what I am hoping

 

[thewave]

Just a down season. At least that’s what I am hoping

I have heard of down seasons but Mo is ranking down there with corpses. They could Weekend at Bernies on ice a better defender.

Imagine open selection at practice down to the last pick.. Mo or a Pylon where the Pylon gets picked, that's Mo

 

[Gabriel426]

I have heard of down seasons but Mo is ranking down there with corpses. They could Weekend at Bernies on ice a better defender.

Imagine open selection at practice down to the last pick.. Mo or a Pylon where the Pylon gets picked, that's Mo

I just laughed with the weekend at Bernie’s rEd.
Well Done

I agree, like I said I am hoping this is his down season.

 

[TheGreenTBer]

Wooooooooooooooooo!
View attachment 991351
I'm actually a massive habs fan....lol. But I was cheering for leafs tonight

Why you have to take 4 years off my life like that ?

If you're truly a Habs fan you should already know NOT to bet on the frigging Leafs man

 

[Leafs98]

Mo needs to be tried as a shut down forward. He's a liability at D and might as well try him with less responsibility.

 

[GoonieFace]

His work ethic, that was i'm talking about since the 1st post, so if you're not talking about that... It's you who missed the point because it was the only thing i was talking about.

It’s a lot easier to expend energy on defence when you refuse to forecheck and just circle around the blue line like some players tend to do. It’s all about optics. Nylander has no issues going in deep to retrieve pucks

 

[Gary Nylund]

Probably because outside of Tavares, they have been positives compared to the other things and even then, Tavares has nothing on the fall from grace the non-core guys have been over 3 playoffs.

I really don't think you are taking just how seriously the bottom 6 have underperformed on this team. It's not like they are getting caught out against other teams good players or anything either.

These guys play no roles other than to play the other teams to standstills and maybe chip in an odd big goal. (Like Paul, Coleman, Goodrow, etc. did for Tampa for years for peanuts)

The problem is actually worse than I put out even before.

Put Rielly into the mix as he's seen as a "core player" as well I think most would agree.

5v5 Goal differential 2021-2024 regular seasons:
Matthews: 62.39%
Marner: 60.66%
Nylander: 51.58%
Tavares: 52.10%
Rielly: 53.58%

Rest of team: 50.31%

5v5 Goal differential 2022-2024 playoffs:
Matthews: 57.71%
Marner: 64.20%
Nylander: 46.47%
Tavares: 48.51%
Rielly: 66.54%

Rest of team: 32.96%

The slight drop off down to a 50% mark is certainly fine in the regular season but I cant put into words just how catastrophic the drop off in non-core players is. It would be like taking a simlar 5v5 team like Edmonton (50.22 5v5 this year overall), dropping them to be the worst team in the league (beating out Nashvilles 41.73% 5v5) and then dropping them down that much AGAIN............and then saying their 5v5 play wasnt a big deal in them being failures.

We can get on the core players for the PP, sure (its been so bad it is literally the reason why they dont have point totals matching their regular season) but those supporting player outcomes look insane. Getting run over by the other teams lines at the same time as producing next to nothing.

We can take solace in the fact the revamped lineup is going to produce better than we have had. I don't think its possible to play any worse. We could have replaced the entire bottom of the lineup with the top 2 lines from the Marlies and had better results.

Oh yeah, like what? These guys are paid to produce offence, if they stop doing that in the playoffs, how are they earning their pay?

Go ahead and compare the top 4 forwards to the rest of them but if you're not factoring in the fact that those 4 guys are paid a LOT more then the other 8, you're not doing it right.

A quick glance at the number tells me that our top 4 forwards have a combined cap hit of ~45 million, the next 8 forwards have a combined cap hit of ~14 million. Blaming those other 8 guys make it seem like you'll go to any extremes no matter how absurd, just as long as you can somehow let those guys off the hook.

P.S. Your fancy stats aren't worth shit.

 

[ACC1224]

His work ethic, that was i'm talking about since the 1st post, so if you're not talking about that... It's you who missed the point because it was the only thing i was talking about.

Watching him at the end of OT was pretty funny

 

[Zybalto]

Part of our reason is inability to produce in PP. What was our PP percentage last year, like 8%?

None the less, nobody escapes more criticism than Matthews. He has yet to own a series. I dont' mean just scoring goals but owning a series like Barkov has, Kuch has, Mackinnon has. I am not going to even ask about McDavid.

He has to assert dominance but he doesn't. Does is best to do bare minium and goes home.

Other night all I hear was Mackinnon, he was all over the ice. It felt like he played the entire game. He couldn't have scored a single point and still be force

The PP issues are everything when it comes to the Leafs big names:

Just check Matthews (and other Leafs) 5v5 in the playoffs vs. the other top guys in the league over the last 3 playoffs:

Goals scored/60 5v5:
1. Matthews: 1.1
2. Barkov: 0.98
3. MacKinnon: 0.97
4. Drai: 0.92
4. Pasta: 0.92
6. McDavid: 0.91
7. Tkachuk: 0.88
8. Tavares: 0.86
9. Rantanen: 0.85
10. Marner: 0.78
11. Stone: 0.76
11. Bennet: 0.76
13. Marchand: 0.74
14. Nylander: 0.73
15. Rielly: 0.64
16. Reinhart: 0.61
17. Eichel: 0.57
18. Panarin: 0.53
19. Bouchard 0.39
20. Kucherov: 0.11

I'm not sure many people realize Matthews has been a more effective 5v5 goal scorer than all these guys or that any of the other Leafs have been quite that effective....because they lose every series.

Other top skilled stars are tearing things up on the PP though and our PP is one of the worst ever.

 

[Zybalto]

Oh yeah, like what? These guys are paid to produce offence, if they stop doing that in the playoffs, how are they earning their pay?

Go ahead and compare the top 4 forwards to the rest of them but if you're not factoring in the fact that those 4 guys are paid a LOT more then the other 8, you're not doing it right.

A quick glance at the number tells me that our top 4 forwards have a combined cap hit of ~45 million, the next 8 forwards have a combined cap hit of ~14 million. Blaming those other 8 guys make it seem like you'll go to any extremes no matter how absurd, just as long as you can somehow let those guys off the hook.

P.S. Your fancy stats aren't worth shit.

Now goal differential is a fancy stat? I thought you liked it.

You can bring up cap if you want but when Tampa is spending less than 4 million combined for clutch studs like Paul, Goodrow and Coleman, it might just be that we are picking the wrong guys?

....and I'm not letting guys off the hook. Im laying blame for the crap PP.....which seems to be the problem.