Yes it was and could be in future ... Zack and JT can cycle quite well ... Mitch well it is not his game for obvious reasons but he compliments those 2 quite well
Official New Year Training Camp thread
- Thread starter stickty111
- Start date
I just feel that if it catches any of the post it goes in. The fact it flutters back out so lightly basically confirms it hit the inside of the net over the line.
It's a goal, and everyone is looking at the wrong frames, and the slowmo doesn't even slow at the right part.
On the initial shot doesn't actually hit the post, but the inside netting and makes a thud sound. On every hockey net I've ever seen, that netting is clearly inside the net across the goal line. The video backs this up.
Phew...so much talk about a training camp goal
LeafsNation75
Registered User
Only in Toronto because of a tweet from the Maple Leafs we would be debating about a goal scored during training camp.It's a goal, and everyone is looking at the wrong frames, and the slowmo doesn't even slow at the right part.
On the initial shot doesn't actually hit the post, but the inside netting and makes a thud sound. On every hockey net I've ever seen, that netting is clearly inside the net across the goal line. The video backs this up.
Phew...so much talk about a training camp goal
Rude Dog
Registered User
- Dec 22, 2008
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I really don’t like idea of two pass first guys like Marner and Thornton on the same line and now PP. Both low threat to score. D will focus even more on Mathews. Still think it should be Mathews. Nylander Thornton. Reunite Tavares with Marner. I worry Tavares goal totals slip again without Marner feeding him the puck. Mathews doesn’t need Marner.
Mickey Marner
Registered User
Yeah, I found last season that the Marner to Matthews pass was too played out and the defense was anticipating it, with two playmakers it'll be even worse. Nylander's shot keeps the defense and goalie honest, while Marner can give Tavares a boost.
Leafs at Knight
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Splitting up the PP unit to make 2 makes no sense. Seems like Keefe is overthinking when it should be pretty straight forward.
Jimmy Firecracker
Backcheck, Forecheck, Paycheque.
We’ll see how the new PP looks. I understanding the want to have a second unit that isn’t anemic like the one last year, but if these setups do nothing for the team in the early stages of this short season he needs to go back to the tried and true Matthews, Tavares, Marner, Nylander, Rielly setup.
Oscar Peterson
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- Jun 27, 2015
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He did say already that he knows what that unit is capable of and is comfortable going back to it if these units don't work.
Coachcorner
Senor Martinez
- Sep 28, 2017
- 6,285
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Now that that cool dirt sire. Thank you for saying it loud.
It might happen soon and in the beginning of the season. I myself don't love the idea of not having our captain on the first pp unit. No matter what's the plan. The old school way is the to put out the captain on every sucka situation and let that roar like a mother out loud. For life son.
Eternal Leaf
Registered User
Split PP units are a waste of talent.
Fixing the 2nd PP unit by ruining the 1st isn't a solution, especially when the team was 6th in PP% last season.
Fixing the 2nd PP unit by ruining the 1st isn't a solution, especially when the team was 6th in PP% last season.
Since Brodie has a bomb from the point something that Morgan doesn't have.
Would love to see brodie on the top pp.
Would love to see brodie on the top pp.
stewpac
Registered User
- Nov 30, 2015
- 735
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I hope and think this will never happen, brodie doesn't have the offensive capabilities to qb a power play whereas Reilly is one of the best. I do think Tavares should remain on the top unit, thet would give us two huge offensive threats the pk needs to worry about. Second unit id like to see nylander and keep matthews out there for the main threats. Switch Thornton with Tavares, seems more balanced to me. I'm sure the first few games we'll see some tinkering.
BertCorbeau
F*ck cancer - RIP Fugu and Buffaloed
Training camp is for experimenting. Why wouldn't they experiment with new PP units using the new players they've gotten?
If it doesn't work and easy adjustment of loading one unit up can be done.
If it doesn't work and easy adjustment of loading one unit up can be done.
The Iceman
Registered User
- Sep 22, 2007
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Any higher upside options are less of a player today to BOGO.
Leafs need to be better now, need him on the PK. He will be a very valuable Leaf this season.
Captain Crunch
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- Mar 31, 2019
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Captain Crunch
Registered User
- Mar 31, 2019
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I agree. Last year we finished around 16th. It seems to me that teams that are successful with their pp, have one top unit that plays the majority of the pp. If Keefe does indeed experiment with having 2 pp units, I hope he abandons it soon into the season and goes back to loading up one unit.
Captain Crunch
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When Keefe was first hired, I believe our pp really took off. But then it levelled off, with us finishing in the middle of the pack. Hoping Malhotra can help us in that regard. With the talent we have, we should be able to finish in the top 5, but not by splitting the pp into 2 units. We need to have one top/main unit.
Captain Crunch
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I'm wondering if someone could help me. I live in New Brunswick. I got rid of cable, and am using Chromecast with subscriptions to Sportsnet and TSN. As well, I have Roku for CBC. But will there be Leaf games I won't get (ex. Sportsnet Ontario, or TSN4)? Or should I get a subscription to NHL Center Ice?
Captain Crunch
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I agree. I'm just hoping he doesn't get hurt, like by taking a slapshot in the ankle. I've heard it's mainly for taking defensive zone faceoffs. But overall, I certainly believe he will help our pk.
Auston Matthews is at the centre of the Maple Leafs’ special teams experiment, with echoes of the Mike Babcock era | The Star
You can understand why NHL coaches love the idea of stoking internal competition. In a league in which the best players make fat guaranteed salaries that far exceed that of the coach’s paycheque, sometimes ice time is seen as a bench boss’s only motivational tool.
How else do you keep the millionaires from mailing it in?
Fair enough. Still, Maple Leafs fans who’ve followed the team’s recent history ought to be a little trepidatious about Sheldon Keefe’s suggestion on Friday that he plans to resuscitate one of Mike Babcock’s least successful bits of Leaf-on-Leaf conflict. Nothing’s set in stone, of course, but Keefe brought up the idea that when the 56-game regular season begins Wednesday against Montreal, Toronto will split last season’s four most productive power-play point getters between two separate fivesomes, platooning the units on a relatively regular rotation.
“We like what it does in terms of the competitiveness of the two units competing against each other, the fact that we can remain more fresh, and have more urgency to the things that we do,” Keefe said.
The configurations rolled out in practice on Friday went like so. One unit featured Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner, Toronto’s No. 1 and No. 2 power-play producers last season, playing alongside newcomers Joe Thornton and Wayne Simmonds, this with Morgan Rielly manning the point. The other unit was headed by John Tavares and William Nylander — both of whom were regularly featured in Toronto’s top power-play unit last season — with Zach Hyman, Jason Spezza and new-in-town defenceman Mikko Lehtonen rounding out the quintet.
It’s only training camp. Things can change at Keefe’s whim. But surely Keefe understands that the Leafs have been down this road before, and that it didn’t go particularly smoothly. Under Babcock there was no end of internal angst about the rightful distribution of ice time with the man advantage.
Babcock, of course, favoured the internal competition model to keep players honest.
“I still like when you have two (units) and you compete to see who’s out there,” he said.
And while that worked at times — a couple of seasons ago, the Leafs scored nine power-play goals in their first seven games — Toronto’s play with an opponent in the box wasn’t always as elite as many figured it should have been. And there were times when Babcock’s insistence on “what have you done for me lately” accountability got ridiculous. At one point in the 2018-19 season, Matthews was replaced on the first unit by Kasperi Kapanen, who to that point had never registered a power-play point in an NHL game.
.........................
There’s a chance Keefe’s two-unit approach is a façade. The club acquired the likes of Thornton and Simmonds, though they’re both well past their competitive primes, for their experience and toughness and mentorship. And since it’s difficult to be an effective leader as a fringe player, the club clearly believes it’s important they’re given the chance to be integral pieces. Ergo, Thornton’s skating on the first line and a newly hatched power-play unit with Matthews and Marner.
But there’s a chance, too, that Leafs management — the same guys who fired Babcock — also believe Babcock was on to something when he insisted the best players work every day to justify their privileges. General manager Kyle Dubas spent the off-season talking about how the team will only reach its full potential if Toronto’s best players become “willing to sacrifice a little bit in each of their own individual realms.” And on Friday, when Keefe spoke about the plan to assign Matthews to his first career penalty-killing duties, the coach said he considers the job as much an opportunity as a “responsibility.” After all, killing penalties is mostly a thankless job dominated by grind-embracing specialists. There are NHL franchises that would never dream of saddling a star with the gig. Nikita Kucherov, the Tampa Bay Lightning game-breaker, doesn’t get a sniff on the penalty kill. Ovechkin hasn’t scored a short-handed goal since 2009. Though McDavid has seen some man-down minutes during his career, last season the Oilers announced they would no longer use him in the role.
Matthews, if he gets his chance — and Keefe insisted Matthews won’t be used on the PK “on a full-time basis” — will be a short-handed neophyte. In four seasons in the league, he’s spent an incidental seven minutes on the ice with a manpower disadvantage. He’s never scored a man down. But Keefe said the Leafs want him to learn the role because a) they could occasionally use his strength in the faceoff circle while killing penalties, and b) there are situations when it’s important to have your best players on the ice, no matter the manpower situation.
You can understand why NHL coaches love the idea of stoking internal competition. In a league in which the best players make fat guaranteed salaries that far exceed that of the coach’s paycheque, sometimes ice time is seen as a bench boss’s only motivational tool.
How else do you keep the millionaires from mailing it in?
Fair enough. Still, Maple Leafs fans who’ve followed the team’s recent history ought to be a little trepidatious about Sheldon Keefe’s suggestion on Friday that he plans to resuscitate one of Mike Babcock’s least successful bits of Leaf-on-Leaf conflict. Nothing’s set in stone, of course, but Keefe brought up the idea that when the 56-game regular season begins Wednesday against Montreal, Toronto will split last season’s four most productive power-play point getters between two separate fivesomes, platooning the units on a relatively regular rotation.
“We like what it does in terms of the competitiveness of the two units competing against each other, the fact that we can remain more fresh, and have more urgency to the things that we do,” Keefe said.
The configurations rolled out in practice on Friday went like so. One unit featured Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner, Toronto’s No. 1 and No. 2 power-play producers last season, playing alongside newcomers Joe Thornton and Wayne Simmonds, this with Morgan Rielly manning the point. The other unit was headed by John Tavares and William Nylander — both of whom were regularly featured in Toronto’s top power-play unit last season — with Zach Hyman, Jason Spezza and new-in-town defenceman Mikko Lehtonen rounding out the quintet.
It’s only training camp. Things can change at Keefe’s whim. But surely Keefe understands that the Leafs have been down this road before, and that it didn’t go particularly smoothly. Under Babcock there was no end of internal angst about the rightful distribution of ice time with the man advantage.
Babcock, of course, favoured the internal competition model to keep players honest.
“I still like when you have two (units) and you compete to see who’s out there,” he said.
And while that worked at times — a couple of seasons ago, the Leafs scored nine power-play goals in their first seven games — Toronto’s play with an opponent in the box wasn’t always as elite as many figured it should have been. And there were times when Babcock’s insistence on “what have you done for me lately” accountability got ridiculous. At one point in the 2018-19 season, Matthews was replaced on the first unit by Kasperi Kapanen, who to that point had never registered a power-play point in an NHL game.
.........................
There’s a chance Keefe’s two-unit approach is a façade. The club acquired the likes of Thornton and Simmonds, though they’re both well past their competitive primes, for their experience and toughness and mentorship. And since it’s difficult to be an effective leader as a fringe player, the club clearly believes it’s important they’re given the chance to be integral pieces. Ergo, Thornton’s skating on the first line and a newly hatched power-play unit with Matthews and Marner.
But there’s a chance, too, that Leafs management — the same guys who fired Babcock — also believe Babcock was on to something when he insisted the best players work every day to justify their privileges. General manager Kyle Dubas spent the off-season talking about how the team will only reach its full potential if Toronto’s best players become “willing to sacrifice a little bit in each of their own individual realms.” And on Friday, when Keefe spoke about the plan to assign Matthews to his first career penalty-killing duties, the coach said he considers the job as much an opportunity as a “responsibility.” After all, killing penalties is mostly a thankless job dominated by grind-embracing specialists. There are NHL franchises that would never dream of saddling a star with the gig. Nikita Kucherov, the Tampa Bay Lightning game-breaker, doesn’t get a sniff on the penalty kill. Ovechkin hasn’t scored a short-handed goal since 2009. Though McDavid has seen some man-down minutes during his career, last season the Oilers announced they would no longer use him in the role.
Matthews, if he gets his chance — and Keefe insisted Matthews won’t be used on the PK “on a full-time basis” — will be a short-handed neophyte. In four seasons in the league, he’s spent an incidental seven minutes on the ice with a manpower disadvantage. He’s never scored a man down. But Keefe said the Leafs want him to learn the role because a) they could occasionally use his strength in the faceoff circle while killing penalties, and b) there are situations when it’s important to have your best players on the ice, no matter the manpower situation.
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Highest Goals scored/60 on the powerplay since Keefe was hired in the NHL:
1. Edmonton
2. Toronto
3. St. Louis
With Babs during last season:
1. Edmonton
2. Tampa
3. Boston
19. Toronto
Id give Keefe some leeway when it comes to the PP.
1. Edmonton
2. Toronto
3. St. Louis
With Babs during last season:
1. Edmonton
2. Tampa
3. Boston
19. Toronto
Id give Keefe some leeway when it comes to the PP.
PromisedLand
I need more FOOD
Hopefully this keeps opposition on their toes and they mess up on the PP more often than not
I think both coaches last year suffered with bad goaltending (which greatly affected the PK) but Keefe had to deal with 3/4 of the PK pairings being out for long stretches.
Goals against on the PK/60 under Babs ranking:
26th in the NHL
Under Keefe:
15th in the NHL
Goals against on the PK/60 under Babs ranking:
26th in the NHL
Under Keefe:
15th in the NHL
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