Simple yes or no poll: Do you think we beat the Habs with Tavares?

[MapleLeafs9]

The more time passes and the sting of the loss lessens, the more accepting I become to the idea that this team actually still is pretty good and that the Tavares injury hurt us more than we'd like to admit.

As terrible and unfortunate as the injury was, I think the Habs lowkey breathed a sigh of relief that they wouldn't have any matchup nightmares and heavily focused on shutting Matthews and Marner down with Danault, Weber and Chiarot on their asses like white on rice all game. I don't think they gave a single f*** about who else scored after that, as long as it wasn't them, our 2 most dangerous players. Price playing out of his mind the entire Habs run shouldn't be discredited either.

Watching guys like Wheeler, Connor, Ehlers, Stone, Marchessault all get shut down the same way Matthews and Marner did makes me feel less bad, and if we had Tavares on the 2nd line instead of Kerfoot, we win I think.

Click to read more...

 

[tom leafers]

The only reason we lost game one was because of that injury. I would love to know the stats of a teams win/loss record after experiencing a horrifying injury like that.

But who knows. Leafs love to choke

 

[Jozay]

Yes

 

[Guided by Veseys]

It was an elite team that should have gone far but I’m positive that there would have been no cup: the powerplay was simply too bad for so long.

 

[rocketman588]

We should have had the roster too absorb the loss of one player...

The lightning made the cup without stamkos

 

[Jbr10ba]

Series was 3-1 without Tavares. Leafs choked.

 

[MapleLeafs9]

We should have had the roster too absorb the loss of one player...

The lightning made the cup without stamkos

Tavares is a massive loss my guy, he's not just "one player", he's our captain and the centre of our 1B line.

I'm not saying we're the Lightning either though.

 

[Gallagbi]

Series was 3-1 without Tavares. Leafs choked.

...two things can be possible...

We choked without him. He likely helps us win Game 1-5-6 to take the series.

 

[rocketman588]

Tavares is a massive loss my guy, he's not just "one player", he's our captain and the centre of our 1B line.

I'm not saying we're the Lightning either though.

Part of the way we made this team was that w gambled hard on 4 dudes. If one of them gets hurt yeah we're going to not do well.

But that's decision making more then anything. I'm assuming we beat the Habs with him but he was also on the team for last year's disaster so who knows

 

[Leafsfan74]

I do. Primarily for keeping the same lines that they anticipated, and he'd play enough minutes to create a few more matchup problems for the Habs.

The question I have is, would Gally have been inserted into game #2? He should have started in the playoffs, it shouldn't have taken an injury in my opinion to see him in the playoffs. He was a natural choice considering his effort and the team they play against (no matter how some brush this off as a motivator).

 

[Jbr10ba]

...two things can be possible...

We choked without him. He likely helps us win Game 1-5-6 to take the series.

Although I do agree, it's also possible they could have blown it with Tavares in the lineup. Like Game 5 vs Columbus

 

[The Iceman]

Series was 3-1 without Tavares. Leafs choked.

I keep hearing the Leafs choked.
at 3-1 they lost 2 OT games. One OT game we outshot Montreal I believe 12-2.

Small sample size and unfortunate end.
Montreal can shut offenses down.

 

[Guided by Veseys]

Yes is dominating right now.
Expect a flood of votes from other fanbases any moment to even things out a bit.

 

[Jbr10ba]

I keep hearing the Leafs choked.
at 3-1 they lost 2 OT games. One OT game we outshot Montreal I believe 12-2.

Small sample size and unfortunate end.
Montreal can shut offenses down.

Maybe "blew" the series is a better term? Both those OT games they gave the puck away right to a Montreal stick to win the game.

 

[Gabriel426]

I keep hearing the Leafs choked.
at 3-1 they lost 2 OT games. One OT game we outshot Montreal I believe 12-2.

Small sample size and unfortunate end.
Montreal can shut offenses down.

Well, if a team didn't win the series after leading 3-1. That team choked, regardless of reasons.
Red Sox won the WS after coming back from 0-3 against the Yanks. Red Sox played great but at the same time the Yanks choked.

 

[PromisedLand]

I dont think we do. Losing one player should not mean significant downgrade. Good teams are not built that way because injuries can happen to anyone at any time.

I mean Tampa basically won the cup last season with Stamkos barely even playing. NYI went to the conference finals without their captain playing even a single game.

 

[AvroArrow]

I think we sweep them with Tavares tbh.

It went to game 7 without him and with our players literally gifting them their first 3 wins. Gally was great this series but that was a massive f*** up. Sends them on a 2-0 in OT on what was a routine play up the boards. Dermott with a similar play, wide open, shouldve and couldve easily gone up the boards, throws it up the middle in OT (An OT period we were absolutely dominating, Matthews hit a post as well) and Sandin gave them 2 free goals in game 1. Bad play at the blue line, then somehow lost that foot race

Even without JT, I genuinely believe we win that series 99/100. Full credit to Montreal for their effort and not quitting, but that was an absolute throw more than it was a win if that makes sense. And that's what makes the loss so sickening. We were also missing Marner for the entire series.

 

[Notsince67]

The more time passes and the sting of the loss lessens, the more accepting I become to the idea that this team actually still is pretty good and that the Tavares injury hurt us more than we'd like to admit.

As terrible and unfortunate as the injury was, I think the Habs lowkey breathed a sigh of relief that they wouldn't have any matchup nightmares and heavily focused on shutting Matthews and Marner down with Danault, Weber and Chiarot on their asses like white on rice all game. I don't think they gave a single f*** about who else scored after that, as long as it wasn't them, our 2 most dangerous players. Price playing out of his mind the entire Habs run shouldn't be discredited either.

Watching guys like Wheeler, Connor, Ehlers, Stone, Marchessault all get shut down the same way Matthews and Marner did makes me feel less bad, and if we had Tavares on the 2nd line instead of Kerfoot, we win I think.

Really good question.
I think we would. The major flaw in the game plan revolved around the lack of adjustment to JT's loss. Whereas adjustments are necessary in the playoffs, I think the additional power would have put them over the top.
They might not fair as well though, against Tampa. It is questionable whether the leafs beat the horsepower of that team so the stars would really need to be alligned to be successful there, given the reluctance of Keefe to shift strategies on the fly.

 

[Aashir]

I don’t know. We lost game 1 yea but we rallied and won game 2 for him, then 3 then 4 and all of a sudden had a 3-1 lead.

Tavares might’ve scored a goal or two in the next 3 games, but I don’t know if nylanders production is the same, in fact I believe it’d be around Matthews and marners numbers. The big 4 would each have 4-5 points. Nylander and Tavares wouldn’t work, looking at his goals and plays, nylander did the best on the rush with kerfoot and Galchenyuk. Guess who doesn’t play on the rush too often, Tavares. We’d have seen a repeat of Columbus, only difference being that we cracked the goalie a bit more.

keefe instills no confidence in me as it looks like he is just anti Babcock. He never didn’t play Matthews and Marner, just like he never wouldn’t have play Tavares without nylander. I did think it’d been best if we had gone with lines such as:


ZH - AM - JS
NF - JT - MM
AG - AK - WN
WS - AB/RN - Jumbo

with this we would’ve had 3 lines that had a threat of scoring and would have played to each of the big 4W strength. As more and more time goes on I realize we wouldn’t have won this series even with Tavares because keefe cannot adjust, mid game or pregame. He thinks he has Gretzky, Lemieux on one line and Messier and Selanne on the other so they’ll work no matter what but he’s wrong.

 

[BrannigansLaw]

Nope. Collective team checked out decided not to play when the Habs got truly desperate. Tavares would have done more of the same as one guy can't do it alone. Not that he is as impactful as his salary cap anyway.

 

[Willchel Marlynder]

Honestly I don't know. I don't think Nylander, Kerfoot, or Galchenyuk have the playoffs they did if JT is back. Nylander doesn't put up as many points, but that 2nd line gets better defensively so that's a wash. Kerf on the third line relegated to play with the other black holes means he's done for. And Gally I'm not too sure about.

The only thing I can see having JT in the series that maybe changes the outcome is if he captains up and gets Mitch and Matthews playing playoff hockey for the whole series (and tells Matthews it's time to actually put the puck in the net). If he's unable to do that then the outcome is probably the same.

 

[Cams]

Not just the injury, but the nature of the injury being as horrific looking as it was really brought the team down in game 1, and winning that game, could've (not saying it would have) led to possibly a sweep? One more player MTL would have had to try to shut down, which is the great thing about having those guys on the top 2. I think that was the game plan all along - try to shut down the Matthews line...fine....now you have to shut down Tavares line - No way Danault was going to play 40 mins a night. It's like teams trying to pitch to the Jays lineup as it is right now.

Losing Muzzin didn't help either. Losing Tavares certainly wasn't the reason they lost - but it surely contributed.

 

[34]

No.

 

[htpwn]

Yes, but it doesn't matter. There was clearly too much wrong with this iteration of the team to get past the would-be conference final against Tampa.

 

[Gallagbi]

Yes, but it doesn't matter. There was clearly too much wrong with this iteration of the team to get past the would-be conference final against Tampa.

I don't think we win a cup, but a summer without that first round Monkey on our backs would go a long way IMO