Post-Game Talk: Toronto barely loses to carolina

[horner]

Love Schenn's game so far, quiet, responsible and has a presence that keeps players on their toes in front of our net.



Sammy cant make up the gap Morgan Rielly creates. That 3rd goal, the GWG, was 100% on Rielly.

Love luke schenn exactly what this team needs.
Would love to bring him back next yr.

 

[TheBeastCoast]

Love Schenn's game so far, quiet, responsible and has a presence that keeps players on their toes in front of our net.



Sammy cant make up the gap Morgan Rielly creates. That 3rd goal, the GWG, was 100% on Rielly.

I think there is a pretty good chance that Sammy keeps one of the goals against out tonight.

 

[Shooter2x]

I don't know where that zeke guy went but he got me in all these fancy stats and Laffertys are puke with zero offensive upside to make up for it

Lafferty was the proof needed that Dubas homers are biased and the we need hitZZZ Dubas haters are also biased. Anyone who can throw a hit gets over rated here, and the Dubas homers will abandon the advanced stats and make up a bunch of random reasons why Lafferty was the best depth add of the season. I can only last 2 minutes here before dropping the gloves and getting a message from the Troll Stomper

 

[horner]

Most of what you said I'm in agreement with, O'Rielly is not Horvat or Meier, he is how ever a very usefull forward if Keef can figure out how to use him, I was against bringing ROR here.

With that said ROR still has his hands (kind of), is among the best FO men in the league, that will help keep the puck out of Kucherov, Stamkos, Points hands. Since he's been a Leaf he's won 79 and lost 38, good for 67.5%. His defensive abilities more than makes up for JT and Willies inabilities without the puck. Not sure Horvat and Meier brings that we needed. It was a big miss passing on Ekholm.

If we didn't have Morgan's contract Ekholm would have been a perfect add since he has a 6 million price Tage.
McCabe love his game perfect fir and contract.

Morgan Rielly is the issue hope he can simplify his game defensively

 

[Racer88]

There is no such thing as having a dominating team in hockey if this trait exists.

Going off on my own rant from this point, rest of the post isn't targeted towards you.

I mean, it's different year same shit. Our top guys are top tier in the whole league so they can mask all flaws when they have good games. Our top guys are being taken for granted at this point. You can surround them with any crap you want and we'll finish top 10 every single time. We just need Matthews and Marner alone to have peak level games to dominate an entire team. Mix in Nylander and Tavares and it's game over.

This always breaks down in the playoffs. Boggles my mind we didn't go all in with additions like Horvat or Jeannot. The headlines say we went "all in" yet all I see is a bunch of old guys and sideways players. Our management continuously fails to realize the gold mine they are sitting on and opt for these weird money puck moves all the time. O'Reilly falls in that category. We went for the 32 year old, "look how smart our cap specialists are" move instead of the younger Horvat who has found a new gear in the scoring department. Acciari is already in preservation mode, rationing when he can be a bottom 6 warrior and when he needs to re-charge. If we were choosing the old man route then Patrick Kane was the no.1 choice. At least bring in the no.1 choice for the route you're taking. We needed a top 4 and they went the usual cute route getting McCabe and Lafferty instead. Our playoff opponents easily wash out these type of additions even though these additions keep us competitive on the NHL scope.

We needed to surround the core with full time warriors like how Tampa does every single year, even when they have zero draft picks. We've known this for 4+ years now and still never do it. Maybe 2024 is when we finally get our Coleman, Goodrow, Jeannot etc. depth warriors, or still-in-their-prime impact player like Horvat or Lindholm.

Wow, you are bang on.

 

[thusk]

Rielly literally lost his man with 2 minutes left that lead to the last goal.

Only Rielly seems to put him self in those positions that late in a game, more often than not.

But it’s also on Keefe for playing him that late because he’s a proven liability.

And who help to created leafs 3 goal?

1st goal he skating at blue line and created space for Jarnkrok to tske a great shot

2nd goal : he joined the rush with nylander in a 3v2 but nylander pass bounce back on Matthews stick

3nd he skate right in middle of defensive box, took a great shot who gave an opportunity to buntin lg and matthews to get the rebound...

Rielly had a fantastic game and help to provide 3 goal and people still trash talk him because he made 1 mistake. Just amaizing how leafs fan ignore the complete game to only take in consideration 1 play...

 

[Hellcat]

If we didn't have Morgan's contract Ekholm would have been a perfect add since he has a 6 million price Tage.
McCabe love his game perfect fir and contract.

Morgan Rielly is the issue hope he can simplify his game defensively

McCabe is for me a surprise, was not expecting him to play this well. Fights a monster in Van to stick up for his Capt, plays up and down the line up. Plays a hard game, makes opponents pay for their ice. Really like his game.

Morgan can be effective when he's not trying to win the Hero Championship belt. We don't need our D taking risks creating offence, we have plenty of forwards that can score, we need our D playing sound fundamental defence, keep the front of your net clear, win 50/50 battles along the boards, quick transition game - one/two pass the puck out of your zone. Simple, sound, defensive fundamentals. Morgan is addicted to scoring and creating offence, he does not want to play without the puck, you can see it in how he cheats and is rarely in good defensive positioning, he wants to be in the cool kids crowd scoring a bajillion points. The biggest thing Morgan can do to help this team, is just be invisible and take care of business in his own end, he does that the 6 dmen that are in the line up do that , we will win Round 1.

 

[DarkKnight]

Big picture I really liked our game last night. I know that sounds weird, but sometimes all we care about is the goal scorer and miss all the things that lead to the triumph. Last night, the result didn’t favour us but honestly with were so dominant at times, they’re lucky they survived. We made mistakes obviously, but Matthews is back to top form and our four lines can roll with authority.

 

[WTFMAN99]

Big picture I really liked our game last night. I know that sounds weird, but sometimes all we care about is the goal scorer and miss all the things that lead to the triumph. Last night, the result didn’t favour us but honestly with were so dominant at times, they’re lucky they survived. We made mistakes obviously, but Matthews is back to top form and our four lines can roll with authority.

We played our back up, for some reason opted to do 11-7 again and still have ROR+Knies to put into the line up

The coach + Holl and maybe even Rielly are the things that scare me although Rielly usually does step it up for the playoffs.

 

[Hellcat]

I think there is a pretty good chance that Sammy keeps one of the goals against out tonight.

I'm looking at the replays and I'm not sure which one he keeps out, the first one was a 5 on 3, Burns walked down main street and sniped, the 2nd one we simply had poor defensive coverage, the rebound goal one should have been cleared, not sure Murray wears the goat horns tonight. The team in general needs to be better. They don't play well in front of him, with that said Murray has to find a way to stop two of those goals, unfair to say but it's true, you cant have your goalie giving up 4 every night and expect to win a playoff series. Either the team has to play much better or Murray has to stand on his head and make saves he is not supposed to make or both.

I think the two we could have prevented are the Staal goal and the Aho goal, the team simply needs to play better structure on those two goals. That was sloppy defensive play on both goals.

 

[thusk]

I'm looking at the replays and I'm not sure which one he keeps out, the first one was a 5 on 3, Burns walked down main street and sniped, the 2nd one we simply had poor defensive coverage, the rebound goal one should have been cleared, not sure Murray wears the goat horns tonight. The team in general needs to be better. They don't play well in front of him, with that said Murray has to find a way to stop two of those goals, unfair to say but it's true, you cant have your goalie giving up 4 every night and expect to win a playoff series. Either the team has to play much better or Murray has to stand on his head and make saves he is not supposed to make or both.

I think the two we could have prevented are the Staal goal and the Aho goal, the team simply needs to play better structure on those two goals. That was sloppy defensive play on both goals.

The 4th one was the goal he needed to save, he cant give up a juicy rebound like that from a point shot with absolutly no screen

 

[Nineteen67]

In the playoffs, I’d almost prefer Benn and Schenn eating up 10 minutes than trusting Rielly and Liljegren

 

[DarkKnight]

We played our back up, for some reason opted to do 11-7 again and still have ROR+Knies to put into the line up

The coach + Holl and maybe even Rielly are the things that scare me although Rielly usually does step it up for the playoffs.

Thought Schenn was really steady as well.

 

[Nineteen67]

On the plus side AM34 is looking more and more like himself every game.

He’s trying to hit 40 goals.

 

[Hellcat]

There is no such thing as having a dominating team in hockey if this trait exists.

Going off on my own rant from this point, rest of the post isn't targeted towards you.

I mean, it's different year same shit. Our top guys are top tier in the whole league so they can mask all flaws when they have good games. Our top guys are being taken for granted at this point. You can surround them with any crap you want and we'll finish top 10 every single time. We just need Matthews and Marner alone to have peak level games to dominate an entire team. Mix in Nylander and Tavares and it's game over.

This always breaks down in the playoffs. Boggles my mind we didn't go all in with additions like Horvat or Jeannot. The headlines say we went "all in" yet all I see is a bunch of old guys and sideways players. Our management continuously fails to realize the gold mine they are sitting on and opt for these weird money puck moves all the time. O'Reilly falls in that category. We went for the 32 year old, "look how smart our cap specialists are" move instead of the younger Horvat who has found a new gear in the scoring department. Acciari is already in preservation mode, rationing when he can be a bottom 6 warrior and when he needs to re-charge. If we were choosing the old man route then Patrick Kane was the no.1 choice. At least bring in the no.1 choice for the route you're taking. We needed a top 4 and they went the usual cute route getting McCabe and Lafferty instead. Our playoff opponents easily wash out these type of additions even though these additions keep us competitive on the NHL scope.

We needed to surround the core with full time warriors like how Tampa does every single year, even when they have zero draft picks. We've known this for 4+ years now and still never do it. Maybe 2024 is when we finally get our Coleman, Goodrow, Jeannot etc. depth warriors, or still-in-their-prime impact player like Horvat or Lindholm.

My mind has been where your mind is now. I've kinda changed my thought process to think that the issue with this team is there are too many glory seeking princesses that play a lazy flawed game and not enough guys that are willing to do the thankless selfless dirty work. It's the blocking a shot when you know it's goign to hurt, it's the staying back and giving your partner an out instead of blowing the zone trying to be the hero, it's being patient in games that are not going as planned, it's not forcing pucks into areas that you know have a high chance of a turnover just because you want to see your glory on the nightly SportsDesk highlight reel, it's not doing fly-bys on the other teams puck carrier, you don't have to drill the guy through the boards but you should at least be close enough that your jerseys are touching and turn it into a 50/50, if the guy you are checking has the puck any longer than 2 seconds he is too comfortable, turn it into a 50/50. It's doing things that you don't enjoy and are not paid to do but you do them because it helps your team win. We don't need more scoring, we need smarter hockey players and a smarter coach.

Jeannot is a bad example, he's ben pure dog shit since he hit TB but he will be the guy who scores 4 game winners against Toronto of course .

 

[HamiltonNHL]

where the team seems to really want playoff hero Murray to happen.

It’s great the team is rooting for Murray.

But if Keefe plays him once in the first round, he needs to go.

 

[WTFMAN99]

Thought Schenn was really steady as well.

There is no reason to sit Schenn the rest of the way, he missed time before we acquired him due to injury and then trade related reasons. Then he's either been rotated or had the kid coming, going forward, we want him in.

Jarnkrok-Matthews-88
Bunting-JT-Marner
Knies-ROR-Laff
ZAR/Kerfoot-Kampf-Cookie

McCabe-Brodie
Rielly-Schenn
Gio-Holl/Liljegren

Sammy

Alternatively

JT-ROR-Marner
Bunting-Matthews-88
Knies-Acciari-Jarnkrok
ZAR/Kerfoot-Kampf-Laff

I just worry about that second forward group lacking offense in the bottom 6.

Obviously if Knies looks bad or something in the 2-3 games, you have him as a black ace.

 

[Captain Crunch]

Tavares has really started to get on my nerves; even more than Holl/Keefe/Dubas

And thats saying something.

But it’s funny how, when it was AM/WN and MM/JT, AM was doing okay and the other 3 were playing well. Then AM wanted his good buddy MM on his wing. It has certainly helped AM, but is it at the expense of JT and WN? It certainly appears so. Instead of Dubas having “his core 4”, it seems he really only has “his core 2”. Matthews and Marner run the show there. One of them should be the captain, because they make the ultimate decisions. I can’t see Nylander wanting to resign here, and why would he?

 

[saltming]

The 4th one was the goal he needed to save, he cant give up a juicy rebound like that from a point shot with absolutly no screen

I agree that he needed to stop that goal but it wasn't a bad one.
The shot drifted through at least 4 plates and there was a definite screen, moving screen, and possibly a tip on the original shot




https://www.nhl.com/maple leafs/video/aho-takes-the-lead/t-277350912/c-16194551

 

[DarkKnight]

Bill needs to show more desire on D of late, he’s waiting for everyone else to win a puck in our end.

 

[Hellcat]

The 4th one was the goal he needed to save, he cant give up a juicy rebound like that from a point shot with absolutly no screen

Ok I mixed up the 3rd and 4th goal. I've always bought into the axiom that its the goalies job to stop the first shot and the teams job to prevent rebounds. Goaltending in todays game is more about being big and blocking vs stopping but I agree, some shots should never be rebounds.

 

[saltming]

Ok I mixed up the 3rd and 4th goal. I've always bought into the axiom that its the goalies job to stop the first shot and the teams job to prevent rebounds. Goaltending in todays game is more about being big and blocking vs stopping but I agree, some shots should never be rebounds.

 

[ShaneFalco]

Barely loses is a Leaf thing

 

[HamiltonNHL]

Murray starting tonight according to The Score App.

 

[Hellcat]

View attachment 676325

IMO, this is the best season of any made for Disney+ Star Wars spinoff. Really enjoying the story and the cinematography.