Well, the Leafs could go back to their old pattern of drafting big players that never once panned out, and then having to trade picks for both talent AND grit. Sign me up!!
I know exactly what you mean.Well, the Leafs could go back to their old pattern of drafting big players that never once panned out, and then having to trade picks for both talent AND grit. Sign me up!!
So glad we have smart people in charge of the Leafs now. It's really getting hard to take most posts seriously.
Our pipeline is healthy. We had drafted 27 times over the previous 3 drafts, and drafted well. We could afford to spend some picks, especially in a weak draft year. We've also offset our UFA losses with our always-forgotten UFA gains, and our team is stronger than ever.
It's comical that people always harp on letting players walk but completely ignore that they were replaced by newly signed UFAs.
You never know that beforehand, and NHL seeding means far less compared to the NBA so any team can have a deep run or even win it all. Pretty much every likely playoff team adds or tries to because they think they can win.
The pay is better here.
The glory that comes from posting on HFboards is by far the best. No way do we have any muck of nonsense in these boards with high flying stupidity...just pure magic.
If we're looking at it objectively , none of the years prove we weren't contenders.
We will see that you are the one that is incorrect. For the record, in 2018-2019, we were the 4th best team offensively. In 2020-2021, we were the 5th best team offensively. Meanwhile, we improved our defensive results from 24th to 4th.
Leafs allowed 251 goals in 82 games while this year they were on pace for 217 goals in 82 games
There's nothing to support your claims about the North. Our defense was considerably better (24th to 4th), while the offense was relatively unchanged.
That's all I'm saying. There is reason for optimism and sadly reason for being down. We need to let these guys play the games and see how they perform. Believing is fine and obviously want them to succeed but saying so early that they are an elite team likely to do well come playoffs isn't it.
That's not necessarily true.
I said defense, not GAA (which represents defense + goaltending combined). Our defensive results went from 24th to 4th.
Defense is goaltending + defense. Limiting chances is irrelevant without quality goaltending support. Looking at GAA tells end results which matter and which you ignore. Leafs can limit chances but if the type of chances they give up are ones which aren't being saved the defense isn't good enough and needs to be reformed/shifted.
No, defense is defense. Goaltending is another position. Our defense significantly improved from 24th to 4th. We saw a drastic improvement in goals against too, for the record. Much bigger change than our offense.
The number of teams is irrelevant. It comes down to the quality being faced. And as much as people like to joke about the North being so weak, there's absolutely nothing to substantiate that claim.
So if a team played just one team - Tampa - the entire season; easiest schedule ever, right?
What relevance is this extreme example? Unless you're claiming the 6 teams we faced for these 56 games is equivalent to facing just Tampa for 56? Otherwise I don't see the point of your question.
The claim was that the less teams faced, the easier it is. Clearly, it's not that simple.
It's not simple if you want to sit here all night and bring up every possible division that can possibly exist. Just Tampa. Just Tampa Boston Avs Knights. These divisions will never exist. Obviously if they did you would be correct yes. For our purposes it's true facing the same division all season is easier than facing the whole league. No matter how they slice up these 32 teams it'll be majority middle tier then bubble then lottery team then 1-3 contenders at the top.
If you think North was a strong division we will agree to disagree. You can't convince me otherwise I can't convince you otherwise.
