Post-Game Talk: Utterly Rittich-ulous Leafs Lose 6-3

[A1LeafNation]

Gardiner was also the one that set Necas up with the suicide pass. Good on him for jumping in but yeah Jake, look that one off.

Gardiner had to fight him. He was the reason Necas got rocked. He took a beating for it as well.

 

[Swervin81]

Honestly, the .839 says it all. Teams will make mistakes and give up chances. This is the NHL and you're still playing against NHL calibre players. The Leafs have shifted to a possession based game under Keefe and occasionally, you'll give up a rush trying to maintain it. And even with the improved D, you'll still get the occasional lapse. The team itself feels and plays better on a night to night basis, and most of the shot and chance metrics agree.

The problem is, none of that is mattering considering every little mistake is ending up in our own net. This team literally needs to do the impossible and play completely mistake free hockey cause we can't trust our goalies to make a damn save. This can have huge impact on how the team in front them plays too, as they start to second guess things and play a lot more conservatively (which can explain why we seemed to have a lot more trouble generating chances after Rittich went full Lalime).

Any team, even Tampa/Vegas/Colorado, would crumble if they got .839's from their goalies.

 

[Stinger8]

Why we are blaming players? We were doing just fine. We were up 3-2 and then someone is totally taken down going to the net. NO CALL. They go and score equaliser in that time when they should be killing penalty. Refs should stop managing the game like that. They should call damn penalty even if team is up in score. Then they give Canucks power play on nothing play behind the net. And I called it way before they did that they would give us power play with one minute left and game out of reach to make it look even on scoresheet penalties wise. Pathetic!!! Big F you refs!

There is some truth to this rant. At that moment the ref "over looked" that call I thought it was going to matter. Totally affected the momentum the Leafs had earned. I know good teams fight through that stuff blah blah blah

 

[NK94]

Honestly, the .839 says it all. Teams will make mistakes and give up chances. This is the NHL and you're still playing against NHL calibre players. The Leafs have shifted to a possession based game under Keefe and occasionally, you'll give up a rush trying to maintain it. And even with the improved D, you'll still get the occasional lapse. The team itself feels and plays better on a night to night basis, and most of the shot and chance metrics agree.

The problem is, none of that is mattering considering every little mistake is ending up in our own net. This team literally needs to do the impossible and play completely mistake free hockey cause we can't trust our goalies to make a damn save. This can have huge impact on how the team in front them plays too, as they start to second guess things and play a lot more conservatively (which can explain why we seemed to have a lot more trouble generating chances after Rittich went full Lalime).

Any team, even Tampa/Vegas/Colorado, would crumble if they got .839's from their goalies.

Andersen’s .897 SV% on the season is better than what we’re seeing right now, and that’s an absolute problem.

 

[Bluelines]

Since this five game slide

• Opponents SH% is 16.2%. AM YTD SH% is 19%. Opponents are basically shooting near the same pace as AM.

 

[The Podium]

Honestly, the .839 says it all. Teams will make mistakes and give up chances. This is the NHL and you're still playing against NHL calibre players. The Leafs have shifted to a possession based game under Keefe and occasionally, you'll give up a rush trying to maintain it. And even with the improved D, you'll still get the occasional lapse. The team itself feels and plays better on a night to night basis, and most of the shot and chance metrics agree.

The problem is, none of that is mattering considering every little mistake is ending up in our own net. This team literally needs to do the impossible and play completely mistake free hockey cause we can't trust our goalies to make a damn save. This can have huge impact on how the team in front them plays too, as they start to second guess things and play a lot more conservatively (which can explain why we seemed to have a lot more trouble generating chances after Rittich went full Lalime).

Any team, even Tampa/Vegas/Colorado, would crumble if they got .839's from their goalies.

This is no place for a rational response.

Bad timing on Rittich's part to completely fall apart. The team takes the lead on a huge SH goal and he crumbles letting in 2 softies from far out low danger areas with 0 traffic.

Cant fault him on the PP goal (thats on Brodie for the stupid penalty)

 

[Not My Tempo]

Fingers crossed Andersen’s issue was just the injury.

His strong 5v5 SV% this year at least gives me hope. We can control staying out of the box for the most part.

 

[Mess]

This is how I console myself...
View attachment 424862

They must be using those fancy spreadsheet analytics to drive this model that base their projections on "expected" figures.

 

[The Podium]

Fingers crossed Andersen’s issue was just the injury.

His strong 5v5 SV% this year at least gives me hope. We can control staying out of the box for the most part.

Wonder if Pridham can somehow get Andersen back in before the playoffs.

 

[The Podium]

They must be using those fancy spreadsheet analytics to drive this model that base their projections on "expected" figures.

Thats exactly what they are doing, welcome to 2021 Mess

 

[Not My Tempo]

Wonder if Pridham can somehow get Andersen back in before the playoffs.

We could before. Don’t know how the Hyman and Bogo injuries change that though

 

[Notsince67]

Goaltending has absolutely been TERRIBLE this season and is the reason this team will play 4 games in the playoffs and be done!

Dubas trading the 21’ 1st round pick was a big mistake. This team should be rebuilding.

....it's fan base.

Finished your sentence for you

 

[Marshy]

Ok I've slept on it and while 5 losses in a row sucks - we'll be going into the playoffs with at least another couple of wins since teams don't really lose 15 in a row.

Curious to see what Foligno brings. Guessing he will need a few games to shake off the rust. If Campbell's struggles continue do we go back to Rittich or try Hutch again? Can't believe that even has to be asked.

 

[egd27]

Campbell has a career .917 SV% and even with his poor play lately, he still won them at least two of those games. His poor 5 games don’t erase his larger body of work.

He has 70 starts in the past 6 seasons. With that kind of sporadic use, I'm not sure you can hang your hat on his "larger body of work"

 

[Stephen]

Surprised Keefe came out and isolated the goaltending in the loss when the team didn’t really look good for a lot of the game. Made sure to pump up the team, Jack Campbell and isolated the new guy Save Rittich. So much of the loss was indeed on Rittich but seems like a dubious strategy to alienate the brand new guy and insurance policy if Campbell can’t get going.

 

[Bluelines]

.... teams don't really lose 15 in a row.

Challenge accepted

 

[Bluelines]

Surprised Keefe came out and isolated the goaltending in the loss when the team didn’t really look good for a lot of the game. Made sure to pump up the team, Jack Campbell and isolated the new guy Save Rittich. So much of the loss was indeed on Rittich but seems like a dubious strategy to alienate the brand new guy and insurance policy if Campbell can’t get going.

Coaches should never throw their players under the bus, even if it is true. That stuff stays in the locker room.

 

[Brown Dog]

The 11 game streak is a fluky mirage, he is not that good of a goalie, actually no goalie in the history of the NHL has ever been that good of a goalie. We caught lighting in a bottle. If he can be around .917, that is reasonable IMO.

Obviously nobody expects him (or anyone else) to maintain a perfect record or .950 sv%. He is somewhere between that level and the Toskala calibre we've seen from him more recently. If he can be around. 915, not let in backbreaking softies, and make the odd 10-beller, that should be enough to go on a run. I believe he can do that.

 

[Zybalto]

Surprised Keefe came out and isolated the goaltending in the loss when the team didn’t really look good for a lot of the game. Made sure to pump up the team, Jack Campbell and isolated the new guy Save Rittich. So much of the loss was indeed on Rittich but seems like a dubious strategy to alienate the brand new guy and insurance policy if Campbell can’t get going.

I was a little shocked too he came right out and said it. We all freak out here and say things like "the coach better come out and say something" about a number of things things but he never usually does.

I think its the fact the team looked like it was headed for victory getting over a 4 game slide outshooting and outchancing an opponent and then, when your goalie let's in two goals me or you would probably save, it needed to be said.

There have been bad periods for goalies for us this year but that was a special type of awful. Maybe the worst period of the guys career.

He came out like a man and took the questions though and put it all on himself.

 

[Brown Dog]

Wonder if Pridham can somehow get Andersen back in before the playoffs.

Worries me that people are actually thinking about Andersen as the solution. I have zero faith in that guy.

 

[Cypruss]

Leafs beat the Jets 5-1 Thursday night, and all will be well again

 

[Mess]

so are you trying to say Campbell and Dave aren't going to be our 1a/1b next season ? maybe they can be our 1b/2a or will they be our 2b/3a ?

Luckily this season we have Freddy Andersen & Michael Hutchinson & Jack Campbell & David Rittich to choose from.

If all were healthy, and the playoffs began tomorrow, which goalie would Leafs start and have full confidence in that you could win a playoff series?

At present I'd bet that the answer none of the above would creep into the conversation based on this season goalie performance current or past.

Therein lies the problem as I currently see it, that despite having 4 options you couldn't really have full confidence in any of them to carry this team deep into the playoffs. IMO

 

[Brown Dog]

I was a little shocked too he came right out and said it. We all freak out here and say things like "the coach better come out and say something" about a number of things things but he never usually does.

I think its the fact the team looked like it was headed for victory getting over a 4 game slide outshooting and outchancing an opponent and then, when your goalie let's in two goals me or you would probably save, it needed to be said.

There have been bad periods for goalies for us this year but that was a special type of awful. Maybe the worst period of the guys career.

He came out like a man and took the questions though and put it all on himself.

Friedman said it in the intermission--that 3rd period was a big one for this team. And then they went and took the lead on a shorthanded goal.

That Rittich pissed it away with maybe our worst goaltending of the year (which is saying something!) is pretty tough to swallow.

 

[All Mod Cons]

Gardiner had to fight him. He was the reason Necas got rocked. He took a beating for it as well.

The Leafs would've just stood there looking at Necas (should Necas be a Leaf).

 

[All Mod Cons]

Leafs beat the Jets 5-1 Thursday night, and all will be well again

Lolz.