We must win the division if we want to make a run.

[LEAFANFORLIFE23]

The Oilers don't scare me at all, they have 3 guys that's it Mcdavid, Draisatil and RNH that's it beyond that their forwards are garbage and if Freddy gets healthy an Andersen/Campbell is MILES better than Koskinen/Smith

Edmonton is the most top heavy team in the league

 

[Mickey Marner]

Seeding doesn't really matter in rounds one and two, we have to get through the same teams. It might matter in the semis if it's the difference between playing Tampa and, say, St. Louis.

 

[LeafsOHLRangers98]

Honestly if we don't win the division I'll be disappointed. Mostly because it will be because everybody just beat the hell out of Ottawa except for us.

 

[RealisticLeaf55]

All I ask is for the Leafs to go into the playoffs hot. If we play like we did during the first half of the season, this might be the greatest year of hockey any of us have ever seen. I won't hope for matchups. I just want a healthy, well put together squad with stable goaltending.

 

[Macallan18]

We must get good goaltending to make a run.
The rest will take care of itself.

 

[Gary Nylund]

Leafs have proven to be the best team in the division by a good margin. Freddy's stretch of AHL level goaltending has warped some minds in Leafs nation. We dominated Edmonton and Winnipeg in the mini series with them, one series we had adequate goaltending and one didn't.

If Campbell stays healthy the Leafs will start pulling away again.

Have you looked at the standings lately?

TOR seems the clearcut best team across the board. 1st or 2nd in every major offensive, defensive, and overall category.

EDM/MTL/WPG all have flaws and I'm not sure we should worry about matching up against any of them more than the others.

I don't put nearly as much stock in stats as you do but I'm curious - weren't we the clearcut favourite against CLB as well?

Toronto brings their game and our goaltending issues are laid to rest - I'll take our chances against any of them. Not a brag, just saying we have a solid chance against all of them . A list of preferred teams in the first round - excluding no one, even Ottawa

Montreal
Vancouver
Ottawa
Calgary (IF Sutter rights the ship, his style of team worries me in the playoffs)
Edmonton
Winnipeg

Our goaltending is nothing more than a big question mark.

Seeding doesn't really matter in rounds one and two, we have to get through the same teams. It might matter in the semis if it's the difference between playing Tampa and, say, St. Louis.

If we make it to the semis, we're going to play a really good team and then if we win, another really good team after that if we win so I don't think it really matters much at that point.

We must get good goaltending to make a run.
The rest will take care of itself.

Agreed. With mediocre goaltending we may or may not make it out of our division but going past that is unlikely.

 

[Spirit of 67]

Leafs are the best team in the division.

The only team they need to worry about is themselves.

Stop with the unforced errors and get playoff caliber goaltending and they'll be fine.

 

[Morbo]

Our goaltending is what drags us back closer to the other teams currently.

fix that and we're the best team easily.

 

[zeke]

Have you looked at the standings lately?

Yep. I even listed them in that post you are responding to.

Here they are again:

Win Percentage

8. TOR .656
12. WPG .625
13. EDM .618
14. MTL .597
20. CGY .500
23. VAN .486
29. OTT .368

 

[JayfromNB1219]

I don’t know it’s tough...every team in the division has 1 or 2 things they are really good at and if they can funnel the series to those things they are quite capable of knocking us off...it’s not an easy division no matter what you think of these teams

Ott- Hard work 100% of the time
Vancouver- goaltending and hard work
Calgary-Defense and goaltending
Edmonton- McDavid and Draisaitl
Montreal- Hard work and underrated grit, Price
Winnipeg- Goaltending and Forward group

We are the most complete team in the division but they are all capable of knocking anyone off when they are on

 

[Gary Nylund]

Yep. I even listed them in that post you are responding to.

Here they are again:

Win Percentage

8. TOR .656
12. WPG .625
13. EDM .618
14. MTL .597
20. CGY .500
23. VAN .486
29. OTT .368

Interesting. I asked you a question and instead of answering, you answered a question that was addressed to someone else. Why?

 

[LeafGrief]

If we get NHL calibre goaltending, we're the best team in the division by a mile. We have the best offense and the best defense. Best PP, and our PK is actually pretty good at limiting chances, Freddy has just been among league worst sv% on the PK.

Winning the division is nice, I expect us to do it handily despite this losing skid. We'll be favourites against any Canadian division team regardless of where we finish in the standings. For all the talk of Freddy crapping the bed in the playoffs, our skaters haven't been able to get it done when it counted either. Terrible scoring numbers in key games and unable to close out a series. If our goaltending doesn't sink us, we have the skaters to get things done, but they need to prove that they can do it.

Throw any of the Canadian teams at us in any order and we should be able to win most of those series. There's always bad luck and hot goalies (Hellebucyk is scary) that can stop a team in its tracks, but this core has to prove that they're winners when it counts.

 

[OddyOh]

I don't put nearly as much stock in stats as you do but I'm curious - weren't we the clearcut favourite against CLB as well?

Were we? I seem to recall much talk about Torts vs rookie Keefe, CBJ’s toughness, and the skill levels were a wash because our defence was so bad. Goaltending was a tossup, but we were on the losing end of that stick too in the end.

 

[egd27]

A team that is willing to clog up the neutral zone, collapse in the D zone, and can get strong goaltending is tough for the Leafs to beat.

 

[Gary Nylund]

Were we? I seem to recall much talk about Torts vs rookie Keefe, CBJ’s toughness, and the skill levels were a wash because our defence was so bad. Goaltending was a tossup, but we were on the losing end of that stick too in the end.

I know we were favourites but I can't remember how clear cut it was, that's why I asked. I think the bookies had us at around 60% to win which is pretty clear cut I guess but I'm not sure if I'm remembering that correctly. And I have no idea what the fancy stats said - not that important I guess, I was just curious.

 

[Gary Nylund]

If we get NHL calibre goaltending, we're the best team in the division by a mile. We have the best offense and the best defense. Best PP, and our PK is actually pretty good at limiting chances, Freddy has just been among league worst sv% on the PK.

Winning the division is nice, I expect us to do it handily despite this losing skid. We'll be favourites against any Canadian division team regardless of where we finish in the standings. For all the talk of Freddy crapping the bed in the playoffs, our skaters haven't been able to get it done when it counted either. Terrible scoring numbers in key games and unable to close out a series. If our goaltending doesn't sink us, we have the skaters to get things done, but they need to prove that they can do it.

Throw any of the Canadian teams at us in any order and we should be able to win most of those series. There's always bad luck and hot goalies (Hellebucyk is scary) that can stop a team in its tracks, but this core has to prove that they're winners when it counts.

I think "by a mile" is an overstatement.

 

[Mugzy97]

Thread title is false

 

[LeafGrief]

I think "by a mile" is an overstatement.

Perhaps, but I do think that we shouldn't be judging our team based on this recent slide where we got unsustainably bad goaltending. We've been clobbering teams in possession and scoring chances, and looking like the better team most nights that we play. The goalie is part of the team and bad goaltending may be our Achilles Heel this year, but there's not a team in the division who can go toe to toe with our skaters.

 

[Gary Nylund]

Perhaps, but I do think that we shouldn't be judging our team based on this recent slide where we got unsustainably bad goaltending. We've been clobbering teams in possession and scoring chances, and looking like the better team most nights that we play. The goalie is part of the team and bad goaltending may be our Achilles Heel this year, but there's not a team in the division who can go toe to toe with our skaters.

Of course, if we judged the team based on the recent slide, we're not even a playoff team.

 

[zeke]

I don't put nearly as much stock in stats as you do but I'm curious - weren't we the clearcut favourite against CLB as well?

By the stats?

Points%

13.TOR 57.9%
13.CBJ 57.9%

5v5

9.CBJ: 51.66xgf%
11.TOR: 51.62xgf%

All Situations

8.TOR: 51.75xgf%
12.CBJ: 51.55xgf%

 

[Twine Tickler]

Toronto is far and away the best and most complete team in the division. This "hiccup" of the last 8 games was due to receiving poor goaltending, and playing against outstanding goaltending. End of story

Don't believe me? lets look at the numbers during this "horrible" stretch of hockey

in the last 8 games our record was 2-6-0 (4pts)

in those games we commanded the lion share in xGF% in 7/8 of those games. We also commanded the lion share of HDCF% in 5/8 games.

still not satisfied? well how about in that same stretch of time (March 3rd to March 21st) we ranked 2nd in the entire NHL for xGF% with 59% and 3rd in the NHL for HDCF% with 63%

This team will be the favorite in any matchup they play in. Truthfully, I don't even think it is close. Does that mean the 3 other teams couldn't upset us? absolutely they can. But we are just as likely to be upset by VAN as we are EDM. all 4 teams that make the playoffs in the north are going to be good teams. But make no mistake who is the best team in this bunch. I really don't care what the final standings indicate, it is very clear to me who is the best team in the north.

 

[Gary Nylund]

By the stats?

Points%

13.TOR 57.9%
13.CBJ 57.9%

5v5

9.CBJ: 51.66xgf%
11.TOR: 51.62xgf%

All Situations

8.TOR: 51.75xgf%
12.CBJ: 51.55xgf%

In your earlier post you listed many more stats (list below), why not list them all when comparing us so CLB instead of just picking 3 of them? One thing I like to look at is goal differential (I suppose that would be goals for Percentage) - ours was much better than CLB.

Win Percentage
Goals For Percentage
Expected Goals For Percentage
Save Percentage
Goals For per 60
Expected Goals For per 60
Goals Against per 60
Expected Goals Against per 60

 

[zeke]

In your earlier post you listed many more stats (list below), why not list them all when comparing us so CLB instead of just picking 3 of them? One thing I like to look at is goal differential (I suppose that would be goals for Percentage) - ours was much better than CLB.

Win Percentage
Goals For Percentage
Expected Goals For Percentage
Save Percentage
Goals For per 60
Expected Goals For per 60
Goals Against per 60
Expected Goals Against per 60

man you are demanding.


Save percentage

4. CBJ 91.30
21. TOR 90.10

Goals Against per 60

4. CBJ 2.57
25. TOR 3.12

Expected Goals Against per 60

2. CBJ 2.40
20. TOR 2.88

Goals For per 60

4. TOR 3.35
29. CBJ 2.53

Expected Goals For per 60

3. TOR 3.09
28. CBJ 2.56

 

[LeafGrief]

Were we? I seem to recall much talk about Torts vs rookie Keefe, CBJ’s toughness, and the skill levels were a wash because our defence was so bad. Goaltending was a tossup, but we were on the losing end of that stick too in the end.

I thought we were huge favourites against them. Sure, we'd struggled mightily during the year, but we'd also been snakebitten by injuries and outrageously bad backup goaltending from Hutchinson. Rielly and Muzzin missed a ton of time, and without our top two defenders for big portions of the year we didn't have the depth to cover off. Going into the playoffs we were healthy, had a good backup (though they rarely play in the playoffs) and our roster dumpstered theirs on paper. There was tons of optimism and frankly, we should have won that series.

Ultimately, we didn't. I don't see why we have to re-imagine history to say that we weren't favourites. We were and we lost. Hot goalie, bad luck, bad goalie, blah blah blah. Doesn't really matter in the end, we should have won and we didn't. Doesn't matter at all for how they do this year, though if we bow out early again I imagine there will be one or two core pieces shuffled.

 

[Primary Assist]

Yep. I even listed them in that post you are responding to.

Here they are again:

Win Percentage

8. TOR .656
12. WPG .625
13. EDM .618
14. MTL .597
20. CGY .500
23. VAN .486
29. OTT .368

I really appreciate how you have a stat for everything. Even if they were particularly unflattering, like during the Carlyle years, they're a great complement to all of the discussions we have on here.