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Pre-Game Talk: Canes@Leafs, Tuesday Dec.19th, 2 PM ET

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Trapper

Trapper

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Nov 21, 2013
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Nithoniniel said:
I like those forward lines. Brown always seemed to fit the best next to Kadri, Hyman on his strong side, Nylander at that center with Marleau next to him. Looks good.
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I'm with you there on the Kadri/Brown combo. IMO that has good chemistry.
I like the Nylander/Marleau/Hyman line as well. This one could have real potential. If it clicks, please don't change it Babs. When Matthews returns, find a way to keep Willy at C. If someone making 4 million needs to be moved, so be it.
 
LeafGrief

LeafGrief

Shambles in my brain
Apr 10, 2015
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Always excited to watch Nylander at C. I'm also a big fan of that winger formation. Hyman on his strong side and Brown with Kadri should be good. Really hoping Carrick is sharp for his return to the lineup. I doubt he gets top4 minutes, but he and Gardiner generally play well together.

For the game itself, I'm very hopeful that this is a bit of a bounceback game for the boys. The last few weeks have been rough and coming off a 3 game losing skid where they were finishing up a 5 games in 7 stint (WTF???). It's a rough portion of the schedule, but there's too much talent to stay down for long. This is a good gut check.
 
Gary Nylund

Gary Nylund

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Oct 10, 2013
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Mess said:

Beyond Matthews, scorers continue to struggle for Leafs



The good news for the Toronto Maple Leafs? They are clearly the second-best team in an incredibly weak Atlantic division. The bad news? They aren’t playing particularly well these days and a lot of it has to do with their core players struggling to produce, Travis Yost writes.
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Hyperbole. It's not even close to being clear that we're better than Boston.
 
Morgs

Morgs

#16 #34 #44 #88 #91
Jul 12, 2015
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It can't be stressed enough how improved our team would be without Moore and Polak in the lineup. Martin has proven he can play well with good linemates, so I've ended my fight with him. Also to the people who've trashed the Bozak line: when the three of them are together their xGF% is one of the best in the league. Keep them sheltered, keep them away from the defensive zone, and we have one of the best scoring lines in the league.

Hyman - Matthews - Nylander
Marleau - Kadri - Kapanen
JVR - Bozak - Marner
Martin/Leivo - Komarov - Brown

Rielly - Hainsey
Gardiner - Carrick
Borgman - Zaitsev
 
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Morgs

Morgs

#16 #34 #44 #88 #91
Jul 12, 2015
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Nithoniniel said:
Absolutely. We built ourselves a cushion that we can use to right the ship.
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But after the first 15~ games we had a top-5 ca/60 and were between 15-20 in xga/60. Since then not only have we gotten worse in both stats, but our offensive metrics have also taken a massive hit.
 
Morgs

Morgs

#16 #34 #44 #88 #91
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Really like the lines. Wish they moved Kap into Komarovs spot, but beggars can't be choosers.

Love the fact Carrick is back with Gards. They've always been a solid pairing who seem to complement each other well. Too bad it means Polak is going to get more minutes.
 
Gary Nylund

Gary Nylund

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CantLoseWithMatthews said:
In terms of talent we are. In terms of how we are playing Boston is definitely ahead
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In terms of talent, maybe. But that doesn't help us right now
Morgs said:
Talent wise is a lot closer than you are giving credit for. Plus they're actually playing well (with a terrible goalie).
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Talent is probably close but is a rather nebulous thing and doesn't matter much when discussing who is the better team today.
 
CantLoseWithMatthews

CantLoseWithMatthews

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Morgs said:
Talent wise is a lot closer than you are giving credit for. Plus they're actually playing well (with a terrible goalie).
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yeah they're playing much better than we are, which shouldn't be the case since we have better personnel in my opinion.
 
Intact

Intact

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Morgs said:
But after the first 15~ games we had a top-5 ca/60 and were between 15-20 in xga/60. Since then not only have we gotten worse in both stats, but our offensive metrics have also taken a massive hit.
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While I agree that our play has been a cause for concern, that was not generally the narrative around here for the first 15 games. It was mostly looking at our goals against and where we stacked up against the league, and now its silence on that front now that we've corrected.
 
ShaneFalco

ShaneFalco

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Intact said:
While I agree that our play has been a cause for concern, that was not generally the narrative around here for the first 15 games. It was mostly looking at our goals against and where we stacked up against the league, and now its silence on that front now that we've corrected.
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They were winning and the offence was clicking, but the D and the goaltending were sub-par
Now everything is sub-par except the goaltending
 
Intact

Intact

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I find it extremely difficult to get a realistic picture on advanced stats/ sometimes even traditional metrics online these days. It mostly stems from popular twitter accounts posting the most eye opening stats at whatever point of the season they are out of whack and just forget about them later. We know about how we sucked in 3rd periods last year, where are all the tweets and posts about our record after leading 2 periods this year?

I'm extremely fortunate that I've got to watch most of the games this year myself, which fills in the holes of stats only posted for confirmation bias/ retweets on twitter/ hits on the athletic. I find that advanced stats are very useful to evaluate teams that you don't watch, most of the time they paint a picture very similarly to the games you watch. But like I said it's a whole different animal in the Leafs twitterverse where we are the center of attention for those kinds of metrics when they aren't positive.

All that said we know that we aren't as good as we were at the end of last year/playoffs, and we're still in 2nd place. Babcock, the players, the management all know it... We have so much time to turn it around, if we get hot at the right time for 10 games were in the conference finals at this point. Enjoy the ride
 
Coachcorner

Coachcorner

Senor Martinez
Sep 28, 2017
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Yeah we treally bout that!

Wonder if the man goes with McElhinney on this one and saves Andersen for the tortorella coached columbus team. They are missing some key guys like Dubinsky though. We might bring that thang.
 
PromisedLand

PromisedLand

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Mugzy97 said:
Lines at practice today as per Kristen Shilton:

Komarov - Kadri - Brown
Marleau - Nylander - Hyman
JVR - Bozak - Marner
Martin - Moore - Kapanen
Leivo

Rielly - Hainsey
Gardiner - Carrick
Borgman - Polak
Marincin

Trying out Hyman on the right side today for maybe the first time in his career? Decent lineup though, I would switch Kappy and Hyman.
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My Jedi mind trick is almost working on babs

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/threads/leafs-wild-8pm-sno.2423205/page-33#post-139064891

as I had wished top3 lines are almost what I had wanted (link above). Now to get Hyman replaced by either Kappy or Leivo ;)
 
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