Johnsson and Kapanen..

[moon111]

Everything in watching Kapanen last year told me he needed more ice-time and could be a top 6 forward. He was being wasted. Our coach needed to give him more time last season.
Kapanen is being helped, but Matthews isn't carrying him. He has the skill to be a legit first line winger.

The best recorded career 5-on-5 shooting percentage for a player with at least 80 NHL games in is Patrik Laine at 11.5%. Will that line still have the options and offense if Matthew's current shooting
percentage drops 80%?

 

[LeafFever]

The best recorded career 5-on-5 shooting percentage for a player with at least 80 NHL games in is Patrik Laine at 11.5%. Will that line still have the options and offense if Matthew's current shooting
percentage drops 80%?

What does it matter when Matthews shooting % goes down? It doesn't mean it's a bad line. They can still play well and generate lots of chances.

 

[Menzinger]

What does it matter when Matthews shooting % goes down? It doesn't mean it's a bad line. They can still play well and generate lots of chances.

It doesn’t mean they’ll suddenly be terrible (they’ll still likely be good), but it does mean Kapanen’s current offense will take a substantial hit.

 

[LeafFever]

It doesn’t mean they’ll suddenly be terrible (they’ll still likely be good), but it does mean Kapanen’s current offense will take a substantial hit.

We had Tyler freaking Ennis on the 1st line and Hyman stuck to Matthews every game for the first 2 years. this is a huge upgrade. He's already way better overall as a player than even JVR.
I don't expect Kapanen to score 80-90 points, but he can be a solid first line winger.

 

[Tak7]

Babcock seemed quite praise worthy of Johnsson's play when asked this morning about the scratch.

 

[Boutette]

The best recorded career 5-on-5 shooting percentage for a player with at least 80 NHL games in is Patrik Laine at 11.5%. Will that line still have the options and offense if Matthew's current shooting
percentage drops 80%?

The key there is "career". Note: Marleau is shooting at 0% ES currently. Do you expect that to continue? Besides, who thinks Matthews is going to get 160 points this or any year or Kapanen is going to get 80? More likely they top out this year at 90+- and 50+- at best. Fact is, so far that line has been getting very little push back this year with better shut down players mainly aimed at Tavares' and Kadri's lines. When that shifts to the Matthews line, it will open things up for the other two lines to pick up the slack. Even so, we can expect the Leafs offense to cool down as a whole as league defense tightens up and goalies get their rhythms. No one expects any team, even with the Leafs stacked offense to sniff 400+ goals in a year as the leafs are so far on track to achieve based on their first 7 games.

 

[Polaris1010]

The key there is "career". Note: Marleau is shooting at 0% ES currently. Do you expect that to continue? Besides, who thinks Matthews is going to get 160 points this or any year or Kapanen is going to get 80? More likely they top out this year at 90+- and 50+- at best. Fact is, so far that line has been getting very little push back this year with better shut down players mainly aimed at Tavares' and Kadri's lines. When that shifts to the Matthews line, it will open things up for the other two lines to pick up the slack. Even so, we can expect the Leafs offense to cool down as a whole as league defense tightens up and goalies get their rhythms. No one expects any team, even with the Leafs stacked offense to sniff 400+ goals in a year as the leafs are so far on track to achieve based on their first 7 games.

Yes exactly!

If one line is killing it tonight against the other team, and their shooting percentage is through the roof, expect the other team to bring out their best defenders to stop that. Therefore, shooting percentage goes down.

But, this opens it up for the rest of the team.

Therefore we have to conclude that shooting percentage going down is completely irrelevant.

If a line can demonstrate it can score at will, expect them to be checked harder. This allows shooting percentage for others on the same team to only go up.

It's still a game, not a spreadsheet.

Just like you said, sir!

 

[Big Cactus]

So the Matthews line had a pretty bad game. Can we overreact to that extremely small sample size too; or do we pick and choose when it matters around here?

 

[6ix]

I haven’t seen anything from Johnsson that’s convinced me he’s anything special. When Kappy was on the 4th line we’d always see some flashes, especially with his speed.

There’s just nothing that jumps out when it comes to Johnsson. Still a long season and maybe he will improve as it goes on. Time will tell.

 

[I am Canadian]

I don't see the point of playing Ennis.

Play Johnsson or Call up Moore. Ennis doesn't do anything for us

 

[Polaris1010]

So the Matthews line had a pretty bad game. Can we overreact to that extremely small sample size too; or do we pick and choose when it matters around here?

Of course we can, and if you ever venture into the GDT, people using sample size of one shift to confirm whatever they want to confirm. Often that is correct too.

I have even seen Babcock do that when he was in Detroit.

He always plays Zettleberg and Datsuk on different lines.

When neither line was generating anything and they needed a goal because they were behind, he would play them together in the latter half of the 3rd period.

That sample size was not even 1 game!

Now if both were going, he would not have done that. Since neither was going, he did. A sample size of little more than 2 periods.

Was Babcock over-reacting? I do not believe or anyone will see it that way.

 

[Terrible GM]

Babcock seemed quite praise worthy of Johnsson's play when asked this morning about the scratch.

He likely didn't want to shake Johnsson's confidence. He really hasn't played well at all from what I can tell, or at least no where at the level as late last season

 

[Community]

I haven’t seen anything from Johnsson that’s convinced me he’s anything special. When Kappy was on the 4th line we’d always see some flashes, especially with his speed.

There’s just nothing that jumps out when it comes to Johnsson. Still a long season and maybe he will improve as it goes on. Time will tell.

I think that is Johnsson's game though... He does everything decent and has a good shot. He had a lot of similarities to Brown with a better shot IMO. He is not going to be a 1st liner, but he could very well carve out a good 2nd/3rd line career where he pots 40-60pts (I feel like he is a 40-50pt player, but he seems to always improve year after year pre-NHL, so he could surpass that) and is solid defensively.

A very useful player that won't be looking for a huge salary, but is effective in his role. Something we could really use over the next few years with our big 4 taking up a large amount of the cap.

 

[Tak7]

He likely didn't want to shake Johnsson's confidence. He really hasn't played well at all from what I can tell, or at least no where at the level as late last season

Yeah that's fair. Think this is accurate.

 

[LeafFever]

I haven’t seen anything from Johnsson that’s convinced me he’s anything special. When Kappy was on the 4th line we’d always see some flashes, especially with his speed.

There’s just nothing that jumps out when it comes to Johnsson. Still a long season and maybe he will improve as it goes on. Time will tell.

I read so many posts just like this last year about Kapanen though.

 

[drewjenks]

The best recorded career 5-on-5 shooting percentage for a player with at least 80 NHL games in is Patrik Laine at 11.5%. Will that line still have the options and offense if Matthew's current shooting
percentage drops 80%?

11.5% is the highest ever recorded shooting percentage?

Are you on crack?

 

[Martin Skoula]

11.5% is the highest ever recorded shooting percentage?

Are you on crack?

On ice shooting % is not the same thing as individual shooting %.