Post-Game Talk: Leafs Shutout 2-0

[hullsy47]

Well some folks were calling for some players to be sent a message.

That would be one way to do it ....

well marner has to score more than 1 goal a month ...in the old days marner and nylander might get sat down ,I mean the marlies are setting the AHL on fire ,maybe its time for the young guns to get a dose of reality ....but hey no way they get these astronomical contracts once thrown around here like candy
I think marner has like 6 goals in the last 55 games ....not gonna cut it period

 

[Joedoggy]

The Leafs lack an identity right now. Why can't they actually play their 12 best forwards and load their top 6 just like Tampa.

JVR - Matthews - Nylander
Marleau - Bozak - Marner
Leivo - Kadri - Brown
Hyman - Aaltonen - Kapanen

No Martin, Moore, Komarov. F*** line dynamics and ****ty "role" players who bring f*** all. This team wins and likely is the best team in the league when matching line for line. No longer would there be people out there wasting time and space. People arguing in favour of the 3 that I took out, just don't even bother, they all suck and bring nothing, they are simply filler. Komarov 1 ES point this year with Kadri and Marleau, guy is a joke at this point. Martin honestly pisses me off the least out of those 3.

No drinking and posting.

 

[SprDaVE]

Jeez it's not like a losing streak ever happened in the history of mankind reading this thread.

I'm all for being disappointed but some of you are taking this to another level.

One thing is for sure, Leivo has to play and a lot more. This thing with playing Komarov playing over 18 minutes a game has to stop like yesterday. I like the guy but that's ridiculous. He's got like 1 or 2 shot on net in the last 3 or 4 games.

 

[GoonieFace]

Pretty hard to keep winning when 2 of your "core" pieces have a combined 7 goals, thats 1 more goal than the dynamic duo of Moore and Martin.

People need to wake up and stop defending these 2 (Marner and Nylander), they have been awful, and the guys who have been consistent have gone cold. A recipe for disaster.

 

[Hurt]

There's a lot of choices being made by the coaching staff that I don't understand. I'm not an NHL coach though but there are a few things that are pretty egregious. Why was the style of play changed to dump and chase? We have too much skill for that. Let people carry the puck and draw the defender to the puck carrier. Why is Komarov playing 19 minutes a game and getting THAT much pp time but he isn't getting any shots on goal? On the bright side, Freddy played well.

 

[Trapper]

Every team goes through a funk in an 82 game season. Montreal was terrible, Pittsburgh is struggling, the Islanders will cool down etc.
It doesn't mean we are as bad as that or the sky is falling.
In 10 games from now when Matthews is back and we play 10 random teams in a regular season schedule, we will have games to play to our strengths and be better. Then people will be happy and things are good.
That being said, the deficiencies shown in areas should be noted. Defense, forecheck, turnovers, light players/play and all. There is a good foundation here but it's not the Cup contender people are making it out to be. We are a good regular season team that is on a down cycle and will get better.

 

[BertCorbeau]

There's a lot of choices being made by the coaching staff that I don't understand. I'm not an NHL coach though but there are a few things that are pretty egregious. Why was the style of play changed to dump and chase? We have too much skill for that. Let people carry the puck and draw the defender to the puck carrier. Why is Komarov playing 19 minutes a game and getting THAT much pp time but he isn't getting any shots on goal? On the bright side, Freddy played well.

I believe this was to improve the team's defense through the neutral zone, which was an issue

 

[BertCorbeau]

Every team goes through a funk in an 82 game season. Montreal was terrible, Pittsburgh is struggling, the Islanders will cool down etc.
It doesn't mean we are as bad as that or the sky is falling.
In 10 games from now when Matthews is back and we play 10 random teams in a regular season schedule, we will have games to play to our strengths and be better. Then people will be happy and things are good.
That being said, the deficiencies shown in areas should be noted. Defense, forecheck, turnovers, light players/play and all. There is a good foundation here but it's not the Cup contender people are making it out to be. We are a good regular season team that is on a down cycle and will get better.

I think this a large part of it TBH. Expectations need to be checked in that this team may just not be ready for that quite yet.

 

[Budsfan]

First Game I have missed in quite a long time, the Power went off 10 minutes to game time and didn't come back on until the game was over around 11 PM.

It seems the Leafs had their own Power Failure, anyway on to Detroit for tonights game.

 

[CantLoseWithMatthews]

Every team goes through a funk in an 82 game season. Montreal was terrible, Pittsburgh is struggling, the Islanders will cool down etc.
It doesn't mean we are as bad as that or the sky is falling.
In 10 games from now when Matthews is back and we play 10 random teams in a regular season schedule, we will have games to play to our strengths and be better. Then people will be happy and things are good.
That being said, the deficiencies shown in areas should be noted. Defense, forecheck, turnovers, light players/play and all. There is a good foundation here but it's not the Cup contender people are making it out to be. We are a good regular season team that is on a down cycle and will get better.

disagree. when we play to our strengths and compete we absolutely have the talent to contend

 

[Joedoggy]

By the time most Leaf fans understand Babcock hockey it will be too late. Undersized teams are his forte, he likes having the big hitter and muscle around but never uses his personel properly. His choice of smallish personel that were chosen to play a no touch perimeter/stretch pass game cannot play the dump and chase game he has recently employed due to teams choking off his stretch game.
The guy has always preached "not giving the puck away" yet now he does it? Why?
There is nothing wrong with "dump and chase" playoffs are full of it...but you have to have punishing personel when you dump the puck so opp. d-men do not enjoy the experience causing turnovers and the wearing out of opp. d-men for later in games.

Instead take a look what Babcock sends out to punish on dump ins?....Non Physical/checking puckhounds that Opposition d-men literally laugh at. This is also the reason for the odd man rushes going the other way also. Exit passes are that much easier to make when you send(babcock) boys to do a mans job. And even if the man see's the error of his ways he isn't changing a thing....and its not hard to figure why.

 

[Mugzy97]

Pretty hard to keep winning when 2 of your "core" pieces have a combined 7 goals, thats 1 more goal than the dynamic duo of Moore and Martin.

People need to wake up and stop defending these 2 (Marner and Nylander), they have been awful, and the guys who have been consistent have gone cold. A recipe for disaster.

It's funny that if you lead the team in goals you are the hero and all is well, but if you lead the team in assists, you are awful.

 

[CantLoseWithMatthews]

It's funny that if you lead the team in goals you are the hero and all is well, but if you lead the team in assists, you are awful.

Marner I can forgive because it's not really his game to put up goals. Nylander has been extremely disappointing though

 

[BertCorbeau]

Marner I can forgive because it's not really his game to put up goals. Nylander has been extremely disappointing though

I think this is a bit of an exaggeration .. Despite his low goal totals, which are disappointing, he's still on pace to break 50 points this season. While he has been a bit snake bitten he also would only have a 2-3 more goals if he was shooting the same as he did last season. He doesn't have a lot of confidence right now in the offensive zone. He has too much talent to not rebound however the effort level has wavered as well. The coaches are likely trying to get that constant effort out of him all over the ice so that he can not only become more consistent offensive, but also not a liability defensively when things are going in for him.

 

[Koolboss]

I' disppointed in Marner and should immediately be removed from the point on PP. His shot is garbage from that area. Englander has been awful and has caused KADRI,s production to drop.

 

[Mugzy97]

His shot is garbage from that area

It's almost as if it's not about his shot at all

 

[Pookie]

Marner can't even legally buy a beer in the USA.

This "patient" fan base needs to lay off and let him develop.

 

[BertCorbeau]

disagree. when we play to our strengths and compete we absolutely have the talent to contend

You can say this about a lot of teams that aren't at the very top of the standings. Problem is that you can't always play the game you want. You have to adjust to how other teams are playing and find other ways to be successful. Talent alone won't do it.

The young Leafs are still figuring that out. Could they win? Absolutely. But does that make it a realistic expectation? I don't believe so. It's a big leap from just squeaking into the playoffs to actually winning it all.

 

[SprDaVE]

"Can't blame Babcock he's a GREAT COACH... Maybe you should send in your resumes lol"



...Yep. The tweet above is slightly misleading. He goes have 5 EV points, but only 1 is a primary EV point.

 

[thewave]

The main takeaway from this stretch and last night for me... Trade JVR and cash in large setting us up for next season. Trade Bozak as well if possible .

 

[rent free]

Even the ben offences go into slumps. Doesn't help when you're best player is injured. Credit to Minny's D with good stick work in the defensive zone. Leafs just couldn't hit the net or shot it right at Stalock

Better defensively which is nice.

We're slumping offensively because we're trying to play defence and that's not working out for us.

 

[Bluelines]

Pretty hard to keep winning when 2 of your "core" pieces have a combined 7 goals, thats 1 more goal than the dynamic duo of Moore and Martin.

People need to wake up and stop defending these 2 (Marner and Nylander), they have been awful, and the guys who have been consistent have gone cold. A recipe for disaster.

I think as the season goes on more and more people are developing the same opinion as you.

If Nylander and Marner didn't have Nylander and Marner name plates on their shoulders, would they still get the same consideration as they get? If Brown and Hyman had as poor of a start in the first 20ish games would they still get ice time?

Marner and Nylander are on the team to drive offence, if they don't do that then they are not useful to the team. Yes they are young and yes players take time to develop but the NHL is not a development league, its the you better be ready league or you don't play here league.

IIRC Naz was sent down to the AHL a few times and it didn't kill his career. If Naz can be sent down, why can't Marner and/or Nylander?

 

[ULF_55]

I think this a large part of it TBH. Expectations need to be checked in that this team may just not be ready for that quite yet.

We have to remember, Andersen was 2nd. star of the month in November for an extremely important reason ... he was why they were winning so much.

So now with those points in the bank and Babcock (IMO) knowing that the early season style of play was unsustainable is trying to make this team into one that plays 200 feet, and we're seeing some of them are not particularly good at that. We always had the escaped goats here, but perhaps there was more hope than reality that some of the supposedly superior players could play that 200 feet game.

Right now I don't think they are playing well in any zone, other than some special teams play.

Of course it isn't like we didn't see this coming. Needing to steal games, or hang on to games, or win against the flow of skating is a sign.

 

[Bluelines]

"Can't blame Babcock he's a GREAT COACH... Maybe you should send in your resumes lol"



...Yep. The tweet above is slightly misleading. He goes have 5 EV points, but only 1 is a primary EV point.

Two things, Leo's job is not to score points are irrelevant to assess his value and what is the quality of competition like while he is on the ice?

 

[Muston Atthews]

Two things, Leo's job is not to score points are irrelevant to assess his value and what is the quality of competition like while he is on the ice?

Your job is to score points if you play that much ice time and get steady powerplay time. Don’t be ridiculous