Your biggest surprise and biggest disappointment this season?

[tom leafers]

Surprises:

1. Hainsey. I really didn’t expect him to be as good as he has been (I know he’s been struggling since returning from injury, but he’s getting better).

2. Dermott has been a fantastic addition to the blueline and plays with a maturity level that is above his age. Can’t wait to watch him continue to grow.

Disappointments:

1. Matthews injuries. I’m NOT saying he’s going to be injury prone, far from it. But it does suck seeing him in and out of the lineup so often this season.

2. Zaitsev has not been as good as he was last year. He’s been battling injuries (and now a disease) during the season to, so that can’t have helped. Hopefully he bounces back next year.

While the injuries to Auston have been disappointing, it has been encouraging watching how the leafs play without him. If you can be an above .500 team, playing against some pretty quality teams without your very best player, thats a good sign.

If the oilers were without McDavid, my god would that be a dumpster fire for the ages

 

[tom leafers]

A big surprise for me is that our excellent season has us only in 3rd place in our division. Damn those Bruins.

Lol good point! they just cant lose. If Carolina didnt blow that game theyd only be 3 points away from us with 2 games in hand.

I actually think we have a pretty solid chance of catching them. Their next 8 games are mostly on the road and against teams who are going to be desperate for points. They are quite banged up and play every other day to close the season. They peeked to early.

 

[egd27]

Surprise: Dermott

Disappointment: A lot of the reaction here to what looks like our first 100 pt team in ages.

 

[Gary Nylund]

Lol good point! they just cant lose. If Carolina didnt blow that game theyd only be 3 points away from us with 2 games in hand.

I actually think we have a pretty solid chance of catching them. Their next 8 games are mostly on the road and against teams who are going to be desperate for points. They are quite banged up and play every other day to close the season. They peeked to early.

Yeah you never know. I'm not really even hoping to catch them because it seems to be such a long shot. If it happens then of course I will be thrilled but I'll happily settle for them being banged up real good when the action starts.

 

[tom leafers]

Yeah you never know. I'm not really even hoping to catch them because it seems to be such a long shot. If it happens then of course I will be thrilled but I'll happily settle for them being banged up real good when the action starts.

Exactly, im looking at it as a win win lol.

 

[Gary Nylund]

Surprise: Dermott

Disappointment: A lot of the reaction here to what looks like our first 100 pt team in ages.

So true. The amount of complaining here just boggles the mind sometimes. I've been following this team for close to 50 years now and the only time I've been more excited than I am now was when Gilmour was doing his thing and winning the cup started to actually seem like it could happen. Of course even then nobody was thinking that was possible until we upset Detroit in round 1 so yeah, I've never been this excited pre-playoffs.

Boy is that ever a sad statement re. our history. I've never liked our chances this much and our chances are still pretty slim when you consider we're probably 1st round underdogs. And then 2nd round underdogs and then ... who knows, if we get that far and we're heal;thy, our stock just might have gone up far enough that we'll be favoured in the 3rd round, hopefully we'll see.

 

[IamruKusleaf]

Surprise y’all

Easily Dermott
Excellent poise , determination , urgency , IQ , puck separation , vision , on and on


Disappointment y’all
No elaboration here

Jake Fr€£¥in Gardiner!!!!!
Turtle Hab

Sorry
ruKus calls it like I sees it!!
Goooo F€£¥in LEAFS Goooooo!

 

[crump]

Being home and cooled in a playoff spot only to go 1-9-1 down the stretch and have Florida pass us by winning out the season.

 

[Tak7]

Biggest Surprises:
1) Dermott
2) No regression. I was sure we would see it this season.

Biggest Disappointment:
1) Babcock's Attitude and overcoaching
2) Zaitsev

 

[Peiskos]

There are no disappointments for me, nothing but surprise and joy that the team has made such a quick turn around since finishing 4th last with 68 points in 2014-15, followed by dead last with 69 points in the 2015-16 season.

We're currently a 42-22-7 team with 11 games to go, its been ages since the Leafs had a visually appealing record like that.. we're going to the playoffs for the 2nd straight year and will more than likely make it again next season too and the one after that and that etc.

Apart from things like individual player performances Leafs fans shouldn't be disappointed about anything.

 

[biotk]

Surprises: Hyman. He is 57th in the NHL in 5v5 primary points. Ahead of Wheeler and Crosby (who are 10th and 11th in points this season), and only behind Matthews and Nylander on the Leafs.

Disappointments: Matthews' health. Missed time with 3 different injuries, and I have felt that he looks like he has been playing with nagging injuries for most of the games he has played since the start of November.

 

[TheGroceryStick]

Hainsey surprise ...expected a hunwick

Komarov disappointment...doesnt have the same level of play at 5on5. His PK work is what keeps him in the lineup.

Leivo disappointment ...figured he would wrestle a top 9 wing spot

JvR surprise....we know he scores, but it's crazy how consistently he finds the net.

Gardiner disappointment ....figured by now Babs and co. Would iron out the mishaps and fumbles....his high risk/reward is still showing.

 

[ottomaddox]

Surprise: all the players who helped my fantasy team

Disappointment: all the players who didn't help my fantasy team

 

[Nooodles]

People who think of Nylander as a disappointment do realise he just shut down Malkin the other night and is playing like a #1C since Matty's injury, as a sophomore.
Right?

Right?!

Surprise: Dermott. I knew he was good, but not this good, like...almost perfect.

Disappointment: Connor Brown lately, but it's still not the end of the world because he is still really good defensively.

 

[Daisy Jane]

Surprise:
Dermott's immediate impact. he looks like he's always belonged which is great for us.

the waves and waves of depth we have that can step in and not look out of place. especially when in April Babcock and Lou were like we aren't deep. well. they got us depth. wooo.

how well we've managed the fort without our very best playr

Disappointment:
it really shouldn't be, considering all my time here, but it's so sad, that we've finally have a good likeable team, that people are still not happy, and they are unhappy over the most minute things.

management does all this stuff to basically say this is a new team we're putting the past behind us, and if we have 3 game slide people want to throw out tropes like "18 wheeler" or basically anticipating us spiraling out of control.

the fact you can look down the QEW and see Buffalo's struggles, you look at Carolina and they haven't done anything, Vancouver, and Edmonton, and Arizona, and still gripe about our coaching and our performances, because not everything is happening the way we want to. like let's ignore that everything we've done since we were 30th. oh no we could do so much better and have a better coach

there will be so much time for the team to live up to all the "be perfect, be dominant every night." that we can't just enjoy the great "look at them!" years without being miserable

the fact that people have all the time and patience for the sexy sophomores, but players like Z who had a lot out outside issues, and on ice issues, is a bum.

 

[Mats13]

People are really disappointed in Nylander?

He's shown he's capable of being a PPG player and capable of playing C long term.

The only reason his stats don't look great this year is because his PP unit has been pathetic (largely in part to Brown, Marleau and Komarov). If he was producing on the PP like he was last year, he'd be (roughly) PPG.

My disappointment is Brown. Really he's been worse at basically everything compared to last year. Also Komarov has really fallen off this year.

 

[Hockey Crazy]

Biggest Surprises:
1) Dermott
2) No regression. I was sure we would see it this season.

Biggest Disappointment:
1) Babcock's Attitude and overcoaching
2) Zaitsev

What the hell is overcoaching? He's doing too much of his job?

Our lines right now are all firing except for the Matthews-less Matthews line.

 

[Tak7]

What the hell is overcoaching? He's doing too much of his job?

Our lines right now are all firing except for the Matthews-less Matthews line.

It took him almost 50 games to get to his best lineup on the ice.

 

[The Iceman]

Surprised in a good way at McStarter (On some teams), JVR (Always in the perfect position in the offensive zone), and Dermott. I did not expect him to be this good. And from a TINY sample size I think I would like to see some more Justin Holl, he was great in his audition.

Surprised in a bad way Zaitsev, Marleau (Ouch to his contract), the corpse that is Dominic Moore, and I expected more than 14 goals from Nylander with all those skills and the way he can shoot.

 

[The Best Leafs Ever]

Surprises

Dermott - Didn't expect him to be so good out of the gate.

Hainsey - I was one of those who always thought he was a wasted money and would barely fill bottom pair role. It's good to be wrong sometimes haha.

Andersen - Never in my wildest dream I imagined we would have a goalie that can contend for vezina. Even after his usual pathetic start he has been contending. SOLID.

Disappointments

Nylander - Expected he would be the one who would step up in absence of Matthews but it was completely opposite.

Marleau - He hasn't been bad by any means, he just hasn't done what I expected. Still providing a solid example for youngsters by finishing the whole season without injuries and still has the same wheels he had when we started the season.

Brown - Thought he would score 40 points given the opportunities he had this season.

 

[Gary Nylund]

It took him almost 50 games to get to his best lineup on the ice.

The goal isn't to ice the best lineup every night, that would be short term thinking. The goal is to win the cup, that requires long term thinking and that sometimes means playing (or not playing) different players in different positions for a variety of reasons. It's hard to look at the big picture IMO and not see a smashing success, not only in terms of where we are in the standings but also from the standpoint of player development.

Babcock is at the moment possibly the most under appreciated part of this team!

 

[ZEBROA]

I belive Nylander should be around 60-70p player at c. But only when he gets the trust to be that player fully. So hes just were i expected right now. Almost all Swedes are bad or average snipers .

Dissiponted by the use of some players. But it seems to go quite well.

 

[Walshy7]

People who think of Nylander as a disappointment do realise he just shut down Malkin the other night and is playing like a #1C since Matty's injury, as a sophomore.
Right?

Right?!

Surprise: Dermott. I knew he was good, but not this good, like...almost perfect.

Disappointment: Connor Brown lately, but it's still not the end of the world because he is still really good defensively.

people are saying Nylander? haha he must have McDavid ceiling if 51 points in 71 games is a disappointment, he does have way more to give but he has been far from a disappointment. And when he hasn't been scoring lately he has been playing really well at C.

 

[LeafsNation75]

Surprise

The play of Hainsey because some questioned him when they announced his signing and he turned out to be a great replacement for Matt Hunwick.

Travis Dermott since being called up has played great and I think he will be considered a steal in a few years being a 2nd round pick in 2015, so there will be teams that wished they selected him late in the 1st round.

Disappointment

I guess it would be Zaitsev if I have to pick someone because he had a good year last year after coming over from the KHL.

 

[phillipmike]

A big surprise for me is that our excellent season has us only in 3rd place in our division. Damn those Bruins.

Agreed, the new system is pretty stupid. We have the 6th most points in the entire league (or 3rd in the East) and we are currently lined up to play the 3rd best team in the league (or 2nd in the East).