Although we lost in the 1st round yet again, I thought the effort from the players was strong, and I thought we were a well coached team.
Re: the players, Columbus are known for their hustle/compete level, they're one of the best teams in the league in this regard, but I thought we actually outcompeted them, won the majority of puck battles throughout the series. I thought the effort level from basically every Leafs player was great, going super hard all game long, great speed and battle throughout. Nylander had a few softer than I'd like games, and you could tell Mikheyev and Johnsson (in game 5) were a bit out of rhythm coming back from injuries, but everyone else was battling like crazy.
Re: the coaching, since Keefe took over, the team has really played to their strengths. We saw what this roster looks like with poor coaching under Babs, and it was a completely different story under Keefe. Much more of an up-tempo, puck possession style, making use of all of our skill at forward. Tonnes of creativity/flow in the offensive zone. Despite weak dmen, we played decent team D. I think he did a better job, with this roster, than the majority of other NHL coaches would, which is great for a rookie coach, who is hopefully rapidly learning/improving.
Re: the result, of course it sucks to once again lose in the 1st round, I'm very disappointed and was pining for a legit playoff run. But on the bright side, this is the first time in AGES where I thought we actually outplayed the opposition in a playoff series. We got thoroughly outplayed in our last 3 appearances (Washington and the two against Boston), constantly hemmed into our own zone and bleeding defensive breakdowns, but that was not the case at all this year. We controlled the puck/play much more than Columbus, were regularly generating high quality scoring chances, and played solid defensively without many breakdowns.
We were the better team in this series. We completely dominated game 5, had nearly all of the great scoring chances, but did not get the bounces. Numerous posts, tonnes of desperation barely-saves by Korpisalo, with average luck we should have had 3+ goals. And we were terrific defensively, I thought Columbus had roughly zero high end scoring chances, both goals were flukes (Barrie deflecting the puck into his own net, and Foudy with a very flukey goal that somehow slipped through from a terrible angle). Overall, I'd say Columbus were better than us in game 1, we dominated game 2, game 3 was about even (with a crazy Columbus combeback), game 4 was about even (with a crazy Leafs comeback), and we honestly dominated game 5, just had bad puck luck.
Criticism of Dubas I think has some merit. He's drafted well (it's very early, but Sandin at 29 and Robertson at 53 look like outstanding picks so far), I personally like the Tavares signing, and I like the Muzzin trade and re-signing a lot. But on the flip side, he did a very poor job negotiating contracts with our RFAs, Barrie was clearly not the RD to target for our team, and overall he has left us invested too heavily in a small number of forwards, without the cap space to build a truly strong team around them. Personally, I've seen enough positives that I'd give him 1 more year to make us into a top team, but his leash is reasonably short.
However, I don't think Keefe or the players deserve much criticism. This was a well coached team, that played their hearts out, but still lost a playoff series to another good, well coached team. We outplayed Columbus a bit IMO, but had worse puck luck, and lost. I get the emotional reaction of wanting to blame everyone, and tear the team apart, but I think it's misguided. Look at the last 2 cup winners, the Blues and Caps. These teams went through year after year of disappointing playoff exits, and in many of them they played well, but didn't have the puck luck, and lost. But they kept the team together, always just tweaking and staying competitive vs. blowing things up, and eventually everything came together for them in a single run, and they won the cup. Our best chance to win a cup is similar. Moderate changes to the team every offseason, but keep building around our stars, and year-after-year field good teams that have a chance, with some good luck that basically every cup winner needs, to go all the way.
Re: the players, Columbus are known for their hustle/compete level, they're one of the best teams in the league in this regard, but I thought we actually outcompeted them, won the majority of puck battles throughout the series. I thought the effort level from basically every Leafs player was great, going super hard all game long, great speed and battle throughout. Nylander had a few softer than I'd like games, and you could tell Mikheyev and Johnsson (in game 5) were a bit out of rhythm coming back from injuries, but everyone else was battling like crazy.
Re: the coaching, since Keefe took over, the team has really played to their strengths. We saw what this roster looks like with poor coaching under Babs, and it was a completely different story under Keefe. Much more of an up-tempo, puck possession style, making use of all of our skill at forward. Tonnes of creativity/flow in the offensive zone. Despite weak dmen, we played decent team D. I think he did a better job, with this roster, than the majority of other NHL coaches would, which is great for a rookie coach, who is hopefully rapidly learning/improving.
Re: the result, of course it sucks to once again lose in the 1st round, I'm very disappointed and was pining for a legit playoff run. But on the bright side, this is the first time in AGES where I thought we actually outplayed the opposition in a playoff series. We got thoroughly outplayed in our last 3 appearances (Washington and the two against Boston), constantly hemmed into our own zone and bleeding defensive breakdowns, but that was not the case at all this year. We controlled the puck/play much more than Columbus, were regularly generating high quality scoring chances, and played solid defensively without many breakdowns.
We were the better team in this series. We completely dominated game 5, had nearly all of the great scoring chances, but did not get the bounces. Numerous posts, tonnes of desperation barely-saves by Korpisalo, with average luck we should have had 3+ goals. And we were terrific defensively, I thought Columbus had roughly zero high end scoring chances, both goals were flukes (Barrie deflecting the puck into his own net, and Foudy with a very flukey goal that somehow slipped through from a terrible angle). Overall, I'd say Columbus were better than us in game 1, we dominated game 2, game 3 was about even (with a crazy Columbus combeback), game 4 was about even (with a crazy Leafs comeback), and we honestly dominated game 5, just had bad puck luck.
Criticism of Dubas I think has some merit. He's drafted well (it's very early, but Sandin at 29 and Robertson at 53 look like outstanding picks so far), I personally like the Tavares signing, and I like the Muzzin trade and re-signing a lot. But on the flip side, he did a very poor job negotiating contracts with our RFAs, Barrie was clearly not the RD to target for our team, and overall he has left us invested too heavily in a small number of forwards, without the cap space to build a truly strong team around them. Personally, I've seen enough positives that I'd give him 1 more year to make us into a top team, but his leash is reasonably short.
However, I don't think Keefe or the players deserve much criticism. This was a well coached team, that played their hearts out, but still lost a playoff series to another good, well coached team. We outplayed Columbus a bit IMO, but had worse puck luck, and lost. I get the emotional reaction of wanting to blame everyone, and tear the team apart, but I think it's misguided. Look at the last 2 cup winners, the Blues and Caps. These teams went through year after year of disappointing playoff exits, and in many of them they played well, but didn't have the puck luck, and lost. But they kept the team together, always just tweaking and staying competitive vs. blowing things up, and eventually everything came together for them in a single run, and they won the cup. Our best chance to win a cup is similar. Moderate changes to the team every offseason, but keep building around our stars, and year-after-year field good teams that have a chance, with some good luck that basically every cup winner needs, to go all the way.
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