Around the League - 2022-23 Season Edition

[Nineteen67]

Not great markets.
Agree on atmosphere
Broadcast huh???
Large fan base - totally disagree. Vegas, it’s a destination. I would love to see the % of tickets for visiting team in Vegas.
Yes, warm cities. Awesome. Some - Tax free too.

what the heck is a good market if Vegas isn’t?

Tampa is also great. I have a place down there and I’ve watched it grow.

 

[Jimmy Firecracker]

Panthers were treated like a dirty hot-headed team in every series except round 2. I wonder what the difference was?

 

[Da Mash]

Means nothing finishing second. A few yrs from now and no one remembers second place. Salary cap changes teams yr to yr.

Win it all …..if not it’s all the same.
No one cares about who won the most rounds in the last decade.

They just remember the champions

Please soon to be HOF and 3 cup champion wear a hotdog costume in TO and mock the media there

Good to see Vegas win and score all those goals and good to see whiner boy out of the game from a crosscheck. Karma ….and Gudas was horrendous against Vegas

 

[Dreakmur]

Panthers were treated like a dirty hot-headed team in every series except round 2. I wonder what the difference was?

They played a soft team that didn’t force them to take penalties…

 

[Da Mash]

Panthers were treated like a dirty hot-headed team in every series except round 2. I wonder what the difference was?

Refs dictate the game more then ever in playoffs. Was good to see a goon team lose

 

[Squiffy]

Congrats right? Well earned Vegas.

 

[ULF_55]

A hockey market is a market that thrives after 6 seasons without playoffs.

Vegas hasn't proven poop.

 

[Menzinger]

Phil!

Cold as ice, as always. Got to love the guy

 

[htpwn]

Panthers were treated like a dirty hot-headed team in every series except round 2. I wonder what the difference was?

Obviously the Leafs screwed themselves, but yeah, someone in this organization needs to address this and hopefully Treliving will be more successful in that regard than Dubas. Because every single year it is the same: teams can do whatever they want to the Leafs in the playoffs and the whistles just disappear.

I do not know if it blatant bias or officials are afraid to make a call in the Toronto spotlight or what the problem is but it is not just that the Leafs don't know how to play "playoff hockey." Because, yes, we have shortcomings in that regard but other series aren't being called like this.

(Also when we do push back, we get slapped down for it. Pretty sure that Bunting had the longest suspension of these playoffs. At least Kadri had a history before his suspensions, so you could sort of justify the harsher punishment, but Bunting didn't even have a fine to his record).

 

[Gabriel426]

Maybe Phil needs to come back and hopefully he can rub his winning ways to the other boys.

 

[Nineteen67]

A hockey market is a market that thrives after 6 seasons without playoffs.

Vegas hasn't proven poop.

The NHL really needs Philly and Buffalo back in the playoffs. Buffalo is close but Philly still seems is a long way off.

I mean, the Leafs beat themselves (Game 3 lol), so no excuses... but it also hard not to notice this pattern every single year.

Pretty sure Bunting had the longest suspension of these playoffs too.

They need to fix that. I remember Bobby Mac saying it’s because they don’t go to the areas where penalties are drawn, and that’s still somewhat the case but I think their lack of foot speed is a bigger contributor now.

 

[TMLeafer]

Panthers were treated like a dirty hot-headed team in every series except round 2. I wonder what the difference was?

I'm sure it's a coincidence

 

[Antropovsky]

Phil!

Cold as ice, as always. Got to love the guy

Kassel always showed up for playoffs, leading to his first two cups:

Games. Goals Points
4 3 4
11. 6. 11
7. 4. 6
24. 10. 22
25. 8. 23
Totals
71 31. 66

 

[SeaOfBlue]

Honestly it’s like they play to prove Berger and the rest of the media wrong more than they play to max their chances of winning.

“They’re too soft”
They start running around getting suspended

“The defense can’t defend”
They play offense scared and start losing 2-1 goalie duels instead

“They can’t score playoff goals”
Most of the offense is now designed around one of Tavares and Matthews deflecting shots and digging for pucks in front of the net.

You can’t have a coherent identity if your identity is proving someone wrong or being the opposite of something, they need to pick positive values and ideals and commit to them regardless of what outside pressure is telling them to do.

That is why I got upset as soon as they started bringing up "killer instinct". That led to bringing in a bunch of underwhelming vets and physical guys meant to bring "character" only for them to be underwhelming players on the ice that simply could not be trusted.

And then the same thing about not paying big for rentals. It was a good idea because paying big for rentals almost never pays off (and I say this after ROR and Gio actually provided pretty good value as big rentals and we ended up keeping Gio around on a reasonable deal).

We tried so hard to emulate other teams that we just ended up being cheap copies of them. Like it is good that you try to learn from other successful teams, but ultimately we are not going to win the same way.

It is kind of funny that a lot of the things that Dubas "learned" from experience were arguably some of his worst decisions when had he stayed the course and kept building on skill, we maybe would have had some better teams. I still think he built really good teams that should have done much better than they did, but that always seemed cringey to me.

We'll see what Treliving does, but let's just hope he doesn't try to copy Calgary... Because that didn't exactly work out too well.

Maybe Phil needs to come back and hopefully he can rub his winning ways to the other boys.

He wouldn't come back for the media (and possibly the fans) alone. Probably has no problem with the city and the team.

 

[htpwn]

Phil!

Cold as ice, as always. Got to love the guy

You love to see it!

(Congrats also to former Leafs legend Michael Amadio).

 

[Lauro]

Vegas was the favourite of the remaining teams after Round 1 and they did it.
Not a fan.

 

[leafsfan5]

I will say, it's a miracle Mark Stone was ready for game 1 of the playoffs and just led his team to the cup

Vegas is so lucky that he was suddenly able to go once the playoffs started and his cap hit didn't count. So lucky you can almost say it was planned

 

[saffronleaf]

lmao the panthers got smashed. their unsustainable hot streak came crashing. love to see it.

excellent gentlemen's sweep vgk

 

[Willchel Marlynder]

Congrats to Vegas, very deep team. So glad Florida didn't win.

 

[TMLeafer]

9 GA in an elimination game. Panters got their teeth kicked in.

 

[Superstar]

They need to fix that. I remember Bobby Mac saying it’s because they don’t go to the areas where penalties are drawn, and that’s still somewhat the case but I think their lack of foot speed is a bigger contributor now.

That's bs excuse for bias officiating...i'm sure the takedown on Knies by Bennett should at least have been roughing, and the flying elbow by Tkachuk on Knies' head is also a penalty and a play worthy at least of a fine.

 

[Gabriel426]

That is why I got upset as soon as they started bringing up "killer instinct". That led to bringing in a bunch of underwhelming vets and physical guys meant to bring "character" only for them to be underwhelming players on the ice that simply could not be trusted.

And then the same thing about not paying big for rentals. It was a good idea because paying big for rentals almost never pays off (and I say this after ROR and Gio actually provided pretty good value as big rentals and we ended up keeping Gio around on a reasonable deal).

We tried so hard to emulate other teams that we just ended up being cheap copies of them. Like it is good that you try to learn from other successful teams, but ultimately we are not going to win the same way.

It is kind of funny that a lot of the things that Dubas "learned" from experience were arguably some of his worst decisions when had he stayed the course and kept building on skill, we maybe would have had some better teams. I still think he built really good teams that should have done much better than they did, but that always seemed cringey to me.

We'll see what Treliving does, but let's just hope he doesn't try to copy Calgary... Because that didn't exactly work out too well.



He wouldn't come back for the media (and possibly the fans) alone. Probably has no problem with the city and the team.

He will only come back to troll the medias but not as a Leafs more as an ex Leafs.

Funny how Lou, Shanny, Dubas and Babs thought Phil will be a bad influence but Marleau will be a good influence for the kids. Years later, Marleau is Cupless and only made it to One finals(I think), while Phil got Three Cups in Three Finals and played a huge role in two of the Cups.

 

[Phion Keneuf]

This the type of offense Vegas got from their top 9 forwards in the playoffs. That is how you build a deep team.

View attachment 717816

Leafs legend Michael Amadio

 

[Gabriel426]

I will say, it's a miracle Mark Stone was ready for game 1 of the playoffs and just led his team to the cup

Vegas is so lucky that he was suddenly able to go once the playoffs started and his cap hit didn't count. So lucky you can almost say it was planned

If any teams can have one of their top 2 players on LTIR and still win the division and the conf. They deserve to have guys just for playoffs.

 

[Superstar]

Stone has always been known for his competitiveness. I recall reading that Patriots number one quality they look for in a player is competiteness (or something to that effect).

Marner, Tavares, Nylander, might be have the least amount of compete in them among active players. They don't get angry about being down, they don't get angry if they get pushed around, they don't get angry if they punched in the face.....Matthews I think shows passion and compete at times. So I give him a pass.

What really are the odds of these guys winning anything while eating such a significant portion of the cup? The sad part is that we keep trying to add "leadership" to a team with three 11 million dollar players

Dubas is an idiot...that's why the team is built the way it's built...he thinks NHL hockey is a gentlemen's game where all you need to win is have a bunch of skilled players, like chess or something.