1: you do not play Matthews less than 20 minutes in an elimination game. I can play the sports science department game as well as you can. in the regular season. sure - but in must win scenarios, why aren't you shortening the bench? why aren't you doing everything in your power to ensure a goal. Patrick Marleau - and i really really like him - is not the person you toss over the boards with minutes to go. I'm sorry.
Wow, what a lengthy post! I'll try my best to get through this
Elimination Games:
Tavares: 21:19
Marner: 20:53
Matthews: 18:48
Kucherov 22:38
Stamkos 20:19
Point 18:05
Crosby 24:06
Malkin 19:17
Lets not pretend like Babcock didn't use our stars. Matthews' line also gave up the first two goals, which probably impacted his ice time.
I'm not playing a game, I was providing a possible explanation. Look... none of us here are behind the scenes... we don't know what kind of imput and sway our Sports Science Department have on our coaching staff... Thats all I'm saying...
Regarding Marleau: He was likely the 8th option after Tavares, Marner, Hyman, Matthews, Nylander, Kapanen and Johnsson.. Not going to complain about that... I have more trust in Marleau than Ennis/Gauthier/Brown....
2: We barely did, we weren't even really set up. When Joe Bowen, he who has apologised for a lot of crap that he has seen in this organization is amazed that Babcock did it twice and questions it. it wasn't just a "we gave it away." they weren't properly set up for a goalie pull. twice.
If it were up to me, I would have pulled freddy with 5 minutes left... but its not a big deal. The leafs had possession when they pulled Freddy... They gave up the puck too easy.... End of story....
3: Really? he adapted? When?
Our powerplay has been stagnant since November. What did he adjust? For three years it's been the worst powerplay in the NHL in the playoffs. Three. years.
Our penalty kill has has been awful pretty much the same period of time. Did he try at all to put Tavares or a different centre on the PK just to even win a draw? Doing it in game seven - is not adapting. He forced hyman to do a centres job all season and it didn't work., so why are we surprised it didn't work again (Oh by the way? we had the worst PK in the playoffs three straight years too).
The Leafs for 6 weeks haven't won a game back to back. so are we really surprised the Leafs couldn't win two in a row in the playoffs? People want to dismiss the regular season as being meaningless, but honestly - the struggles that we saw then are what we saw here magnified.
Now. this is Babcock's thread so I am not even going to start with the stupidity that is Nazem kadri who pretty much removed any chances of actual adjustments we probably could have done, but there were a lot he could have done that he didn't do. and I have handwaved/ignored a Lot of babcock's crap so it's not "oh no, we lost, blame someone." He's making the same mistakes over and over again and not making changes fast enough as in. If the Special Teams are the reason why we lost - and the special teams - has been struggling all year then WHY DIDN'T HE DO ANYTHING TO CHANGE IT? If Hiller and Smith were the problem (hello, defense woes ) why did he retain them. If anyone with eyes could see what the issues were, why Babcock, who is paid a hell of a lot of money can't go "wait this isn't working. let's try something else."
So. if you wanna believe this is a false narrative, okay. I am still seeing the same issues that were prevalent from three years ago. we can hand wave it that "oh they were rookies." but the issues were there and they haven't been corrected.
I'm not going to touch on this as much as what is warranted, as I'm busy right now... I'm not saying Babcock is perfect... but he is still one of the better coaches in the game...
5v5 really doesn't need many adaptations, since we were pretty strong in that regard for much of the season. In Game 7, I saw a PP where Marner and Matthews switched sides.... and it seemed to have worked.
Leafs haven't won a back to back in six weeks. We also haven't had a healthy and good 3rd pairing defensmen for about 7 or 8 weeks.... We got injuries at a shitty time in the season, and didn't have the depth needed to fill in.
Babcock stacked the PP1 this season... a desire of many people...
I still think Babcock's system works... make a few tweaks on the PP and PK, and we will be on pace for our 3rd 100+ point season.
and honestly.
the thing is. sure. the points and the records and all of that are really great - but the goal is to progress every year. and the team - when it counts- isn't progressing or improving where it matters most. and honestly - I rather not waste another year praying and hoping that the issues that the team has will magically disappear when we all know it won't.
I'm sorry, but this team and this playoff performance was night and day better than our last couple... we lost... its shitty, I get it... but Babcock isn't the reason why we lost the series...