Post-Game Talk: Habs los... wait what? They won in extra time!

[Lafleurs Guy]

What dark clouds?

Dude...

At least own it.

 

[le_sean]

We won without our best goal scorer, 3rd in league behind Matthews and McDavid.
Didn’t that Pettersonless team also beat the Leafs twice?

They had him yesterday and still lost. So I guess it means we are quite even with the 2nd worst team in the division. I expected more from a coaching change but I guess it proves the team is just rotten in its core.

 

[Scintillating10]

I don't watch the games. But they seem to play well just enough to sit in no man's land. Not good enough to win. But not bad enough to rebuild or even draft high.

 

[le_sean]

Dude...

At least own it.

It’s just hard to continuously have Weber need to pass it across to Edmundson just to move the puck up the ice. This is what he is now. And then Price. At least he showed signs of life in the shootout but before that, oof. It’s not encouraging seeing your two supposed cornerstones struggle this much. I expected it to be a bit more gradual. Price has had good moments recently but Weber is just finished it seems.

 

[jaffy27]

No your analogy makes no sense. That would work if I said I wish they won in OT rather than the shootout.

A better analogy would be that I’m not overly excited about a kid’s birthday party knowing that kid has cancer. Yeah I’ll be happy for the moment in time but really on the inside it’s f***ing sad.

Brooooo.........CANCER LOL

Come on!!!

Habs are like 5pts out of 1st, what the f*** are you talking about lol

there’s no tragedy here.

If we were last overall and Vancouver was 1pt ahead and we wanted to lose for a McDavid clone and Habs won then I can “slightly “ see the comparison.....

Even at that, it’s just not a comparison we should be using here, nothing against you, it’s just in poor taste.

 

[RationalExpectations]

Misinterpreted your post....my bad

No problem

 

[jaffy27]

They had him yesterday and still lost. So I guess it means we are quite even with the 2nd worst team in the division. I expected more from a coaching change but I guess it proves the team is just rotten in its core.

We got 3 of 4 pts.....we also got 3 of 4pts from Winnipeg.....rotten to its core....??

guess the Leafs are rotten to the soul as they lost twice to them

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

It’s just hard to continuously have Weber need to pass it across to Edmundson just to move the puck up the ice. This is what he is now. And then Price. At least he showed signs of life in the shootout but before that, oof. It’s not encouraging seeing your two supposed cornerstones struggle this much. I expected it to be a bit more gradual. Price has had good moments recently but Weber is just finished it seems.

Dude, the team has its issues. That's fine. Nobody is projecting a cup. But take the wins as they come man. As I said, we'll have enough losses on the horizon to worry about.

I'll take an ugly win over a brilliant loss any day. God knows we've had enough of those over the years.

 

[le_sean]

We got 3 of 4 pts.....we also got 3 of 4pts from Winnipeg.....rotten to its core....??

guess the Leafs are rotten to the soul as they lost twice to them

The team is against the cap and is struggling to get 4th place in the worst division. The GM has had 8 years and two Top 3 picks to build a good team and he’s just continuously built average teams. It’s pretty rotten with their highest paid players on a steep decline.

 

[Holystik]

Tough night for sure, but if you go back and look close, the 4th goal is the only one you can fault him on.....

The thing is that at 10.5M$ you are supposed to steal games. He is supposed to be our Crosby/Ovechkin/McDavid...

In 3 of his last 4 years: .909 - .903 - .900
His last 3 playoff years: .917 - .933 - .936

Atleast he performs in the playoffs... After garbage regular seasons he better owe us that.

 

[Habby4Life]

We got 3 of 4 pts.....we also got 3 of 4pts from Winnipeg.....rotten to its core....??

guess the Leafs are rotten to the soul as they lost twice to them

Rotten to the core, the DRAMA. Kleenex anyone.

 

[RationalExpectations]

Without our games versus Vancouver, we are 8-8-6 in a weak division.

It doesn't smell good, not one bit, for the perspectives for next season when we'll play against all teams in the top 10.

I agree that 50 per cent is not good enough but people should stop saying this division is weak, the 6 non Ottawa team would all contend for a playoff spot in their standard divisions.
Sure it does not seem that TOR is as good as VGK or COL or TBL but in most divisions you have more than one lousy team. In terms of tiering, I am not sure ANA, ARI, SJS, LAK, BUF, NJD, DET, CHI are much better than OTT. Everybody says VAN sucks but they are better than the teams mentioned before and are they really worse than STL, NSH, DAL (without Seguin), NYR and even PHI if you look at how they have been playing ?

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

The team is against the cap and is struggling to get 4th place in the worst division. The GM has had 8 years and two Top 3 picks to build a good team and he’s just continuously built average teams. It’s pretty rotten with their highest paid players on a steep decline.

Funny thing is though, we're one player away from being a completely different club. Our D is a mess. That's the problem. Ekholm would make a huge difference alone but if we had a legit #1 LD this team would actually be pretty freaking good.

Our wingers are actually quite good now. Price is still a great goalie. Our centers are young but promising. Where it falls apart is at the D. If we fixed that our goalie would be better and our forwards would rack up more points. Petry and Edmunson are a good pairing with Petry carrying it. If we got help for Weber we'd actually be a pretty good team. I think we need better than Ekholm though.

 

[jaffy27]

The team is against the cap and is struggling to get 4th place in the worst division. The GM has had 8 years and two Top 3 picks to build a good team and he’s just continuously built average teams. It’s pretty rotten with their highest paid players on a steep decline.

Against the cap....the entire goddam Board wanted us up AGAINST the cap....but now it’s a detriment to the team?

KK is 20 and 3rd overall Galchenyuk is our goal scoring PF Anderson......

Weber and Price not doing great...sure, I’ll give you that, they certainly can play better.
But Petry, Gallagher, Anderson, Toffoli, Drouin have been playing great, Suzuki game picking up, same with Tatar and Danault.....

Let the season play out and see where the cards fall

 

[le_sean]

Funny thing is though, we're one player away from being a completely different club. Our D is a mess. That's the problem. Ekholm would make a huge difference alone but if we had a legit #1 LD this team would actually be pretty freaking good.

Our wingers are actually quite good now. Price is still a great goalie. Our centers are young but promising. Where it falls apart is at the D. If we fixed that our goalie would be better and our forwards would rack up more points. Petry and Edmunson are a good pairing with Petry carrying it. If we got help for Weber we'd actually be a pretty good team. I think we need better than Ekholm though.

Yeah a really good LD would make this team difficult to beat.

Still no real 1st line forwards though. It will be interesting to see if a team deep like this can win a Cup over a star studded team. Vegas almost did it.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Yeah a really good LD would make this team difficult to beat.

Still no real 1st line forwards though. It will be interesting to see if a team deep like this can win a Cup over a star studded team. Vegas almost did it.

Like I said before, very few have been more vocal about MB than me. I think he should've been canned long ago. But his offseason was flat out awesome. I don't think he could've predicted Taffoli and Anderson being as good as they have but... they've been amazing. That changes things up a lot. We really aren't that bad a team overall.

Our problem is the huuuuge hole on D. That is killing us.

 

[jaffy27]

Funny thing is though, we're one player away from being a completely different club. Our D is a mess. That's the problem. Ekholm would make a huge difference alone but if we had a legit #1 LD this team would actually be pretty freaking good.

Our wingers are actually quite good now. Price is still a great goalie. Our centers are young but promising. Where it falls apart is at the D. If we fixed that our goalie would be better and our forwards would rack up more points. Petry and Edmunson are a good pairing with Petry carrying it. If we got help for Weber we'd actually be a pretty good team. I think we need better than Ekholm though.

I believe you had mentioned Rosi....that’s the player.....Kulak, Guhle and a number of picks and other prospects would have to go the other way.

it would also mean Tatar and Lehkonen would need to be shipped out for picks to make the money work.

I’m making this up on the fly but I’m sure there’s a way of getting it done.

 

[dinodebino]

Man, did you ever hit the nail on the head. Lehky= Rejean Houle!!!!!!!!! Perfect comparison.

Yeah, I remember Réjean working his arse off, wearing his three piece helmet LOL. But man, it was godawful seeing him miss empty net after empty net. Poor guy. 62 is the same. After Gally, he's probably the 2nd hardest worker on the team, but man, oh, man. Couldn't hit a target 3 feet from him.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

I believe you had mentioned Rosi....that’s the player.....Kulak, Guhle and a number of picks and other prospects would have to go the other way.

it would also mean Tatar and Lehkonen would need to be shipped out for picks to make the money work.

I’m making this up on the fly but I’m sure there’s a way of getting it done.

What you do is you get teams to take your contracts like Byron, Chiarot or maybe Allen. To do this you need a rebuilding partner with cap space. This is just GM'ing 101 and it shouldn't be hard to do.

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

I agree that 50 per cent is not good enough but people should stop saying this division is weak, the 6 non Ottawa team would all contend for a playoff spot in their standard divisions.
Sure it does not seem that TOR is as good as VGK or COL or TBL but in most divisions you have more than one lousy team. In terms of tiering, I am not sure ANA, ARI, SJS, LAK, BUF, NJD, DET, CHI are much better than OTT. Everybody says VAN sucks but they are better than the teams mentioned before and are they really worse than STL, NSH, DAL (without Seguin), NYR and even PHI if you look at how they have been playing ?

It's a weak division because outside of Toronto, they're all bubble teams in the normal format, while Ott and Van are bottom 10-5.

Listen, take a good long look at the defensive squads of each division. Each other division have at least 2-3-4 top 10 defenses, while there's hardly one defense in the North you could put on the top 10 in the normal format. It's even worst with Klefbom being out.

The whole comparison of each division's top and bottom teams you made is highly skewed and completely ommits the reality of what I just mentioned.

You think it's a coincidence so many players in the North are not only among the top scorers and pointers, they're also all having prorated career highs?

The division also packs probably the most offensive punch, making it the most flawed division and why it's easily misconstrued as close to equal to other divisions. Simply looking at last year's results tells the same story.

If we go by last year's stats, the North division has the highest GAA with 3.09. Now tell me, what great defensive stalwarts have been added to make you believe the teams in the North could be better as a whole on defense? I see only minor changes that at best compensates the division for losing Klefbom.

You'll see what I mean next year if divisions are normal, or at the very least, when there's no more ban on interdivision play.

 

[ChesterNimitz]

He's been a different player since Julien left and Ducharme took over. He's skating, using his skill and absolutely driving his line. Suzuki struggled tonight I thought.

Drouin looks great.

Despite his goal, I Thought it was Suzuki’s worse game of the season. Soft plays at both blue lines, multiple turnovers in key parts of the ice leading to goals against and scoring chances and most important, playing a slow game. He’s not processing the flow of play fast enough and aside from occasional spurts of cleverness, he’s a step behind the play. Though it may be heresy, Suzuki may no longer be the untouchable asset that everyone has come to see him as.

 

[ChesterNimitz]

If Habs won 5 of the 9 OT we would be first place tied with Toronto. Our Habs aren't that bad tbh

And if my grandmother had wheels she’d be a streetcar.

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

Yeah, I remember Réjean working his arse off, wearing his three piece helmet LOL. But man, it was godawful seeing him miss empty net after empty net. Poor guy. 62 is the same. After Gally, he's probably the 2nd hardest worker on the team, but man, oh, man. Couldn't hit a target 3 feet from him.

I wonder how much time he concentrates on training his release.

If you want to score, you need to constantly practice everyday. Shoot hundreds of pucks from all angles and manners. Ted Williams became one of the best hitters by spending his teens and early 20's batting hundreds of balls each day. Brett Hull poured 2 to 3 buckets each day for years. They were phenoms, but the point is, talent is never developed without intense practice and focus.

It just seems like Lekhonen has a very good shot, but is inconsistent, which tells me he doesn't spend nearly enough time practicing it.

 

[admiralcadillac]

Again you don’t get it but sure.

Alright sorry everyone. Woooo team! Great win! Onto the Stanley Cup with the best goalie in the world! I love Bergevin, he brings many reasons to cheer! (Feel free to also edit this one as you please)

Or better yet, rather than sarcastic cheers - just stop posting?

Without our games versus Vancouver, we are 8-8-6 in a weak division.

It doesn't smell good, not one bit, for the perspectives for next season when we'll play against all teams in the top 10.

If it wasn’t for a team being in our division, we’d have a worse record in our division!

Some top level analysis there. Not sure where you’re getting the division is weak from btw.

 

[Adam Michaels]