Speculation: Is this a coaching or player personnel problem?

[Mess]

That's a real strange thing to say about a team that is 8th in the league 5/5, an improvement over last year's strong 10th in the league.

The Leafs struggle to generate offense 5 on 5.

That is why they're out shot and out played almost every game.

I'm not surprised because strong centers run the offense. Leafs have both injuries and a team weakness down the middle where strength is required.

Granted Leafs strong goaltending is masking the problem as best they can.

 

[glg51*]

It's disgusting how many of you just regurgitate what the media says.

Learn to think for yourself.

 

[daveleaf]

Leafs are not a very good even strength team, feasting on specialty teams and strong goaltending.

Problem is the majority of the game is played at ES.

Mess. I am sick and tired of hearing this BS! How do you get on the PP? Tell me!

YOU GET ON THERE BY PUTTING YOUR OPPONENT IN A POSITION THAT MAKES THEM TAKE A PENALTY. YOU DON'T GET THERE BY PLAYING **** EVEN STRENGTH!

 

[daveleaf]

So this team is down two centres, could not use Clarkson for the first ten games, was minus MacLaren and Orr for long stretches and Fraser and people wonder on here about this crap.

Has nothing to do with the coaching staff, the guy won a stanley cup, won the vezina-he know's how to coach and players know how to play. Just sit back and watch.

What are they, tied for second place?! Only in Leaf land.

 

[Dayjobdave]

The funniest part is that the last two games have probably been our best two of the season. You can see the team rounding into form even though we are short some key players right now.

This is a fun team to watch.

 

[Mess]

Mess. I am sick and tired of hearing this BS! How do you get on the PP? Tell me!

YOU GET ON THERE BY PUTTING YOUR OPPONENT IN A POSITION THAT MAKES THEM TAKE A PENALTY. YOU DON'T GET THERE BY PLAYING **** EVEN STRENGTH!

The Leafs have been out shot in 14 of their 18 games this year, sometimes by double digits differential. A sign of being outplayed at regularity.

Leafs are ranked 20th overall on PP opportunities so they're not drawing penalties at a higher rate then other teams, its their PP% that puts them 5th overall.

Leafs are top 10 in PK% and both Leaf goalies are top 10 in SV%. That makes them strong specialty team and strong goaltending the reason for the current record.

 

[Mr Knies Guy]

The Leafs have been out shot in 14 of their 18 games this year, sometimes by double digits differential. A sign of being outplayed at regularity.

Leafs are ranked 20th overall on PP opportunities so they're not drawing penalties at a higher rate then other teams, its their PP% that puts them 5th overall.

It's funny, no matter who's wearing the Leaf and who their coaches are, they always have this problem of being out-possessed, out-shot, and spend an inordinate time getting hemmed in their own end by playing a sit back, counter-attacking style. To me, it's been like this every single season as far back as I can remember, specifically since '98 with the Cujo run they went on

 

[sommervr]

I don't think the problem is coaching. However if our goaltending were to go flat (ie. 15 games at 900 SV%) Carlyle would probably get fired. We would lose probably 12 games.

It is not impossible. A goalie injury with the other guy going cold would do it.

I guess this is a long-winded way of saying the goalies are saving our butts.

 

[A1LeafNation]

Good to see people realizing Bozak was detrimental to the team.

 

[diceman934]

Why do we give up so many shots:

Poor passes in our own zone.
Lack of puck support.
D zone system creates opportunity for other teams to be aggressive against us without a lot of risk.

The poor passes create the most shots against, they are not always give away but passes to players who are going to be under pressure right away which causes them to give the puck away. We use little east west type passing which creates passing lanes and gives our forwards time to be options. Watch Kadri without the puck and he is constantly looking for areas to be a passing option to give options to our D man who generally are not great passers.

 

[Joey Hoser]

Good to see people realizing Bozak was detrimental to the team.

BS. Whether you think he's a first or fourth line center, losing him hurts.

 

[Mess]

BS. Whether you think he's a first or fourth line center, losing him hurts.

Perhaps he meant instrumental and not detrimental.

I'm also speculating that he will miss this weekends back to back Buffalo games.

 

[TonsofPuppies*]

Coaching. The team never starts games with any urgency. We don't usually get our feet moving until the 2nd period or so, and whenever we have the lead, we turtle into a defensive shell and the losses because of that are starting to become more frequent. I like Carlyle as a coach and a person, but if this keeps up, give him the axe.

 

[Pitt the Elder]

Absolutely coaching. Carlyle's collapsing style and lack of a breakout turns our end into a shooting gallery.

 

[On-the-Fly]

Leafs are not a very good even strength team, feasting on specialty teams and strong goaltending.

Problem is the majority of the game is played at ES.

They're top ten in the league with a 1.12 goals for/against ratio at 5 on 5.

 

[The Winter Soldier]

Forgot Komarov didn't come back and CMac

That's another 4.5m

I would have signed Komarov to 1.8m he does more than Clarkson anyways

Komarov got a better offer at 3M with the KHL. Sorry to bring you back to the real world on this plan.

 

[diceman934]

Absolutely coaching. Carlyle's collapsing style and lack of a breakout turns our end into a shooting gallery.

Coach....too funny. So many on here wanted Eakins as the coach. I was not one of them as I'm not a fan....it could have been much worse!

 

[Nithoniniel]

At the start of the season you could make a valid point about how Toronto went for quality over quantity, and show difference between Toronto and their opponents that support this. Lately it seems we give as much as we get in terms of quality chances, while also giving up the possession. That's problematic for sure.

 

[Faltorvo]

Seriously guys, getting outplayed and outshot every game is extremely frustrating to watch and is getting tiresome. We have so much skilled guys on our team that it just doesn't make sense. I think it's safe to say we may have lucked out on quite a bit of wins this year with the way this team plays. This is a chance team that scores a lot of goals off rushes or powerplays and eventually it's gonna come back and bite us in the ass (if it isn't starting now).

So with that said, is this Carlyle and Co.'s coaching styles that have our players playing like crap night in and night out or is this just a group of players with no real chemistry together?

UMM WHAT??????

We sit tied for 2nd in our entire conference and pretty close to 25% of the season played.

We are finding all sorts of different ways to earn points, all the while, we have battled more than our share of lost time to key players.

We are doing just fine,

What exactly did you think this team was supposed to do/be this year?

 

[Faltorvo]

The Leafs have been out shot in 14 of their 18 games this year, sometimes by double digits differential. A sign of being outplayed at regularity.

Leafs are ranked 20th overall on PP opportunities so they're not drawing penalties at a higher rate then other teams, its their PP% that puts them 5th overall.

Leafs are top 10 in PK% and both Leaf goalies are top 10 in SV%. That makes them strong specialty team and strong goaltending the reason for the current record.

Strong goaltending is the reason for many teams.

You would be hard pressed to find a team doing well without it.

The concept of leaning on one player to allow a team to separate themselves from the pack is not uncommon.

 

[Mess]

Strong goaltending is the reason for many teams.

You would be hard pressed to find a team doing well without it.

The concept of leaning on one player to allow a team to separate themselves from the pack is not uncommon.

What is uncommon is the shot differential that is badly in favor of the opponents.

The other night the commentators noted that only 3 other teams since 1967 have been out shot by double digits as often in a season as the Leafs this year, and that included the expansion Washington Capitals in their inaugural season.

It appears kitty-bar the door and play the majority of the game in your own end, while your goalies hold the fort waiting for a PP opportunity to create offense seems like the norm game in and game out. After all Leafs have been out shot in 14 of their last games 15 separated only by 1 even shot differential verses the Bruins.

 

[Mr Scarface*]

The funniest part is that the last two games have probably been our best two of the season. You can see the team rounding into form even though we are short some key players right now.

This is a fun team to watch.

Right you are sir. So Very much fun.

Carlyle has gotten to everybody's head and they now know what to do for the team. The positioning game has been so much better as we move on. Kulemin and McClement for example are killing every team in every shift. We're missing still a lot of centers etc, so this team looked really good last night on the road.

And as some people here write about being (outplayed) while we get out shot like 33-17 doesn't mean we we're outplayed at all. We won many of those games. That's Carlyle outplaying the opponent his team. We have defensively outplayed so many opponents this team. As the record shows: 11-6-1. That's a fantastic record early on in the NHL as we have been missing some key player all the time. Clarkson, Bolland, Kulemin, Fraser, Bozak, Lupul... etc etc the list goes on and on.

Carlyle really on his mode. That old coot still doing it big out there. Bowing down right here as we move on.
He constantly ouplays everybody defensively. Makes his players do the right thing. Goalies too. They know what to do as a team defensively. That's we win almost everytime.

 

[Duffman955]

Carlyle is not the problem. In fact, we hardly have a problem at all. If you told me that we would be 11-6-1 in the beginning of the season, I would have been ecstatic.

The problem is injuries.

 

[Faltorvo]

What is uncommon is the shot differential that is badly in favor of the opponents.

The other night the commentators noted that only 3 other teams since 1967 have been out shot by double digits as often in a season as the Leafs this year, and that included the expansion Washington Capitals in their inaugural season.

It appears kitty-bar the door and play the majority of the game in your own end, while your goalies hold the fort waiting for a PP opportunity to create offense seems like the norm game in and game out. After all Leafs have been out shot in 14 of their last games 15 separated only by 1 even shot differential verses the Bruins.

Shot differential does not concern me as much as scoring chance differential.

 

[Porn*]

I think Bozak and Bolland being out hurts more than most people want to admit. Especially Bozak.

agreed. wholeheartedly