Pre-Game Talk: It’s almost time.... Habs @ Leafs | Wednesday @ 7pm

[JT AM da real deal]

I tend to agree. In a 56 game season you don't get 8-10 games to find your game. Struggle and you can find your game on a reduced workload schedule. If Campbell takes the reigns and provides stable goaltending you have to go with the hot hand. We'll need both guys throughout the year and each will run hot and cold. My hope is that Keefe does what's best for the team and not what's best for Freddy's ego.

and if Soup struggles then Dell will go in nets ... there is no baby 101 occuring this season ... you come in you produce and you get net next game it is as simple as that baby

 

[JT AM da real deal]

and if Soup struggles then Dell will go in nets ... there is no baby 101 occuring this season ... you come in you produce and you get net next game it is as simple as that baby

It is what i like most about Keefe and fans will see it much more this season ... last year he baby stepped around everything inc Freddy ... not this year ... he does not have preconceived ideas like Babs way ... he lets performance rule da day ... last year he walked into Babs world where things were not right like Paddy get special treatment because he was Babs guy

 

[CDN24]

Is it a good thing that our big 4 almost add up to the Habs entire forward lineup?

To be fair they should add up to them. The 12 Hab forwards carry a cap hit of $2.4M less than the combined cap hits of the big 4.

 

[Marshy]

Somebody made a good point I forget what board it was. The North division will get the same set of refs (no border crossing same as the players). Could mean less bias and maybe even more PP chances than we've seen in recent years.

 

[JT AM da real deal]

Somebody made a good point I forget what board it was. The North division will get the same set of refs (no border crossing same as the players). Could mean less bias and maybe even more PP chances than we've seen in recent years.

Canadian refs let more stuff go ... so could be exact opposite ... Americans tend to call things by da book ... Canadians want games decided by da players on ice ... i hope i am wrong and things have changed as we could sure take advantage of more PP's ... i like our PP setup with a screen in front of net ... much more traditional PP which i like ... forces other team to play a defender in middle to move our guy which creates an even bigger screen and opens up more ice for our 4 skilled ice against 3 guys on other team ... gives Marner more room to be creative and JT a screened shot

 

[Dayjobdave]

Here's hoping for a great 56 game regular season followed by a spectacular playoff!

This should be the only time we get an all-Canadian super tourney like that, so I'm intending to sit back and enjoy it. I've already worked my way through pretty much everything on Netflix....

 

[zeke]

To be fair they should add up to them. The 12 Hab forwards carry a cap hit of $2.4M less than the combined cap hits of the big 4.

yep.

and the 2 Hab goalies carry $9M more than the leafs goalies, for lower projected performance.

 

[Maplebeasts]

I think Bert was comparing the Habs current defense to the leafs defense during the Kessel era

Oh ok. My bad Bert if that's true. Our D during the Kessel era was pretty embarrassing.

 

[Zybalto]

To be fair they should add up to them. The 12 Hab forwards carry a cap hit of $2.4M less than the combined cap hits of the big 4.

Hey, hey Montreal has their cap hits too.

If they wernt spending 15 million on below average goaltending and 8 million on an oft injured Dman until the end of time they might be able to build on their two highest cap hits on offence who are a a guy barely worth half the amount and a guy who hasn't played in forever.

The cap hits of our top 4 look like absolute genius compared to the Price/Allen/Weber/Drouin/Anderson contracts.

 

[MattySnipes]

Hey anyone with Athletic can PM me the new Matthews transformation article written by Mirtle pls? Thanks.

 

[CDN24]

yep.

and the 2 Hab goalies carry $9M more than the leafs goalies, for lower projected performance.

For the first time in a long time both Leafs and Habs (all Canadian teams really except the Sens) are spending to the Cap. It will be interesting to see who made best use of their money. Habs spending a ton on Goalies ($6M more than any other team in their division on goalies) Leafs very heavy in 4 Fwd ($7.5M more than anyone else on top 4 F) Jets seeming to have forgotton to spend anything on defensemen. Canucks and flames carring a bad contract each in Erikksoon and Lucic. It will be interesting.

I think in alphabetical order the 4 playoff teams if we get there are Flames/Habs/Jets and Leafs. Either can be Number one and either could be sitting on outside looking in. It will be an interesting season, after the 8th game against each team some rivalries may be boiling over.

 

[zeke]

For the first time in a long time both Leafs and Habs (all Canadian teams really except the Sens) are spending to the Cap. It will be interesting to see who made best use of their money. Habs spending a ton on Goalies ($6M more than any other team in their division on goalies) Leafs very heavy in 4 Fwd ($7.5M more than anyone else on top 4 F) Jets seeming to have forgotton to spend anything on defensemen. Canucks and flames carring a bad contract each in Erikksoon and Lucic. It will be interesting.

I think in alphabetical order the 4 playoff teams if we get there are Flames/Habs/Jets and Leafs. Either can be Number one and either could be sitting on outside looking in. It will be an interesting season, after the 8th game against each team some rivalries may be boiling over.

one thing that's unarguable - the leafs spending choices match up pretty well with those analytic values posted up there, and the Habs (and most others) do not.

we'll see how that works out. I'm thinking it will work out well.

 

[The Big Swede13]

I think my hatred for the Habs will only grow this year if thats even possible

 

[kk87]

To be fair they should add up to them. The 12 Hab forwards carry a cap hit of $2.4M less than the combined cap hits of the big 4.

My entire beer league team carries a cap hit of $40m less than the Leafs big 4. We've been extremely efficient with finances - if only the Leafs brass had that same business savvy

 

[Ziggdiezan]

ok you caught me. I actually created the goalie numbers myself from their stats since they don't actually do goalie percentile rankings (that I can find at least).

What I did was just take the last 2yrs of gar/60 goalie data and upped the minimum minutes until it narrowed the list down to 51 goalies (I wanted to get to 50, but 51 was the best i could do), and then just took their ranking amongst the top 50 goalies and translated that into their number. (it';s easy with 50 goalies - just double the number to get to their percentile ranking). This is of course not nearly the right way to do it but what the hey. oh and then for backups that didn't meet the minimum minutes I ranked them according to their closest comparables amongst the top 50 - so in this case the starter ranking and backup rankings mean very different things.

Basically, Anderson's 76 ranking means that he ranked 12th out of the 50 top minute goalies in gar/60 the last 2yrs (2x12 = 24, 100-24 - 76). Price's 46 ranking means that he ranked 27th (27x2 = 54, 100-54 = 46).

I was just curious not looking to catch you lol. That approach seems to make sense though. Personally I'm not a huge GAR fan but am excited to see what people can do when the new player tracking data become avaliable.

Interesting to see JT higher than Marner though but I guess it is from last 3 years.

 

[Muston Atthews]

Let’s f***ing goo

 

[Nineteen67]

When we wake up and log in tomorrow .....it’ll be game day.

 

[stickty111]

Going to put this in 3 places

Tavares was asked on Tim and Sid today about who stuck out the most to him in camp, and he said Liljegren. He was talking to a few teammates about him.
He had a ton of praise for him. Talked about his maturity and gowth not just this camp but also the previous season, and that he may not jump off the page at what he does, but his assertiveness and the strides he took last season.

 

[ThrowDemTongs]

Let's clap some cheeks

 

[darrylsittler27]

I see a peel away team. If certain guys on one year contracts don't play well or some of the young guys do play well(i.e Liljegren, Robertson) they can be sat or even traded? Don't laugh. I like Bogo, Simmonds etc. but who is to say they can't land us something at TD if one of our young guys pushes them out. Teams seem to like rentals and we do need more draft picks.

In 2 or 3 games we should know what we have and don't have with these older guys.

 

[zeke]

Going to put this in 3 places

Tavares was asked on Tim and Sid today about who stuck out the most to him in camp, and he said Liljegren. He was talking to a few teammates about him.
He had a ton of praise for him. Talked about his maturity and gowth not just this camp but also the previous season, and that he may not jump off the page at what he does, but his assertiveness and the strides he took last season.

It was just a scrimmage but he looked insanely more confident and relaxed in it than he did last year.

And strong. He looked rock solid strong.

 

[zeke]

With Habs fans getting all giddy about how BIG and STRONG their team is, I thought I'd take a quick peek at reality for a second.

Players are ordered loosely from best to worst, not in actual lines or pairs:

 

[Le Cobra]

This North Division is the best thing to happen to the Leafs since 1967

 

[TheGroceryStick]

Going to put this in 3 places

Tavares was asked on Tim and Sid today about who stuck out the most to him in camp, and he said Liljegren. He was talking to a few teammates about him.
He had a ton of praise for him. Talked about his maturity and gowth not just this camp but also the previous season, and that he may not jump off the page at what he does, but his assertiveness and the strides he took last season.

That's good to hear.
It seems like alota guys are trying to create a better culture; praise guys coming up, Set a better vibe in the locker room. To me it seems like there's a emphasis on this....

 

[Le Cobra]

Players i am most excited for tomorrow and this season:

SIMMONDS
BOGOSIAN
BRODIE
ROBERTSON
THONRTON
VESEY

And WHATSHISFACE our new goalie that’s not Hutch and Campbell