Post-Game Talk: Leafs down Lightning 4-1

[Brad C]

To me against Vasi , you can have all the best scorers in the game but if you don't have players willing to go to the net and get in his face . You won't score.

The Bunting goal was a perfect example marner and tavares were block in his view .
That is what we need in the playoffs against Vasi.

That is the player I would be seeking in a trade for the top six .

To be able to get in front of Vasi,You need to get into Tampas zone.

Last year game 7 Tampa did not allow leafs over there blue line.

 

[Dekes For Days]

To be able to get in front of Vasi,You need to get into Tampas zone.
Last year game 7 Tampa did not allow leafs over there blue line.

Lol. That's not even remotely true.
If anything, Tampa struggled to get past our blueline, which is why we outshot them and almost doubled their generated offense.
Tampa won game 7 last year entirely on the back of Vasilevsky and horrible officiating.

 

[notDatsyuk]

You mentioned Tavares just to misrepresent him, and I was addressing a different statement.
The only one who can't get their facts right is you. As the puck comes off the stick:
View attachment 625205
A beautiful screen by Marner and Tavares, just as they said on the broadcast.
Weird how you refuse to give Tavares credit where credit is due.

Weird how you can't even admit you're wrong when you post the proof.

It's a waste of time trying to convince you of anything you don't want to see, so I'll stop.

Merry Christmas.

 

[Dekes For Days]

Weird how you can't even admit you're wrong when you post the proof.

The proof shows I'm correct, and yet you respond with this instead of admitting you're wrong. How ironic. Vasilevsky is literally staring at Tavares' butt 5 inches from his face as the shot leaves the stick. I'm not sure what you think a screen is, but that's it.

 

[1specter]

Lol. That's not even remotely true.
If anything, Tampa struggled to get past our blueline, which is why we outshot them and almost doubled their generated offense.
Tampa won game 7 last year entirely on the back of Vasilevsky and horrible officiating.

Tampa did close off the slot though and blocked a ton of shots. We've seen Columbus and Montreal do the same thing. Possession is great but when teams take away those prime passing and shooting lanes from us we have to find a way to get greasier goals in the playoffs, especially when the rulebook and reffing changes.

 

[Mess]

Tampa did close off the slot though and blocked a ton of shots. We've seen Columbus and Montreal do the same thing. Possession is great but when teams take away those prime passing and shooting lanes from us we have to find a way to get greasier goals in the playoffs, especially when the rulebook and reffing changes.

That is Leafs biggest issue they don't have a lot of top 6 forwards that like to play in traffic and play a greasy game.

When the opposition collapses down low and boxes out the Leafs they're not as dangerous on the perimeter.

Leafs could really use a Tom Wilson type player in the top 6.

 

[Dekes For Days]

Tampa did close off the slot though and blocked a ton of shots. We've seen Columbus and Montreal do the same thing. Possession is great but when teams take away those prime passing and shooting lanes from us we have to find a way to get greasier goals in the playoffs, especially when the rulebook and reffing changes.

Tampa blocked a lot of shots, but if they're blocking shots, that means we're getting shot attempts, which means they're not denying us entry past their blueline, as was suggested. It's a game 7 against a great team, so it's not going to be wide open hockey, but the amount they "closed off the slot" is greatly exaggerated. We did it better. I'm all for getting more traffic in front of the net and more greasier goals and all that, but this idea that we just skate around the outside while other teams bulldoze into the slot is flat out wrong.

Lets be truthful about what actually happened and led to our result. Tampa wasn't greasier. Tampa wasn't better defensively. Tampa got a goal against called off on a horrible call that is never made, and Vasilevsky saved their butts.

 

[SeaOfBlue]

Tampa did close off the slot though and blocked a ton of shots. We've seen Columbus and Montreal do the same thing. Possession is great but when teams take away those prime passing and shooting lanes from us we have to find a way to get greasier goals in the playoffs, especially when the rulebook and reffing changes.

Forcing pucks into the slot to get greasy goals is not really the answer to them collapsing into the slot either though. That hampered us a lot in those tight games, and our goalies letting in soft goals to give them easy leads didn't help either.

The Tampa game especially had a lot less to do with how Tampa was defending us (they a lot more high end chances in the slot and in prime scoring areas than we did) and more about us not being able to convert chances and their goalie making some huge saves... Meanwhile, Campbell had a good game but he still gave up 2 really bad goals from soft point shots from distance (well one was a bad rebound off of a deflection that he put on a silver platter) and that was the difference.

We need our players, and especially our top players, to do a better job at converting the chances they get. There is little wrong with the quality or quantity of chances we get in these tight games.

 

[Dekes For Days]

And even in terms of conversion, it should be noted that our drop in conversion over the past 3 playoffs exactly matches the average conversion drop the goalies we faced have caused over those playoffs. We are actually not unique in how we've converted against these goalies. We just keep running into them with goalies that let in stinkers at critical moments.