Post-Game Talk: Leafs lose 3-1; lose series

[Dreakmur]

Again I point out that the results do not bear that statement out. If Toronto really had so much more skill it would be Montreal heading to the links in the morning....

Again I point out that it takes more than just skill to win a hockey game. If you really think Danault and Suzuki are as skilled as Marner and Mathews, I'm not sure what else to tell you.

 

[Rickkins]

Again I point out that it takes more than just skill to win a hockey game. If you really think Danault and Suzuki are as skilled as Marner and Mathews, I'm not sure what else to tell you.

Between the 4 you've mentioned, Marner and Mathews are the two with greater skills, points wise. Danault of course is not really on the ice as a goal scorer, but rather he's there to shut down the opposing team's top scorer. In that respect, he clearly did his job. He will never ever put up Mathews' numbers. Just never. But, like you pointed out, it takes more than skill to win hockey games. Grit, determination, team-ship, tight checking, finishing checks, solid defence and solid goaltending.

But the point is, if you have all those things, in the right measure, you can compete with anyone despite the fact that they may have a couple stars in a class of their own.

 

[BigGulpsEh]

Watching the other playoffs series its amazing how much higher the intensity and skill level compared to the leafs/habs series.

Leafs are not built for the playoffs in the slightest. Not even close

 

[Dreakmur]

Between the 4 you've mentioned, Marner and Mathews are the two with greater skills, points wise. Danault of course is not really on the ice as a goal scorer, but rather he's there to shut down the opposing team's top scorer. In that respect, he clearly did his job. He will never ever put up Mathews' numbers. Just never. But, like you pointed out, it takes more than skill to win hockey games. Grit, determination, team-ship, tight checking, finishing checks, solid defence and solid goaltending.

But the point is, if you have all those things, in the right measure, you can compete with anyone despite the fact that they may have a couple stars in a class of their own.

Yes, despite a huge advantage in skill, Toronto lost anyway.

 

[yubbers]

This team was far from horrible. They underperformed. I for one trust the guy who assembled a very very good and deep team to make the necessary adjustments to move on from the players that are consistently underperforming in the big moments. But to say this team that was assembled this year was terrible is completely irrational. There was a reason why we were overwhelming favorites to win the north. Because of the roster construction that was largely approved by the hockey world.

The funny thing is, the people who think KD is the problem largely are on the side of "Lou would have been the better GM"....can someone explain the rationale behind how Auston, Mitch and Willy would have shown up more in the big game under Lou vs. Under KD?? I am really struggling with that one. They wouldn't be any better in the clutch making 9 Million vs 11 million. The core 3 players no show when it counts. Most specifically Auston and Mitch. Was Dubas supposed to trade one of these guys before this year??? would Lou have traded either one of them??? ask yourself these questions before putting your hurt feelings into words

It's really quite simple. Lou created a culture of discipline and accountability. Team first. He also wouldn't have been taken to the woodshed by agents.

Islanders and Lefas have basically identical records since he left. Isles have won 4 playoff rounds, Leafs have won zero. Nobody makes more than like 7 mil on the Islanders.

You can ask as many questions as you like. The results are very clear.

 

[Rickkins]

Yes, despite a huge advantage in skill, Toronto lost anyway.

Again, you've entirely missed the point. (or ignored it)
Having two very skilled players is not enough. All the pieces need to be proficient in their own area. You seem to believe that Mathews and Marner by themselves provided Toronto with a huge advantage in skill. My point is, it did not. It could not. "Skill" per se, is a team level thing and Montreal had a very balanced-skilled team. Kinda like Winnipeg.

 

[egd27]

It's really quite simple. Lou created a culture of discipline and accountability. Team first. He also wouldn't have been taken to the woodshed by agents.

Islanders and Lefas have basically identical records since he left. Isles have won 4 playoff rounds, Leafs have won zero. Nobody makes more than like 7 mil on the Islanders.

You can ask as many questions as you like. The results are very clear.

How is this not crystal clear to anyone with any common sense? One team just consistently competes and wins series and one just keeps losing in spectacular fashion.

 

[3blizzard4]

It's really quite simple. Lou created a culture of discipline and accountability. Team first. He also wouldn't have been taken to the woodshed by agents.

Islanders and Lefas have basically identical records since he left. Isles have won 4 playoff rounds, Leafs have won zero. Nobody makes more than like 7 mil on the Islanders.

You can ask as many questions as you like. The results are very clear.

We got a few young players and said out of with the old and in with the young. We wanted all things shinny. Shanny said bye bye to Lou and hired Dubas as GM at a very critical time when Matthews, Marner, Nylander contracts were due soon. Also that summer Tavares was a FA.

Then we ended up in cap hell. Shinny young things.

 

[Dreakmur]

Again, you've entirely missed the point. (or ignored it)
Having two very skilled players is not enough. All the pieces need to be proficient in their own area. You seem to believe that Mathews and Marner by themselves provided Toronto with a huge advantage in skill. My point is, it did not. It could not. "Skill" per se, is a team level thing and Montreal had a very balanced-skilled team. Kinda like Winnipeg.

It's not just a couple players - our blueline easily has more skill from top to bottom.

Skill wasn't the determining factor...

 

[yubbers]

We got a few young players and said out of with the old and in with the young. We wanted all things shinny. Shanny said bye bye to Lou and hired Dubas as GM at a very critical time when Matthews, Marner, Nylander contracts were due soon. Also that summer Tavares was a FA.

Then we ended up in cap hell. Shinny young things.

Lets Hansey walk after Reilly has a career year with him. Tales a solid, proven top pairing and turns it into garbage with Cody Ceci ffs.

Lets McElhinney walk to bring in Sparks. Once again messing with something that wasn't broken to roll the dice on muh youth. End up having to kick Sparks out of the locker room weeks before the playoffs and we bleed points for half the following season. Miss the playoffs.

I don't know how he made it past those 2 colossal blunders. Obvious mistakes that should have never been made.

 

[Dreakmur]

We got a few young players and said out of with the old and in with the young. We wanted all things shinny. Shanny said bye bye to Lou and hired Dubas as GM at a very critical time when Matthews, Marner, Nylander contracts were due soon. Also that summer Tavares was a FA.

Then we ended up in cap hell. Shinny young things.

Young things who think they rule the yard because they were given the keys by Dubas.

 

[Rickkins]

It's not just a couple players - our blueline easily has more skill from top to bottom.

Skill wasn't the determining factor...

Ok.

 

[OptimusReim]

What a circus this team is, at this point it's better to laugh and watch the clowns go to work than to resonate and go to war with them.

 

[17 Clark]

The lack of intensity, hitting and urgency other than the 2nd game was head scratching and a total lunchbag letdown. I honestly thought that the whole team would step up and play with some fire. Every other series in these playoffs has been high level intensity and battles/scrums etc while most of the leafs games I kept thinking this looks like a preseason game. How does that even happen. Boys against men.

Sad but true

 

[Redux91]

Literally the greatest day of my life lmao

Matthew's is a stud, dont be fooled, scorers like that come once a generation
Marner is the problem, 100%, fix it.

And I thought Nylander was a nobody riding this teams success, I was wrong, hell of a scorer
See y'all in the next 42 years maybe!

 

[nsleaf]

 

[Westlander]

Outside of the obvious (their best, Price outplaying our best, M & M) I'm still trying to figure out how Montreal won this.

Josh Anderson (you would think he was the second coming of Cam Neely the way some were talking before the series) had a great game 1, but outside of some nice hits and the odd rush, didn't do any real damage after that. Toffoli and Gallagher were almost completely ineffective until late in the series. Caufield had flashes but didn't score a goal or look that threatening most of the time. Kotkaniemi, Suzuki and Perry were good but never what you would call dominant at any point.

Our weakness was thought by many to be depth, that other than the big guys, no else could be counted on to score. But we actually did get valuable contributions from unexpected places (Spezza, Muzzin, Brodie, Kerfoot) which is what you need to win in the playoffs.

If you had been told all that before the start of the series, Montreal shouldn't have had a prayer. But they played a true team game, found a way to get timely goals and defended superbly.

Which brings us back to start. Our two biggest guns failed completely, there is no way of getting around that. They didn't have to dominate every night, but even for 2 or 3 games or large parts of games would have been enough and we wouldn't be having this conversation.

 

[TakeTheBody]

I'm still pissed off.

 

[17 Clark]

Have you seen where his team is now and where ours currently is? We constantly improved under Lou. We've regressed under Dubas.

Not according to the Kyle Dubis fan club they keep drinking the Kool-Aid if you ask them Kyle walks on water The only way this team will ever win a cup with the philosophy they have now if they take body contact away then we could do figure eights around people maybe change it to flag hockey what a bunch of jokers this could be the lowest point ever it looked good when we lost to the Stanley Cup champions Boston how do you regress this is not junior hockey the shenanigans that might’ve happened in junior hockey don’t work put on your big boy pants and start playing like man and you won’t have people criticizing you There is a thought

 

[HamiltonNHL]

The lack of intensity

It's the teams defining feature.

They even let up during power plays.

Total failure.

 

[Superstar]

Well, that's not far fetched...just flavour the bologna with maple syrup, or smoked maple leaves...

 

[Twine Tickler]

It's really quite simple. Lou created a culture of discipline and accountability. Team first. He also wouldn't have been taken to the woodshed by agents.

Islanders and Lefas have basically identical records since he left. Isles have won 4 playoff rounds, Leafs have won zero. Nobody makes more than like 7 mil on the Islanders.

You can ask as many questions as you like. The results are very clear.

no one makes more than 7 million on the island because they hired a coach that muzzles their talent. I am not saying Lou was not part of that, and discrediting him for anything he has done. But to suggest he would be better suited here in Toronto Vs KD is a bit ridiculous in my mind.

if Lou were here we'd have the following still in place:

Pros:
-definitely more discipline and accountability
-likely lower deals for Mitch and Auston. Definitely not 7 million as you suggested in a round about way, but I agree lower. More likely 9 and 8.5 million range. so ~17.5 mill vs. 22.5mill (net +5 million)

Cons:
-the net 5million would probably be spent on a Zaitsev level player or Matt Martin
-Babcock would still be our coach. Although Babs is a good coach, no one liked playing for him.
-we would not have JT

And to suggest that the mere presence of Lou would propel this young core deeper into the playoffs is laughable. Mitch an Auston didn't show up under Lou either. A couple more years of it wouldn't do f*** all.

Lou has had a great career and did his job OK here. Made some really influential moves and made some decent to large mistakes. No where near the worst GM we have had, but no where close to the best. People need to get over the fact that he would not have inspired this team further lol. No GM has that level of impact. The Islanders have a future 1st ballot HOF coach (who Lou Hired I believe: Props) that has got buy in wherever he has coached. Remove Trotz and the Isle are not even a playoff team. So ask yourself would Lou have fired Babs to acquire Trotz?? the answer is absolutely not

 

[Dirty Dan]

It's not even bad, we would have likely taken another loss to Boston in the conference finals, same issue as the past 3 times we faced them

 

[Twine Tickler]

Fully agree to move Marner but somehow I think AM has too much influence on this

I think they did in the past, but I really have this gut feeling that Kyle and Brendan have seen enough now. 5 opportunities to build a different image. I think what is different this year vs. years past was that there literally is no excuse for coming up short his time around

2017: played the presidents trophy winner. Was just happy to get in the dance. PLayed well but got beat by the better team

2018:played a dominant Boston Team after finishing the season with a franchise record in points. Got beat by the better team

2019:again had over 100 pts in the season and still had to play boston R1, we were the better team but couldn't get it done

2020;got goailied by 2 average tendies and completely shut down ina flukey 5 game series

2021: were the better team on paper, better team on the ice 5/7 games, gift wrapped 2 OT goals and lost to a far inferior team. We actually received better goaltending than we faced. We had 3 opportunities to close out the series and each opportunity we got progressively worse as the noose was tightening.

At this point, I think KD and Shanny know that there is something catastrophically wrong in between the ears of these core players. They have the coach they wanted, they have the GM they wanted, they have the money they wanted, they have the supporting cast they wanted....and still no show. I don't think Auston has much of a say anymore TBH. He and Mitch have had too much of a say for far too long

 

[robertmac43]

Poor JT had nothing to do with it this year: