power play is insanity

[A1LeafNation]

Fix the f***ing PP!!! Babcock, MacFarland, and the players should be ashamed.

Quarterbacks...

Rielly Marner vs Muzzin Barrie

And up front...

Nylander Mikheyev Matthews vs. Kapanen Tavares Johnsson

Mix and match and start having the two units compete for PP minutes. Holy f*** this isn't rocket science!

Marner isn't a shooter and Tavares is the net front presence guy not a shooter. How can the coaching staff be this stupid...

 

[Funk21]

Fix the ****ing PP!!! Babcock, MacFarland, and the players should be ashamed.

Quarterbacks...

Rielly Marner vs Muzzin Barrie

And up front...

Nylander Mikheyev Matthews vs. Kapanen Tavares Johnsson

Mix and match and start having the two units compete for PP minutes. Holy **** this isn't rocket science!

Marner isn't a shooter and Tavares is the net front presence guy not a shooter. How can the coaching staff be this stupid...

Square Peg meet round hole, rinse and repeat over and over again seems to be their motto.

They seem pretty stupid unfortunately.

 

[Peasy]

Just watching the PP is hilarious. Only 3 players ever touch the puck once in the zone. Matthews, Marner, Rielly. All they do is pass it to one another until one takes a shot. They never put it down low, they never put it in the slot, its just always around the perimeter. They also just love to stand still and not move at all. It must be the easiest thing to prepare for when youre playing the Leafs.

 

[TheGroceryStick]

Its frustrating because you know they have the talent to snap it around and choose who's going to score... yet they stagnate with slow footed predictable entries , and easy to contain perimeter efforts.

The fact there's a coach who continually deploys the same structure is crazy.

We need teams worried about every facet of the PP

Entry : dump in , carry in, drop pass, etc
Zone setup: point, down low, backdoor, high slot.

Yet we just force the same entry and setup.
No one is scared, that's the problem...

 

[The Iceman]

Just watching the PP is hilarious. Only 3 players ever touch the puck once in the zone. Matthews, Marner, Rielly. All they do is pass it to one another until one takes a shot. They never put it down low, they never put it in the slot, its just always around the perimeter. They also just love to stand still and not move at all. It must be the easiest thing to prepare for when youre playing the Leafs.

And if you look Johnsson is always in a super good crease position with the stick heavy on the ice. But as others have said Marner seems to prefer floating biscuits at the goalie when on the PP...more shots = more goals eventually for him but not his strength

 

[ToneDog]

Wouldn't Barrie with the RHS be better suited to feed Matty on the right side ?? Also gives us the slap shot option although I have not seen many from him. I might also try Willie or Kappy for Marner on the left side.

Tip for the team, try watching the Bruins PP.

 

[MyBudJT]

I'd like to see:


------Mikheyev
Nylander-Matthews
---Barrie-Muzzin


-----Tavares
--XXX-Marner
----Kapanen
------Rielly

XXX = Moore, Timashov or Spezza

 

[Nithoniniel]

Wouldn't Barrie with the RHS be better suited to feed Matty on the right side ?? Also gives us the slap shot option although I have not seen many from him. I might also try Willie or Kappy for Marner on the left side.

Tip for the team, try watching the Bruins PP.

I love watching the Bruins PP. The other night they were moving and switching positions so much that they ended up with Krug all alone at the side of the net again. Always found it weird that PPs in general use slow pace and not a lot of movement, two things that often narrows the talent gap.

 

[Clark4Ever]

Marner needs to be a better distributor. That would be a good start.

 

[usernamezrhardtodo]

I love watching the Bruins PP. The other night they were moving and switching positions so much that they ended up with Krug all alone at the side of the net again. Always found it weird that PPs in general use slow pace and not a lot of movement, two things that often narrows the talent gap.

Good points...was McFarland not supposed to be the guy who changed his PP to suit the weaknesses of the opponent? Was he not supposed to have a PP that would morph a lot and not be so static?

So, if he did that before...what's stopping him now? could it be the coach who kept trying to run the same PP last year that stopped working in Nov all the way through to the playoffs? I really think that Babs is a mule...he tried something once...it worked...so it has to work again...you're just not trying hard enough!

Some people wonder why AM looks like he checks out of games...I am over 50 and I want to throw up in my mouth when I hear Babs talk about being a gud pro, loving his family, watching the hunting channel...feeling good about yourself ..etc

I can imagine being a kid on that team and thinking the coach is an idiot...

 

[Madap]

It's an absolute joke. How can it be so bad with the talent on this team? Seriously, we'd be better off without a PP coach and just letting the players do whatever they want. Let their creativity show. It's not just an issue with the powerplay, but with the whole game in general. Let the players play. Don't overthink it.

 

[TheGroceryStick]

Johnsson is redundant on the top unit

Do the drop pass but also dump it in sometimes....

Attack the puck and force the cycle.

2 dmen up top.

Tavares
Marner Matthews
Rielly Barrie

Johnsson
Nylander Kerfoot
Muzzin Dermott

 

[Mats13]

lol idk why but this quote is pretty funny.

He so obviously doesn’t like Babcock

 

[CelticDruid]

Should have Barrie and Nylander on that powerplay over Rielly and Johnsson IMO.

I would take Marner off as well and put another big body like #65 (Soupy) in his place.

Putt Marner, Reilly and Johnsson on the second unit just for a while and see if it changes the flow/movement of the PP. We need more shots from the point in order to mix it up a little as it's just too predictable.

Kapanen on the second unit is just a waste of space right now at least put someone on that can make a pass.

 

[Zizzzzy]

I am at a loss for why this PP is so bad. How can other teams so effectively neutralize the Matthews to Reilly to Marner to Reilly to Manrer to Reilly to Matthews to Reilly to Matthews to Reilly to Marner puck movement? Its not predictable or anything... I just don't get it...

 

[robertmac43]

It frustrates me to my core that when ever the Leafs go on the PP I don't get excited. It does not make sense when you have this much offensive talent...

 

[Zizzzzy]

lol idk why but this quote is pretty funny.

Is this Matthews saying... "After 5 failed attempts doing what we are being coached to do, we said f*** it and went out and scored our way..."?

 

[CelticDruid]

I stopped reading after you said take Mitch Marner off the power play. You obviously have zero clue about anything to do with hockey.

Hate these kinds of statements.

 

[ACC1224]

He so obviously doesn’t like Babcock

Possibly but seems like a random statement for this thread.

 

[usernamezrhardtodo]

Is this Matthews saying... "After 5 failed attempts doing what we are being coached to do, we said **** it and went out and scored our way..."?

That my friend is exactly what happened. I think for the last PP they just said "screw it..we are going to wing it" and it worked. The worst thing you can be in sports is predictable...literally the worst thing. Last years Super Bowl was a lesson in that for the Rams. They came out and did exactly what they had been doing all season...and Belichek was just thrilled to game plan against it. If you do stuff that they know is coming..it's easy to stop..no matter how much talent you may have.

 

[frizzer1]

Nothing is ever going to change because Babcock is never getting fired

 

[Thread The Needle]

They HAVE to move around more when they get set up. There's only 2 people moving at the same time. Very easy to defend against. Also, they keep trying to pass into the slot when it's a 1 v 3 situation there. It's just plain stupid.

 

[Tak7]

Even though the powerplay has had lots of turnover the past several years (the 1st PP unit has, at some point, featured all of: Bozak, Gardiner. JvR, Kadri, Marner, Rielly, Tavares, Johnsson, and Matthews), the setup, shape, and zone-entry have all literally remained the same.

1 - Net front (JvR, Tavares)
1 - Point man (Gardiner, Rielly)
1 - slot man (Kadri, Johnsson)
2 -on the walls (Marner, Bozak, Matthews).

The zone entry, with that ridiculous drop-pass in the neutral zone, has also remained the same.

The lack of any sort of adjustment for almost 3 seasons now, is why the PP is struggling.

Matthews' quote last night was interesting - it sounded as if the players just basically said "f*** it, we are going to move around and cause our own problems", and it actually worked.

 

[The Iceman]

I think part of the problem is we have 2 guys on PP1 that do not have great shots.
Reilly and Mitch representing 40% of our man advantage units just don't scare anyone with their shots.
If we replace Reilly with Barrie for a test drive I think things will improve.

Also a mistake not have our $7 million offensive player on PP1.
Remove Johnsson and rearrange the deck chairs to find a spot for him.

 

[ShaneFalco]

Might as well have said "he can't bench all of us".

He's mentioned it a few times - predictable, stagnation, doing the same things.....
There's no excuse whatever anymore