GDT: Senators@Leafs 7:30 PM SN

[Warden of the North]

Roman. Polak.

 

[La Masse]

I dont even know what to say to this. Polak’s spot is guranteed? What does the guy do for us? penalty killing? Who cares he sucks and cant skate and takes at least 1 dumb penalty a game. Is it bad if I hope either Carrick or Polak gets injured/suspended so Dermott can stay?

 

[CantLoseWithMatthews]

Polak does what no other defensemen on this team can do. 1.Clear the front of the net 2. Intimidate opposing forwards in the corners 3. Defend Anderson 4. Block Shots 5. Penalty kill. (Alright Hainsey is probably just as good) Polak brings more to this lineup than what the other guys can bring

none of this is really true, lol

 

[CantLoseWithMatthews]

Polak in the lineup, and Komarov in OT and on the PP are two decisions I just can’t understand.

Komarov is still an excellent shut down player, but clearly doesn’t have the offensive touch he once did to play in those spots.

I don't really think Komarov is an excellent shutdown player, unless you count what he does to his own line's offense. He's negative in cf%, gf%, and xgf%

 

[Cor]

Polak does what no other defensemen on this team can do. 1.Clear the front of the net 2. Intimidate opposing forwards in the corners 3. Defend Anderson 4. Block Shots 5. Penalty kill. (Alright Hainsey is probably just as good) Polak brings more to this lineup than what the other guys can bring

1. Polak doesn’t clear the net. I’m going to repost some statistics later that show that Connor Carrick actually allows less shots from the net area than Polak does.

2. I’ve seen Borgman lay out more clean hits than Polak. Polak does stupid hits that land him in the box.

3. Again, that’s false

4. Polak allows shots on net like crazy. Him blocked some of them isn’t a positive.

5. Hainsey and Zaitsev are elite PK guys. Dermott did pretty well on the PK in the AHL. Carrick’s limited numbers on the PK last year were pretty good. Borgman could PK as well

 

[Warden of the North]

 

[Pi]

We're not contenders anymore. We're barely pretenders. Babcock f***ed it up.

Dermott is in rotation with Carrick and Borgman which means Polak is a top four D for the Leafs .

It would be so nice to see Duchene just skate right past Polak and score a goal (after the win is pretty much secured). Perhaps then Babcock will realize that Polak is not good? One can hope.

 

[Warden of the North]

We're not contenders anymore. We're barely pretenders. Babcock ****ed it up.

Dermott is in rotation with Carrick and Borgman which means Polak is a top four D for the Leafs .

It would be so nice to see Duchene just skate right past Polak and score a goal (after the win is pretty much secured). Perhaps then Babcock will realize that Polak is not good? One can hope.

Dermott isnt the difference between pretender and contender.

Matthews is. Dermott isnt.

 

[Pi]

Sens and Leafs game are normally always close and hard fought. Anybody expecting some sort of blow out or domination is likely going to be somewhat disappointed.

We've been pretty good lately, so I'm hoping we can keep that going,

What? No we haven't been good.

Even Matthews line is struggling to generate shots on ES for the past couple games.

 

[Coachcorner]

Sire Babcock truly knows with whom players he gets all the points. All the WINS, wich we do get almost everytime we play, all the OT points and everything. He plays with POLAK, Komarov, Kadri, Hyman and Hainsey. They play (a lot), loads of hockey they vacuum in. We get wins, nothing will ever change. Nothing will ever change! We will play with them always, babcock and me know hockey. That's what we play. And win, almost everytime dirty time.

 

[Pi]

Dermott isnt the difference between pretender and contender.

Matthews is. Dermott isnt.

The combination of mistakes the Leafs have made has turned the Leafs from a potential contender to a surefire pretender.

Dermott is a good defenseman. The reason why we the Leafs never see the Slavin, Parayko, Pesce type later round gems on the Leafs is because they never give young defenseman a chance to prove themselves and play their game.

If Dermott can't play over Polak, it's game over for the Leafs. They don't know how to make the right decisions.

I don't think the Leafs will even get the 95 points they got last season but our division is weak so even the ~90 points we will end up with will be enough to get the third spot in the division.

 

[Advanced stats]

Karlsson has been the best offensive d-man in the Atlantic despite coming off a major injury. He and Hedman are locks. Rielly will be the one snubbed, not Karlsson

Rielly has the same amount of points, more goals, and is much better defensively this year.

 

[Coachcorner]

Polak does what no other defensemen on this team can do. 1.Clear the front of the net 2. Intimidate opposing forwards in the corners 3. Defend Anderson 4. Block Shots 5. Penalty kill. (Alright Hainsey is probably just as good) Polak brings more to this lineup than what the other guys can bring

Intelligent post and writing. You know ice hockey, and life.

Have a fantastic and long life, sire. I bow down here. This is it and where it treally is.

 

[Ratboy]

Polak boarding penalty. over/under?

 

[CantLoseWithMatthews]

We're not contenders anymore. We're barely pretenders. Babcock ****ed it up.

Dermott is in rotation with Carrick and Borgman which means Polak is a top four D for the Leafs .

It would be so nice to see Duchene just skate right past Polak and score a goal (after the win is pretty much secured). Perhaps then Babcock will realize that Polak is not good? One can hope.

Polak's made way more mistakes than that and still has a spot locked down. I don't think there's any way for him to get worse than he's already been

 

[Cor]

Rielly has the same amount of points, more goals, and is much better defensively this year.

1 more goal in more than 10 less games

 

[La Masse]

Polak does what no other defensemen on this team can do. 1.Clear the front of the net 2. Intimidate opposing forwards in the corners 3. Defend Anderson 4. Block Shots 5. Penalty kill. (Alright Hainsey is probably just as good) Polak brings more to this lineup than what the other guys can bring

Pretty much everything you said is false

 

[Pi]

Polak's made way more mistakes than that and still has a spot locked down. I don't think there's any way for him to get worse than he's already been

Babcock has so many faults at the moment and hasn't really earned his paycheque this season IMO. If these are the decisions he continues to make, I don't see him finishing his massive 8 year contract with the Leafs.

Everything is nice right now and fans are happy that the Leafs will make the playoffs for the second year in a row but what will happen when we are one and done a few more years like Babcock did with Detroit over the past few years before he joined us?

It could end up like the Hitchcock situation in St. Louis or Lindy Ruff with Buffalo where the Leafs are good enough to make the playoffs every year but can't really do anything in the playoffs.

 

[BodaciousBeefBazooka]

Polak boarding penalty. over/under?

Nah, he will get a tripping penalty because he is always out f position and is so slow he has to resort to hacking, slashing and tripping.

 

[Ratboy]

Nah, he will get a tripping penalty because he is always out f position and is so slow he has to resort to hacking, slashing and tripping.

I'm thinking boarding cause he always seems to lose his shit when someones ripe for the picking. Like he knows its the only reason hes in the lineup.

 

[Coachcorner]

Babcock has so many faults at the moment and hasn't really earned his paycheque this season IMO. If these are the decisions he continues to make, I don't see him finishing his massive 8 year contract with the Leafs.

Everything is nice right now and fans are happy that the Leafs will make the playoffs for the second year in a row but what will happen when we are one and done a few more years like Babcock did with Detroit over the past few years before he joined us?

It could end up like the Hitchcock situation in St. Louis or Lindy Ruff with Buffalo where the Leafs are good enough to make the playoffs every year but can't really do anything in the playoffs.

Babcock's record this season is: 25 - 16 - 3
We are at the top of the NHL and the world! Nothing will ever change! Babcock will keep winning with our players and he will play with Polak, Komarov, Kadri, Hyman and Hainsey! Big time, and WIN, like he almost always does I love life!

We win almost every night and get points!

 

[ACC1224]

Never a better opportunity to get the monkey off Andy's back with a win tonight. The Sens have the Leafs number in recent memory.

It would be nice to have one game this year that they dominate from start to finish. A win would be a very nice way to head into the bye week.

You should have seen the afternoon game against Carolina.

 

[CantLoseWithMatthews]

Babcock has so many faults at the moment and hasn't really earned his paycheque this season IMO. If these are the decisions he continues to make, I don't see him finishing his massive 8 year contract with the Leafs.

Everything is nice right now and fans are happy that the Leafs will make the playoffs for the second year in a row but what will happen when we are one and done a few more years like Babcock did with Detroit over the past few years before he joined us?

It could end up like the Hitchcock situation in St. Louis or Lindy Ruff with Buffalo where the Leafs are good enough to make the playoffs every year but can't really do anything in the playoffs.

it's the sad truth but you're probably on the right track here. I was so excited when he was hired because I figured he was the best coach in the league. I thought that no matter what happened, we would finally have a coach that wasn't a moron who was holding the team back and we could trust him to always make the right decisions. He did an impressive job getting us into the playoffs last year and getting us to skate and work hard every night. I don't know what happened this year but it seems like he can't get us to compete in games half the time. He also can't hold players accountable or give ice time to players who deserve it. It's very frustrating to see

 

[BodaciousBeefBazooka]

I'm thinking boarding cause he always seems to lose his **** when someones ripe for the picking. Like he knows its the only reason hes in the lineup.

lol truee

 

[X66]

The combination of mistakes the Leafs have made has turned the Leafs from a potential contender to a surefire pretender.

Holy overreaction.

The team is in a much better place than anyone thought they would have been going into the rebuild.

I think Dermott should play over Carrick and Polak, but I think there is a bigger picture thing here as well. I think they want to push Carrick to see what they have, he's still only 23 himself.

And I rag on Polak as much as the next guy, but he's not the real reason the defence has struggled this year. The biggest problem is that second pair and Gardiner not being able to keep it at a level it needs to be.

The two most glaring issues that need to be fixed is that 2nd pairing and the shutdown line, at least IMO. I don't worry about guys like Polak because compared to those two areas, he's non-issue.

Thankfully with Zaitsev coming back, hopefully he can make that pairing better, I wouldn't be opposed to something like

Rielly-Hainsey
Dermott-Zatisev
Gardiner-Carrick