What did Winnipeg do differently from us?

[Pi]

Hellebuyck is putting up Andersen caliber numbers and Winnipeg is suddenly down 3-1. No matter how good you are, you can't overcome terrible goaltending, unless the other goalie happens to be even worse

Didn’t you hear though? Our defense is terrible. Look at Vegas, they have so many great defenseman.

Maybe just maybe, Andersen has shit the bed twice in a row.

 

[CantLoseWithMatthews]

Didn’t you hear though? Our defense is terrible. Look at Vegas, they have so many great defenseman.

Maybe just maybe, Andersen has **** the bed twice in a row.

Yeah I don't think our defense is perfect by any stretch, but it's definitely not the glaring problem that it's made out to be. Leafs have enough quality defenders to build a good core. Andersen generally gets a free pass from people who are afraid to admit how good the Leafs skaters actually are, but we can see that plenty of other teams around the league like Nashville and now Winnipeg are unable to outplay a weak goalie

 

[Pookie]

Andersen gets a free pass?

That’s funny

 

[CantLoseWithMatthews]

Andersen gets a free pass?

That’s funny

From some people yeah he absolutely does

 

[namttebih]

they stepped up at the trade deadline, we chickened out.

I wonder what kind of contract Stastny would be looking for this offseason.

 

[namttebih]

better coach

I just wish the Leafs could get a coach "like" him just once.

 

[Pookie]

From some people yeah he absolutely does

A vocal minority of people.

This playoff loss was hung on him.

 

[drewjenks]

No, I think Burke changed his philosophy after the Kessel blunder. In 2012 when they drafted Reilly he was rebuilding.

I think the confusion arises (imho) more so with the concepts of "tanking" versus "rebuilding". We've been rebuilding for quite some time. The tank didn't occur until the year before the Matthews draft.

Rebuilding isn't defined by a teams performance (not even sustained poor performance).

Rebuilding is a choice that has to be actively executed by management (regardless of a teams performance). A good team can choose to re-build & a bad team can choose not to rebuild.

To be defined as a rebuild, management has to execute trades or strategic decisions that make their team (or core) younger. Otherwise they're not rebuilding, even if they come in last & get a high draft pick.

How many examples of these moves can you provide? (when Burke was with the Leafs)

Trading Kaberle in his UFA year (rather than trying to re-sign him) is an example. But their arn't nearly enough examples (or significant enough examples) to constitute a rebuild in the Burke era. Drafting Rielly is an example of poor performance, not an example of a rebuild.

If Rielly was drafted during a rebuild, what moves did Burke make to rebuild that year?

 

[nobody]

No, I think Burke changed his philosophy after the Kessel blunder. In 2012 when they drafted Reilly he was rebuilding.

I think the confusion arises (imho) more so with the concepts of "tanking" versus "rebuilding". We've been rebuilding for quite some time. The tank didn't occur until the year before the Matthews draft.

Do you remember the proverbial 18-wheelers that fell off the cliff multiple times? Because I do. We weren't rebuilding those seasons. We were flat out just not good enough and it showed by the end of the season when we would go on massive losing streaks that would completely take us out of playoff contention. Also we made the playoffs is 2013, which clearly shows that the team had no intention of rebuilding or tanking.

 

[HoweHullOrr]

Re: #508 & 509

You are right - we were just flat out not good enough. When you keep finishing at/towards the bottom of the standings year after year, I doubt GMs don't recognize they need to improve their talent level and that the primary way of doing so would be through the draft. Even one year of playoffs wouldn't (shouldn't) change that.

You can call that what ever (term) you want - I don't care! It's just terminology. I think it just pains people too much to admit that its taken us so long to climb out of bottom feeder status. Hence, it makes us feel better (aka denial) to call it something different versus a rebuild.

 

[charliolemieux]

It’s a nice story but we’ve had expansion drafts before.

Last one was 2000, with Columbus and Minnesota coming in.

Both had “discarded” players with chips and something to prove.

Minnesota made the playoffs just 3 times in their first decade. Columbus took 7 years to get in.

Rules were “tweaked” to allow a Vegas to be competitive out of the gate. One might argue they require a little more tweaking in the other direction.

Well those expansions had some very big differences.
1. Multiple teams entered the league together. If Two teams had entered the league this year Vegas would theoretically not have half the players they do.
2. Existing teams were allowed to protect more players. They did not give up the same quality of assets that some teams had to do this time.
3. There was no Salary Cap. In a non-Cap world I doubt Vegas gets Fleury or Neal and some others.

So regardless of those earlier teams surely having discarded players with a chip on their shoulders, they simply did not have the talent to do anything about it. Vegas has over achieved all season and don't look to be slowing down.

 

[Pookie]

Well those expansions had some very big differences.
1. Multiple teams entered the league together. If Two teams had entered the league this year Vegas would theoretically not have half the players they do.
2. Existing teams were allowed to protect more players. They did not give up the same quality of assets that some teams had to do this time.
3. There was no Salary Cap. In a non-Cap world I doubt Vegas gets Fleury or Neal and some others.

So regardless of those earlier teams surely having discarded players with a chip on their shoulders, they simply did not have the talent to do anything about it. Vegas has over achieved all season and don't look to be slowing down.

Vegas had the benefit of the NHL mandating teams make better players available through its revised draft rules.

No getting around that very basic fact.

 

[charliolemieux]

Vegas had the benefit of the NHL mandating teams make better players available through its revised draft rules.

No getting around that very basic fact.

YA that was my 2nd point.

 

[Eb]

Didn’t you hear though? Our defense is terrible. Look at Vegas, they have so many great defenseman.

Maybe just maybe, Andersen has **** the bed twice in a row.

I'll take it you haven't watched Vegas much this season. Vegas defence has a nice balance and Schmidt has played unreal.

 

[Pi]

I'll take it you haven't watched Vegas much this season. Vegas defence has a nice balance and Schmidt has played unreal.

Not true at all. Fleury has masked most of their problems. He’s been unbelievable.

They have may be three good defenseman but their goalie is the best on the planet at the moment.

 

[Maplebeasts]

They grew up. Also Andy was friggin terrible in the playoffs this year. We weren't winning anything with the goaltending he gave us in 5 out of the 7 games. Our Defense is not the best, but it isn't so bad that we couldn't have made noise.

 

[81Leafs50]

Here they are headed to the WCF having beat some pretty good teams. They look legit.

When they inherited Atlanta’s roster it wasn’t anything special and they were a bottom feeder, just like Toronto. Yet they appear to be in a much better position than us. Why?

THEY DRAFT WELL!

 

[luvdahattymatty]

Vegas is a very fast team who fight for every loose puck. Their defense is big and strong and move pucks out quickly of their end. But only reason the series is not 3-1 for Winnipeg is Hellebuyck. Winnipeg clearly dominated in games 1, 3 and 4. But only got 1 win. I don't think he is a bad goalie but clearly Fleury is much much superior. Fleury is the difference maker in the series. Hellebuyck is giving up 2 bad goals a game and Fleury gave up 1 bad goal last game. If Hellebuyck can just stop handling the puck and not giving it away AND just play goalie like his size dictates (stand the f up) Winnipeg should still win. Andersen has same issue of going down too much and getting beat high. Big goalies have to play big.

 

[ottomaddox]

Vegas is a very fast team who fight for every loose puck. Their defense is big and strong and move pucks out quickly of their end. But only reason the series is not 3-1 for Winnipeg is Hellebuyck. Winnipeg clearly dominated in games 1, 3 and 4. But only got 1 win. I don't think he is a bad goalie but clearly Fleury is much much superior. Fleury is the difference maker in the series. Hellebuyck is giving up 2 bad goals a game and Fleury gave up 1 bad goal last game. If Hellebuyck can just stop handling the puck and not giving it away AND just play goalie like his size dictates (stand the f up) Winnipeg should still win. Andersen has same issue of going down too much and getting beat high. Big goalies have to play big.

I refuse to believe that there's only 1 guy on Vegas. That's giving Winnipeg way too much credit.

That's sadly what Hughson/Simpson want you to believe.

Vegas is 1 win away from the cup finals. Somebody else on that team must be doing something right.

 

[DarkKnight]

Didn’t you hear though? Our defense is terrible. Look at Vegas, they have so many great defenseman.

Maybe just maybe, Andersen has **** the bed twice in a row.

We need to upgrade our D, anyone who can't acknowledge this and blames the poor bastard who faced the most shots in the league-because of said "defence"- really needs to reset their point of view. Ya Freddie stunk it up, but it's not an either/or argument, our D is bad. Everyone in the league talks about our D being our weakness, it's laughable how that simply can't compute with some here.

 

[phillipmike]

What did they do differently?

They didn't accomplish their goal just like us and unlike us they don't have their first to show for it.

 

[Leaf Fans]

Lostin the playoffs to an expansion team.

 

[leburn98]

What did Winnipeg do differently from us?

Apparently not much.

 

[nobody]

Get this trash off my boards.

Also. You're a joke Winnipeg. You're a joke. Laine played 5th fiddle and did shit all. Keep dreaming Laine fanboys.

 

[MapleLeafs9]

Gotta love Laine being Mr. Invisible in 2 out of the 3 series they played, with the 1 series he was good in being against a significantly weaker team missing their best defenceman, but everyone on the main board gonna continue to trash Matthews and say Laine > Matthews