I'm not going to make any excuses for the debacle against Carolina. It was the worst game I've seen this team ever play...and I lived through the Ballard era. But how is it that teams continually come into our barn and check us into the ground? Ok here comes the conspiracy theory:
Its well known we don't draw penalties..at all. I have no idea why. But we don't. I believe that's why we don't check and why teams grind us. They scout us...they see all our games. If you know going in that you can get away with things against this team that you can't if you play say a Boston or Pittsburgh, you do it. You check harder, you slash, you crash the goalie, you hold, you obstruct. You do it because you can and you know that the officiating crew, whomever they are, is not going to call anything when the score is close.
Conversely if you are the Leafs, a skilled, softer team who seem to draw an ordinate amount of ticky tack fouls almost every game, your tendency is to not engage as much because you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.
In short , the league and its "game management" style of officiating has put this team in a no win scenario. We don't help ourselves, of course, when we fold like a cheap suit at the first sign of adversity, and mail it in the rest of the game. But how do you beat the your opponent when you have to overcome them and the league office?
And if you don't believe our games are officiated differently, I watched Boston vs Edmonton on Wednesday. 11 penalties between the two teams. And almost all of them legit calls. When was the last time you saw that many penalties in a Leaf game?
I will now put away my tinfoil hat and resume my fervent hope that this was indeed rock bottom. I mean, it can't get any worse...can it?
We don’t forcheck hard Kadri used to do that.
We don’t kill penalties aggressively
We don’t power play hard driving the net
We don’t see standing up for each other to any degree that indicates they actually do.
We don’t have a speed game anymore consistently, when we do we have all the above going and win.
Secondary scoring is scarce and bottom six is soft, no hard to the net and hitting everything that moves. We just don’t have them players.
The entire mystery is not a mystery if you bring up the roster and evaluate what each player brings. The amount of soft skilled players dominates the roster. So they don’t hit, don’t out work, don’t out forcheck and don’t out play defensively any opponents. They don’t draw penalties because they are not hard enough on puck, just not a hungry team. If the going gets tough, the tough get going. We aren’t tough and they disappear because they go passive instead of intense battling out working.
It’s a product of the make up of the lineup. The bottom six needs a complete do over and nothing but nadty competitiveness and players with chips on their shoulders. That would rub of and create energy. This team lack hockey energy. Hockey energy is that ingredient where teams hate you and wilt when you are pounding them hard.
Soft,not interesting,no character, passive. Yellow bellies. Pick one they will all fit.
That said, our stars are our hardest workers. Go figure why the others are kept around and how important do you see any of them to bring pride and competitiveness to the Leaf. Don’t count on it the bottom six and a couple defensemen are embarrassingly yellow and lack anything we need.
I certainly hope I didn’t miss anything in raking the bittom six over the coals. They are a embarrassment.
