Sharks vs. Leafs - Oct. 19th, 7:30pm - SN+

[L K]

Nick Paul was a monster all game.

Paul MoM
Bob HM

 

[herman]

Hell yeah, Nick!

 

[Guilt Trip]

Smart risk-free plays with the lead.

Such a smart player

 

[YYZ]

Nicky Pauly!!!!!

 

[ZBBM]

NICK ICES THE MOTM

 

[ZBBM]

Bob was a-bobbin' in the 3rd.

 

[rjd]

I'll give Matthews credit. He battled tonight. He made up for the first period blunder

 

[herman]

Matthews lowkey winning a lot of pucks and making plays

 

[L K]

Easy to say after the game is over. Stenberg was very quiet

 

[herman]

Matthews had a hand in all 4 goals scored tonight

 

[YYZ]

I'm off to watch that McKenna goal on repeat.

 

[herman]

https://twitter.com/x/status/2112360093274489210

https://twitter.com/x/status/2112367749976494250

https://twitter.com/x/status/2106582099440582731

 

[cw]

 

[Frank E]

Best in way for the Leafs to keep a lead, keep them on the penalty kill.

There's a lot of truth to this statement...according to TSN, the Leafs have killed 31 of 32 penalties thus far. I'm more comfortable watching their PK than their 5v5 lately.

 

[cw]

Shift chart

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Just an observation

After McKenna scored the go ahead goal about 5 mins into the 3rd
He and Lettieri saw less than a minute of ice after that
Blankenburg & MacEwen were similar

While protecting the lead
McCabe & Raddysh were used intensively followed by Rielly, OEL & Stecher
Ignoring the PP, Matthews, Sissons, Paul & Blueger seemed to get the bulk of the defensive effort and others to a lesser degree

 

[herman]

There's a lot of truth to this statement...according to TSN, the Leafs have killed 31 of 32 penalties thus far. I'm more comfortable watching their PK than their 5v5 lately.

PK is not easy, but it's just system adherence and pure effort and willingness. So for a lot of hockey players, it's easy in the mental sense and just hard physically.

The Leafs offense, once they get into the zone, is quite good: lots of skill and creativity and they look consistently dangerous if given any amount of spacetime.

The Leafs set defense is also pretty good, forcing play to low danger areas, giving the goalies line of sight, and they have speed to the boards to make things difficult for the opponents.

Where they have consistently run into difficulties this season is in transition both directions: sort outs and breakouts. On the backcheck, D give up the line so easily there's too much speed coming into their DZ. On the breakouts, the D are playing above their stations and having trouble with routine outs (bad at easy passes) and adjusting when their original plan is being sat on (bad at reading). So lots of turnovers are happening in bad places, which kills momentum at minimum and more often than not ends up in the net. If Stolarz isn't playing like a sieve, he actually solves a lot on his own: puck handling on dump ins, his vision and vocal instruction back there helps ease the load on his defense.

They need to dial back on forward blitzes and swing at least 1 F lower to support the breakout, until they can improve personnel (definitely needs it). Once they solve this key link in their play chain, a lot of other things will sort themselves out.

 

[herman]

https://twitter.com/x/status/2112542214475628874

Flick!

 

[dappleganger]

While there are deficiencies in his game, McKenna is constantly surprising me with plays and passes he is able to make that other players do not/can not. He is quite good. His mitts are next level.

 

[YYZ]

https://twitter.com/x/status/2112542214475628874

Flick!

It's those new fandangled whippy sticks the kids are using these days.

 

[Bender]

While there are deficiencies in his game, McKenna is constantly surprising me with plays and passes he is able to make that other players do not/can not. He is quite good. His mitts are next level.

The craziest thing to me is you can see what he's doing after the fact but a lot of the time players are either surprised he got them the puck or didn't go to the open area because they assumed he wouldn't be able to get the puck there. It's kind of wild to watch. I kind of wonder if in a way he should slightly dial back the creativity in order to make higher percentage plays because most of his linemates don't see the game as well as he does.