End of season grades / opinions

[Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate]

Before we launch into the playoffs, a thread for looking back on the regular season, player by player.  Grade 'em if you like or else just freelance like I will do now.

FAR EXCEEDED EXPECTATIONS — EXCLAMATION POINT!
Rielly: He won't win the Norris but he's the first Leaf in decades to deserve mention.
Tavares: Did anyone seriously think he would get close to 50?  Career numbers.
Marner: With all the talent around him, the assist numbers are not really a surprise.  But the PK was a revelation.

THEY'RE REALLY DAMN GOOD AND WE KNOW IT
Matthews: He brings it against Boston and I'll shut my somewhat doubting mouth forever.
Gardiner: Never a fan, I was schooled on how much he brings while he sat out.
Hyman: He is elite at what he does.  Yeah, elite.

PRETTY HAPPY SURPRISES
Johnsson: Like next guy, proves he belongs and makes decent contributions (and not many mistakes).
Kapanen: Plateaued at the end but def an NHL top 6+. Will still fetch a good return on D.  I'll be sorry to see him go.
Ennis: Showed a bit of mojo and slicky-ness.
Hainsey: He does not suck, people.

YEAH, THEY PLAYED ABOUT LIKE I THOUGHT
Marleau: It's unfortunate he's in this category.
Gauthier: If he played physical, he might have a role.  As is, nyet.
Moore: Good on him.
Muzzin: Jury's kind of out, but I expect he'll be good in the playoffs.
Rosen: So far, not too awful bad.
Dermott: He's effective and we missed him while he was out, but not as much as Gardiner.  Wish he were RH.
Andersen: His last 2 months dunked him in the ratings a bit.  But a lot of it can be attributed to poor play in front of him. 

MEH-VILLE
Ozighanov, Holl, Zaitsev, Marincin.  (See a pattern?)

MAJOR DISAPPOINTMENTS
Brown: He's teens-goal skilled.   Awful season.
Kadri: His 30-goal performance probably a fluke, but still.  Total waste on PP.
Nylander: herman will refute, but let's face it, his season was a flop.
Sparks: Guy's tranny is busted: no reverse. (Turns out he can't back up.)

I DON'T REALLY CARE
Hutchinson, them other 2 goalies who suited up, Petan, Leivo, Lindholm, the equipment guys, etc.

[Guilt Trip]

I don't think Marner or Tavares exceeded expectations. At least not mine. Putting a superstar with Marner netted what I thought would happen. The guy that exceeded is Rielly for me. Never saw that coming. What a year he's had.
I'd put Matthews in the top group as well. Fact is he didn't play with a JT or have a Marner on his wing all year yet he lead the team in points/60mins and was just behind JT in goals/60. Considering he was saddled with Marleau for a lot of the year and add in Kappy and Johnsson for long stretches he played really well. If Willy can get it going in the playoffs, we should be ok.

[Frycer14]

I pretty much agree with everything in your categories, ZBBM.

I might put dermott a touch higher than the rest in his "grouping", he showed a lot of solid development this year and clearly the leafs were hurt by his absence,  and Marleau a touch lower.. his decline clearly is accelerated over the last half season.

[Bender]

I don't think Marner or Tavares exceeded expectations. At least not mine. Putting a superstar with Marner netted what I thought would happen. The guy that exceeded is Rielly for me. Never saw that coming. What a year he's had.
I'd put Matthews in the top group as well. Fact is he didn't play with a JT or have a Marner on his wing all year yet he lead the team in points/60mins and was just behind JT in goals/60. Considering he was saddled with Marleau for a lot of the year and add in Kappy and Johnsson for long stretches he played really well. If Willy can get it going in the playoffs, we should be ok.

90pts+ by Marner didn't exceed your expectations? Sure exceeded mine!

[Dappleganger]

Kadri's back-to-back 30-goals seasons were a fluke? 
 

[pmrules]

ZBBM - what about Andersen?

If put him at the top of the second category above Matthews.

I agree with all others including the possibly unpopular opinion about Hainsey.

[Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate]

ZBBM - what about Andersen?

If put him at the top of the second category above Matthews.

I agree with all others including the possibly unpopular opinion about Hainsey.

Heh, I totally forgot about him.  I've added him to the post.

[Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate]

Kadri's back-to-back 30-goals seasons were a fluke? 

In the sense that we should expect him to get 30? Yes.

[Guilt Trip]

I don't think Marner or Tavares exceeded expectations. At least not mine. Putting a superstar with Marner netted what I thought would happen. The guy that exceeded is Rielly for me. Never saw that coming. What a year he's had.
I'd put Matthews in the top group as well. Fact is he didn't play with a JT or have a Marner on his wing all year yet he lead the team in points/60mins and was just behind JT in goals/60. Considering he was saddled with Marleau for a lot of the year and add in Kappy and Johnsson for long stretches he played really well. If Willy can get it going in the playoffs, we should be ok.

90pts+ by Marner didn't exceed your expectations? Sure exceeded mine!

No they didn't. He was getting John Tavares as a centre. The guy's a superstar. Don't take this wrong. Mitch is a great player but no way he gets these kind of points without JT who created so much room for him. These 2 fed off each other all year long and were really the only 2 players that played together exclusively. If he scored that many points with Kadri as his centre, I'd be shocked but I think without JT he's in the upper 70, lower 80's for points.

[Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate]

I don't think Marner or Tavares exceeded expectations. At least not mine. Putting a superstar with Marner netted what I thought would happen. The guy that exceeded is Rielly for me. Never saw that coming. What a year he's had.
I'd put Matthews in the top group as well. Fact is he didn't play with a JT or have a Marner on his wing all year yet he lead the team in points/60mins and was just behind JT in goals/60. Considering he was saddled with Marleau for a lot of the year and add in Kappy and Johnsson for long stretches he played really well. If Willy can get it going in the playoffs, we should be ok.

90pts+ by Marner didn't exceed your expectations? Sure exceeded mine!

No they didn't. He was getting John Tavares as a centre. The guy's a superstar. Don't take this wrong. Mitch is a great player but no way he gets these kind of points without JT who created so much room for him. These 2 fed off each other all year long and were really the only 2 players that played together exclusively. If he scored that many points with Kadri as his centre, I'd be shocked but I think without JT he's in the upper 70, lower 80's for points.

FWIW, here are the final standings, and my take, on the MotM tourney this year.

F I N A L  S T A T S

   

	MotM/Win	MotM/Loss	HonMen	Accolades	Times Voted	Points
Forwards
12 Connor Brown	0	0	2	2	11	2
63 Tyler Ennis	1	0	1	0	8	4
33 Frederick Gauthier	1	0	0	0	7	3
11 Zach Hyman	1	1	6	8	17	11
18 Andreas Johnsson	1	1	6	8	15	8
43 Nazem Kadri	2	3	7	12	19	19
24 Kasperi Kapanen	3	3	4	10	24	19
32 Josh Leivo	0	0	0	0	0	0
26 Par Lindholm	0	0	1	1	3	1
12 Patrick Marleau	0	2	0	2	9	4
16 Mitch Marner	3	6	8	17	39	29
34 Auston Matthews	9	7	5	21	30	46
42 Trevor Moore	0	0	0	0	6	0
29 William Nylander	1	3	5	9	19	14
19 Nic Petan	0	0	0	0	0	0
91 John Tavares	8	2	11	21	37	39
Defensemen
55 Andreas Borgman	0	0	0	0	0	0
23 Travis Dermott	1	0	1	2	9	6
51 Jake Gardiner	0	0	4	4	10	8
2 Ron Hainsey	1	0	2	3	9	8
3 Justin Holl	0	0	0	0	0	0
52 Martin Marincin	0	0	1	1	6	2
8 Jake Muzzin	1	0	1	2	5	6
92 Igor Ozhiganov	0	1	0	1	4	3
44 Morgan Rielly	4	3	4	11	34	33
48 Calle Rosen	0	0	0	0	1	0
22 Nikita Zaitsev	0	0	2	2	6	4
Goalkeepers
31 Frederik Andersen	8	3	6	17	30	27.5
30 Michael Hutchinson	0	0	1	1	3	0.5
50 Kasimir Kaskisuo	0	0	0	0	0	0.0
40 Garret Sparks	1	1	4	0	9	6.0
60 Eamon McAdam	0	0	0	0	0	0.0

                                                          
     

L E A D E R S     

POINTS
Matthews 46
Tavares 39
Rielly 33
Marner 29
Andersen 27.5

ACCOLADES
Matthews, Tavares 21
Marner, Andersen 17
Kadri 12

TIMES VOTED
Marner 39
Rielly 34
Matthews, Andersen 30
Kapanen 24

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS
* Rielly jumped out to an early points lead based on his Norris-worthy start.  For awhile I thought he might keep it up and win the Points race, but no.  Still, it's  by far the best showing by a defenseman in the history of this thread.
* Marner took over the Points lead in mid-season, but then -- beginning with Matthews' signing his contract -- he faded badly.
* Matthews surged to the Points championship based on a consistently good final 6 weeks or so.
* Andersen was arguably the team's MVP until the last couple of months, but he never really challenged for the Points leader.
* Kadri got lots of Times  Voted despite having a miserable year.
* Stats that tell you all you need to know about their year:
-- Brown: 2 pts
-- Marleau: 4 pts
-- Zaitsev: 4 pts.

THE MOST TELLING STAT OF ALL
* Until the final game of the season, when Gardiner got a couple of votes to put him at 10 Times Voted, no defenseman other than Rielly  was in double digits in Times Voted.  This means, roughly, that according to our eyeballs, none of our defenseman (except Rielly) played well enough to get an accolade in 7 out of every 8 games played.  Put another way, aside from Rielly we thought all of our defensemen didn't have very good games about 88% of the time.

[princedpw]

Exceeded expectations:

Marner. He jumped from 69 points and 37th in league scoring to 94 points and 11th in league scoring. That’s an enormous jump and while Tavares helped, Marner took it to the next level.

Reilly.  70+ points and dragging Hainsey’s dead corpse through the season

Meets expectations:
Tavares. 16th in league scoring in 2017-18; 16th in league scoring in 2018-19

Below expectations:
Matthews. Part of this is just injury luck but I was hoping for 45+ goals, not 37.

Nylander. Zone entries aren’t the be-all, end-all. I’m hoping for double his production next year.

[Bullfrog]

..
Below expectations:
Matthews. Part of this is just injury luck but I was hoping for 45+ goals, not 37.
...

His 82 game pace was 45. So, doesn't that meet your expectations?

[princedpw]

..
Below expectations:
Matthews. Part of this is just injury luck but I was hoping for 45+ goals, not 37.
...

His 82 game pace was 45. So, doesn't that meet your expectations?

It’s not his fault he was injured but I was hoping for more total output ...

[Bullfrog]

Well, me too. I'm disappointed he got injured, but that doesn't impact my opinion that he performed to expectations.

[Frycer14]

Well, me too. I'm disappointed he got injured, but that doesn't impact my opinion that he performed to expectations.

I think he definitely did perform to expectations offensively, but I must admit that I was hoping for more development with this play defensively, and away from the puck. I know these things take time, but if he's going to play 1C minutes, he's going to have to get better in that regard.