Bruins vs. Leafs - Nov. 11th, 7:00pm - TSN4

[Guilt Trip]

I think the important thing here is that he didn't HAVE to trade the first to unload him. He chose to do that because he had the team up against the cap. The Leafs could have used that year to take a half step back and wait out his contract.

The Leafs and Marleau had no intentions of him playing year 3 of that deal. They had to move his 6+M in order to sign Marner, Kappy and Johnsson who were both coming off 20 goal seasons. 2019/20 was also the first year of Matthews' 2nd contract. Dubas also had to unload Zaitsev that summer. Zaitsev was another Lou mistake.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

I think the important thing here is that he didn't HAVE to trade the first to unload him. He chose to do that because he had the team up against the cap. The Leafs could have used that year to take a half step back and wait out his contract.

The Leafs have thrown their first round picks around like candy in the Shanaplan era.

Traded first round picks for Scott Laughton, Brandon Carlo, Jake McCabe, unloading Petr Mrazek's contract, Ryan O'Reilly, Nick Foligno, unloading Patrick Marleau's contract

It has been terrible asset management over and over again at the deadline. We pay a premium for mediocre depth players or give up high picks to get out from previously signed bad contracts.

I wish people would stop using the Mrazek trade as an example of poor asset management. They moved down, what, 13 spots in the draft and drafted Fraser Minten with the pick. There’s basically no draft pick value difference in the spots and Minten looks as good or better than anyone picked between them.

 

[herman]

My amateur assessment is that most of the bad stuff is player level decision-making stuff that compounds into run-of-play issues as they accumulate. The DZ scheme might be gumming up the works a bit and making it too easy to make bad decisions.

Why are the forwards so disconnected from the defense in transition? Why are 3 forwards so deep in the OZ on the (rare) chances they're in there (this is probably why GF is up and GA is also very up)? Why the hell is Benoit being given the green light to drive the net against set defenses? I understand when Nylander and Robertson fly the zone when they see the Leafs gaining possession in the DZ, but I don't understand the defense passing it to the wrong sweater, or the centre being on the wrong side of the puck high in the DZ.

I liked watching Keefe puck in the regular season, but I think that methodical playstyle a) clearly didn't work against a variety of committed playoff opponents of vastly differing quality; b) is an ingrained mindset that is counter productive to this current system and (most) personnel; c) catered to maximizing two players.

I liked the Leafs' play after they finished pooping everything out (and Matthews got injured and Stolarz got 'injured'). They all skated hard, they attacked puck carriers physically (even Nylander), they pressured in all three zones, they put shots on goal.

 

[Bender]

The Leafs and Marleau had no intentions of him playing year 3 of that deal. They had to move his 6+M in order to sign Marner, Kappy and Johnsson who were both coming off 20 goal seasons. 2019/20 was also the first year of Matthews' 2nd contract. Dubas also had to unload Zaitsev that summer. Zaitsev was another Lou mistake.

Both GMs were pretty dreadful over their time here, pressure to win or not. Lou overpaid vets and Dubas overpaid the young forwards and routinely thought he was outsmarting the league. Dubas had plenty of his own mistakes to fix and atone for.

 

[herman]

Berube will not bench or demote his stars. He would have done it already.
As much as the overall team D has sucked, so has Stolarz. He's been terrible this season and has probably let in more softies this year then he did all of last year. Woll being out certainly didn't help.

I think with Matthews out, we'll see Berube make better use of these coaching levers that Keefe and last year's Berube really shied away from.

I like Matthews and how he can control the game when he's on, but I don't like how he and that other guy basically forced out Babcock (albeit deserved) to be mollycoddled by Shanahan/Dubas/Keefe for half a decade.

Before anyone lumps in Nylander with that group, he's really the only star on the team that gets publicly called out regularly, and he was 7M most of that time.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

The Leafs and Marleau had no intentions of him playing year 3 of that deal. They had to move his 6+M in order to sign Marner, Kappy and Johnsson who were both coming off 20 goal seasons. 2019/20 was also the first year of Matthews' 2nd contract. Dubas also had to unload Zaitsev that summer. Zaitsev was another Lou mistake.

Yeah I think it’s a bit revisionist because Kapanen/Johnsson didn’t continue to be/improve to be the players we all thought they were going to be. At the time it was thought that the Leafs paid a late 1st round pick for $6.25M in cap space and were able to re-sign younger players like Kapanen and Johnsson. That those two never really progressed is very unfortunate, but the reporting at the time was that there was almost no interest league-wide to pay $6.25M for a 1st round pick. Compounding the issue was Marleau having a NMC, so he could only go somewhere where they would be buying him out.

Of course, they ended up finishing lower than anyone really predicted and the pick ended up much better than anyone really thought at the time.

 

[Guilt Trip]

I don't disagree with you. On either statement.

The thing with Stolarz is he's not bailing them out of the gaffes. For instance, that 5 hole goal last night. The Leafs had the puck on their stick numerous times with easy plays to move the puck up the ice and just didn't. So, Stolarz certainly should have stopped that shot, and probably does 99% of the time....But Carlos, Nylander, Tavares, etc have to be way better with the puck. I mean, watch right before Steen scores. Tavares first picks the wrong side of the puck (instead of containing, he guessed), and then when Steen turns back towards the net Tavares decides he's done defending the guy with the puck and wanders off somewhere else. You're the centreman John. Your job is to be the 3rd defender in the offensive zone. If your D are playing zone and boxing out, your job (once you guessed wrong earlier), is to track and recover. Not turn and peel off. Seriously. This is atom/peewee level hockey teachings.

Totally agree. All 3 made mistakes that in reality are easy fixes because like you said, this is houseleague stuff.
Reality is tho unfortunately at this time, even tho they totally shit the bed, Stolarz can't let that in. Hockey is a game of mistakes and goalies are the last line of defence. I'm more then not on the defending side for goalies. My main reason for calling out a goalie is the stoppable stuff, regardless of who made what mistake. That floater from the point and the Steeves goal can't go it. They just can't. We used to have this issue with Freddie. Lights out and then a softie at the worst possible time. Last year it was pretty rare that Woll or Stolarz let in a bad goal or had a bad game regardless of how the team played. They weren't this bad but you know very well that if you have a strugglng goalie, the team will also struggle because they don't have confidence he'll stop anything if they make a mistake.
I'm really hoping Woll can come back strong and maybe steal them a game or two while they work through this funk for lack of a better word. I also think Berube/Tre needs to change up and shake things up a little. Call up Villeneuve or whoever but that's another discussion

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

Both GMs were pretty dreadful over their time here, pressure to win or not. Lou overpaid vets and Dubas overpaid the young forwards and routinely thought he was outsmarting the league. Dubas had plenty of his own mistakes to fix and atone for.

I see this mentioned all the time re: Dubas but what evidence is there he thought he was “outsmarting the league”? And also, wouldn’t every GM think they’re making smart moves against the rest of the league? Is it because he had glasses?

 

[cap44]

Uuuuhhhhhggggg.

Why do I feel so compelled to watch this trash team...................

They made all these trades to get bigger and tougher to play against....I have NEVER seen a softer team.WTF

 

[dappleganger]

I don't disagree with you. On either statement.

The thing with Stolarz is he's not bailing them out of the gaffes. For instance, that 5 hole goal last night. The Leafs had the puck on their stick numerous times with easy plays to move the puck up the ice and just didn't. So, Stolarz certainly should have stopped that shot, and probably does 99% of the time....But Carlos, Nylander, Tavares, etc have to be way better with the puck. I mean, watch right before Steen scores. Tavares first picks the wrong side of the puck (instead of containing, he guessed), and then when Steen turns back towards the net Tavares decides he's done defending the guy with the puck and wanders off somewhere else. You're the centreman John. Your job is to be the 3rd defender in the offensive zone. If your D are playing zone and boxing out, your job (once you guessed wrong earlier), is to track and recover. Not turn and peel off. Seriously. This is atom/peewee level hockey teachings.

Was a terrible decision by Tavares.

 

[OldTimeHockey]

Totally agree. All 3 made mistakes that in reality are easy fixes because like you said, this is houseleague stuff.
Reality is tho unfortunately at this time, even tho they totally shit the bed, Stolarz can't let that in. Hockey is a game of mistakes and goalies are the last line of defence. I'm more then not on the defending side for goalies. My main reason for calling out a goalie is the stoppable stuff, regardless of who made what mistake. That floater from the point and the Steeves goal can't go it. They just can't. We used to have this issue with Freddie. Lights out and then a softie at the worst possible time. Last year it was pretty rare that Woll or Stolarz let in a bad goal or had a bad game regardless of how the team played. They weren't this bad but you know very well that if you have a strugglng goalie, the team will also struggle because they don't have confidence he'll stop anything if they make a mistake.
I'm really hoping Woll can come back strong and maybe steal them a game or two while they work through this funk for lack of a better word. I also think Berube/Tre needs to change up and shake things up a little. Call up Villeneuve or whoever but that's another discussion

I was actually going to bring up Andersen. It's 100% what I'm feeling right now with Stolarz.

 

[Guilt Trip]

I think with Matthews out, we'll see Berube make better use of these coaching levers that Keefe and last year's Berube really shied away from.

I like Matthews and how he can control the game when he's on, but I don't like how he and that other guy basically forced out Babcock (albeit deserved) to be mollycoddled by Shanahan/Dubas/Keefe for half a decade.

Before anyone lumps in Nylander with that group, he's really the only star on the team that gets publicly called out regularly, and he was 7M most of that time.

He deserved to be called out because unlike the other 2, he was very lazy when it came to his own end, he lacked effort and his give a shit meter was non existent at times. That was never an issue with 16 and while 34 wasn't at 16s level, he was putting up a ton of goals and was very sound defensively. They were still very good defensively when the O wasn't cooking.

Who cares what he made in comparison. It has nothing to do with him getting called out. He makes 11.5 this season and was called out twice already despite putting up a lot of pts.
If he worked as hard as guys like Robertson/Knies and on the D side of the game, he'd be right up there with McD/Mac because they guy is so f'n talented it's not funny. He won't tho and in the end, that's not good for the team.

There's a reason both Keefe and Berube wanted 88 to play center and there's a reason why he isn't....It's not for lack of talent.

 

[Guilt Trip]

I was actually going to bring up Andersen. It's 100% what I'm feeling right now with Stolarz.

Yup. Those 2 saves early on last night were 10 bellers. I was thinking, alright, he's got it going tonight. The 1st goal is kind of flukey so really hard to lay any blame on him and all is still good. Then the next two goals and you're thinking pull him or this could be a blood bath. I'm pretty confident tho, once Woll gets back and they get back to the tandem thing again, he'll be fine.

 

[4EVRLEAFAN]

Yup. Those 2 saves early on last night were 10 bellers. I was thinking, alright, he's got it going tonight. The 1st goal is kind of flukey so really hard to lay any blame on him and all is still good. Then the next two goals and you're thinking pull him or this could be a blood bath. I'm pretty confident tho, once Woll gets back and they get back to the tandem thing again, he'll be fine.

Fingers crossed

 

[cabber24]

Firing coaches always seems like an excuse to take more time to figure things out. No one needs more excuses from this team.

 

[Chris]

I think with Matthews out, we'll see Berube make better use of these coaching levers that Keefe and last year's Berube really shied away from.

Weirdly, Matthews being out might be the only thing that gets me to tune in for the next game. In the past, they've generally raised their play level when he is out of the lineup. Might be the little extra push that is required to get the group back on the same page, get the compete level up another notch, get them defending again. Of course, they could also just fold completely.