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Capitals vs. Maple Leafs - Oct. 24th, 6:00pm - TSN4, Fan 590

bustaheims said:
herman said:
I know he didn?t really do anything to deserve it, but Grubauer is at 8 saves on 12 shots? maybe consider giving him the rest of the night off.
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Grubauer hasn?t been a Cap for a few years now, dude.
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Oh wow, I literally just read the middle letters in the jersey.
 
https://x.com/abrew2014/status/1716965223251288339
Interesting anti-meta approach (PKs selling out on cutting off Royal Road plays)
 
I know it's 4-1 but man I really believe Leafs would have lost this game without Woll tonight. Yeah Caps got "goalied". Nice change I guess but not happy with how Leafs played
 
Zee said:
I know it's 4-1 but man I really believe Leafs would have lost this game without Woll tonight. Yeah Caps got "goalied". Nice change I guess but not happy with how Leafs played
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I'll take it.  It seems we get goalied more than we goalie back.
 
I didn?t see more than 4 great chances for the Caps, so I?m not too plussed by the shot clock. Woll was really good, but the Leafs gave him clean sight lines for the most part and limited pre shot movement.  The only goal against was a legit brain fart by Matthews on the PK.

Two straight game winners for our captain
 
Just a twist on something L.K. used to say.  If you switch the goalies, the Leafs lose that game.
 
Significantly Insignificant said:
Just a twist on something L.K. used to say.  If you switch the goalies, the Leafs lose that game.
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FLA could have said the same thing in last year's playoffs.

"We want Florida!" has become a taunt from their fans, but what they don't understand is that we wanted the Florida that had regular-season Bob in the net.
 
Significantly Insignificant said:
Just a twist on something L.K. used to say.  If you switch the goalies, the Leafs lose that game.
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100%  I fear if Samsonov was in net the Caps would have scored 2-3 goals in the first alone.
 
xG is a pretty good proxy for play control and how the team performed offensively in terms of getting the puck to the net, scaled for its 'dangerousness', but because of the NHL's public data limitations, xG is just a function of puck location at the time of shot and subject to the scorekeepers' estimations. Over a half season, it'll tell you something in general about the team's structure and performance, but in a single game it loses some nuance.

Washington put up a lot of shots on net. Pretty high xG in aggregate (thanks to volume), but minimal cross-ice movement or pre-shot deception. Woll was great on the jam plays and that was kind of all Washington had other than the Matthews PK breakdown that opened up the slot AND backdoor at the same time.
 
Lots of up and down with the team early on. 

Nothing more really needs to be said about how dominant Matthews looks.  He's a complete player.  His TOI is going to have to be reigned in a bit as 24 minutes a night seems excessive but I think that will balance out once the Leafs figure out how best to use the 3rd and 4th lines.

Nylander is just doing more of what he's done the last couple of years.

Tavares is probably off to the best start in his Leafs career.  He's usually PPG out of the gate (had 13 points in 12 games in his first season with the Leafs).  10 points in 6 is easily on pace to smash that.

Knies looks like he's going to have a good season.  He makes so many really impressive plays for a big body but his timing is a bit off still at turning all of those plays into shots on net.  He'll get better as the season goes on.

Domi had an ok game.  Better than the first four, but not really a great game.  He's moving his legs more to try and get things out of the defensive zone.  That's all I expect from him.

Bertuzzi still looks a little lost.  I'm not sure that I love him on the Tavares/Nylander line (I like Jarnkrok even less on the top line - its a little too much Renberg/Ponikarovsky/Hoglund playing with Sundin for me)

Marner hasn't got going yet.  He's making the extra pass too much and while at his best that extra pass usually ends up as a goal, right now it's stuffing pucks into skates.  I'd like to see him shoot more until his timing gets on track.

Rielly has been good so far.  Despite losing his spot on the top PP he has 5 points in 6 games.

I'm still not thrilled that Reaves is playing every day.  He generates nothing and I really don't see him being a deterrent for anything.  Not that Tom Wilson did anything crazy but he was goading stuff in the 2nd and 3rd periods even with Reaves on the ice.  With the cap going up his contract should be 100% buryable in the next year or two but three years for Reaves seems excessive.  He's not an impact player and the 4th line has to be sheltered with him on it. Gregor and Holmberg/Kampf aren't crash and bash players so it doesn't have a beat you up mentality and you negate 85% of Kampf's value if he isn't taking defensive zone draws which is terrible for a guy making 2.4M (and I greatly dislike him on the 3rd line).  The combined 3.75M of Kampf/Reaves is a bit of a mess.

Ultimately it's still October hockey.  The Leafs are 4-2.  They were the better team against Florida and lost.  They didn't have a good game against Chicago but probably should have won that game too.  This was really the first game where they "deserved" to lose but won.

In their loss to Chicago,  Soderblom had an xG of 5.639 while Woll had a 2.642.  The Leafs lost 4-1 (with an ENG)
In their loss to Florida, Bobrovsky had an xG of 3.146 while Samsonov had a 2.462.  The Leafs lost 3-1 (with an ENG)

The Leafs could just as easily be 6-0 on the season or 5-1 if they didn't get "goalied" in their two losses.
 
L K said:
Marner hasn't got going yet.  He's making the extra pass too much and while at his best that extra pass usually ends up as a goal, right now it's stuffing pucks into skates.  I'd like to see him shoot more until his timing gets on track.
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The curse of our entire big-4 not being able to play well at the exact same time for an extended period continues.
 
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