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2020-2021 Toronto Maple Leafs General Discussion

Chris said:
bustaheims said:
Outside of their 2 mini (mostly goaltending/regression-driven) slumps, the Leafs have only lost 4 games in regulations and only 7 overall.

That's quite impressive. When the Leafs get reasonable goaltending or don't face a goaltender playing at their absolute best, they're a pretty elite squad.
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Agreed. If they get their injured back (especially Hyman), get reasonable goaltending from someone, and can avoid any other injuries before the playoffs, they actually look like a team that is a serious contender. It's hard to know how they'll match up against a team like Vegas since they haven't played, but I suppose Vegas could say the same about the Leafs.

There is a nucleus of "grit" (for lack of a better term) now that hasn't existed before. Muzzin, Bogosian, Simmonds, Foligno, Thornton in particular. This could well be Thornton's last crack at the Cup so I expect he'll be especially motivated and I think we've started to see that over the past 3 games or so.

Still prone to the odd defensive breakdown but the team has shown that they are more committed to playing in the defensive zone and are mostly doing it better than in previous years. Can't wait for the playoffs to start.
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Well I hope we are contemplating a match up against any American team this postseason. That would put us in the semifinal round and only 8 wins away from their first Stanley cup since 1967.
 
Wait, MLSE doesn't print money?
https://twitter.com/Account4hockey/status/1388198825509195780

Scott Pellerin was promoted in 2015 to Director of Player Development. Stephan Robidas was promoted to fill the Director vacancy back in 2018 when Pellerin was bumped up to Senior Director.
 
herman said:
Wait, MLSE doesn't print money?
https://twitter.com/Account4hockey/status/1388198825509195780

Scott Pellerin was promoted in 2015 to Director of Player Development. Stephan Robidas was promoted to fill the Director vacancy back in 2018 when Pellerin was bumped up to Senior Director.
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Maybe Dept was only given so much funding.
 
It seems unlikely that MLSE couldn't find the money to do what they wanted to do if they really felt strongly about it so I'm assuming this is moving on from a guy without wanting to make it sound like you're firing him.
 
It will never not be crazy that Babcock's response to having a world-class passer and a world-class shooter on the same team was to make sure they never played on the same line.

They should have insisted on playing on separate lines to make him play them together.
 
Heroic Shrimp said:
https://twitter.com/koshtorontosun/status/1388886223851245572

Hope he's okay.
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He was leaking quite a bit so even if he's ok, I suspect he'll get a few days off.
Liljegren is with Muzz.
And Matthews took one off the leg.
 
tenor.gif
 
TSN's power rankings have the Leafs second this week.  This comment amuses me:

"There is no doubt the Maple Leafs are the class of the North Division, but skeptics will likely need to see Toronto win a playoff round against an out-of-division opponent before buying the hype."

So basically they need to make it to the Stanley Cup finals before they believe this team is pretty good.  Nothing like advancing those "win a playoff round to prove you are different this year" expectations.
 
https://twitter.com/Iaur4/status/1389241277892415491

I'll never for the life of me understand why anyone would think Auston Matthews, an absolute superstar both on the ice and off the ice, would ever want to leave a mega market like Toronto to go play in front of hundreds of fans in Arizona. One of the most bizarre talking points we'd had here.
 
CarltonTheBear said:
I'll never for the life of me understand why anyone would think Auston Matthews, an absolute superstar both on the ice and off the ice, would ever want to leave a mega market like Toronto to go play in front of hundreds of fans in Arizona. One of the most bizarre talking points we'd had here.
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Seriously. It never made any sense outside of some people's reflexive pessimism and, if we want to be charitable about it, a sort of vicarious sense of how much they would want to play for their hometown team.

 
CarltonTheBear said:
https://twitter.com/Iaur4/status/1389241277892415491

I'll never for the life of me understand why anyone would think Auston Matthews, an absolute superstar both on the ice and off the ice, would ever want to leave a mega market like Toronto to go play in front of hundreds of fans in Arizona. One of the most bizarre talking points we'd had here.
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General disbelief that a player this good is playing for the Maple Leafs.
 
The Leafs magic number sits at 5. 

Toronto has four games left: MTL, MTL, @OTT, @WPG
Edmonton has six games left: @VAN, VAN, VAN, @MTL, @MTL, VAN

Tie-breakers are:
- Regulation Wins: Edmonton 29 > Toronto 27
- Regulation/OT Wins: Toronto 32 > Edmonton 31
- Total wins: Toronto 33 > Edmonton 31
- Points earned H2H: Toronto 14 > Edmonton 7

4-0-0, 3-0-1, 3-1-0, 2-0-2, 2-1-1, 1-0-3 would be enough to clinch 1st regardless of what Edmonton does. 

Looking at the Oilers schedule it kind of seems hard to see them losing more than one of those games down the stretch, especially with McDavid on the pace that he is.

If the Oilers go 5-1-0 the Leafs can go 0-1-3 and still get 1st overall.

Hopefully we can wrap things up and make either the Ottawa or Winnipeg games irrelevant.
 
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