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Blackhawks vs. Maple Leafs - Dec. 2nd, 7:30pm - Prime, TSN 1050

ZBBM said:
I spend way too much time watching these games, and the reason why is that I love watching the skills of 34, 16, 91, and 88. We will never see another collection of Leafs like that in our lifetimes.
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I feel this statement in my bones.

Sorry for taking away (well written) context. I feel like the statement stands up without it. Beyond it.

The pieces are in place. Now just win.
 
ZBBM said:
I don't mind your criticizing. That's you, and I am always interested to hear your perspective.

But I will say, complaining about the lack of offense seems odd when the Leafs have turned into exactly the kind of team you've wanted for years. Berube has them playing year-round playoff hockey, and Tre toughened them up to make it possible. Hopefully it will pay off post-season.

This comes at a price. A considerable price. The price is that games are now much less fun to watch.

I have said for years that, for me personally, watching entertaining hockey during the regular season is important. I spend way too much time watching these games, and the reason why is that I love watching the skills of 34, 16, 91, and 88. We will never see another collection of Leafs like that in our lifetimes. And it is quite possible that we will never again see the Leafs play hockey as entertaining as they did under Keefe.

North-south Berube may be a better playoff-winning formula than east-west Keefe, but ... how much open ice do you see Matthews getting to work with this season? Setting aside his injury for a minute, does he look like a guy who could score 69 goals? Not to me. They don't seem to able to free him up to work his magic. Tonight's goal was the exception to the rule. This is a direct consequence of the Berube's playstyle.

Mind you, I'm not saying it's a bad thing. The team needed a new direction in order to do better in the spring. I'm just saying there's a price to pay.

Everyone always talks about how exciting playoff hockey is. It isn't. Everything about it, from reffing to coaching, conspires to stifle offense. We are now watching the Leafs play playoff-style night in and night out.

So I suggest that you take GT's advice to heart: even if they aren't as much fun to watch as they used to be, the talent of the Core Four is still something that is evident almost every game. We have only a few more years at best to enjoy it, so don't miss out.
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Ya you're exactly right when you say " Leafs have turned into exactly the kind of team you've wanted for years". It's kinda like playoff hockey during the season. What does concern me is them getting outplayed. You all have to admit and as they mentioned on TSN last night Button said they may have the best goalie tandem. As much as some of you like the wins Stolarz was the best player on this team first 10 games and was the only reason we weren't under .500. I've said this before and agree with GT we have some incredible talent but bottom line and same old question comes up. "What has the core gotten us besides some excitement and individual success". Games like that concern me. It was at home against the worst team in the league, we were outplayed, had an empty net goal and a lucky bounce otherwise we are looking at a 2-1 win and mainly thanks to Stolarz. Thus the frustration. I'l, wait till we are back to full health to see what this team is. I understand Matthews has been off all year so that doesn't help. One thing I do like and unfortunately it's due to injuries but love seeing some of the youngsters injected into the lineup. Minten I hope isn't going anywhere. I know it's going to be difficult but I hope Tre can move some of the useless guys we've signed and keep some of the young guys in the lineup.
 
ZBBM said:
I don't mind your criticizing. That's you, and I am always interested to hear your perspective.

But I will say, complaining about the lack of offense seems odd when the Leafs have turned into exactly the kind of team you've wanted for years. Berube has them playing year-round playoff hockey, and Tre toughened them up to make it possible. Hopefully it will pay off post-season.

This comes at a price. A considerable price. The price is that games are now much less fun to watch.

I have said for years that, for me personally, watching entertaining hockey during the regular season is important. I spend way too much time watching these games, and the reason why is that I love watching the skills of 34, 16, 91, and 88. We will never see another collection of Leafs like that in our lifetimes. And it is quite possible that we will never again see the Leafs play hockey as entertaining as they did under Keefe.

North-south Berube may be a better playoff-winning formula than east-west Keefe, but ... how much open ice do you see Matthews getting to work with this season? Setting aside his injury for a minute, does he look like a guy who could score 69 goals? Not to me. They don't seem to able to free him up to work his magic. Tonight's goal was the exception to the rule. This is a direct consequence of the Berube's playstyle.

Mind you, I'm not saying it's a bad thing. The team needed a new direction in order to do better in the spring. I'm just saying there's a price to pay.

Everyone always talks about how exciting playoff hockey is. It isn't. Everything about it, from reffing to coaching, conspires to stifle offense. We are now watching the Leafs play playoff-style night in and night out.

So I suggest that you take GT's advice to heart: even if they aren't as much fun to watch as they used to be, the talent of the Core Four is still something that is evident almost every game. We have only a few more years at best to enjoy it, so don't miss out.
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I have been watching since the 60's, saw Stanley Cup wins. This is the best collection of Leafs since that time. They are winning and finally have great goaltending. Time to enjoy this team.
 
No team is going to be the better team for 100% of their games. That’s just unrealistic. I’m sure you, and everyone else here, doesn’t go all out everyday in whatever their jobs or tasks are. You’re gonna have off days and slow days. These guys aren’t robots, they are human just like us.

But putting that aside for a sec, you know what good teams do? Find a way to win the games they shouldn’t more often than not. And another thing, having good goaltending isn’t cheating. I’m so sick of that narrative going all the way back to cujo. Having watched shitty goaltending since Belfour’s last game (well his last season wasn’t good), anyone who finds a way to not be happy with what you’re seeing this season is just a masochist.
 
I know of no other fan base that craps all over their team quite like Leaf fans.

It's so bad, the two of three broadcasters who show Leaf games in Canada use any opportunity to talk down the Leafs, and talk up the opponent. It's a real breath of fresh air watching a US based broadcast, or like last night, Amazon Prime.

Constructive criticism is fine and good. Nothing wrong with that and can make for interesting analysis and conversation.

No team is perfect. Not every game is going to be perfect.

Seeing the Leafs win a cup would be truly amazing. Having realistic expectations keeps you sane though. Particularly when it's something completely out of your control as a fan.
 
The odd thing about the 60s Cup wins was in my opinion, we kind of expected them to happen. It was like it was our Devine right as Leafs fans (except for the theft of the '67 Cup which I enjoyed the most). So to me, in hindsight, it wasn't as big of a deal when they won a Cup. Maybe I'm wrong or in the minority but Nikolai Borschevsky scoring to beat the Wings seemed like a bigger exciting moment at the time. So seemed Lanny's goal to beat the Islanders. Or Gilmour's goal from behind the net to beat the Blues. The 2002 playoff run with all the injuries was compelling to follow. etc, etc. Bobby Baun scoring in OT on a broken bone was romanticized but I don't recall folks pouring out into the streets with the same excitement as the series ending goals that came later. The first time I recall anything like that was Team Canada '72 - the whole country went nuts.

The players today are so much better in so many ways. Bigger, stronger, faster. But smarter, better coached, more developed skills. Goaltending has become kind of a science. A lot has changed. But there have been some very entertaining moments along the way.

The core four is probably going to go down as the best collection of 4 Leafs forwards since the 60s or maybe longer/ever.

The two goalies are potentially flirting with being the best pair since Bower-Sawchuk. (too early to say too much here)

Two notable differences:
Berube got the Blues playing playoff hockey the day he took over. He seems to be sticking to that here. We haven't seen that much over the years.

Their acquisitions haven't been perfect. But they seem to study what happened last year and scoured the league and elsewhere to bring in players to address the areas of concern. Again, not perfect, but they have done a more credible job of it this season and I can't recall when they did so as well in the past. (someone can probably think of a past season ..)

With all the injuries and systems changes, they have the 5th best points win%.
There's a lot to like here. Should be fun.
 
I don't believe in relentless negativity, or relentless positivity. There is plenty of room to accept that (1) the Leafs are finally playing a style that is more likely to win in the playoffs, (2) they are finding ways to win games with half of their forwards essentially being AHL players, yet (3) in the last couple of games they have let off the gas and allowed teams to run around in their zone for long stretches. Yes, that will happen at times over an 82-game season, but there is nothing wrong with pointing it out and talking about it. Having great goaltending allows you to get away with that a lot of the time (and it's really nice to finally have that in Toronto), but as we saw in the Tampa game - the more time you let opponents run around in the dzone, the greater the chance that "shit happens"...bounces, bad penalty calls, whatever.

Personally I don't care about the lack of offense. I want to see a Cup more than I want to see fancy goals scored. The offense should come around as more of the injured players come back and Matthews (hopefully) gets back to form. It's still only 24 games into the Berube era and they have been dealing with so many injuries...overall very happy with how this season is going.
 
Guilt Trip said:
Could you imagine a D-Man like Salming on this team? Best Leaf ever for me.
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That is the one asset they're missing: a #1 stud dman.

If Salming in his prime was on this roster, they would probably be perceived as among the top 2 or 3 teams contending for a Cup. But no one is giving players like that away.
 
Joe S. said:
No team is going to be the better team for 100% of their games. That’s just unrealistic. I’m sure you, and everyone else here, doesn’t go all out everyday in whatever their jobs or tasks are. You’re gonna have off days and slow days. These guys aren’t robots, they are human just like us.

But putting that aside for a sec, you know what good teams do? Find a way to win the games they shouldn’t more often than not. And another thing, having good goaltending isn’t cheating. I’m so sick of that narrative going all the way back to cujo. Having watched shitty goaltending since Belfour’s last game (well his last season wasn’t good), anyone who finds a way to not be happy with what you’re seeing this season is just a masochist.
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I'd also add that we're watching a team that isn't nearly 100% healthy. There are significant holes in this lineup and the Leafs are still finding ways to win and (gasp!) continually hold leads. I'm very curious to see this team play as a healthy, fully Berube-initiated squad.
 
cw said:
That is the one asset they're missing: a #1 stud dman.

If Salming in his prime was on this roster, they would probably be perceived as among the top 2 or 3 teams contending for a Cup. But no one is giving players like that away.
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I've been hoping for years that Rielly's game would round out into a stud...he has the size and the speed...but it has not!

It's defence by committee this year, so we'll see how that works out, and early returns look good...if it doesn't, I'd bet that Tre looks to address that.
 
Since Matthews came back the Leafs are 2-0-0 with 9 goals to 4 against. We are still missing two top 6/top 9 forwards and one of our most important defensemen. Two of those goals were empty netters but all nine of them were 5 on 5 as the Leafs have gone 0/3 on the PP while killing off 6 of 7 penalties (and the one they gave up was a nonsense 6 on 4 goal off a skate deflection).

This season is going to be about growing pains. October was a bit of a mess defensively. Now its the offense that is sputtering a bit but even with all that

2024 - 24GP 15-7-2 (13 regulation wins, 15 R/OT wins and 0 shootout wins) 74 GF 61 GA
2023 - 24GP 14-6-4 (7 regulation wins, 10 R/OT wins and 4 shootout wins) 84 GF 77 GA

We are only down 10 goals from last year despite Domi, Matthews, Paccioretty, Jarnkrok all playing hurt or missing significant amounts of time. We've given up 16 fewer goals.

This certainly isn't super exciting hockey compared to Keefe hockey but I think the offensive issues are being overstated a bit.
 
L K said:
Since Matthews came back the Leafs are 2-0-0 with 9 goals to 4 against. We are still missing two top 6/top 9 forwards and one of our most important defensemen. Two of those goals were empty netters but all nine of them were 5 on 5 as the Leafs have gone 0/3 on the PP while killing off 6 of 7 penalties (and the one they gave up was a nonsense 6 on 4 goal off a skate deflection).

This season is going to be about growing pains. October was a bit of a mess defensively. Now its the offense that is sputtering a bit but even with all that

2024 - 24GP 15-7-2 (13 regulation wins, 15 R/OT wins and 0 shootout wins) 74 GF 61 GA
2023 - 24GP 14-6-4 (7 regulation wins, 10 R/OT wins and 4 shootout wins) 84 GF 77 GA

We are only down 10 goals from last year despite Domi, Matthews, Paccioretty, Jarnkrok all playing hurt or missing significant amounts of time. We've given up 16 fewer goals.

This certainly isn't super exciting hockey compared to Keefe hockey but I think the offensive issues are being overstated a bit.
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It's definitely taking them time to find the right balance between offence and defence. Seems like they're starting to get there now that some of the key forwards are getting back to full health.

New coach with an entirely new system and a lot of injuries. No real surprise there's been some growing pains, but, I definitely get the feeling that, if/when they can find the balance they need, this is a team that might actually make some noise in the playoffs.
 
This is clearly the "it's far too early to worry about standings but I'm doing it anyway" comment.

If the season ended today (using point percentage rather than points) they would play Tampa in the playoffs again........
 
L K said:
This is clearly the "it's far too early to worry about standings but I'm doing it anyway" comment.

If the season ended today (using point percentage rather than points) they would play Tampa in the playoffs again........
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Did you have Minnesota and Washington as 1 and 2 in the whole league in P% in December on your bingo card?
 
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