Capitals @ Leafs - Nov. 25th. 7:00pm - CBC, TSN 1050

[bustaheims]

Last night's game was a great example of this. The Leafs didn't look fast in the first two periods. But in the 3rd they dominated because they didn't stop skating and were giving the Caps a fit with their speed.

Yup. And, I think a lot of that has to do with a combination of Babcock over-coaching/trying to hard to out coach the other guy, and the teams'  inexperience. Once they're free of the line-matching, and the pre-determined defensive assignments, they just take over. It's like they're worrying too much about sticking to the system until they fall behind, and Babcock is just like "whatever, guys, just go for it" - and, suddenly, they look almost unbeatable.

 

[L K]

Last night's game was a great example of this. The Leafs didn't look fast in the first two periods. But in the 3rd they dominated because they didn't stop skating and were giving the Caps a fit with their speed.

Yup. And, I think a lot of that has to do with a combination of Babcock over-coaching/trying to hard to out coach the other guy, and the teams'  inexperience. Once they're free of the line-matching, and the pre-determined defensive assignments, they just take over. It's like they're worrying too much about sticking to the system until they fall behind, and Babcock is just like "whatever, guys, just go for it" - and, suddenly, they look almost unbeatable.

And obviously you need more structure to win in the playoffs than ?just go do it? but I think the line matching needs to settle down a bit.  I?m fine with the Leafs not riding Matthews into the ground with 30 minutes a night but I think every game having guys in the 16 minute range shouldn?t be an across the board thing.  Some games the Boxal line shouldn?t get 10 minutes.  Other nights they deserve 20.

I would like to see more fluid lineup adjustments rather than sticking to the same 2-3 line combos and then putting them in a blender when the team doesn?t score for 2 periods.

 

[bustaheims]

The coach is always the softest target.  Even if he's 15-9-1, I guess (as it looks to be).

It wasn't that long ago that the Carlyle helmed Leafs started the season 14-8-1, and many saw a wide range of flaws in his coaching. So, maybe judging the success of the coach's strategies and decisions based on the team's record is not the best way to do things.

(And, yes, I recognize this is a better roster than the 13/14 Leafs, and Babcock is probably a better coach that Carlyle - I'm just saying we shouldn't be judging how well a coach is doing on record alone. He's made some questionable decisions, and the team clearly seems to perform better when he eases up on the reins.)

 

[ZBBM]

The coach is always the softest target.  Even if he's 15-9-1, I guess (as it looks to be).

It wasn't that long ago that the Carlyle helmed Leafs started the season 14-8-1, and many saw a wide range of flaws in his coaching. So, maybe judging the success of the coach's strategies and decisions based on the team's record is not the best way to do things.

(And, yes, I recognize this is a better roster than the 13/14 Leafs, and Babcock is probably a better coach that Carlyle - I'm just saying we shouldn't be judging how well a coach is doing on record alone. He's made some questionable decisions, and the team clearly seems to perform better when he eases up on the reins.)

But it is relevant, at least as a reminder when, as I think, some people are ragging on Babcock when the real problem (as usual) is with the players.  For instance, dissecting and re-dissecting whether or not he plays Martin is to get fixated on the margins of success.  I happen to think that somebody else should be playing in that spot, and in a parity league it doesn't make sense to put the most talented players you have on the ice every time.  But I also realize that whoever they play instead of Martin will very likely not make a great deal of difference over the long haul.

Criticizing Babcock's line-matching is a different, more interesting, argument IMO.

So by all means criticize the coach, but I just think don't get carried away with it.  Especially when the team is pretty certainly not as good as they have been hyped to be.

 

[louisstamos]

To put things in perspective, though, I just saw this chart posted by Jeremy Crowe, who's the analytics guy for the OHL Steelheads (and also a friend of mine!)  He compiled a chart of "real legit wins" - where a team is awarded points based on not just winning the game, but also winning score adjusted corsi, against a team in a playoff spot, and with a PDO under 100.

While the Leafs only have 1 "real legit win," the most any team has is 2 (many have zero still).  On top of which, in terms of total RLW points, they're tied for 6th best in the league, which actually corresponds to their NHL standings (they're 6th best in points).

https://twitter.com/307x/status/935149677808357377

I think we as fans push the Leafs to be better than they are because we want them to be as close to "perfect" as possible.  But vis-a-vis other teams, they're not faring too badly.

 

[Frank E]

RLW is my new favourite analytics term...not because it's predictive or anything, just because I think it's funny.

 

[herman]

RLW is my new favourite analytics term...not because it's predictive or anything, just because I think it's funny.

Because it stands for "Really Long... Walnut? Wonton?"
Why can I only think of food?

 

[Zee]

So I know sports radio is asking the question today, but I didn't hear the answer.  I was struck on Saturday night why Babcock didn't have Matthews out with the last 30 seconds and the net empty?  He had a timeout to take if Auston was tired, so what was the issue?  As soon as I saw Matthews go to the bench late I was wondering why, but never followed up after that to see if anyone asked Babcock the question.

 

[bustaheims]

So by all means criticize the coach, but I just think don't get carried away with it.  Especially when the team is pretty certainly not as good as they have been hyped to be.

See, that's where we disagree. We've seen how dominant the team can be when the reigns are loosened and they're less concerned about sticking to Babcock's structure. In those situations, they are about as good as they have been hyped up to be. That isn't to say they should just abandon any semblance of structure. Rather, Babcock probably needs to adjust his structure/strategy to emphasize their ability to dominate with speed and skill, etc.

 

[Kin]

I really don't understand why a pretty good record insulates the coach from criticism but, somehow, not the players.