Carlyle fired

[GhostofPotvin29]

Outside of the shooting percentage, I haven't seen anything on the offensive side of the puck that looks good at all.

But there's a very strong chance that it appears that way because of their poor luck/SH% right now.  If some of those shots had gone in, if the puck had deflected in or whatever, but everything else about their game stayed the same, chances are there wouldn't be concern about their offensive game (or at least not so much).  Same thing happened last season (obviously to a lesser degree) where the offensive just ran much colder for a stretch than it had been all year.

Potvin - I don't know why I'm responding to you...nothing against your post...

But Yeah...i can't wait for this teams "puck luck/PDO" to start to turn around and for them to start winning games 7-3 and 6-1 in meaningless games down the stretch and of course hurting our drafting position.

Of course Kessel's luck will turn around as well and he will end up with his usual 30+ goals that way - and then the inevitable "We would be crazy to trade away 30+ goal scorers - they don't grow on trees you know - who's going to score if we trade him?".

The answer of course being that Kessel should be a 40+ goal scorer who "only" scores 30+ because he lacks consistency throughout the ENTIRE season and due to the fact that he has no help (ie. has terrible team / line mates). 

He needs to be the 2nd or 3rd best forward on this team or its time to trade him since he has the most value on this team (these are his prime years).  It's too many years in a row for it not to be addressed.

Other teams go through ups and downs in terms of their PDO or puck-luck or whatever.  It's just that the Leafs when it was going well for them offensively gave everything back defensively so that when they're "rolling" they're not making up a cushion for themselves to suffer any sort of slump.

I don't know if you want Kessel to score every game or not go through droughts, but pretty much any scorer has hot and cold streaks and most of them don't have to try and get out of it with Tyler Bozak.  Kessel basically is expected to not only not have scoring slumps, but when he's in a slump he's expected to carry himself and his line out of it.  What other elite winger has a C comparable to Bozak?  Ovechkin has Backstrom, Kane has played most of his career with Toews, Perry has Getzlaf, Tatar has Datsyuk, etc.  Closest comparable might be Rick Nash, and he too has been criticized for extended scoring slumps in his career.

Fact is, Kessel's C is at 1.26 P/60 at 5v5, 263rd in the league of forwards with at least 200 minutes, 176th if you increase that to 500 minutes.  Kessel is 68th & JVR is 95th.  Bozak has 3 goals since November and is on pace for 53 points.

Leafs should've realistically tried to trade him when he was around a PPG earlier in the season.  Since then he's reverted right back to his career norms.  Would take him really lighting it up from here on out to change that.

 

[bustaheims]

I will bet you dollars to doughnuts that our shooting percentage was relatively low and our GAA was high.

Goals against was high, but in the seasons Wilson was behind the bench, the Leafs had shooting percentages of 9.4, 7.9, 9.0 and 9.8. There was only one season where it was significantly below average - which is generally ~9%.

The Sv% in seasons where Wilson coached the Leafs - .885, .892, .904, .898. If you're looking for the reason why the Leafs struggled to succeed under Wilson, there it is.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

I will bet you dollars to doughnuts that our shooting percentage was relatively low and our GAA was high.

Goals against was high, but in the seasons Wilson was behind the bench, the Leafs had shooting percentages of 9.4, 7.9, 9.0 and 9.8. There was only one season where it was significantly below average - which is generally ~9%.

And that one year was the year they finished 2nd last.  But look at how talented a roster they had!  Also fun to look at the SV% for each of Wilson's seasons:

08-09: .884
09-10: .894
10-11: .904
11-12: .901

 

[Joe S.]

But look at how talented a roster they had! 

Lee F'n Stempniak.

 

[Redleaf]

But look at how talented a roster they had! 

Lee F'n Stempniak.

Looking at that lineup, it somehow strikes me as odd that Kadri and Kaberle once played together on the same team. It seems so long ago now that Kaberle was playing the blueline as a Leaf.