Guilt Trip
Well-known member
Calgary's PP was ranked 25th this season and 18th overall in offence woth Savard
Craig Berube named new coach of the Leafs
- Thread starter L K
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Guilt Trip
Well-known member
Matthews is the only Leafs player that doesn't need to be convinced of anything.Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate said:
Guru Tugginmypuddah
Well-known member
Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate said:
Berube Berube he's our man! If he can't do it no one can!!!!!!
bustaheims
Well-known member
Guilt Trip said:
That's true, but I wonder how much of that is coaching and how much is personnel.
Zee
Well-known member
herman said:
Matthews will continue to always be in the hunt for the Rocket, not because he only cares about individual stats, but because he's an amazing goal scorer and can't just "shut off" that part of his game. He's also responsible defensively so he's not cheating for offense. So yeah, he'll fit right in with Berube's team commitment thing and still be awesome offensively. He's just a damn unicorn.
bustaheims said:
Their top-5 most used PP players were Kadri, Huberdeau, Sharangovich, Andersson, and Lindholm. Not exactly a murderer's row, especially from a shot-threat perspective.
To their credit once they got Kuzmenko, someone who CAN shoot, things took off. Their PP was 12th in the league, operating at 24% from the time they acquired him (February 2nd). The Leafs over that same period (around last 30-ish games) had a 23% success rate. And the PP kept getting better, while Toronto's got worse. From February 18th to the end of the season it was the 6th best PP in the league. From March 10th to the end of the season, 19 games played for Calgary, their PP was the best in the league operating at 29.6%. Toronto in that same period (18 GP for the Leafs) had just a 13.8% PP, 27th in the league.
Couple that with the success Savard had with St. Louis' PP and there are definitely positive signs.
Guilt Trip
Well-known member
Matthews is the only Leafs player that doesn't need to be convinced of anything.Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate said:
L K
Well-known member
Yeah, unless Matthews wrist acts up again, he'll keep scoring. He seems like a player Berube will love. He's good defensively. He wins puck battles and he showed more physicality last year than in previous seasons. On top of that you get the best goal scorer of the last 5 years.
Nylander will probably face the ire of Berube a lot but he always seems to respond to getting challenged and again, Berube isn't against skill he just won't like some of the blue line turnovers.
Tavares is probably going to get yelled at more than a few times for those blind backhand passes in the defensive zone.
And he might kill Rielly for his defensive coverage.
But Matthews seems like a guy who is only going to get public criticism if its done in a "can't always yell at Kampf if we lose 3-1" kind of way.
Nylander will probably face the ire of Berube a lot but he always seems to respond to getting challenged and again, Berube isn't against skill he just won't like some of the blue line turnovers.
Tavares is probably going to get yelled at more than a few times for those blind backhand passes in the defensive zone.
And he might kill Rielly for his defensive coverage.
But Matthews seems like a guy who is only going to get public criticism if its done in a "can't always yell at Kampf if we lose 3-1" kind of way.
dappleganger
Active member
Like Matthews, Berube won't hate Marner who is defensively responsible. Berube might want Mitch to play with more aggression in the offensive zone.
Berube might have some issues with Nylander...
Berube might have some issues with Nylander...
bustaheims
Well-known member
cw said:
Only if a team employee reached out to make this happen. If Berube reached out while he was not part of the team...well, that's St Louis' problem. ;P
herman
Well-known member
Dappleganger said:
Nylander is reportedly the only core 4 player who asked Keefe to help hold him accountable (they had a pre-existing relationship with the Marlies). He'll appreciate whatever Berube is serving and use it as fuel.
Keefe never really was able to (or allowed to?) do anything of the sort to Tavares, Matthews, Marner when they dogged it until this past season (under new management). I'm sure he wanted to, but he also wanted to win games and would trot them out there regardless of performance on most nights.
dappleganger
Active member
herman said:
Strictly looking at it as Matthews and Marner are both Selke vote getters as best defensive forward.
Dappleganger said:
Nylander will have those 'je ne sais quoi' moments. He can't help himself. It is the price to be paid for his unpredictability that helps him & drives defenses nuts. But sometimes, he's in the wrong place at the wrong time and the coach will let him know it.
Marner will have those 'go north, not east-west' moments that the coach won't always appreciate. Steen did well with Berube. Marner is in some ways like a more highly skilled Steen.
I'm sure he'll appreciate Matthews & Marner's defensive game.
cw said:
Ultimately Savard was under contract with the Flames and if they really wanted to keep him there they could have. Their head coach was a rookie last year though and so I do wonder if maybe they regretted not having someone on his staff with a little more experience. Savard had only had 1 year as an assistant coach prior to this season. Their other assistants were relatively green as well. This could give them a chance to rectify that possible misstep, so a mutual parting of ways could genuinely be a good thing here for everyone.
herman
Well-known member
https://mapleleafshotstove.com/2024/05/21/mlhs-podcast-ep-71/
This one is very good for its analysis of Dubas/Keefe's approach with the core, vs where Treliving/Berube are likely to take it. I suspect it will be in the middle ground between the two extremes of Lamoriello/Babcock <--> Dubas/Keefe
This one is very good for its analysis of Dubas/Keefe's approach with the core, vs where Treliving/Berube are likely to take it. I suspect it will be in the middle ground between the two extremes of Lamoriello/Babcock <--> Dubas/Keefe