Leafs @ Bruins - Apr. 25th, 7:30pm - CBC, TSN 1050

[Bender]

So obviously I am disappointed in the result, but I'm not surprised.

My perspective:
The Leafs never really got firing on all cylinders, key depth vets were largely non-factors against lesser competition (Bozak-JvR), and our top offensive contributors were stymied by world class Olympic-medalling veterans. Oh yeah, our top matchup centre stupidly removed himself from the series for 3 games.

AND we still took the second best team in the East (and possibly the whole league in the second half of the season) that was really clicking to the brink and it took one period of brain farting and youthful despair to down us.

So yes, we lost, deservedly so, but we played like ass and still almost eliminated one of the best.

Yeah but do we really have to play like ass? I mean, throughout the season people were saying the Leafs were outscoring their problems, and once scoring dried up Freddy got going. We relied a lot on things that don't seem replicable to me. The team doesn't play a tight team game and got outshot and outchanced all season long and it was exposed in this series.

I get that we didn't have Kadri, and maybe to some degree that sealed it, but man... there's quite a bit of work to be done to go from where we are to the kind of team we want to be.

 

[WhatIfGodWasALeaf]

https://twitter.com/KatsHockey/status/989467779882475520

 

[azzurri63]

The media is saying that Gardiner may have played his last game as a leaf.

Good. Like the kid has some good qualities but making the same mistakes as he did 5 years ago. He hasn't learned s**t. We didn't deserve to win but he made some senseless plays just giving the puck away when he had ample time to make a smart decision. The debrusk goal another blunder. The whole game looked like he was lost with and without the puck. He is also up for a new contract and honestly I wouldn't pay him anymore than what he's getting now and that would be too much for a guy I would play 10-15 minutes max. Let him go.

 

[Bender]

I know you've all been waiting for my opinion, so wait no more:

1.  You play your best players when the game is on the line.  They're the ones that have earned it all year, and you count on them to get up.  DeBrusk is one of Boston's best forwards, he's a second line player that plays those minutes.  The Leafs also have players his age, and younger, that played a lot more the DeBrusk did/does.

2.  I think the Kadri suspension is where this series got decided.  That suspension really hurt the lineup.

3.  The Leafs counted on Andersen far too many times this year, and their luck ran out there.

4.  Gardiner had a bad game, oh well.  He's a 50 point defenseman this year, and one of the key guys that got this team into the playoffs.  If the Leafs could replay that period, I'm pretty sure they'd play Gardiner again in those minutes.

5.  I don't consider last night's game to be indicative of anything in particular, I'm more trying to look at the series overall.  The 7 game series did show me that Matthews and Nylander have a fair bit of work to do to earn $10-$11 mil and $6-$7 mil on my Leafs team.  Marner and Marleau played well. The newer kids played pretty darn well, all things considered.

6.  Young team, didn't get it done, not really surprised.  I'm looking forward to an interesting off-season.

It pains me to say it but I agree with everything that Frank wrote.

To me the series also reinforced the importance of winning draws, or at very least prevent clean opposition wins. Maybe the advanced stats say it doesn't matter, but to these eyes it sure seemed like we spent a lot of extra time in our zone and a lot less in theirs purely by our inability to start with control of the puck. I can think of 3 or 4 Boston goals that came immediately off a won draw, and far too many occasions where we had to withstand sustained pressure in our own zone after a faceoff. We paid after a number of our icings...the Bruins, rarely.

I think the advanced stats say it doesn't matter at centre ice. But it definitely matters in the defensive zone. And I also wonder if their assumption is a 45%-55% range for each team. It felt like we were getting schooled all night long in faceoffs.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

He is also up for a new contract and honestly I wouldn't pay him anymore than what he's getting now and that would be too much for a guy I would play 10-15 minutes max. Let him go.

6 defencemen in the entire league with 60+ GP averaged less than 15 minutes a game this season. 6. Only 1 averaged less than 14 minutes.

 

[LuncheonMeat]

I know you've all been waiting for my opinion, so wait no more:

1.  You play your best players when the game is on the line.  They're the ones that have earned it all year, and you count on them to get up.  DeBrusk is one of Boston's best forwards, he's a second line player that plays those minutes.  The Leafs also have players his age, and younger, that played a lot more the DeBrusk did/does.

2.  I think the Kadri suspension is where this series got decided.  That suspension really hurt the lineup.

3.  The Leafs counted on Andersen far too many times this year, and their luck ran out there.

4.  Gardiner had a bad game, oh well.  He's a 50 point defenseman this year, and one of the key guys that got this team into the playoffs.  If the Leafs could replay that period, I'm pretty sure they'd play Gardiner again in those minutes.

5.  I don't consider last night's game to be indicative of anything in particular, I'm more trying to look at the series overall.  The 7 game series did show me that Matthews and Nylander have a fair bit of work to do to earn $10-$11 mil and $6-$7 mil on my Leafs team.  Marner and Marleau played well. The newer kids played pretty darn well, all things considered.

6.  Young team, didn't get it done, not really surprised.  I'm looking forward to an interesting off-season.

It pains me to say it but I agree with everything that Frank wrote.

Do your duty and delete his post, and we'll all pretend you didn't write that.

 

[Bill_Berg]

The media is saying that Gardiner may have played his last game as a leaf.

Where did you see that? Not that I don't believe it, but I didn't see anything. Radio? I would be shocked if they traded him this off season. His value has to be low. Feels like a knee-jerk reaction.

 

[herman]

So obviously I am disappointed in the result, but I'm not surprised.

My perspective:
The Leafs never really got firing on all cylinders, key depth vets were largely non-factors against lesser competition (Bozak-JvR), and our top offensive contributors were stymied by world class Olympic-medalling veterans. Oh yeah, our top matchup centre stupidly removed himself from the series for 3 games.

AND we still took the second best team in the East (and possibly the whole league in the second half of the season) that was really clicking to the brink and it took one period of brain farting and youthful despair to down us.

So yes, we lost, deservedly so, but we played like ass and still almost eliminated one of the best.

Yeah but do we really have to play like ass? I mean, throughout the season people were saying the Leafs were outscoring their problems, and once scoring dried up Freddy got going. We relied a lot on things that don't seem replicable to me. The team doesn't play a tight team game and got outshot and outchanced all season long and it was exposed in this series.

I get that we didn't have Kadri, and maybe to some degree that sealed it, but man... there's quite a bit of work to be done to go from where we are to the kind of team we want to be.

Sometimes we play like ass. Sometimes the other team just beats you. Sometimes it?s both at the same time. We had a lot of both things happening together.

I would?ve liked to have seen more tactical adjustment. What?s hard to say for sure is why they continued to do certain things systematically after it was neutralized. I?m guessing it was to cover over a different deficiency. Generally the right tactics with the wrong execution looks like the wrong tactics.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

Where did you see that? Not that I don't believe it, but I didn't see anything. Radio? I would be shocked if they traded him this off season. His value has to be low. Feels like a knee-jerk reaction.

The media's gonna say all kinds of crazy things for the next few weeks. I wouldn't put much stock in it, it's just baseless speculation on their part. Kypreos is trying to say that there's a rift between Matthews and Babcock.

 

[Bill_Berg]

Where did you see that? Not that I don't believe it, but I didn't see anything. Radio? I would be shocked if they traded him this off season. His value has to be low. Feels like a knee-jerk reaction.

The media's gonna say all kinds of crazy things for the next few weeks. I wouldn't put much stock in it, it's just baseless speculation on their part. Kypreos is trying to say that there's a rift between Matthews and Babcock.

Ya maybe I'll just tune out for the next week or so.

 

[Strangelove]

The media is saying that Gardiner may have played his last game as a leaf.

That stuff plays well because a lot Leaf fans don't like him. The fact that he was probably their best defencemen in the second half of the season and in the first 6 games of the playoffs is easily forgotten.

The reality is that Andersen was way too leaky at an inopportune time, and our young stars didn't play like Stars. I think Babcock's wonky break-outs and defensive "system" had a lot to do with it.

The Leafs were lucky game 7 was as close as it was.

 

[Strangelove]

Where did you see that? Not that I don't believe it, but I didn't see anything. Radio? I would be shocked if they traded him this off season. His value has to be low. Feels like a knee-jerk reaction.

The media's gonna say all kinds of crazy things for the next few weeks. I wouldn't put much stock in it, it's just baseless speculation on their part. Kypreos is trying to say that there's a rift between Matthews and Babcock.

If I was a star being forced to play with two third/fourth liners throughout the playoffs, I wouldn't be all that happy either.

 

[cabber24]

Where did you see that? Not that I don't believe it, but I didn't see anything. Radio? I would be shocked if they traded him this off season. His value has to be low. Feels like a knee-jerk reaction.

The media's gonna say all kinds of crazy things for the next few weeks. I wouldn't put much stock in it, it's just baseless speculation on their part. Kypreos is trying to say that there's a rift between Matthews and Babcock.

If I was a star being forced to play with two third/fourth liners throughout the playoffs, I wouldn't be all that happy either.

I don't believe there's a rift. I think the Brown/Hyman thing was about balancing all 4 line and it did work for a few games. 

I will never understand not playing your best player on the PP? Bozak? Really? Let Matthews get better at faceoffs by taking faceoffs.

 

[Guilt Trip]

Where did you see that? Not that I don't believe it, but I didn't see anything. Radio? I would be shocked if they traded him this off season. His value has to be low. Feels like a knee-jerk reaction.

The media's gonna say all kinds of crazy things for the next few weeks. I wouldn't put much stock in it, it's just baseless speculation on their part. Kypreos is trying to say that there's a rift between Matthews and Babcock.

If I was a star being forced to play with two third/fourth liners throughout the playoffs, I wouldn't be all that happy either.

Yup. I mean c'mon, he put Komarov on his wing for game 2. Then that doesn't work so he puts Brown there. Seriously? I've seen some Matthews bashing and while he didn't put up the numbers he wasn't as bad as some people say. Sometimes you have to look at his linemates and the opposition. He rarely plays with Reilly which is a huge mistake on Babs part. His linemates were 3rd and 4th line guys. He went up against Chara for the most part. I find it interesting that while Marner played well, Boston still put Chara up against Matthews every chance they got even with his crappy wingers. When all is said and done tho, he still lead the team in shots by 10 over 2nd place....not too bad considering all the other factors.
I don't believe there is a rift between him and Babs but I wish he would use Matthews more. He should be out for almost all of the pp and I wish he'd start using him killing penalties...Marner to.

 

[Guilt Trip]

I don't believe there's a rift. I think the Brown/Hyman thing was about balancing all 4 line and it did work for a few games. 

I will never understand not playing your best player on the PP? Bozak? Really? Let Matthews get better at faceoffs by taking faceoffs.

That's what I don't get either. You're trying to balance out lines by penalizing your best player with two "hard workers" who lack scoring touch. Even when the Bruins were losing, the Bergeron line stayed together.
As for faceoffs..Matthews was 55% in the playoffs, the same as he was in the regular season. Going to be interesting to see if Matthews signs an extension over the summer.

 

[OldTimeHockey]

The media is saying that Gardiner may have played his last game as a leaf.

The fact that he was probably their best defencemen in the second half of the season and in the first 6 games of the playoffs is easily forgotten.

Was the defence really that bad in the first 6 games that he was the top dman? I mean, I'd say Rielly was, but that's just me. Take a look back at some of those goals scored in games 1-6. Gardiner was responsible for at least 3 that I can think of off the top of my head.

Like i've said in another thread. He's a talented player. Just not as talented as he thinks he is.

 

[Guilt Trip]

The media is saying that Gardiner may have played his last game as a leaf.

The fact that he was probably their best defencemen in the second half of the season and in the first 6 games of the playoffs is easily forgotten.

Was the defence really that bad in the first 6 games that he was the top dman? I mean, I'd say Rielly was, but that's just me. Take a look back at some of those goals scored in games 1-6. Gardiner was responsible for at least 3 that I can think of off the top of my head.

Like i've said in another thread. He's a talented player. Just not as talented as he thinks he is.

He's talented but I agree, I thought Reilly was our best D man all year including the playoffs. Gardiner needs to learn to stop throwing the puck away and also to grow a set. He constantly let's the other team get to the puck first. I hate that about him. He's def no Kaberle or Reilly. I also don't see the Leafs getting rid of him. 50 point D men are hard to find. The right partner could make a big difference in his game. Look at Karlsson this year. While he put up great numbers he was terrible defensively. He lost Methot as his partner.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

The fact that people will constantly call hockey the "greatest team sport in existence" but then still consistently assign blame for goals on one single individual will always baffle me.

 

[Andy007]

The media is saying that Gardiner may have played his last game as a leaf.

That stuff plays well because a lot Leaf fans don't like him. The fact that he was probably their best defencemen in the second half of the season and in the first 6 games of the playoffs is easily forgotten.

The reality is that Andersen was way too leaky at an inopportune time, and our young stars didn't play like Stars. I think Babcock's wonky break-outs and defensive "system" had a lot to do with it.

The Leafs were lucky game 7 was as close as it was.

I just want to say, I think you've been pretty bang on all season long with your analysis and I also couldn't agree more with this (and your following) post. It's almost as if Babcock is trying to handicap his team. I genuinely feel that this core is so much better than the way they've been playing.

I think trading in Komarov's 16 minutes of ice time per game and Bozak/JVR's atrocious even-strength play for the (increased) likes of Johnsson and Kapanen will be a big boost.

And giving some of these young superstars more minutes certainly can't hurt.

 

[Kin]

Leafs don't strike any fear in anyone. Nylander for sure as stated played the Kessel of years past going into the corners.

Yup. And if there's one thing we can say definitively it's that having someone play like Kessel won't help win a team win a cup. Or two cups.