Leafs @ Islanders - Nov. 13th, 7:00pm - SN, Fan 590

[Highlander]

Tyson Barrie looks like his next contract should be a raise of maybe 75 cents.. He is doing less than nothing to deserve a raise

And that's on the Leafs. Babs/coaches are using him wrong. Barrie should have been tried on PP1 but in their wisdom, nope, lets keep rolling out the same crap that struggled last year as well. I don't get it.

Exactly, they need to change things up a little bit, try Barrie on PP1, can't hurt and may give the guy a bit of confidence and inspiration (as he appears to be lacking in it right now).  Rest Rielly off the PK, as well.  Rielly is either being overplayed or being played in the wrong situations (PK).  Right now he looks terrible compared to the smooth skating guy who used to go deep in the OZone and now he only takes shots from the point. What the hell happened there?

 

[Guilt Trip]

Tyson Barrie looks like his next contract should be a raise of maybe 75 cents.. He is doing less than nothing to deserve a raise

And that's on the Leafs. Babs/coaches are using him wrong. Barrie should have been tried on PP1 but in their wisdom, nope, lets keep rolling out the same crap that struggled last year as well. I don't get it.

Exactly, they need to change things up a little bit, try Barrie on PP1, can't hurt and may give the guy a bit of confidence and inspiration (as he appears to be lacking in it right now).  Rest Rielly off the PK, as well.  Rielly is either being overplayed or being played in the wrong situations (PK).  Right now he looks terrible compared to the smooth skating guy who used to go deep in the OZone and now he only takes shots from the point. What the hell happened there?

Barrie plays like a guy with zero confidence. He and Muzz are actually pretty decent in the D zone. Not mistake free but from my view, they've improved since the beginning of the year as a pairing. Rielly and CC haven't and as much as I'd love to lay it all on CC, that would be a lie. Rielly is the weaker Defensive D man in that pairing. There was a reason that Rielly wasn't used on the PK last year. He isn't good at it. I find he chases too much, taking himself out of position. He is definitely being used too much and wrong.

 

[bustaheims]

This was also another game with zero SOG for Matthews. Anyone know how often Pastrnak or Ovie go shotless in games? Maybe it's more often than I think as I don't watch other games very often, but he's got to find ways to get SOG every game.

Last night was the first time this season Matthews didn't register a shot on goal, and only the 4th game in his career where he hasn't - which is right up there with the best shot producers in the league.

 

[L K]

Gauthier. 8 goals against in 25:51 PK TOI
Marner. 7 goals against in 52:03 PK TOI
Mikheyev. 5 goals against in 50:03 PK TOI
Kapanen. 5 goals against in 45:25 PK TOI
Moore. 4 goals against in 42:00 PK TOI

Rielly.  14 goals against in 54:49 PK TOI
Ceci.    9 goals against in 73:21 PK TOI
Holl.      7 goals against in 40:03 PK TOI
Muzzin.  4 goals against in 55:25 PK TOI
Dermott. 0 goals against in 6:55 PK TOI

Gauthier sticks out horribly on the PK right now. 
Rielly should be playing less.
Ideally Muzzin should be playing more and I would like to see Dermott get some time on the PK (not relating to his stats just distributing minutes better).

If we are only going to play Tavares 17 minutes a night, give him a minute or two of PK duty.

 

[Guilt Trip]

Gauthier. 8 goals against in 25:51 PK TOI
Marner. 7 goals against in 52:03 PK TOI
Mikheyev. 5 goals against in 50:03 PK TOI
Kapanen. 5 goals against in 45:25 PK TOI
Moore. 4 goals against in 42:00 PK TOI

Rielly.  14 goals against in 54:49 PK TOI
Ceci.    9 goals against in 73:21 PK TOI
Holl.      7 goals against in 40:03 PK TOI
Muzzin.  4 goals against in 55:25 PK TOI
Dermott. 0 goals against in 6:55 PK TOI

Gauthier sticks out horribly on the PK right now. 
Rielly should be playing less.
Ideally Muzzin should be playing more and I would like to see Dermott get some time on the PK (not relating to his stats just distributing minutes better).

If we are only going to play Tavares 17 minutes a night, give him a minute or two of PK duty.

Rielly and Goat shouldn't be on the PK period. I think they should actually try Barrie on it. What do they have to lose? I would throw in Matthews along with JT as well. They both can win faceoffs also. Hyman should help.

 

[herman]

This was also another game with zero SOG for Matthews. Anyone know how often Pastrnak or Ovie go shotless in games? Maybe it's more often than I think as I don't watch other games very often, but he's got to find ways to get SOG every game.

Last night was the first time this season Matthews didn't register a shot on goal, and only the 4th game in his career where he hasn't - which is right up there with the best shot producers in the league.

I think SOG as a stat is a very limited descriptive indicator of what a player was able to do in a single game sample. A puck just missing a stick on a cross-crease pass doesn't get registered on the scoresheet, so there's some additional data we don't have without rewatching game tape.

Last night, Nylander took 4 shot attempts, 2 of which were from the scoring chance home plate area, both of those deemed high danger. On the box score, it registered as 2 SOG with 1 goal.

Matthews took 4 shot attempts as well, all 4 from the scoring chance slot, 2 of them deemed high danger. 1 was blocked and 3 missed the net, but they were all from between the hash marks.

It's worth digging in a bit deeper if you want to measure performance to try to predict future performance.

NaturalStatTrick has a great game summary where you can filter by player for their specific events on top of seeing their breakdowns by game phase.
https://www.naturalstattrick.com/game.php?season=20192020&game=20282&view=limited

 

[herman]

There's a lot of luck in each event in hockey.

The goals stick out in memory because they're really quite rare (how many buckets in a basketball game are memorable? buzzer beaters for the most part for me). So while the score is what matters at the end of the game and sort of what matters to tally up the season, if we're evaluating the team for the purpose of improvement decisions, we should endeavour to filter out the luck noise in the data.

Right now, the Leafs aren't playing well on the scoresheets. Some of the underlying stats are very promising, such as larger control of shot share than usual; some are a little off-putting, such as our much lower offensive shot quality (xG) than before. Some of it is coaching (fewer stretch passes means our shots are not as hyper-dangerous when we get them, but it also means we don't give up as many counter-rushes); and some of it is personnel: Muzzin and Barrie are voracious shooters from the point; is it a Western conference thing? and they're replacing Gardiner and Zaitsev who really stuck to the game plan of bumping the puck to the forwards as option 1).

I don't see much in there that registers as the roster is physically incapable of putting it together in tactics and execution (they've clearly done elements of it before to the tune of leading the league offensively). We've played into a lot of holes lately (porous goaltending has simply revealed what was largely there before), but the team has learned that they can keep playing and keep pushing. So yeah, I don't like this stretch of results, but I still see promising signs of development as a group. Certain individuals are having a rough go at the moment, but we have a prime example in Nylander that performance does rebound to normalized levels eventually.

 

[herman]

Okay I wrote all that before I read what Dubas said.

 

[ZBBM]

Okay I wrote all that before I read what Dubas said.

Dubas is a bullshitter with the press just like every other GM.  He's very happy with Ceci.  Good things are right around the corner with Barrie. 

Of course, what's he going to say?  What objective people say is closer to "this team sucks right now" than Dubas's "we're growing together through the inevitable rough patches" mantra.

 

[Highlander]

Okay I wrote all that before I read what Dubas said.

Dubas is a bullshitter with the press just like every other GM.  He's very happy with Ceci.  Good things are right around the corner with Barrie. 

Of course, what's he going to say?  What objective people say is closer to "this team sucks right now" than Dubas's "we're growing together through the inevitable rough patches" mantra.

Dubas may mean that Good things round the corner with Barrie is a trade to the Ottawa Senators.

 

[Guilt Trip]

Okay I wrote all that before I read what Dubas said.

Dubas is a bullshitter with the press just like every other GM.  He's very happy with Ceci.  Good things are right around the corner with Barrie. 

Of course, what's he going to say?  What objective people say is closer to "this team sucks right now" than Dubas's "we're growing together through the inevitable rough patches" mantra.

Dubas may mean that Good things round the corner with Barrie is a trade to the Ottawa Senators.

Barrie isn't going anywhere. If Barrie was on PP1 and used the way he should be, I'd have no issue dumping on him. Babs hasn't used him properly. We could also argue that Babs doesn't use Muzzin properly also. He did play the PP in LA when he was there and has a booming shot, something Rielly doesn't.

 

[azzurri63]

Although the score didn't reflect this, we dominated the first and second period. We have the skill to be a top team, but we consistently perform poorly when it comes to special teams (PP & PK). The system isn't working, and that system is designed by the coaching staff. The players are just as frustrated as we are.

There are many teams performing better with less talent. This isn't a team that's "missing" anything in terms of player resources. The issue is poor asset (player) allocation, and that falls squarely on the coaches.

Dubas has made some great acquisitions in the off season, with limited cap space, but it doesn't seem that Babcock is interested in using those assets where they should be used. There is a clear disconnect between Dubas and Babcock. Several people already mentioned a few of these poor decisions:

- Why is Barrie not on the PP?
- Petan can't make the 4th line on a regular basis, but is on the second PP unit.
- Always playing the backup on back to back nights.
- Gauthier being on PK.
...the list goes on.

The players need a fresh start under new coaching staff, while there is still time to secure a playoff position. We have some of the best players in the league, and at this rate we may not qualify for the playoffs.

Wanted to log on and quote this post, which I think is pretty much bang on. Well said and welcome to the site

Great points and yes welcome aboard.

 

[L K]

Who are we pulling off PP1 to put Barrie on there?

Rielly put up 1G 24A in 167:21 in 2017/2018.  Barrie put up 7G 23A in 253:04 PP-TOI.
Rielly put up 3G 18A in 214:01 in 2018/2019.  Barrie put up 2G 23A in 315:15 PP-TOI.

In 2017 Rielly put up 0.149 Points/Minute on the PP.  Barrie put up 0.119 Points/Minute.
In 2018 Rielly put up  0.098 Points/Minutes on the PP.  Barrie put up 0.079 Points/Minute.

Rielly has a better point production than Barrie on the PP.  Are we going back to 3 forwards and 2 defensemen.  I'm actually ok with this until you recognize that we don't really have someone able to be on the 2nd PP unit and if we are spacing out Matthews/Marner/Tavares/Nylander between two units we probably want to have actual PP1 and PP2 splits.

 

[Guilt Trip]

You either go with 2 D men or take Rielly off it. He's not a threat to shoot and that kind of makes him irrelevant back there. Now I'm not blaming him for the PP1 problems but they need to change it up and they also need to try and get Barrie going 

 

[dappleganger]

You either go with 2 D men or take Rielly off it. He's not a threat to shoot and that kind of makes him irrelevant back there. Now I'm not blaming him for the PP1 problems but they need to change it up and they also need to try and get Barrie going

Try Barrie there. Rielly already plays a ton. Tyson had success on the 1st PP in Colorado.

 

[Chris]

This was also another game with zero SOG for Matthews. Anyone know how often Pastrnak or Ovie go shotless in games? Maybe it's more often than I think as I don't watch other games very often, but he's got to find ways to get SOG every game.

Last night was the first time this season Matthews didn't register a shot on goal, and only the 4th game in his career where he hasn't - which is right up there with the best shot producers in the league.

I think SOG as a stat is a very limited descriptive indicator of what a player was able to do in a single game sample. A puck just missing a stick on a cross-crease pass doesn't get registered on the scoresheet, so there's some additional data we don't have without rewatching game tape.

Last night, Nylander took 4 shot attempts, 2 of which were from the scoring chance home plate area, both of those deemed high danger. On the box score, it registered as 2 SOG with 1 goal.

Matthews took 4 shot attempts as well, all 4 from the scoring chance slot, 2 of them deemed high danger. 1 was blocked and 3 missed the net, but they were all from between the hash marks.

It's worth digging in a bit deeper if you want to measure performance to try to predict future performance.

NaturalStatTrick has a great game summary where you can filter by player for their specific events on top of seeing their breakdowns by game phase.
https://www.naturalstattrick.com/game.php?season=20192020&game=20282&view=limited

I'm not interested in diving all that deep into stats, I prefer to evaluate based on watching the games. That may make me a dinosaur, so be it.

I went back and looked at the SOG for Matthews, Pastrnak, and Ovechkin this year. Matthews had more low SOG games (0 or 1) than the others, but it wasn't a dramatic difference. That said, my impression from watching most of the Leaf games this year is that a lot of the time, Matthews is just not being assertive and driving play like he is capable. Would I get a similar impression of Pastrnak or Ovie if I watched all their games as closely - no idea, though when the Leafs play those teams those players seem to be more assertive/involved than Matthews is overall.

Really though, the more I think about it the more I think a big part of the problem this year is the PP and PK, and if both units were to improve a reasonable amount the Leafs would be winning quite a few more games. At this point I'd be willing to switch and put Barrie on PP1 just to see if the threat of his shot opens up more room for the forwards - teams just don't seem to respect the point shot option right now and there doesn't seem to be much space closer to the net.

 

[L K]

You either go with 2 D men or take Rielly off it. He's not a threat to shoot and that kind of makes him irrelevant back there. Now I'm not blaming him for the PP1 problems but they need to change it up and they also need to try and get Barrie going

So despite the fact that Barrie has been less effective on the PP you want him there simply because he shoots?  We did that last year with Muzzin and it didn?t work.

 

[Guilt Trip]

You either go with 2 D men or take Rielly off it. He's not a threat to shoot and that kind of makes him irrelevant back there. Now I'm not blaming him for the PP1 problems but they need to change it up and they also need to try and get Barrie going

So despite the fact that Barrie has been less effective on the PP you want him there simply because he shoots?  We did that last year with Muzzin and it didn?t work.

They didn't do that with Muzz very much with the first PP unit. He averaged less then half of what Rielly got on the PP. Muzz is dbl of Rielly for PPG/60 tho. And yes I want them to try it because Rielly isn't a real threat to score and who knows, he make work out better then Rielly. When things aren't working, you need to change things up. He needs the rest anyway.