Maple Leafs are better, but are they a playoff team?
- Thread starter cw
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gilmourthegreat
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The Leafs are finally back to the place where their playoff prospects hinge on their goaltending. This can probably be called an improvement over last season, but it's certainly not where I, or probably Burke, wanted to be near the end of the summer. I am still waiting for the Richards, Statsny, Getzlaf, or idealistically Malkin piece before I become stoked about our playoff chances.
Fortunately, nearly everything else is in place for a deep run. Unfortunately, in this case it's the same as saying a great car is missing everything except the engine.
Fortunately, nearly everything else is in place for a deep run. Unfortunately, in this case it's the same as saying a great car is missing everything except the engine.
I'm looking for the Leafs to make a playoff push. My hopes for them this season aren't too high, but I want to see them start being a tough team to play. If they can avoid the early/mid season multi-game losing streaks of recent years, they should be able to make it interesting down the stretch.
There's a maturation process that is probably going to have to run it's course before the Leafs can be expected to do anything in the playoffs. The current group of prospects will need to have made the team or close to it. An equal number of young prospects should be entering the system. By then, there should be a pretty solid talent base on the Leafs. Then it should be possible to make major trades without gutting the team and also to attract the top UFAs. Those UFAs will come when the Leafs are the team to play for. They aren't yet.
I don't think there's any way to rush this. JFJ left the Leafs at a talent level of an expansion team or worse, but at least drafted Reimer and Kulemin. Fletcher made a few sideways moves at best, but at least got Schenn.
I'm not sure what Burke was thinking when he first arrived in Toronto. It seemed to me like he didn't quite do his homework on the Leafs. I think he's up to speed now, but I don't think there's going to be anything to get really excited about for at least 2 more seasons.
There's a maturation process that is probably going to have to run it's course before the Leafs can be expected to do anything in the playoffs. The current group of prospects will need to have made the team or close to it. An equal number of young prospects should be entering the system. By then, there should be a pretty solid talent base on the Leafs. Then it should be possible to make major trades without gutting the team and also to attract the top UFAs. Those UFAs will come when the Leafs are the team to play for. They aren't yet.
I don't think there's any way to rush this. JFJ left the Leafs at a talent level of an expansion team or worse, but at least drafted Reimer and Kulemin. Fletcher made a few sideways moves at best, but at least got Schenn.
I'm not sure what Burke was thinking when he first arrived in Toronto. It seemed to me like he didn't quite do his homework on the Leafs. I think he's up to speed now, but I don't think there's going to be anything to get really excited about for at least 2 more seasons.
skrackle said:
Well, to me I feel it's remarkable at the talent turnaround we've seen in a few short season. I don't want to say we went from rags to riches, but I think we're on the road there. In general I feel like Burke's philosophy of "Leave with more than when you came" in terms of quality is serving us well and will pay dividends, either in the development of some very respectable talent or use in trades to land us a quality player.
ZBBM
Well-known member
I want to be optimistic but I can't help but worry that some players could regress. Reimer is the most obvious, but I am still not totally convinced about Grabovski or Kulemin. Grabs really cooled off after playing like an All-star for the middle part of the season. MacArthur is another huge question mark. If any of those guys slide back, we're cooked.
Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate said:
Out of Grabovski/Kulemin and MacArthur, I worry most about Mac. You see it quite often that a player performs their best during a contract year, and Kulemin and Grabovski are really in a position to get paid if they can keep up, and add to their efforts from last year. MacArthur has earned a pretty decent pay raise over last year, and, while he had a very consistent season, is not known for consistency...combine the two, and you may be looking a bit of a drop from last season. I hope I'm wrong here, of course.
Reimer is in a similar boat to Mac, but there are enough other options at goal that you would imagine at least one of them should be able to provide adequate goaltending if he falters.
bustaheims
Well-known member
Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate said:
That really depends on the extent of the slide. I mean, if neither Kulemin or Grabovski push 30 goals but still both put up 20-22, that's probably not a big deal. Same thing if MacArthur drops down into the 45-50 point range. These are drop-offs that could easily be made up by a full season of Lupul and an increase in production from Bozak to Connolly. Even if only one of them slide back, it's certainly possible that someone like Kadri could conceivably step up and make up the difference. If they fall of significantly, that's going to be a problem, but if they just slide back, it's not necessarily the end of the world.
Bender said:
Yes, Burke has definitely done a very good job of adding players, especially considering what he had to work with on arrival. That team was a shambles, especially once Sundin left. The upgrade in talent from then to now is significant. Not all of that talent has made the big team yet, so it's still in the realm of potential.
I think hubris got the better of Burke when he took the Leafs job. All that talk of not being interested in a 5 year rebuild was misguided. It's going to take that least that time frame before the Leafs are ready to do any playoff damage. If the Leafs end up being one of those teams that make a surprise run this year, I'd be happy to be wrong about that, though.
I'm not as worried about Mac as I am about Reimer, if worried is the right word. The General just went through his third straight 'contract' year and seems to have found a pretty solid home with Grabbo and Clem who each seem to be on an upward trend as well.
Reimer may have the demeanor and skill set for his role but he's yet to play a full year in the NHL and so much more is riding on him with even less proven depth behind him.
Reimer may have the demeanor and skill set for his role but he's yet to play a full year in the NHL and so much more is riding on him with even less proven depth behind him.
ZBBM
Well-known member
Busta Reims said:
See, I think we are on a razor's edge. Somebody posted that we were -33 GF/GA differential. To get that into positive range will take a major upgrade to the GA no matter what. Any slippage on the GF will be fatal, and I have big doubts that Bozak, Connally (especially!), and Lupul would make up for it.
Busta Reims said:
I don't think it's as easy as that.
Remember, the Leafs did also have Versteeg for more than 50 games. He scored around 35 points if I remember correctly. Thats essentially what Lupul would be replacing... and thats about where I expect his totals to be. Not to far off. So I dont think drops from Grabs/Kulemi are replaced by a full season of Lupul.
Connolly has still never scored more than 18 goals in any season of his career. That's not a huge upgrade over Bozak.
If Kulemin and/or Grabovski both drop 8 goals, thats 16 goals less... we were already signficiantly behind in our GF/GA as it was.
I know it's not nearly as easy as we are making it out to be- some players are in line for an increase (Kadri, Armstrong, Lupul, etc), some possible regression (Grabovski, Kulemin, etc) and some probably around the same (Kessel, Bozak, Connolly)... the one thing that is paramount is that Reimer has to play a full season like he did last year. If we get a SV % of .915 or greater from him, and he starts 60-65 games, we have a good shot at the playoffs. Otherwise, we're going to be in some trouble again.
Wouldn't Connolly and a full year of Lupul mean GF could be balanced out some ( if the Grabbo unit slips a bit... ) not to mention Kabs absence balanced by Liles and hopefully a good second option on the PP with Franson? ... maybe a full year from Dion could help too.
I mean it doesn't seem like the team really lost much in the way of GF, it's the GA that needs attention more so ( to me at least ).
I'd like to think, from what I saw at the end of last year at least, that Kadri could help with the GF a bit too though I may be putting more on him than I realistically should.
I mean it doesn't seem like the team really lost much in the way of GF, it's the GA that needs attention more so ( to me at least ).
I'd like to think, from what I saw at the end of last year at least, that Kadri could help with the GF a bit too though I may be putting more on him than I realistically should.
bustaheims
Well-known member
Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate said:
And that's part of where I think you're wrong. To get into the positive will really only require that Leafs get roughly average goaltending next season. An increase to a middle of the pack save percentage of .912 over a full season will cut 37 goals off the team's Goals Against total if they give up shots at a similar rate to last season - and, voila, without adding a single goal to the Leafs totals, they go from being -32 to being +5 (they were actually -32 last season in differential, once shootout goals were removed). If they get better than middle of the pack goaltending . . . well, you know.
bustaheims
Well-known member
Tigger said:
There are a lot of factors that could balance or more than balance out any slippages from the Kulemin-Grabovski-MacArthur line: a mostly healthy season from Armstrong, a full season from a more mature Kadri, a continued resurgence from Phaneuf, Bozak playing more like he did in his rookie season, a full season of Lupul and Connolly playing with Kessel potentially increasing his production and the production from that line in general, and improved PP, Gunnarsson being able to get a hold on his offensive game before mid-season, etc. There is just as much, if not more, that can go right as there are things that could go wrong. But, at the end of the day, it will all come down to goaltending. If Reimer and Gustavsson can provide quality goaltending performances on a consistent basis, the offence will be there enough to make it work - just like we saw when Reimer took over in the back half of the season. The Leafs won't be a prolific and deadly quick strike type goalscoring squad, but there's more than enough offence on the team for them to win enough games to get into the playoffs if they feel they can rely on their goaltending to back them up. If they can't . . . well, we've seen what happened to this team over the past 6 seasons.
ZBBM
Well-known member
Busta Reims said:
Without denying that better goaltending throughout the season will play a big part in improving the GA -- heck, as plenty have said, including me, if Reimer can play all season the way he did our chances of making it go up astronomically -- without denying that, you have forgotten that we are talking about a regression in GF, not merely keeping where we were last season. So if, just to take the numbers you gave, Grabs and Kuly each dropped 8-10 goals, that's makes the differential -48 to -52, not -32. So even cutting 37 from the GA still leaves us at -11 to -15, and way out the playoffs.
So, if there's any regression among the forwards, we'd need much better than middle-of-the-pack goaltending.