Leafs 2024-2025 Season Thread
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Panthers lead 2-0, The Canes fans are still cheering loudly (Canes are playing decent), Toronto fans would be dead silent from nervousness, but then again Leafs don't give their fans much to cheer for.
Before you feel sorry for him. Remember he should've taken more time off to be ready for the playoffs. Toronto could've put him on LITR but he chose to speed up his recovery to play in the Four Nations tournament. He knew this was a prove it year for the Maple Leafs yet put that event as priority over the team that pays him.
Shanaplan was a Shanascam. Brendan had no business being the President of the biggest hockey club in the world. This was worse than the hiring of Ken Dryden in the late 90s. At least Dryden hired experienced people.
He was also a third round draft pick. Patrice Bergeron was a second round pick. Show us these diamond in the roughs that Shanny and Dubas said the organization was gonna draft year after year other than Knies.
Through the years we’ve seen all 5 core players play the same ’passive style”, they are much closer to winning the Lady Byng trophy than the cup. There’s no fire in their eyes like what we see from the greats like Crosby or McDavid. One talking head said on a podcast that they need to add some rats to drag them into the fight to bring out their passion. Edmonton has Perry and Kane, Dallas has Benn and Marchment, Florida has Bennett, Tkachuk and Marchand. These are the kind of players the Leafs don’t have.
As for Rielly and Marner, just imagine we could somehow replace them with Bennett and Ekblad (both are upc UFA). We may not score as many goals and points in the regular season, but I’m sure it’ll be a much more competitive playoff team. Money will not be an issue. They can either trade or buy out Rielly as I brought up in my previous post. Only trouble is Bennett and Ekblad may not want to sign with the Leafs.
As for Rielly and Marner, just imagine we could somehow replace them with Bennett and Ekblad (both are upc UFA). We may not score as many goals and points in the regular season, but I’m sure it’ll be a much more competitive playoff team. Money will not be an issue. They can either trade or buy out Rielly as I brought up in my previous post. Only trouble is Bennett and Ekblad may not want to sign with the Leafs.
I think Berube is largely to blame.
The style he had them play was a big reason for the Leafs being continually pinned down in their own end, continually outshot
by a large margin. They led the league with blocked shots by a huge margin, meaning the puck was always in their zone and they
were constantly absorbing shots.
The Leafs played like they were a man short when they were trapped in their end, the Panthers were way more aggressive on Leaf players
even when Florida was killing penalties.
And they were no better against Ottawa, Stolarz was the only reason they got passed them.
A pathetic display of hockey.
That's the feeling I had when the Panthers were in the Leaf's defensive zone. It felt like the Panthers were on a constant penalty power play with a man advantage, organized and methodical, while the Leafs were scrambling around, finding it almost impossible to get the puck back over the blue line.
What is a Conference Final? I've never heard about this growing up in Toronto.
. Let's get the parade going.I realize that Leaf fans have to search for positives to cling to - and while your statement is true - so much more importantly true are two big time blow out losses (being outscored 12-2 ) in games that truly mattered. Add to that the consistent record of playoff futility during the Core 4 era.
So sure the Leafs were 1 goal away from beating the Panthers and then marching right to the Stanley Cup.
Can't say the outcome would have been any different with Stolarz in there but he was injured in game 1 and he was the defacto number 1 goalie for the Leafs. Woll played all 7 games after not playing for several weeks. Overall he wasn't good. Especially game 7.
The eye test wasn't good for Rielly and the analytics apparently confirms it. High danger slot chances against the Carlo Rielly pairing were through the roof. Both are back for next season most likely as a pairing.
The eye test wasn't good for Rielly and the analytics apparently confirms it. High danger slot chances against the Carlo Rielly pairing were through the roof. Both are back for next season most likely as a pairing.
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There's no guarantees. I'm going by probabilities. It's extremely difficult for a team to come back from a 3 and 0 deficit in any sport including hockey. Quite frankly I feel if they lost game 3 to Ottawa in OT it would have went to game 7 and they would have lost in the first round so it goes both ways. Winning or losing an OT game is a big swing.
When they beat TB they won all 3 OT games. If they had lost 1 of those 3 OT games it would have gone to a game 7 and they would have lost. That's what it takes. When they lost to Montreal they lost both games 5 and 6 in OT. They lost to Boston last year in game 7 in OT so that is the epitome of a big swing.
Both the Florida Ottawa series were very similar. Leafs go up 2 games. 3rd game goes to OT. Leafs lose games 4 and 5 and win game 6. One is a series win and one is a series loss.
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