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GDT - Leafs vs Ward & Canes | 7:00PM SNET

number17

number17

Mod Squad
Price snapped our short winning streak but it's time to start another one vs. the suddenly hot Canes. THe Leafs go from facing an elite goaltender to a hot goalie.

Many scratched their head when Ron Francis kept Ward, but so far this season Ward is rewarding their GM, looking every bit as good as he was in his younger years.

The Canes have won 4 in a row, but this is still a very winnable game.

Go Leafs Go!
 
I dunno, Francis's decision to keep Ward is still a head-scratcher.

He's back to providing average-ish goaltending after four years of horrid goaltending, but that's about all you can say about him.

This should be a fun game though. The Hurricanes are very much in the same boat as us. They've got a few older players sprinkled throughout their roster (Staal, Hainsey, Stalberg, McSelke), but for the most part they're a very young team with a lot of guys at the beginning of their careers. So, I'd expect a whole lot of pace to the game tonight.

From twitter, it looks like the usual forward lines will be back, along with the same defense pairings (including our beloved Hunwick-Polak pairing).
 
Canes have been one of the best possession teams in hockey this year, and have a very nice young team. Ward suckee in october and they struggled but he's red hot in november ans the wins have started to come. this is not an easy game.
 
this will be the first game where Marner goes head to head vs Hanifin, separated by 1 draft position in the same draft.
 
blkngldbabe said:
Looking forward to this matchup. It's going to be my first live game this year.
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Have fun! I'm definitely going to have to make a point of getting out there to see the kids in person at some point this year too.

Hopefully you get to see a Marner hat trick, and/or Auston Matthews popping in a goal or two to finish all the talk about his "slump".
 
LeafGm said:
and/or Auston Matthews popping in a goal or two to finish all the talk about his "slump".
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It was unfortunately all too predictable after his 4 goal debut. The kid is meeting if not exceeding any remotely reasonable expectations, but yeah welcome to the fishbowl.
 
it will help if Matthews score a goal or 2 tonight.

Thing is, the kid is on pace to ~60 pts season right now, playing C as a 19 year old in the NHL, and leading the league in es shots .... for a kid supposely in a 12 games 'slump' that's pretty darn good
 
For sure. Between all those shitty posts and then him tightening up, the guy could easily, easily be in the NHL scoring lead with 25 points.

In a way it's good to have this kind of frustration early on. If he had kept flying and hit a wall at the 50 game mark, or started out next season with a 15 game drought, it would've hurt the ego and confidence more.

He'll snap out of it shortly and will propel himself back into the scoring race. And for so long as he's on his line, Nylander will go with him.

Just ****ing remove Hyman from that line and drop him down to the fourth line. Please. I'm begging. Every single team can cheat and assign stronger coverage to Matthews and Nylander, knowing Hyman isn't really a threat to do anything. Adding a third legitimate weapon to the line, like Sosh, or even just Komarov, would make a massive, massive difference in the fortunes of the two studs.
 
Volcanologist said:
It was unfortunately all too predictable after his 4 goal debut. The kid is meeting if not exceeding any remotely reasonable expectations, but yeah welcome to the fishbowl.
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Remember how, during a couple of Phil's goal droughts, the broadcasters would display (at least several times a game) a graphic on the screen counting in real time how much time on ice Phil Kessel had received since scoring his last goal? This is kind of reminding me of that.

The main reason I want to see Matthews score ASAP is to just shut them up for a while.
 
Hunwick, Polak, Smith & Martin all out there on the PK...with predictable results.

I really don't know about this strategy of putting literally the four worst players on the roster out there when we're down a man.
 
They look like a bunch of Sens fans trying to hump a door-knob:

zvzqzBf.jpg
 
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