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1st Rnd '25 Playoffs: The Battle of Ontario V - More of the Same - LFG!

Patches and Kampf still on the outside looking in. Could be health could just be coach's decisions.

Lines are the same as the past few games.
 
This Year Gm1 vs Last Year Gm1

Knies-Matthews-Marner --- Bertuzzi-Matthews-Domi
Domi-Tavares-Nylander --- Knies-Tavares-Marner
McMann-Holmberg-Robertson --- Jarnkrok-Holmberg-Robertson
Lorentz-Laughton-Jarnkrok --- Dewar-Kampf-Reaves

McCabe-Tanev --- Benoit-McCabe
Rielly-Carlo --- Rielly-Lyubushkin
Benoit-OEL --- Edmundson-Liljegren

Stolarz --- Samsonov​
 
Everyone says in retrospect how bad the Bruins team was that we lost to last year but i just went and checked the Doms series preview from last year and he had the bruins with the slight edge 53%-47% heading into the series....and that's before knowing that Matthews, Nylander, and McMann were injured. He actually had the Leafs as slightly better net rating +44 to +41 but i guess home ice gave the bruins the edge.

This year the first round is different - it's TOR +49 and OTT +7. And we have home ice. There's really no excuses this time, even if have an injury or two.


Just wanted to check out how these leafs' net ratings heading into the playoffs match up with last year's:


1745083925803.png


​
Tried to match them up as sensibly as i could.

- the model liked our top-6 forwards better last year, mostly because it liked Matthews way better last year, and also liked Domi better too. Of course the model didn't know that Matthews and Nylander were about to be seriously injured.

- the model likes the bottom 6 forwards about the same as last year, though with one significant upgrade of Laughton over Kampf. Of course the model didn't know the best bottom-6 winger McMann would miss the whole series, and that Reaves would play most of the series.

- surprisingly the model liked last year's dcore about as much as this year, but with a huge caveat - It likes this year's top-4 WAY better (last year's top-4 was actually a collective -3 heading in to the playoffs), and the only reason why last year's D-core was comparable in net rating to this year was because the model loved Lilly....and that turned out to be a very bad call, with Lilly being legit unplayable that series. There's not nearly that risk this year, as OEL is a proven commodity and we know what he'll give us in that role.

- the model thinks Stolarz is super elite, while Sammy was plain weak compared to other playoffs starters. The model was right about sammy.



So basically the two biggest advantages that the model saw last year's team as having over this year's team - Matthews and Liljegren - turned out not to be advantages at all last year - matthews thru injury and Lilly thru sucking hard. Hopefully we avoid big injuries to our best players this year, and I don't think we have to worry about any Lilly-like implosion from the vets who replaced him.

It also feels nice that this year if some forwards get injured it'll be Patches and Kampf first up instead of Reaves and Gregor.
 
zeke said:
This year the first round is different - it's TOR +49 and OTT +7. And we have home ice. There's really no excuses this time, even if have an injury or two.
Click to expand...


full
 
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