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2nd Rnd '25 Playoffs: Leafs vs Panthers - Flo-Rida them onto the ECF - LFG!

Artnes said:
Ballard is buried in the bellows of the rink. Convinced that rotten pos is still cursing this team
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Look, the Leafs are a good team and were built for the regular season when rules are applied. The NHL changes the game in the playoffs more than any other league. So how do you build a serious contender in a market that players rarely request to get traded to? Dallas, Colorado, Tampa, Florida have advantages that make it easier to build a team that can handle both types of hockey.

There a reason it's been 32 fucking years since Canada won a cup. The ice is tilted.
 
CH1 said:
yeah...and spend less time in your dzone
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Some people joke about the xG cup but having effective possession in the offensive zone is kind of really a big deal. The price for being in goal scoring areas during the playoffs is definitely higher and has to be paid if you want to win, but effective possesion is still massively important. "Playoff hockey" isn't dumb and chase offence and parking the bus on D.
 
MindzEye said:
Some people joke about the xG cup but having effective possession in the offensive zone is kind of really a big deal. The price for being in goal scoring areas during the playoffs is definitely higher and has to be paid if you want to win, but effective possesion is still massively important. "Playoff hockey" isn't dumb and chase offence and parking the bus on D.
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I’m quoting The Athletic here

More than 43 percent of the Leafs’ even-strength minutes in the playoffs were spent in the defensive zone. The NHL average is 39.7 percent.

The result: Less time in the offensive zone, just 39 percent, also below the league average of 41.6 percent.

The Leafs gave up more than 200(!) shot attempts (550-773) than they generated in the postseason. It’s hard to generate offence when you’re defending that much more than the opponent.
 
First (and only) question I ask Bérubé is “what factors led to that imbalance in zone time?”
 
CH1 said:
I’m quoting The Athletic here

More than 43 percent of the Leafs’ even-strength minutes in the playoffs were spent in the defensive zone. The NHL average is 39.7 percent.

The result: Less time in the offensive zone, just 39 percent, also below the league average of 41.6 percent.

The Leafs gave up more than 200(!) shot attempts (550-773) than they generated in the postseason. It’s hard to generate offence when you’re defending that much more than the opponent.
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Defending and chasing the other team all game is fucking exhausting too. It's not a winning strategy.
 
The counterstrike worked all season long except when interference calls went out the window and when your top offensive players (Knies excluded) are allergic to contact, that plan goes out the window
 
Even when it worked, it never felt sustainable. They got great goaltending and a whole lotta luck. But even beyond that, they're skilled enough to win when they don't deserve to against most teams in the league in the regular season. Playoffs vs a top 3 team is a different story.
 
CH1 said:
I’m quoting The Athletic here

More than 43 percent of the Leafs’ even-strength minutes in the playoffs were spent in the defensive zone. The NHL average is 39.7 percent.

The result: Less time in the offensive zone, just 39 percent, also below the league average of 41.6 percent.

The Leafs gave up more than 200(!) shot attempts (550-773) than they generated in the postseason. It’s hard to generate offence when you’re defending that much more than the opponent.
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Yep, that's the basic thesis behind the analytics movement. If you don't have the puck, you're less likely to win hockey games.

Our entire style is bonkers when viewed through a modern lens. We give up easy possession to the opposition, park the bus and block shots, which turns small sample stuff (playoff series) almost purely into a game of chance. Every shot attempt has a chance to pinball it's way where you don't want it to go. Game 3 overtime was lost on a funky go fuck yourself bounce that started as a shot type we're happy to give up and try to block.

We're then bad in offensive transition and turn the puck over (dump) and try to work super hard to get it back...which is fucking problematic, because if you work your dick off to get the puck back, now you've wasted time and energy in the offensive zone on puck retrieval and are eating away at your shift time to do anything useful out there.

Good hockey is deeply intuitive though, jocks just fucking hate numbers. Winning the possession battle 53-47 sounds fairly trivial because people don't understand how numbers work. 53% isn't 6% more possession than 47% is....it's 12.7% more possession. That's a fuck ton of additional time with the puck in a game, it's a significant edge that you need to overcome.

and we didn't finish this series 53-47. In just basic corsi (a decent enough analogue for pure possession), the series was 62-38 Florida at 5v5. xG and Scoring chances tracked similarly. There was a small bump in HD chance% because apparently we play to minimize those, where Florida won the series 56-44. But remember, that's not Florida getting 12% more high danger chances. That's over 25% more HD chances than we had.
 
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leafman101 said:
The Leafs had a "playoff" team this year.

They had a good D and goaltending. They gave up nothing. They were physical and blocked shots.

Their big guns disappeared after game 3.
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They obviously gave up something - 12 goals in games 5 and 7.

That wasn't just the big guns disappearing.
 
MindzEye said:
Good hockey is deeply intuitive though, jocks just fucking hate numbers. Winning the possession battle 53-47 sounds fairly trivial because people don't understand how numbers work. 53% isn't 6% more possession that 47% is....it's 12.7% more possession. That's a fuck ton of additional time with the puck in a game, it's a significant edge that you need to overcome.
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Exactly, for those who don’t quite understand percentages, that’s where that minus 200 shot attempt differential ices the point…. Kudos for all the shot blocks but good luck blocking them all harmlessly
 
CH1 said:
Exactly, for those who don’t quite understand percentages, that’s where that minus 200 shot attempt differential ices the point…. Kudos for all the shot blocks but good luck blocking them all harmlessly
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It seemed that they started shooting from everywhere once Woll came in. The Carolina method.
 
Artnes said:
Ballard is buried in the bellows of the rink. Convinced that rotten pos is still cursing this team
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"Bellows"? Like Brian Bellows?

I think you mean "bowels" of the rink and I'm pretty sure that Ballard was dead long before the first shovel went into the ground on the Scotiabank site. Only his avaricious management style survives him. He would look at the half hundred ways that MLSE grinds Leafs fans for their money and say "Now why didn't I think of that!"
 
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