• Moderators, please send me a PM if you are unable to access mod permissions. Thanks, Habsy.

For Borje - The Toronto Maple Leafs 2023 Stanley Cup Champions Thread

It's really about how they are right now. Do we view Boston the same? Tampa really nose-dived in the final quarter.
Often taking runs is about having some good things happen which Leafs simply never, ever have had. Leafs road is a little easier than we anticipated and that's ok. No team deserves it more than the Leafs.
 
SundinsTooth said:
Just highlights how dumb that 3 on 3 is as any sort of gauge on future performance in the playoffs.
Click to expand...

So much this. I clowned that all year after every 3v3 loss.

Regular season OT means literally nothing, but playoff OT underlines why being an elite 5v5 team is so important. You're probably going to have to scrape together 5v5 goals to win those in the playoffs.
 
JackBurton said:
It's really about how they are right now. Do we view Boston the same? Tampa really nose-dived in the final quarter.
Often taking runs is about having some good things happen which Leafs simply never, ever have had. Leafs road is a little easier than we anticipated and that's ok. No team deserves it more than the Leafs.
Click to expand...
I mean Tampa did look human this year and Boston required a lot of luck to have the season they had...

But it's still the hardest path to the finals in the entire league and it's not particularly close.
 
JackBurton said:
It's really about how they are right now. Do we view Boston the same?
Click to expand...

Yes

Tampa really nose-dived in the final quarter.
Click to expand...

Team that dominated the eastern conference for 5+ years saw a stretch of meaningless games (they knew they were playing us by like, December and knew by February they probably weren't catching us for home ice) and played down to it. Meh.
JackBurton said:
Leafs road is a little easier than we anticipated and that's ok.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I don't agree with this at all. Tampa-Boston-Carolina would be a fucking gauntlet.

- Tampa was 6th in the league in regulation wins
- Boston 1st by a whole lot
- Carolina tied for 4th

and the western conference blows, but the team that comes out of it is going to be a #5-8th best team in the league as well. That's a hell of a road to a cup.

Now, that changes entirely if Florida beats Boston tonight and the Rangers beat Jersey & the Canes. Lighting-Panthers-Rangers-Vegas or some shit is moderate at worst by the standards of most cup runs.
 
JackBurton said:
It's really about how they are right now. Do we view Boston the same? Tampa really nose-dived in the final quarter.
Often taking runs is about having some good things happen which Leafs simply never, ever have had. Leafs road is a little easier than we anticipated and that's ok. No team deserves it more than the Leafs.
Click to expand...

yeah Boston looking mortal does change things. though tbh I'm not too shocked to see them looking beatable.

but still...this is a damn hard road. and even getting the panthers wouldn't make it an easy one.
 
Fwiw...how we should view Boston.

They literally finished the season on a 15-1 run. Due for sweet, sweet regression? Yeah probably. But there's no rule that says when that regression comes due. Maybe tonight, maybe in the finals after they win 9 straight games starting tonight. Who the fuck knows.

What we do know is they had the best goalie tandem in the league by a lot this year. Elite nerdies as a team. Ridiculously good across the entire regular season with no slumps. Tons of experience. Strong middle 6 forward group to back up the perfection line if they decide to run that.

Here's the lineup they ran in game 6

Marchand-Bergeron-DeBrusk
Zacha-Krejci-Pasternak
Hall-Coyle-Bertuzzi

Ummm...that's a motherfucker of a top 9 if it's healthy.
 
The Green Hornet said:
Not having Freddie and Jack letting in back breaking softy after back breaking softy all series is a huge difference. Looking back at some of those series it was an absolute joke what Freddie did to this team
Click to expand...

Yeah, Sammy wasn't particularly good (.900% on the series) but he did hold the door a handful of times when we needed him to. Freddy was almost an instant goal against whenever we scored a big goal. Jack was just pretty bad overall. Sammy made some big saves when we needed them and kept the muffin count reasonably low.
 
MindzEye said:
Here's the lineup they ran in game 6

Marchand-Bergeron-DeBrusk
Zacha-Krejci-Pasternak
Hall-Coyle-Bertuzzi

Ummm...that's a motherfucker of a top 9 if it's healthy.
Click to expand...

I still like to think back to the start of the season and try to remember how the players were viewed before this insane season they all just had.

Based on what they were coming into the year, the lines probably would have looked something like this:

Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak --> Perfection Line, but getting really old
Hall-Krejci-Bertuzzi --> gritty top liner in Bertuzzi, with two diminished guys who were more just ok 2nd liners than great ones.
Zacha-Coyle-DeBrusk --> three decent but iffy middle sixers who hadn't really established themselves as clearcut 2nd liners

and I'm not sure they haven't resembled that pre-season profile during this series so far more than what we think of them now after this insane season the team just had.
 
The Green Hornet said:
Not having Freddie and Jack letting in back breaking softy after back breaking softy all series is a huge difference. Looking back at some of those series it was an absolute joke what Freddie did to this team
Click to expand...

sammy did let in that back breaking softie in game 5.

but he showed the fuck up in game 6 which is something we simply haven't seen from one of our goalies in an elimination game.
 
zeke said:
I still like to think back to the start of the season and try to remember how the players were viewed before this insane season they all just had.

Based on what they were coming into the year, the lines probably would have looked something like this:

Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak --> Perfection Line, but getting really old
Hall-Krejci-Bertuzzi --> gritty top liner in Bertuzzi, with two diminished guys who were more just ok 2nd liners than great ones.
Zacha-Coyle-DeBrusk --> three decent but iffy middle sixers who hadn't really established themselves as clearcut 2nd liners

and I'm not sure they haven't resembled that pre-season profile during this series so far more than what we think of them now after this insane season the team just had.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but a few things happened along the way

- Pasternak decided to go supernova and look like a top 5 player in the league this season instead of just the excellent top 5 RW he was previously
- Krejci came back to the league looking every bit a mid tier #2C, didn't miss a beat
- Zacha broke out (by Zacha standards) into more of a top 6 winger than a 3rd line winger. Debrusk scored at a 35 goal pace.
- Trent Frederic became a bit of a bottom 6 problem

So yeah, a bunch of things went right for Boston this year but it's hard to know what are trends (Zacha, Debrusk,& Frederic are all young enough that actual improvement can't be ruled out) and what was fluke/heaters/etc. Also, they went apeshit after having a great trade deadline.

I don't think anyone is really a 135+ point team all the time. That's a level of pure dominance that is probably impossible in the cap era without an outsized dose of OT/SO luck.

But regardless what their final point total was, just looking at the earned nerdies and the roster quality, they're a fucking problem.
 
MindzEye said:
Yeah, but a few things happened along the way

- Pasternak decided to go supernova and look like a top 5 player in the league this season instead of just the excellent top 5 RW he was previously
- Krejci came back to the league looking every bit a mid tier #2C, didn't miss a beat
- Zacha broke out (by Zacha standards) into more of a top 6 winger than a 3rd line winger. Debrusk scored at a 35 goal pace.
- Trent Frederic became a bit of a bottom 6 problem

So yeah, a bunch of things went right for Boston this year but it's hard to know what are trends (Zacha, Debrusk,& Frederic are all young enough that actual improvement can't be ruled out) and what was fluke/heaters/etc. Also, they went apeshit after having a great trade deadline.

I don't think anyone is really a 135+ point team all the time. That's a level of pure dominance that is probably impossible in the cap era without an outsized dose of OT/SO luck.

But regardless what their final point total was, just looking at the earned nerdies and the roster quality, they're a fucking problem.
Click to expand...

I'll have to check but i'm pretty sure most of the surprise guys saw their production taper off considerably as the year went on. That could have been related to losing PP time as they added more bodies back in, I'm not sure.
 
Place a bet on lightning.
zeke said:
I'll have to check but i'm pretty sure most of the surprise guys saw their production taper off considerably as the year went on. That could have been related to losing PP time as they added more bodies back in, I'm not sure.
Click to expand...

Lindholm for sure dropped off once McAvoy was back and took over pp1 duties. Still got a decent amount of points but the pp production wasn't there any more.
 
fergy57 said:
Place a bet on lightning.


Lindholm for sure dropped off once McAvoy was back and took over pp1 duties. Still got a decent amount of points but the pp production wasn't there any more.
Click to expand...

there's another thing - guys like Lindholm and Orlov saw a massive bounce in play moving to the Bruins this year. I'm not sure I quite believe those performances, either.
 
Regular Season
​

5v5 xGF%

5. TOR 54.11
6. BOS 54.05
7. FLA 53.80



5v4 xGF/60

2. FLA 9.77
5. TOR 9.64
13. BOS 8.25

4v5 xGA/60

1. BOS 5.91
2. TOR 6.28
11. FLA 7.39

5v4 v 4v5 xG +/-

TOR +3.36
FLA +2.38
BOS +2.34

And the stats towards the end of the season looked better than that for the panthers and worse for the bruins.
​
 
And this series so far:

EV

BOS 47.97xgf% ---- 46.4gf%
FLA 52.03xgf% --- 53.6gf%

yikes. The only reason Boston's still alive in the series is because they've outscored Florida 9-3 on the PP, of course with the aid of getting ~40% more PP time.
 
The Bruins had a ton of things go right this year to have the record they had. i think they posted the best PDO ever recorded. (Best since Leafs posted a 1.03 in 2013 shockingly enough).

So they aren’t an unbeatable juggernaut. Still a great team though.
 
One thing that has been huge is that Ullmark has been back to normal as well. Both him and Bob have not been lights out by any means this series.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top