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#ForBorje - GDT #1: TOR v TBL 23/4/18 7:30 - HERE. WE. GO.

I'm not letting Kyle off the hook either here. He has been way too accommodating to Sheldon and for me is the larger culprit.

Anyway, any other team and I probably would barely flinch over game 1. But the Leafs deserve 0 benefit of the doubt. They are now faced with a must-win. There's no such thing as "losing home ice" in the NHL as far as I'm concerned. 1-1 makes this series even. Tampa would have 0 edge heading into game 3.
 
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Well most teams vets don’t play like rookies in big games. Look at Tampa.

The front office doesn't have a great track record of grabbing the right veteran depth.

We either bring in formerly good guys with legacies of losing like Marleau, Thornton, Simmonds, Foligno, Plekanec

Good players with the right type of experience but then expect them to play up the lineup or in harder roles from those they had team success in like Hainsey, Muzzin

Or shitty plugs that we insist on using instead of having a functioning developement path for organizational bottom 6 players. Clifford, Bogosian, Lybushkin, Schenn, Vesey, Blackwell, Lafferty, ZAR.

The bottom of our lineup gets caved in every fucking playoff series and the narrative is still to blame the top of the lineup when it doesn't do enough to overcome the bottom half of the lineup getting caved the fuck in.
 
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I'm not letting Kyle off the hook either here.

Nor should we. He owns this. This is his neanderthal pick for coach that is fucking us at the moment with this McCauley shit and his deep refusal to develop young depth players.
 
Remember in year one of the current Leaf era, we had like, a dozen rookies on the team, went from last place to the playoffs against pretty much all the pundits’ opinions and took the league’s top seed to six games (in a series that also featured five OT’s)?

I mean, I’m pretty sure I remember that happening, at least. But it’s clear Dubas & Keefe have forgotten.

Say what you want about the lack of experience, but they didn't roll over like our caravan of veterans tends to. Washington had to triple tap them to the head to make them stay down.
 
The way the Leafs treated the 3rd period is also indicative of who they are. Last year we kill them and they punish us physically in the 3rd setting the tone for the next game.

The Leafs? Meh...let's just watch the clock tick by so we can get out of this empty building.

Depressing.
 
Depressing.
My sentiments exactly...third period rolls around and no killer instinct to be seen. Not enough pride to go down with a fight, instead it was a display of a team given up and ready to leave the ice. Fucken déjà all over again. This team needs a heart transplant.
 
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They shouldn't need Keefe to make the right calls really. They're better. They just need to nut up. Cocks out, stroke them, do whatever you need to do. Game 2 is crucial. It's not everything because we've seen them dominate playoff games before and cower when they're 1 game away from putting a team away.. But it's crucial that they respond well and at the very least dominate the game.
 
We all know that Tampa didn't lose a single game this year that McCauley was the referee in. I would be curious to know what the Leaf's record was this year in games with McCauley.

It would be a more relevant stat than pointless "expected goals".
 
Knies, Holmberg, McMann, Engvall, Sandin, Lilly.

All guys who could’ve played last night but who were either held down, dumped, or scratched.
 
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