zeke
Well-known member
Unsurprisingly the level of play the leafs used to win 5 in a row against struggling middling teams hasn't been nearly good enough in the first two games of this 4 gm set against actual good teams. Depressing losses to CAR and especially to an exhausted canucks team have leafs nation on edge.
Now the Leafs have to close out this set against league media darlings DAL and NJD, needing to win both just to split. And even if they play well they could easily lose both, which would plunge the leafs right back down into the muddle near the bottom of the playoffs standings....though not exactly down to the playoffs bubble itself.
To add to the depression, now we have to deal with the embarassment of Steven Lorentz on the 1st line and Reaves back in the lineup, cuz the solution is obviously MOAR GRIT, as always.
The Stars seem to be red hot in one sense - 8-1-1 in their last 10 looks fearsome. But on closer inspection it's maybe not actually that impressive. Only one of those games came against a team higher than the playoffs bubble, and that was a loss to MIN. Other than that it's all been a bunch of very tight games against bubble teams or worse. And in the last 5gms, it's only one regulation win, with 3 OT/SO wins and a loss last game to the Sens. So the Stars are a good team that's winning a bit, but maybe not as fearsome as the recent record suggests. This shouldn't be a game we can't handle.
And we're actually now coming off two days of rest at home, and now don''t have any back to backs until after the international break in march. So there's 0 excuse in terms of being tired or overworked anytime soon. There's still the fact that McCabe and Stolarz are out, but our goaltending is supposed to be built to withstand injuries, and our dcorps being so impacted by the loss of one guy is a clear fault in the team structure, so can't really be used as an excuse either. And McCabe looks to be on track to return soon anyways.
Ayways, after the two days of rest at home we better see some better energy over these next two at least.
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Now the Leafs have to close out this set against league media darlings DAL and NJD, needing to win both just to split. And even if they play well they could easily lose both, which would plunge the leafs right back down into the muddle near the bottom of the playoffs standings....though not exactly down to the playoffs bubble itself.
To add to the depression, now we have to deal with the embarassment of Steven Lorentz on the 1st line and Reaves back in the lineup, cuz the solution is obviously MOAR GRIT, as always.
The Stars seem to be red hot in one sense - 8-1-1 in their last 10 looks fearsome. But on closer inspection it's maybe not actually that impressive. Only one of those games came against a team higher than the playoffs bubble, and that was a loss to MIN. Other than that it's all been a bunch of very tight games against bubble teams or worse. And in the last 5gms, it's only one regulation win, with 3 OT/SO wins and a loss last game to the Sens. So the Stars are a good team that's winning a bit, but maybe not as fearsome as the recent record suggests. This shouldn't be a game we can't handle.
And we're actually now coming off two days of rest at home, and now don''t have any back to backs until after the international break in march. So there's 0 excuse in terms of being tired or overworked anytime soon. There's still the fact that McCabe and Stolarz are out, but our goaltending is supposed to be built to withstand injuries, and our dcorps being so impacted by the loss of one guy is a clear fault in the team structure, so can't really be used as an excuse either. And McCabe looks to be on track to return soon anyways.
Ayways, after the two days of rest at home we better see some better energy over these next two at least.
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