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Gdt | up early bc I prob wont be round 2morrow for a bunch of reasons ok leafs take gm 2 F Bos also why isn’t pastrnak (Jewish name) off for Passover?

Preston said:
I think it's a bit lazy to extrapolate a very real issue to every single key player on the roster. For me, Matthews' playoff performances, while I would like more from him, haven't been a top 20 issue on this roster over the years. He's been a good, reliable horse that typically wins his minutes. Convert a couple of his record breaking amount of playoff posts into goals and the numbers look even better. Its a game of millimeters sometimes.

Compare his playoff numbers against teams like Florida, Tampa and Boston vs some of the other stars and you'll come away thinking he's doing his job just fine.

I agree though, if the Leafs were up against LA or Washington or even the Islanders I'd want to see a regular season pace out of Matthews. Not so realistic against the teams the Leafs have played though.. no one gets video game numbers against these team, regular season or otherwise.


Anyway for me a bigger issue is that Tavares and Marner tend to get buried in the playoffs unless they're stapled to Matthews. That's a lot of money to spend on guys that get buried by Pavel Zacha amongst others.
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Just to be clear. I see the core as "a single player" who can McKinnon, Makar etc for a night. Not criticising Matthews. The luxury of this team should be that Matthews can go with string of good but not great games or a bad one here or there and still win if one of the other core players takes over. We need, and have needed, at least one core player to shine every night.
 
CTheBigPicture said:
Just to be clear. I see the core as "a single player" who can McKinnon, Makar etc for a night. Not criticising Matthews. The luxury of this team should be that Matthews can go with string of good but not great games or a bad one here or there and still win if one of the other core players takes over. We need, and have needed, at least one core player to shine every night.
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Yes and I think Matthews has done his job more than fine. Nylander too, though he comes at a higher ticket now so expectations should be increased there. Marner and Tavares, beyond just the counting stats, need to be better. The whole point of Tavares was to have two first line caliber lines but that hasn't really happened especially once playoffs come along. Guy gets buried almost every year. For me, that's pretty simply the main issue beyond the scoring depth historically, and this year beyond the garbage slug d.
 
zeke said:
Matthews dominating, getting points on all3 goals, fucking BEASTING on the game winner, and then saving that last goal for the icing on top.

That's what we always fucking needed.

and good job by Sammy. Both goals would have requried fluke saves.
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Matty was our best player, which was great.

Sammy was solid enough, made a couple timely saves, but still not inspiring confidence.

our D kinda sucks though. Boosh is just a moron. Rielly looks very meh. Timmy made a few bad decisions. Eddy is a hack, but I guess we knew that. And Benoit's a fringe top-4 guy, if even that.

and Marner was dogshit. we really miss Willy in the neutral zone. hell, McMann too.
 
zeke said:

60.1xgf% ALL
56.8xgf% 5v5


EV

Bertuzzi 15:48, 70.3% --- Matthews 18:12, 67.1% --- Domi 13:48, 73.8%
Knies 13:00, 19.8% --- Tavares 12:54, 10.1% --- Marner 14:00, 21.8%
Dewar 10:48, 47.8% --- Kampf 12:54, 40.8% --- Reaves 10:30, 52.0%
Robertson 7:18, 86.8% --- Holmberg 8:54, 63.3% --- Jarnkrok 11:12, 60.7%

Edmundson 20:12, 26.6% --- Liljegren 18:30, 29.0%
Rielly 17:48, 68.8% --- Lyubushkin 13:42, 85.1%
Benoit 14:42, 37.4% --- McCabe 16:18, 42.0%

​
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Robby needs more ice
 
zeke said:
I'm choosing to get excited about the fact that our first PP and first PK were hilaribad, but then both special teams gradually improved over the course of the game.

If we can finally be unshittastic on special teams we could do some damage.
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the Bruins don't scare me at evens, at all really.
 
WeHaveMoreCupsThanYou said:
100%

Your best players need to be your best players. Matthews earned his salary last night. Marner was still dogshit but Matthews and Tavares elevated. It's nice to get your 4th line chipping in occasionally, but they can't lead.

Last night the Oilers skull-fucked the Kings because their best players showed up. Hyman hat trick. 5 assists for McJebus. Draisaitl and Nuge on the scoresheet. 3 powerplay goals. They didn't try to win with Foegle and Henrique (although they also both had goals)

This is what the money you pay your stars is for. Not the regular season achievements. This. Key goals in the post season.
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lol Tavares was awful last night, aside from an admittedly clutch goal
 
Wayward DP said:
Matty was our best player, which was great.

Sammy was solid enough, made a couple timely saves, but still not inspiring confidence.

our D kinda sucks though. Boosh is just a moron. Rielly looks very meh. Timmy made a few bad decisions. Eddy is a hack, but I guess we knew that. And Benoit's a fringe top-4 guy, if even that.

and Marner was dogshit. we really miss Willy in the neutral zone. hell, McMann too.
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Both look better with reliable partners. Paired with those two is like playing on one leg
 
Preston said:
no one gets video game numbers against these team, regular season or otherwise.
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Crucial point. A few weeks ago I showed what Mackinnon looks like vs the Coyotes in the playoffs and then what he looks like against everyone else. If you're a superstar level player and you're putting up something in the range of a 30-40/80 pace against good playoff teams, you're really fucking good.

With that said, over the last 3 playoffs Auston is rocking a 59% xg, and running an 82 game pace of 41/98. That's a superstar level performance, full stop.

Preston said:
Anyway for me a bigger issue is that Tavares and Marner tend to get buried in the playoffs unless they're stapled to Matthews. That's a lot of money to spend on guys that get buried by Pavel Zacha amongst others.
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Yup. You can't have 22 million in forwards get caved in at 5v5 while facing the Bruins secondary match up guys.
 
The second line nerdies tanked what could have been a dominate performance 5v5

Player 1Player 2Player 3TOICF%CF% RelFF% RelSF%SF% RelxGF%xGF% RelSCF%SCF% RelHDCF%HDCF% RelRebound Attempt % Rel
Connor DewarDavid KampfRyan Reaves7.9572.1921.681.8344.65-9.6358.714.0681.3312.610042.557.39
Matthew KniesJohn TavaresMitch Marner9.216666732.93-24.99-25.5444.56-9.713.51-5118.6-60.340-75.96-56.24
Nicholas RobertsonPontus HolmbergCalle Jarnkrok5.5569.2516.2910.4962.9611.3385.2533.6510034.1810045.5157.39
Tyler BertuzziAuston MatthewsMax Domi11.7561.29.8112.9557.357.5274.8636.0485.3622.0487.5948.8732.69
Tyler BertuzziAuston MatthewsMitch Marner1.716666710045.9850.3410048.2510045.6110030.46---
 
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Kritter said:
I thought the 4th line had more really really good shifts than not. For me, they were a factor in the win.
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It's still hilarious how switching from gregor to dewar changed that line from horrendous to legit good....but yeah they've been good from the moment they were put together in the regular season and they've been good so far in games 1 and 2.

But of course now coach is starting to lean on them a bit too much. Hopefully willy and mcmann come back to fix that.
 
I've been really pleasantly surprised by our 3rd line (i.e. Kampf line) so far.

and Robby has held his own too I think. more so than Holmberg at least.
 
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