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Leaf Rumours

Metalleaf said:
Dion's no Larry Murphy, if your expectations are that high, no wonder you are disappointed.
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Just an example of another offensive defenseman on a crappy team who managed to still get points.

Clearly, I know they are two different styles. And no, I do not expect Dion to be Murphy. It was just an example thar even on crappy teams an offensive defenseman can still rack up points.
 
He is trying to pick the upper corners way to much. 85% of his shots are above the cross bar. He needs to work on keeping his shot down
 
Metalleaf said:
The points didn't happen by magic. Good team + good powerplay = offense from Dion. The Leafs are neither a good team nor do they have good powerplay.

In 08-09, Calgary made the playoffs and Dion had 47 points. Last year and this year he's had sh!t teams to work with.
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That's a pretty shitty excuse. If you can only be a good player when you're playing on good teams and you're surrounded by good players...well then, you're flat out not a very good player yourself. And you're certainly not worthy of wearing a "C", or making $6.5M. That's what separates the Mats Sundns from the Jonas Hoglunds. The ability to lead, and make the guys around you better, instead of just drawing off better players.

Now, that's not to write off Phaneuf, but he just doesn't really have an excuse for the way he's played so far. He needs to be better, especially with Kaberle on his customary 50 point pace on the same team, and Kris Versteeg stepping in for Phaneuf on the power play and immediately making it better.
 
when he was giving it his all, he was missing the net like crazy,.. now he's taken power off his shot for accuracy and the press is all over him for not having any mustard on his shot. He needs to find the balance, he needs a shot coach to just feed him pucks for an hour until he hits a certain speed and hits the net. Something may be wrong, but he doesn't have the time to fix it
 
Methinks Dion has been asked to polish his defensive game this season, they've already admitted that the coaches have asked for less open-ice hits.
 
I'm not that worried about Dion. I'm disappointed certainly, but not worried. He has all the same tools, haven't seen his skating, hitting, shooting, etc. suffer really, except that he hits less (nto any less hard when he tries) and his shots are off the mark.

He needs a hockey mechanic to adjust the kinks, and Wilson is obviously not the guy to do it.

I wonder if the fact that he's captain and you just don't tell a captain what to do might be playing into this situation.

We gotta get a couple of amazing forwards and see how the rest of the team gels. I have a hard time writing off a very-recently elite player while he's on a shitty team. Heck, he had 10 goals with Calgary before he got traded just last year. He still easily has 20 goal power in him, just need someone to find out how to bring it out again.
 
Mega said:
I don't think he's been bad defensively, except in a few instances. The problem is his skill set now is almost identical to Beauchemin, but at twice the price.
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Hold the phone there! Phaneuf is a much more mobile, faster and agile skater then Beauchimen is. Phaneuf is also much better at carrying the puck up ice, he's also much better at passing the puck to the forwards. The only thing where I'd say they're identical is in their shots: Both are cannons, but neither can hit the net.
 
BG said:
Methinks Dion has been asked to polish his defensive game this season, they've already admitted that the coaches have asked for less open-ice hits.
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Phaneufs defensive game is not that bad: He makes smart passes, he rarely turns the puck over, he's a decent shot blocker as well. The only issue is that he tends to seek the big hit which puts him out of position, but even then, he's toning that area done quite a bit.
 
Most offensive defensemen get their points in PP ... so right off the bat, that explains why Phaneuf's production is down.

Playing the point, Phaneuf can blast it, but he's not that smart nor that creative with the puck. Many complain he doesn't hit the net ... that's actually not entirely true. I think a bigger problem is Phaneuf almost NEVER 1-times the puck in PP (or 5 on 5) ... he takes too long to get the shot off, by then either he's blocked, or the goalie's in perfect position. McCabe got tons of points because he had a canon, but also because he was very good at moving around and evading the PKer covering him. Phaneuf is very stationary.

I think early in the year he did miss the net quite a bit, because he was trying to pick the top corners. It'd be much more effective if he can get it on net quickly, and let his forwards try to tip it or score on rebound.
 
he's always one-timing pucks.

i think that ME nailed it a few weeks back. phaneuf moves around way too much on the pp. and, without question, it's all wilson and his strange obsession with having his d-men sneak into the attack. most pp goals in general are generated off of work from the blueline. whether it's a stretch pass from one of the defensemen down low, a tipped or deflected shot, or a straight one-timer, it's just the way pp's tend to work. i don't know why wilson loves having his defensemen sneak into the high slot working for passes -- it hardly ever works (see: the leafs measly goal totals from the blueline. also think about how many goals are scored against the leafs by creeping defensemen: the answer is not man). he has kaberle fairly stationary in the middle of the ice, and he likes things being run through kessel. meanwhile the other defenseman floats all over the place.

it's a strange strategy: it makes the one-timer very difficult to get off, and it also means the leafs have a hell of a time holding the blueline. they're just so damn easy to clear the puck against, and that never used to be the case before wilson got here.

if phaneuf stopped floating around all over the place his one timer would be much more effective (since he wouldn't be taking the vast majority of them moving back towards the blueline, and thus not off his back foot), and he'd get a lot more opportunities to shoot the puck since he'd be seeing the puck a lot more on account of knocking down clearing attempts.

it kills me to watch the leafs pp. they score some really, really nice goals but hardly ever hte ugly ones.. and pp's usually live and die with ugly goals. and it is absolutely ridiculous how friggin easy it is to clear the puck against them. that isn't on the defensemen, either. kaberle was one of the best in the league under quinn and maurice at it.
 
In 54 games with Toronto, Phaneuf has 9 assists on the PP. No goals. In his rookie year, he scored 16 PP goals.

Of course, your team PP has actually not been that bad this year. Given the complaining, I was expecting to see you guys in the bottom 5, but you're actually 13th. Obviously something works on the PP, even if Phaneuf has been crap on it.
 
UWHabs said:
In 54 games with Toronto, Phaneuf has 9 assists on the PP. No goals. In his rookie year, he scored 16 PP goals.

Of course, your team PP has actually not been that bad this year. Given the complaining, I was expecting to see you guys in the bottom 5, but you're actually 13th. Obviously something works on the PP, even if Phaneuf has been crap on it.
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If you've watched recently, its been Versteeg-Kaberle running the point. The leafs power play works well because all 5 guys (kaberle, versteeg, kessel, bozak) move the puck extremely well.
 
UWHabs said:
In 54 games with Toronto, Phaneuf has 9 assists on the PP. No goals. In his rookie year, he scored 16 PP goals.

Of course, your team PP has actually not been that bad this year. Given the complaining, I was expecting to see you guys in the bottom 5, but you're actually 13th. Obviously something works on the PP, even if Phaneuf has been crap on it.
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the pp shot up from like 22nd to 15th because of one powerplay.

the leafs went 5/3 or 5/4 on the pp against atlanta.
 
it was actually counted as 4/5 on that PP. Not sure why we'd choose not to count it.

and there's no doubt the PP looks better with Versteeg out there on the point - suddenly we get this swarming 5-man-motion PP that opens up all kinds of seams.
 
zeke said:
it was actually counted as 4/5 on that PP. Not sure why we'd choose not to count it.

and there's no doubt the PP looks better with Versteeg out there on the point - suddenly we get this swarming 5-man-motion PP that opens up all kinds of seams.
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The problem with Kabs-Phaneuf on the point is everyone knew Phaneuf would shoot and Kabs would pass. It made it predictable. Now you put Steeger back there and it spices things up, nobody knows whether he'll shoot or pass (granted his shot isnt a rocket, but it gets through on net though).
 
everyone knew as well that Kabs would pass and Mcabe would shoot as well.. what it allowed though was when teams started honing in on that, Sundin on the halfboards was great and the back door pass to Tucker was also open.

The problem is teams can hone in Phaneuf knowing nothing else will happen down low.
 
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