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No Excuses No Limits! The mother fucking goddamn season thread

For curiosity here is a random sampling of the top teams actual +/- Doms of their uninjured lineup so far this year:

Edmonton: 90
Vancouver: 73
Colorado: 63
Carolina: 60
Vegas: 48
Toronto: 26

Obviously not a perfect science but that’s a pretty large gap.

It’s a pretty simple fix though. Of note our 4th line is -40. Even if we just swapped out our 4th line for the next worst 4th line (oilers -18) that puts us at 48. Marner rebounding gets us back in the 60ish mix. Moneyballing a slightly subpar 4th line puts us right back near the top of the league.

But then our D still really isn’t close to the other top teams, by about one elite dman:

Edmonton: 32
Carolina: 29
Vegas: 24
Colorado: 23
Vancouver: 21
Toronto: 4

That one might not be solveable in season. Dubas kind of fucked our D locking into old guys.

Tre has some work to do.

Only thing I'd add here is that "current year" Net Rating is good for analyzing these first 36gms, but not the greatest when determining what roster moves to make going forward.
 
It’s not revisionist. Brodie and Muzzin were good additions, but everyone knew at the time there was a time limit on them.

Brodie was 30 when we signed him. Muzz was 29. We always knew he was going to have to replace them.

McCabe is solid, but not that level of player.

I wouldn't write off 33yr olds like that.

Muzz got a conky. That sucks but not really an age thing.

Brodie was excellent even last year. I wouldn't write off his poor <half a season so far as him being toast due to age. 33 is not that old.
 
It’s not revisionist. Brodie and Muzzin were good additions, but everyone knew at the time there was a time limit on them.

Brodie was 30 when we signed him. Muzz was 29. We always knew he was going to have to replace them.

McCabe is solid, but not that level of player.
I don't get how you blame Dubie for Brodie providing excellent value on his contract every year Dubie was in charge.

I also don't get how you blame Dubie for Muzzin's career-ending injury.

Dubie had many faults, but the d-corps he assembled were maybe the strongest in my lifetime as a Leaf fan.

If you want to take umbrage with anything, it ought to be the McCabe acquisition, especially given Ekholm was available. That is a criticism I have and will continue to make. But I can't find fault with signing TJ or the Muzz trade and extension. And trading Sandin, but that's looking like a decent move in hindsight.
 
I assume Mindz is outside snapping photos as Toronto area is experiencing its first sunny days in 5 weeks.

Nah, just got back from the vet with my pup and am sitting down with the piles and fucking piles of raw files that I shot in Puerto Rico.

Also bought a Canon Pro 200 printer and am doing a bunch of re edits and prints of old work. This is a shit time of year to shoot most anything. No snow, but trees are empty and dead looking. Can't even do dark and moody with a nice bright sky....

As for my new bestie Martin Jones, goalies are weird and regress to their mean over a representative sample, but I'll happily take the heater we were owed by the hockey gods after what they did to Samsonov. My only concern is that coaches don't understand what regression is and Fuckface will try to annoint Jones as our starter, because heaven forbid he not have a fucking starter that he tries to play like a 65 game goalie and it will take a month of Jones being a .870-.880 goalie for Keefe to lose the trust in him that 10 good games has built.
 
I don't get how you blame Dubie for Brodie providing excellent value on his contract every year Dubie was in charge.

I also don't get how you blame Dubie for Muzzin's career-ending injury.

Dubie had many faults, but the d-corps he assembled were maybe the strongest in my lifetime as a Leaf fan.

If you want to take umbrage with anything, it ought to be the McCabe acquisition, especially given Ekholm was available. That is a criticism I have and will continue to make. But I can't find fault with signing TJ or the Muzz trade and extension. And trading Sandin, but that's looking like a decent move in hindsight.

I blaming Dubas because almost entirely built this D (except for our two best in Rielly and Lilly) and after 5 years it’s still a work in progress with big holes.

The best d in our lifetime barely held up for 2 seasons.

He’s the one that left us with the old, broken D.
 
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Hmm i just noticed that Sandin's net rating has plummeted deep into negative territory.

On the other hand after a few bumps coming back from injury Lilly has really started to round back into form again. He's starting to look like a difference maker out there. And he's been getting some time with Mo lately and that might start to increase.

Rielly - Liljegren
Benoit - McCabe
Brodie - Timmins
Giordano - Niemela​
 
Sure underlines a difference in organizational approach though. Sandin was gifted 21-22 minutes a night the minute he arrived in the Caps organization. Lilly has had to scrap and claw his way to 19 minutes despite being our best 2 way defender.

Really struggling to understand our blueline deployment

- Rielly playing 24:34 minutes a night is too much. Even if we just look at 5v5, 19:17 is too much. That's 9th in the league for 5v5 TOI. I'm part of the executive committee of the Morgan Rielly fan club ffs and even I think that's too much. Being 2nd to Brodie (and way ahead of 3rd place) in defensive zone starts is an obvious, obvious problem. Mo isn't that guy, stop trying to make him that guy.
- Brodie at 22 minutes a night is obviously way too much whether you think he's washed or not. Dial that back to 19 and lower the difficulty a bit.
- McCabe getting #3 minutes (20:11) isn't great either. This is 7 seconds off of his career high that he was getting on a team literally trying to lose. He's been a 18-19 minute a game guy on bad teams his entire life. He's good, but just good as a #4-5 in the 17-18 minute range for us.
- Lilly should be 22-23 minutes a game, full stop. His PK xGA is better than Gio, Brodie, or McCabe. Use him there as our top PK guy. Ride him like a rented donkey ffs, he's good.
- Gio needs to be sheltered and rested more. He's ancient but still serviceable. I'd much rather see a Gio-Timmins 3rd pairing just so that fuckface doesn't get the itch to put Gio in tougher matchups, those days are gone. Let him crush cans with a great can crusher on the 3rd pairing for 16 minutes a night.
- Benoit has been surprisingly good, but I think some of the analytics quality is coming from his pairing getting matched 5v5 with one of the two excellent top 6 lines. There's no way he's helping to generate more shot attempts/60 than Morgan Rielly is without some Sheldon matchup fuckery going on. My guess is that Mo-Brodie is getting a pile of defensive zone starts with our horrific 4th line and Benoit-McCabe has been getting mixed usage with Matthews-Tavares lines.
 
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I blaming Dubas because almost entirely built this D (except for our two best in Rielly and Lilly) and after 5 years it’s still a work in progress with big holes.
Didn't Dubie sign Rielly to his current contract?

And the coach won't play Lilly in the playoffs so it doesn't matter.
The best d in our lifetime barely held up for 2 seasons.
Was Dubie supposed to move on from Brodie and Muzz in anticipation of potential declines?
He’s the one that left us with the old, broken D.
Prior to Brodie's decline, which again, took place post-Dubie, the only real hole was a Muzzin replacement. Whether or not McCabe was supposed to be that guy, clearly he isn't. So that hole still remains.

But that was also a hole we had pre-Dubie, that he filled with Muzz, until his injury.

I'm just not sure what you were expecting Dubie to do differently to prevent this given the hand he was dealt.

Tre needed a Muzz replacement still and he signed fucking Klingberg. Why does he not bare any responsibility here?
 
And the coach won't play Lilly in the playoffs so it doesn't matter.

Fire Kyle's coach?

Was Dubie supposed to move on from Brodie and Muzz in anticipation of potential declines?

In fairness, some of us were arguing for that and asking for him to chase Chychrun, Sanheim, etc rather than wait for father time to do the inevitable.

33 yrs old is actually pretty old in top 4 defenceman years. There are only 15 defenders 33 yrs or older playing 19 minutes a night or more. That's out of 118 defenders playing 19+ minutes a night. I don't think it's too much to expect some sort of succession planning on the blueline that didn't include waiting for Muzzin & Brodie to fall apart before considering replacements.
 
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Gustafsson (17:42) +2
Sandin (22:06) -4

Keef iz genus?

well, not really.

Bogosian (15:13) -2
Schenn (15:07) -7
Lyubushkin (17:12) -9
 
Didn't Dubie sign Rielly to his current contract?

And the coach won't play Lilly in the playoffs so it doesn't matter.

Was Dubie supposed to move on from Brodie and Muzz in anticipation of potential declines?

Prior to Brodie's decline, which again, took place post-Dubie, the only real hole was a Muzzin replacement. Whether or not McCabe was supposed to be that guy, clearly he isn't. So that hole still remains.

But that was also a hole we had pre-Dubie, that he filled with Muzz, until his injury.

I'm just not sure what you were expecting Dubie to do differently to prevent this given the hand he was dealt.

Tre needed a Muzz replacement still and he signed fucking Klingberg. Why does he not bare any responsibility here?

I’m solely judging the results. He built a D on old guys and it didn’t last.

He could have traded for younger guys (all of Matheson, Lindholm, Skej, Toews, Faber, Theodore, Hronek, Dunn, Gavrikov, Forsling, Montour, Chychrun were moved in the last few years and are still under 30), he could have not traded away all our 1st round picks for shitty rentals or to dump contracts.

He had 5 years to build a D core that complemented our forwards and by the end of his term that D core had already peaked and declined.

Surely lots of GMs have built a better D over the last 5 years.
 
I like McCabe. he is tough to play against and moves the puck well. Big upgrade on Holl for the same money.

Still not sure he’s was worth a similar return to ekholm, but the contract is real good. Dubs and Pridham may have over valued the math there

Timmins should be playing over Gio.
 
Only thing I'd add here is that "current year" Net Rating is good for analyzing these first 36gms, but not the greatest when determining what roster moves to make going forward.

This is fair.

If you go by the projections it’s closer:

Edmonton: 79
Colorado: 55
Carolina: 50
Vancouver: 47
Vegas: 46
Toronto: 35

With the 4th line at -33. Getting a reasonable 4th line and legit top 2-3 dman gets us back in the upper echelon, but Edmonton still way out infront thanks to their top pair.
 
This is fair.

If you go by the projections it’s closer:

Edmonton: 79
Colorado: 55
Carolina: 50
Vancouver: 47
Vegas: 46
Toronto: 35

With the 4th line at -33. Getting a reasonable 4th line and legit top 2-3 dman gets us back in the upper echelon, but Edmonton still way out infront thanks to their top pair.

I don't worry about the Oilers numbers too much - right now Hyman ranks as the best winger in hockey and Bouchard as the best dman in hockey.
 
Don't care. I don't expect him to score goals when most other players would be expected to.

Not getting territorially dominated for a change is nice though, sure.
 
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