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The 2019-2020 MotherFucking Season Thread

zeke said:
my favorite is all the cores around the league that get praised as "young and upcoming" that are older than the leafs' core.
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Yep:

Old and Busted: Rielly (25), Kerfoot (25), Mikky (25), AJ (25), Nylander (23), Kappy (23), Dermott (23), Matthews (22), Marner (22), Lilly (20), Sandin (19)

Young and Improving:
EDM - Nurse (25), Leon (24), McJesus (23), Bear (22), Yamamoto (21)
CGY - Johnny (26), Lindholm (25), Monahan (25), Hanifin (23), Andersson (23), Bennett (23), Tkachuk (22), Kylington (22)
VAN - Miller (26), Horvat (24), Demko (24), Virtanen (23), Gaudette (23), Boeser (23), Petersson (21), Hughes (20)
WPG - Helly (26), Lowry (26), Scheifele (26), Pionk (24), Morrissey (24), Ehlers (24), Connor (23), Roslovic (23), Laine (21)
AVS - Mack (24), Burakovsky (24), Compher (24), Graves (24), Zadorov (24), Rantanen (23), Makar (21), Girard (21), Jost (21)
BUF - McCabe (26), Ullmark (26), Risto (25), Montour (25), Reinhart (24), Olofsson (24), Eichel (23), Jokiharju (20), Dahlin (19)
CAR - Dougie (26), Teravainen (25), Slavin (25), Pesce (25), Aho (22), Necas (21), Svech (19)

As of right now, only one of those teams is ahead of us in the overall standings by more than a point or two (Colorado) and of all the teams listed only the Leafs have seen the playoffs 3 years running (and despite the shitshow this season, we're probably going to make it 4).

This season has sucked from a lot of angles. Most of them though grow from where the expectations were for this group. The expectations were that one of the youngest cores in the league was going to be one of the best teams in the league, which is a pretty special expectation. Near historic expectation really. The "pull the pin" hot takes are fucking ridiculous.
 
Seriously, nobody beats us in a 25 and under competition

Nylander - Matthews - Marner
Johnsson - Kerfoot - Kappy
Mikheyev - Engvall - Robertson
Malgin - Gauthier - Petan

Rielly - Dermott
Sandin - Liljegren
Rosen - Rubins



and then the older core guys are still all in their primes, and all good and paid fairly - Tavares, Hyman, Muzzin, Holl, Freddy (?).
 
MindzEye said:
Most truly physical players that are left in the league can't play the game. The supporters of the "Moar grit" view of hockey tend to be scant on details of who they actually mean when they say grit.
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There is a “moar grit” crowd?

Does everyone outside of that crowd hate what Muzzin brings to the team or something?
 
TinCow said:
So this “moar grit” crowd is specifically requesting players who bring grit and little to nothing else?
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Seems that way, yes. They never actually provide names and typically complain about the Leafs being small (see Traikos on twitter yesterday) and/or soft. They also largely orgasmed when Kyle Clifford was brought in because apparently it was Dubas admitting he was wrong and this team needed toughness. Also see the freak out (twitter, reddit, etc) when we traded Marchment (who is entirely useless at the NHL level) for Malgin (who is actually a NHL body). So yes, when a large amount of Leaf fans are angry about trading Mason Marchment because truculent (he's not) for Malgin because he's small, it's clear that the only thing that matters to that large group of Leaf fans is size and toughness. Because there's literally nothing about the game of hockey that Marchment is better at than Malgin other than being 6'4 all day.

Here's the thing, nobody on the analytics side of the fence believes that size and physicality are useless traits. Just that they're significantly less useful than, you know, being able to play the game well.
 
Sorry @MindzEye but it sounds to me like you are only willing to talkin extremes.

You seem to be defaulting to, the only answer must be talentless grit, when the subject is brought up.

And just for the record I support using analytics, but mostly I support using all the tools available.... including the eye test.
 
TinCow said:
Sorry @MindzEye but it sounds to me like you are only willing to talkin extremes.

You seem to be defaulting to, the only answer must be talentless grit, when the subject is brought up.

And just for the record I support using analytics, but mostly I support using all the tools available.... including the eye test.
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Who can we get that passes the "moar grit" eye test, as well as is a talented skater and a possession driver?
 
TinCow said:
Sorry @MindzEye but it sounds to me like you are only willing to talkin extremes.

You seem to be defaulting to, the only answer must be talentless grit, when the subject is brought up.
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Give me examples of talented grit that can be acquired in the NHL.

And just for the record I support using analytics, but mostly I support using all the tools available.... including the eye test.
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Which is great. The question is which one you believe when they disagree with each other. We all use the eye test.
 
It's not about getting more grit.

It's about acquiring guys with high compete level who show up every night. Guys that finish checks and don't consistently cheat and fly the zone looking for theirs. That's what this team lacks. The talent is there at every position. But there are far too many "we should have tried harder" nights and at this point new players are required to make that happen.

Otherwise you will continue to see this Jekyl and Hyde nonsense.
 
MindzEye said:
Give me examples of talented grit that can be acquired in the NHL.



Which is great. The question is which one you believe when they disagree with each other. We all use the eye test.
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Some players that have the qualities I like are Josh Anderson, Max Domi, Nick Ritchie, Brayden Schenn..... I don’t think these qualities are unicorns

I love top end skill..... I just would like ours surrounded with more diversity..... this is not a team that can play it anyway you like.
 
zeke said:
he's not talking extremes, he's talking averages.

i.e. the average grittatistc leaderbean is actually well overrated and overpaid.
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when I said extremes, I was referring to him saying that since he wasn’t provided a name(s), he instantly assumed people could only mean gritty players who can’t play the game.... not really fair now is it?
 
TinCow said:
when I said extremes, I was referring to him saying that since he wasn’t provided a name(s), he instantly assumed people could only mean gritty players who can’t play the game.... not really fair now is it?
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its not, but at the same time, it's not fair to assume that people who mock the fetishization of grit and toughness also think it's absolutely worthless, instead of just vastly overrated and overpaid.
 
zeke said:
its not, but at the same time, it's not fair to assume that people who mock the fetishization of grit and toughness also think it's absolutely worthless, instead of just vastly overrated and overpaid.
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I don’t always assume that, but in this particular case it seems at least somewhat fair.
 
TinCow said:
Some players that have the qualities I like are Josh Anderson, Max Domi, Nick Ritchie, Brayden Schenn..... I don’t think these qualities are unicorns
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Anderson is trash, Domi isn't physical (he'll punch a face once in a while, but that's about it), Ritchie...fair enough if fringe 3rd liners are what moves the needle here (he's basically a slightly better Clifford), and Schenn...fair enough I guess. He's more in the Naz Kadri category of "physical" imo though.

So I guess that's where I struggle with the examples people come up with here. I don't think any of those guys are the type that scares other teams, or changes the dynamic of your team unless if you have a bucket of them, in which case your team is probably shit because it's devoted way too much money to truculence and not nearly enough to skill.

I mean, if we put all 4 of those guys on the same forward group (Domi-Schenn as your 1-2 centres...), it's not looking like a very good forward group (without a significant injection of skill) but would probably cost you ~18 million next year regardless.
 
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