[monkeypunk]

How the hell do you reply to messages here lol I’m having a lot of issues with this site. Hopefully it works out.

~bryant

As dmnted said, you would copy & paste the text you want (and you have to manually type the username in if you want to), and then use the B-Quote control above, or at least put the text inside of a ‘<‘blockquote’>’ bracket, using the same close bracket system with ‘</’ that you did on HB.

It’s what I was alluding to principally when I noted that I was hoping they were going to keep working on the site!

[monkeypunk]

This is starting to feel like when the pga tour had the liv tour come and take some stars. Now we have split sites when with half and half and the tour suffered for years.
~bryant

I make the assumption that they will continue to work on this site. I have some concerns about HB. I was never banned or anything but you would see other people being banned for absurd times, no answers, no responses and no communication from the people in charge. When MiB left, I tried to communicate with just about anyone there – and mostly I found people who had already left. It doesn’t feel like it’s got a lot of runway left.

I think at some point HB is just going to be AA and Joel hate posting at each other every 6 minutes with Strider popping in every 13 days to say something insanely conspiratorial; it’ll be like a Sartre play without any existential crisis.

[monkeypunk]

Ummm the panthers traded away Huberdeau, who had 115pts, and were in the cup finals the next season and won a cup a season after that.

Its difficult to have depth players when you have so much cap tied up in 4 forwards.
JT’s cap will pretty much go to Knies($8 – $9m of it anyway), I’m ok with moving out Rielly if the leafs blow this series.
There needs to be some sort of big change.

Anywho, Leafs are still in the series. Must win tonight, hopefully woll can keep it together and our $40m players score some goals.
~fakepartofme

I do want to say that I basically agree with you. If you lost Marner but replaced him with guys who show up or are miserable to play against in the playoffs – Bennett and Rielly Smith come to mind – it would change the dynamic of the team. They might be not as offensive, but they might be better equipped in the playoffs.

That said, Marner – and I’ve said before – may not really be the problem. Matthews is the alpha dog on that team. People get him the puck – they seek him out, and Marner is no exception. They have absurd levels of faith in one another – it’s how you build a good team – and it probably blinds them to some of the weaknesses of a player’s game. They want to see Matthews succeed, so they aren’t going to pass up the opportunity to get him the puck either (it reminds me of Sundin against Carolina in 2002).

The regular season is different, no doubt, but when together over the past two seasons – both Marner and Matthews average 1.2 pts/game. When apart, Marner averages 1.5 / game, and Matthews averages 1.6 / game.

But in counteraction to your point about Huberdeau – trading a 115 player, who is a great distributor, but not too difficult to play against and in return getting a 109 point player who is much more difficult to play against? I mean if that trade were available, you’re not really trading away your leading scorer and filling his role with notably lesser guys (and realistically Bennett is FAR from Marner) – you’re upgrading. But that just isn’t available now.

[monkeypunk]

I’m curious about what’s going on with Matthews. My theory is this: He’s got a shoulder injury that’s affecting his shoulder mobility. It’s really causing his shooting accuracy to be off. Other than that, everything else works. When he went to Germany, they probably told him; you can continue to play but your shoulder issues will be an issue for the rest of the season. You can still play well defensively, but there’ll be a slight weakness to shoot. He was probably given a choice; shut it down and do surgery immediately, but your season will be over and you’ll need months of rehab. The other option was to play with what you’ve got, mobility-wise, and contribute defensively and still pick up some goals and assists. He chose to take the shot at winning it all this year, with the cast of players that the Leafs currently have. Knowing that Marner would probably be either moved, or leave as a UFA, he chose to try for the Cup.

It’s obvious that he’s not shooting the puck with accuracy and zip. He can still turn his wrists over to take faceoffs and make passes. As a betting man, I’d think that it’s something of this magnitude.
~PrinceLH

If we take the things they have said to us at face value, then we know:

– It will take a while to heal
– Playing doesn’t make it worse
– Rest won’t make it better, only time will

Take this for what it’s worth because I really don’t know – but I had one of those friend’s neighbour’s brother . . . type of things, and I heard that was a bruised or lacerated organ . . . from what I read if it’s the liver it’s 4-6 months to heal on the outside and if it’s the kidney it could be to 12, but the kidney runs more risks of playing making it worse. From that – and just because I know this friend isn’t one to make stuff up or believe things easily – it makes me think it could literally be a liver injury.

[monkeypunk]

Meh. After the first the only line that seemed to be consistently effective was the Lorentz-Laughton line. Nylander had a surprisingly poor night given how good he’s been all playoffs and Matthews just vanished after the first.

Benoit has his moments but he’s struggled at times to keep up with Florida. There’s lots of little minor complaints to go around but it was an OT game and Woll allowed a goal that was highly unfortunate. This team as a whole is a different Leafs team and there’s a lot of reasons to have faith in them. I’d also, quite sincerely, expect Woll to be better next game. He just never really found his game tonight.

[monkeypunk]

I don’t get this team’s powerplay.

Get people in front and just get the puck through and fight for that rebound. It’s been working. Why are they working the puck around so much more now? Pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass . . .just looking for the perfect lane that a team like Florida isn’t going to give you. Sometimes you have to make a lane. Make it happen.

[monkeypunk]

Complete BS sell job

[monkeypunk]

So whenever I play Puckdoku, I always try to use guys who played for the Maple Leafs.

Today, I was absolutely killing it. 8/8, 7 of them Maple Leafs, with a 9.2 uniqueness score.

And then I blew it. All I had to do was fill in 10+ playoff games played career, 250+ assists career.

Sticking with my desire for Leafs, I filled in Wendel.

234 career regular season assists.

Damn.
~Wedgie

Tried your rules. Managed to get a 2 uniqueness but I took 2 relatively educated guesses that could’ve gone either way.

Captain – 250+ Assists – <5 Playoff Goals
10+GP: Vaive – Williams – Benoit
Defenseman: Ramage – Ellet – McGill
Cup Winner: Armstrong – McDonald – Lefebvre

I sort of assumed – but had no idea – how many career assists Tiger had but it seemed he played long enough and well enough to get there. He had 272.
I also felt that Lefebvre never scored and I knew he won a cup with Colorado after the Clark trade – that was close. He actually had 4 playoff goals.

[monkeypunk]

Let me counter:

The Panthers led the league in penalties this year – 10:24 per game.

The Leafs were 18th in the league – 7:58 per game.

So doing very simple math here, the Panthers should be getting one and a quarter more penalties called on them a game than the Leafs.

It’s even worse in the playoffs: Panthers averaging 13:08 per game, Leafs 8:30 per game.

So we’re playing virtually the same as the regular season, and they’ve become a little dirtier (and that’s assuming the reffing is the same – which we all know is not true).

~Wedgie

I shall counter your counter by simply saying that I sincerely do believe that the Gregory Campbell theory is more than just a theory.

[monkeypunk]

I’m a little nervous about this evening game

~dmnted

My gut going into this one is that the way the officiating went for the second half of the last game is what we’re going to see tonight. I don’t think the Leafs should expect a powerplay. Power Play opportunities so far have been 5-3 and 3-2 in Toronto’s favour over two games and the Leafs have a 2-0 series lead. I sincerely can’t imagine a world where the NHL doesn’t give Florida a huge man advantage bonus tonight to get them back in the series – look at some of the egregious infractions solely against Holmberg last game that went uncalled.

I think if the Leafs can overcome that and win, it would be monumental.

So, yeah, I am also a little nervous about this game!

[monkeypunk]

I’ll address both of you in a single post.

1. Funny how Tree keeps getting praise for filling out the roster but he didn’t need to trade one of the ‘core 4’ as both of you claimed he would HAVE to do to fix the defense. Funny how a Dubas trade and a free agent signing by Tree really helped solidify arguably the leagues best shut down pair.

2. What do you mean Tree did all the work? Tree didn’t draft a single player on the team and the youngest two guys contributing consistently are Knies (on the top line) and Woll who was excellent during the season and Stoly was only really anointed the starting goalie in the last couple weeks. Let’s not act like Tree made some brilliant move here.

3. Fairly certain Nylander was traded by Fifty like a 100 times in the past couple off seasons as “the core 4 would never work!” or so I was told. Also Marner but both Dubas and Tree have stuck to the “core 4” and are seeing results.

4. We all agree on Keefe though. He needs some more seasoning in the NHL as a coach if he wants to see real success.

5. Dubas doesn’t go without his warts but let’s not act like he didn’t do anything to the current line up. If it was upto you two the core 4 wouldn’t be here and neither would Carlo or Laughton because if I recall it was said “don’t trade any firsts until they prove they deserve it” or was it “JT takes up too much cap this year to do anything ‘major’ so just run out the season and REALLY go for it next year.”

6. Leafs still have to get past the Panthers but they’ve shown they are certainly different and a large part of that is on Berube and his D core. OEL/Carlo/Tanev are all excellent grabs by Tree.
~Aaron

One of the things I will give Dubas credit for was that was evolving certain attitudes as he went – his TDL acquisitions of guys like O’Reilly, Schenn, Lyubushkin, Acciari – even Foligno – showed that he was realizing that he needed his team to be tougher. The criticism he has to receive is that he not only failed to build these teams in the offseason where his team could grow into a style together but he also never addressed real stability in the net.

“Defense wins championships,” isn’t just a slogan. Occasionally a team with superior firepower overwhelms the opposition and defense be damned, but for the most part you have a team that just has a strong defensive approach supported by strong defensive players and they can often go far with some offensive punch thrown in.

I wasn’t really a fan of the Treliving hire – he seemed to have a fair bit of up and down in Calgary and it was hard to get a read on him – but if you look at the changes made under him, I see the following:

– Replace Keefe with Berube
– Not resign Bunting, Kerfoot, Giordano, Brodie, Aston-Reese, Lafferty, O’Reilly, Acciari, Gustafsson, Simmonds, Edmundson, Bertuzzi, Klingberg, Samsonov and Jones
– Sign Lorentz, Ekman-Larsson, Pacioretty and Stolarz
– Trade away Liljegren, Timmins, Dewar and Lafferty
– Acquire Tanev, Carlo, Laughton

His missteps, in my opinion were signing Klingberg and probably Reaves; given that Reaves is a $200k cap hit, I’m not sure that’s a major misstep.

So as much as I certainly will say that I misjudged him from his work in Calgary, I don’t think there’s much to complain about.

[monkeypunk]

iv rewatched that embellishment penalty about 50 times now..with benefit of slowmo…I see how he did make it look worse..100% over did it to get a call.

so im good with it.. carry on
~sens

Really? I haven’t really watched with any great scrutiny – but I heard people say Rodrigues peeked and saw him coming, but I never saw that in the few replays I had seen. I think any team and fanbase has the objective right to feel a tad bent over by that call. In that instance he deserved the boarding call and it was borderline to a 5 minute. The fact that Florida didn’t get the man advantage there is probably what spiralled the game because the refs just decided to let them get away with attempted murder on Holmberg 2-3 times after that.

[monkeypunk]

Honestly looking at that draft, I think in a redraft, Knies goes in the top 3 easily.

~fakepartofme

I was thinking that initially as well, but it’s a decent crop of guys in the mix – like Johnston, Hughes, Guenther, Johnson, Eklund, Stankoven, Clarke, Power, Moser . . .but yeah, maybe. I sort of lump Knies in with Guenther in terms of my expectations, and I’d probably have said Johnston, Hughes, Guenther were at the top, where Knies/Guenther is a pick’em? Especially if Knies keep progressing the way he has been.

[monkeypunk]

Two huge factors this year are Knies and Pacioretty. They are both big strong bodies going to the net, creating room, causing havoc, taking the body, and generally drawing attention to the net front which is actually creating some space for our skill players. We’ve never had it at this level before. We no longer look like a total perimeter team.

Secondly, we had a 6-3 advantage last night in rush chances. The long pass has worked as an option. The Florida d, while very big, is not the most mobile or effective puck moving group. I actually don’t think it’s as good as last year. I’d take Montour over Seth Jones, and OEL is a better puck mover than what’s on their bottom pair.
~ fifty mission cap

Knies coming into his own has been a revelation. He’s carrying a lot of the work for that top line while Matthews struggles. I couldn’t agree more about Pacioretty coming in and providing that moxy/grit that is letting Nylander move around. Again . . . you get a big body who wins battles on your line and your skill guys can work off of that. Hyman used to provide it and he wasn’t as skilled nor as big as Knies – but he was good and he brought the effort. You add in Laughton and Lorentz on that 4th line and there’s a lot of good things happening through the lineup. I’d like to see a bit more jam from McMann’s board game because the Domi line needs that.

The only thing I’d say is that probably our worst goals against this playoff have happened while OEL and Benoit run around in their own zone and get lost on net front coverage. There’s always that downside that comes with an affordable but good skating puck mover.

[monkeypunk]

I had to do some googling to jog my memory.

Aaaaah, back when we were in the Norris Divison, and the Norris Division was putrid.

We finished with 70 points that year – tied with the Minnesota North Stars for last place in the division, but we had more wins.

We faced the St. Louis Blues in the first round. They won the division with 79 points!

Wregget was our starter. I had forgotten that Salming was still on the team (holy poop – from 1973-74 to 1988-89!). It was Vaive’s last year on the team.

I was looking at the standings and wondering why teams have such low point totals – until I remembered there were no loser points.

Edmonton won the President’s Trophy that year with 106 points. The only other team to hit 100 was the Flyers.
~ Wedgie

So we were talking about it and I was using Hockey-Reference just to click through the years – knowing that we’ve made the 2nd round a tad infrequently since Y2K – and I was positive it couldn’t have been in the 80s because we were so terrible. But . . . there it was.

I mean they made the 2nd round of the playoffs and drafted 7th (Luke Richardson, for inquiring minds). The year before that 70 point season they had 57 (25-48-7 !) points – and made the playoffs and even won the first round, 3-0, in the last of the NHL’s best-of-5 opening rounds.

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