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Around the League 2019-2026 Edition

MindzEye said:
Where you get your advantage from matters less than just getting an advantage. If your top guys play their top guys even, then you need to find a few more goals than the other guys from somewhere else.
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exactly. Leafs 3rd liners were decent but for some reason did not perform in the post. whereas your opponents had some version of Nick Paul
 
Preston said:
Habs have one fluke run and we get their fans coming out of the woodworking mansplaining how to win in the playoffs and that possession is actually bad. The fucking French
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two fluke runs, btw

and that's my point. you guys didn't get much luck. No Newhooks. Lots of Jarnkroks

but the administration couldn't say that every summer so they went gritty
 
CH1 said:
but the administration couldn't say that every summer so they went gritty
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I'm of the opinion that the "grind harder" mentality was baked into the organization's DNA and even if Dubas had other ideas, he was never able to overcome the embedded organizational philosophy that has been part of the Leafs and the city since Punch fucking Imlach.

So whenever the organization runs into adversity, they majority of the voices that get a chance to speak are going to advocate for more grit, more toughness, more shovels, more digging because to a hammer all problems resemble a nail and we've been a sack of fucking hammers for a long, long time.

This is where Pelley mumbling the right words and then hiring Chayka, who very clearly thinks differently, is so encouraging. We don't even need him to out genius the league here. Just modernize the way we think about the game on an organizational level and it's a huge leap forward.
 
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MindzEye said:
Same same against the Panthers. The line that killed us was their Marchand 3rd line.
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that's a little different for me because Marchand is a deluxe 3rd liner....not some rando guy on a post heater.

i've said this before but that series was lost at he deadline....Zito picked up Seth Jones and Brad Marchand. You guys picked up...well, I forget their names
 
MindzEye said:
Yup but that's just pure luck. I'll take it but I want to be top of the table again. Playoff success is not nearly as complicated as our media makes it out to be. Have better players that play better hockey the the other guys. There's no such thing as "playoff hockey" as a defined style.
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It’s also going to be very easy to return to contender status as early as next season if Chayka is any good.
 
CH1 said:
that's a little different for me because Marchand is a deluxe 3rd liner....not some rando guy on a post heater.

i've said this before but that series was lost at he deadline....Zito picked up Seth Jones and Brad Marchand. You guys picked up...well, I forget their names
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But that's kind of the point under it all. They had a deluxe 3rd liner because that's what they prioritized, while we had Laughton and Carlo for a much higher cost because that's what we prioritize. The value provided was obviously not close and it all stems from how value was assigned.
 
LeafOfFaith said:
It’s also going to be very easy to return to contender status as early as next season if Chayka is any good.
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The bones are here for sure but it will take a ballsy off season to get be a proper contender next year. I think we can, but it will take a few things falling right that are outside of our control in addition to the right decisions being made.
 
CH1 said:
that's a little different for me because Marchand is a deluxe 3rd liner....not some rando guy on a post heater.

i've said this before but that series was lost at he deadline....Zito picked up Seth Jones and Brad Marchand. You guys picked up...well, I forget their names
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I’ll never forget them, unfortunately.
 
Volcanologist said:
we played teams that punished us for the type of effort Montreal just gave in game 6 and 7 of that Sabre series. and game 7 of the Lightning series, frankly.
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Almost every year there is a cinderella playoff run. Montreal has a habit of doing it once a decade. Level of competition is one of the bigger impediments to one of those though and yeah we just didn't have the benefit of soft competition in any of our non covid playoffs.
 
Volcanologist said:
we played teams that punished us for the type of effort Montreal just gave in game 6 and 7 of that Sabre series. and game 7 of the Lightning series, frankly.
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Yeah, to be honest, watching the last period of that game 7, I was like, wtf is Kucherov doing? I’ve never seen him so insanely bad. He couldn’t make simple passes, not to mention the Gretzky/Jordan 90s McDonalds commercial style bank shots off the Jumbotron into the net plays. It almost looked like he was throwing the game.
 
MindzEye said:
I'm of the opinion that the "grind harder" mentality was baked into the organization's DNA and even if Dubas had other ideas, he was never about to overcome the organizational philosophy that has been part of the Leafs and the city since Punch fucking Imlach.

So whenever the organization runs into adversity, they majority of the voices that get a chance to speak are going to advocate for more grit, more toughness, more shovels, more digging because to a hammer all problems resemble a nail and we've been a sack of fucking hammers for a long, long time.
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I've said this before...when I used to attend Leaf games, I remember the opening jumbotron montage to hype up the crowd featured a lot of Wendell and Domi crushing people's heads. It left a marked on me. Because I was used to the Habs reel featuring lots of Lafleur and Beliveau (with the occasional fisticuffs to appease the lunchpail crowd)

Montrealers tend to celebrate pure skill. Torontonians seem suspicious of it.
 
MindzEye said:
The bones are here for sure but it will take a ballsy off season to get be a proper contender next year. I think we can, but it will take a few things falling right that are outside of our control in addition to the right decisions being made.
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It will be super easy with this McKenna gift already in the arsenal.
 
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