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The zeke's not home GDT

Habsy said:
My point exactly, when people that are no fan of the Leafs respect the kid's game, he's got something. His motor reminds me of Gallagher only he's more skilled while Gallagher is fearless in the paint.
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Not sure why you’re talking about him.
 
No reason, I was at the game last night and noticed he rarely takes shifts off (unlike his linemates). You happened to mention his name and it reminded me.

Didn't mean to derail anything, carry on.
 
Habsy said:
11 million to shield the younger players from a barrage of criticism by taking the brunt of it... because of $11 million.

Tavares does more for the Leafs than score.
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but it's the younger players that are getting the barrage of criticism.
 
zeke said:
every team is flawed. ours is much less flawed than most any other team.
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Well you can't just say **** it, every team is flawed so let's not improve the team. They have more talent than basically every team in the NHL up front outside of maybe Tampa. Yet they don't look like they do on many nights. That has to be addressed and I think a lot of that is on the d.

And then I don't think they have a single forward that I would call an "elite" two way player. Now I understand you can't just acquire one out of thin air, but insulated your stars with elite possession players would be a nice start. The team does not have the right mix right now and it's important they work on addressing that. Thankfully dubas already mentioned they are looking for a d that can move the puck.. not necessarily a d that can "defend." He knows what the issue is. I appreciate that immensely.

Oh btw signing Justin Williams over Patrick marleau last summer would have been real nice right now. I was all over that (and to be fair, I was on team jagr for 1 year too but that was wrong, albeit better than the marleau deal).
 
Teams with decent depth go far in the playoffs. As injuries mount, teams that can withstand them have the best shot at winning.
 
ExceptionallyDumb said:
Well you can't just say **** it, every team is flawed so let's not improve the team. They have more talent than basically every team in the NHL up front outside of maybe Tampa. Yet they don't look like they do on many nights. That has to be addressed and I think a lot of that is on the d.

And then I don't think they have a single forward that I would call an "elite" two way player. Now I understand you can't just acquire one out of thin air, but insulated your stars with elite possession players would be a nice start. The team does not have the right mix right now and it's important they work on addressing that. Thankfully dubas already mentioned they are looking for a d that can move the puck.. not necessarily a d that can "defend." He knows what the issue is. I appreciate that immensely.

Oh btw signing Justin Williams over Patrick marleau last summer would have been real nice right now. I was all over that (and to be fair, I was on team jagr for 1 year too but that was wrong, albeit better than the marleau deal).
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eh, who were the elite two way players on the last few cup winners?

c
 
Teams biggest issues currently is defensive awareness in their own zone, poor coaching, and our best players have not been our best players (Matthews, Nylander, Kadri etc all non existent) putting this on Tavares for signing as a UFA for $11 million is not the issue here IMO
 
Killer93 said:
Teams biggest issues currently is defensive awareness in their own zone, poor coaching, and our best players have not been our best players (Matthews, Nylander, Kadri etc all non existent) putting this on Tavares for signing as a UFA for $11 million is not the issue here IMO
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Who plays your shutdown minutes? Gardiner?
 
zeke said:
eh, who were the elite two way players on the last few cup winners?

c
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Not saying it's a requirement to have one. Simply saying that it would be nice to have one. And since they don't have one and likely won't acquire one, filling the gaps outside the elite talent with possession monsters is the way to go. Which is why I mentioned Justin Williams and have been a big Leivo guy. A problem I have with the makeup of the roster is that they have a lot of possession black holes. The stars being lazy floaters and the plugs being weak defensively is a bigger reason the team can't defend than the d being "bad." So what do they do? Acquire solid possession players that can create more zone time so they don't have to defend as much. That's what the best "defensive" teams do anyway. They don't have d who are super elite at defending.. they have d who aren't consistently put in a position to have to defend.

That backstrom fella is damn elite though since you're asking. But with that said, I don't necessarily think the best team in the NHL wins the cup most years. A combination of luck and being somewhere in the top five in the league usually is a requirement though.
 
Been a rough run lately but breathe. Everything will be fine.

Too many here letting their emotions get in the way of rational thinking

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Artnes said:
Been a rough run lately but breathe. Everything will be fine.

Too many here letting their emotions get in the way of rational thinking

Sent from my SM-G950W using Tapatalk
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Weve been very mediocre for 20 games now, despite the much better analytics.
 
I would argue Kadri is our best two-way forward. And I would put him in the tier of 'shutdown two way centres' just below the elite guys like Bergeron, Barkov, (formerly) Kopitar, and Toews.

I really think Babs should go back to making him the match up guy. But I've also always had a strange man crush on Naz, so I know I'm biased.

But things are not as bad as they seem right now. Despite a pretty lacklustre stretch, we're still comfortably in playoff position, holding on to home ice, etc. And I do think things will turn around at some point. Willy's puck luck will change and the haters will go back into the shadows (maybe not 2005, but I think Willy slept with his broad or something).

We all know that we need to upgrade our top-4 D, cause Hainsey and Zaits do not cut it. Hopefully the doobieman takes care of that shortly.

Babs deployment of our forwards is ****ing frustrating and inexplicable at times too, but not much we can do about that right now.

oh and zeke is totally right about Tavares. having him as your #2 centre is a crazy luxury that most teams would love, but he is already overpaid. 2nd highest cap hit for 30th ppg. not even the best centre on his team. and let's not pretend that playing exclusively with Mitch hasn't inflated his stats. I mean Tavares is awesome, don't get me wrong. but you can be awesome and overpaid. 90th percentile player making 99th percentile cheddar.
 
MindzEye said:
Weve been very mediocre for 20 games now, despite the much better analytics.
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I agree but a lot of key players are underperforming all at once. They suddenly didnt forget how to play so I'm confident things will shift in the right direction soon



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