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The Official 2026 Off-Season Thread: Revenge of the Nerds

MindzEye said:
I mean, Montreal is something like 48th in the league in xG, so jerking off Marty might be a bit premature.
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He doesn’t have the horses yet, amigo

People are fooled that they’re still in the dance and forget there’s lots left to build
 
MindzEye said:
He doesn't what now?

The Senators were 3rd ffs. Columbus was 8th. Montreal doesn't have a roster equal or better than those two?
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That brings up a separate issue. xGF might not be scripture. It’s now 2 yrs straight that the Habs have greatly outperformed X GF. If they do it again next year, I’ll be very suspicious.
 
And yeah the Habs roster is very shallow

Columbus and Sens rosters are way deeper — both those teams actually have good 2nd line centres.
 
CH1 said:
That brings up a separate issue. xGF might not be scripture. It’s now 2 yrs straight that the Habs have greatly outperformed X GF. If they do it again next year, I’ll be very suspicious.
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It's not scripture, but it does tell you how good your team structure is at 5v5. Can you overcome mediocre to bad xG with shooting talent and goaltending (aka, PDO) for a while, yeah sure. It requires some good ass fortune though and historically isn't durable.

The regular season has a pretty large luck component built in as well with OT mattering so much as well. Our last 2 seasons is a really good cautionary tale of what can happen when you ignore good 5v5 structure. Shit is fine when you're 3rd overall in PDO, and you're praying for ping pong balls when it corrects.
 
Also, Habs goaltending sucked ass for most of the year until Dobes caught a heater at the end and moved the Habs to 15th best sv % in the league
 
MindzEye said:
Your blueline is as good as either though, which should make a pretty big difference.
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Yeah, having Matheson as your #3 is nice but then it’s a steep drop off, just like up front

MSL is doing a lot with a tons of crap that will be seriously upgraded in the next 24 months
 
CH1 said:
That brings up a separate issue. xGF might not be scripture. It’s now 2 yrs straight that the Habs have greatly outperformed X GF. If they do it again next year, I’ll be very suspicious.
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not exactly.

last year:

5v5 2.39gf/60 (#17), 2.76ga/60 (#26), 46.5gf% (#26) ---- 5v4 6.72gf/60 (#22) --- 6.24ga/60 (#9)
5v5 2.60xgf/60 (#14), 2.89ga/60 (#30), 47.3xgf% (#27) -- 5v4 7.52xgf/60 (#24) -- 8.45ga/60 (#2)

So pretty much right in line with their xgfs, except on the PK.


this year:

5v5 2.82gf/60 (#5), 2.46ga/60 (#16), 53.4gf% (#9) ---- 5v4 8.35gf/60 (#7) ---- 7.02ga/60 (#15)
5v5 2.75gf/60 (#16), 2.89ga/60 (#23), 48.8xgf% (#23) - 5v4 8.72xgf/60 (#22) - 9.56ga/60 (#22)

hit way above their nerdies across the board....though tbf when it comes to offense that might means they matched the offensive nerdies but for whatever reason the rest of the league underperformed theirs.
 

View: https://x.com/i/status/2056437974934397084

Ok I read more about him and he sounds fun and has his teams play a fun style.

As long as he isn't given co-gm power or some shit then sure whatever. It seems to align with what Chayka is trying to build and it would probably be a good sign if Carle believes in the vision enough to join the Leafs. Would probably mean that the leafs are looking to be like 5x more progressive than even the early Dubas days.
 
zeke said:
not exactly.

last year:

5v5 2.39gf/60 (#17), 2.76ga/60 (#26), 46.5gf% (#26) ---- 5v4 6.72gf/60 (#22) --- 6.24ga/60 (#9)
5v5 2.60xgf/60 (#14), 2.89ga/60 (#30), 47.3xgf% (#27) -- 5v4 7.52xgf/60 (#24) -- 8.45ga/60 (#2)

So pretty much right in line with their xgfs, except on the PK.


this year:

5v5 2.82gf/60 (#5), 2.46ga/60 (#16), 53.4gf% (#9) ---- 5v4 8.35gf/60 (#7) ---- 7.02ga/60 (#15)
5v5 2.75gf/60 (#16), 2.89ga/60 (#23), 48.8xgf% (#23) - 5v4 8.72xgf/60 (#22) - 9.56ga/60 (#22)

hit way above their nerdies across the board....though tbf when it comes to offense that might means they matched the offensive nerdies but for whatever reason the rest of the league underperformed theirs.
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Dom called them making the playoffs last year a giant fluke - so much so that his model had them missing this year
 
Preston said:

View: https://x.com/i/status/2056437974934397084

Ok I read more about him and he sounds fun and has his teams play a fun style.

As long as he isn't given co-gm power or some shit then sure whatever. It seems to align with what Chayka is trying to build and it would probably be a good sign if Carle believes in the vision enough to join the Leafs. Would probably mean that the leafs are looking to be like 5x more progressive than even the early Dubas days.
Click to expand...


i'm skeptical of him but would be legit interesting if we hired this young 'best coach outside the nhl' tbh.
 
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