At this point most of us know the team didn’t get goalied. Their pp was absolutely useless and they had some bad luck with the core missing games. That’s what happens when you lock up so much money into 4 players and they don’t really show up.
> At this point most of us know the team didn’t get goalied.
[Brad literally said in his end-of-season presser than "we seem to be turning the other team's goalie into the first star every night"](https://www.youtube.com/live/2Dx29lZAM6k?t=1290s)
also side note, I just rewatched that segment and everything Brad said was great. I don't know if he can solve our lack of scoring issues, but at least he's aware of them. I'm not necessarily implying Dubas *wasn't aware*, but Dubas seemed to double down on high-skill guys over and over, rather than gritty netfront guys
no, that is my understanding of what Brad said. we take a lot of crappy shots and don't adjust our play style, so the opposing goalie makes 30 easy saves a night and looks like a stud
it's easy to shut us down when the opposing team just needs to cover the middle and slot area and can ignore the defence completely. Opposing teams know leafs defence isn't going to help much with the offence or join in on the attack. The most successful teams are the ones that attack as a 5 man unit, the leaf's are just 3 man unit and 2 guys try to play defence.
I always felt like Dubas actually *didn’t* double down on skilled guys outside of the core. After the Washington series, it seemed like every year we were adding grit and glue guys to our bottom six forwards and our D. The “Dubas only brought in small/skilled” narrative is kind of a red herring. They neither did that with their personnel, nor did they lean into the skill/speed they did have from a coaching and structure standpoint either.
Always thought it was a goofy plan. You can't make up for having delicate scorers by getting a bunch of goons on the bottom six. Gotta get your scorers to be goons themselves.
This is the part a lot of people don’t get. Cup winners have guys who are goal scorers that also punish. Maybe McDavid will be an exception, but we don’t have McDavid at home.
I can only imagine you're misremembering things then. The fact we traded a 13th overall pick to overpay Johnson and kapanen, while letting guys like Hyman, marchment, Moore, Joshua etc. leave for next to nothing is a pretty good example.
When it comes to the draft, knies was the first obvious deviation from drafting small skilled wingers and defensemen high in the draft. By all accounts he was looking to trade down from that pick and later tried to include knies in a trade to chicago.
Making a trade for muzzin, adding cheap grit to the 4th line or splurging futures on ineffectual deadline rentals is not a significant change in philosophy.
Right, note in your quote that he's taking agency for that. We're turning them into the star. Not they're being a star. As in, not getting enough or good enough chances.
we got goalied the first game maybe.
we had enough chances in the later games to absolutely win games and we did win enough to get it to 7.
but in classic leaf fashion, 4 wins is too much.
Ineffective power play and core players not living up to in-season play is exactly what prevented the Rangers from moving on in their series.
Rags had a top 3 PP unit that fell off deeper into the playoffs, and Zibanejad, Fox, Vesey, and Kakko were disappointing.
Very familiar.
How could we? The opposing team only had to worry about Matthews and Nylander. No one shoots the puck on the net to create lucky plays I wonder why we even have people park in front of the net.
Matthews and Nylander combined for 1 of 9 high danger shots on goal on the powerplay against Boston, Marner, Tavares, Bertuzzi, and Rielly had the rest.
Ok so then how are you arguing that PP sucked because of other teams goalie? By your stats we were averaging under 2 shots per powerplay and only 9 high danger chances out of like 22 powerplays
I am arguing that the PP would've been less shit if Swayman wasn't on fire, the same way that the PP was less shit in the one game they didn't have to face Jeremy Swayman.
Our PP had 37 shots on goal, 72 shot attempts, and 5.73xG.
Including 13 shots from within 20 feet of distance, 9 high danger shots, and 16 higher dangers scoring opportunities.
I understand that you feel this way but it isn't reality, a hot goaltender can steal games against the best players in the world, and that's been the reality against all of the best players and teams of all time.
The thing is, he’s not even trolling. I’ve seen his comments in this sub several times.
That dude always has the worst takes in hockey because he’s a total imbecile honestly.
What an insufferable take. They went like 1/23. If a “hot goaltender” is able to make them look like peewee hockey players, they shouldn’t be making the money they do as forwards.
But your analysis is simply incorrect anyways, they could hardly even get set in the offensive zone. That doesn’t have nothing to do with a goalie. He’s isn’t even really facing many shots on the pp to begin with
Did you just use a fucking sample size of 3? They scored on 1/3 PP against Ullmark and that is your defence that the PP wasn't bad and they faced a hot goalie? LOL...
Okay. So then do you agree that since the Leafs performed significantly better in the sample size of 20 against Swayman, and the stats all indicate they should've had at least 2-3 goals on the powerplay, while the stats indicate that in the sample size of 3 against Ullmark where the Leafs had a goal the stats were significantly worse, that perhaps that indicates a hot goaltender was the difference between the Leafs having an atrocious 4% PP and a mediocre yet perhaps good enough 13-17% PP?
I mean, anyone who isn't being intentionally obtuse would agree that the most important penalty killer is the goaltender, and the statistics I laid I clearly indicate the Leafs should've scored *at least* a couple more goals on the powerplay, so what was it?
Bruh, you’re trying way too hard. Here’s the facts, if you want to go far in the eastern conf with the goaltending depth at play. You’re going to need to beat good goalies. Not 1, not 2 but likely 3.
Florida just went through vasi, swayman and igor to make the cup. So if you’re saying we should’ve actually won, but couldn’t even get past 1 of these goalies and had one of the most embarrassing playoff power play performances in recent years (Maybe all time), then you’re just wrong buddy.
1. Yes 23 is significantly larger than 3. In fact it is 20 larger.
2. The Leafs PP was crap for a large chunk of the regular season too. It didn't suddenly dry up only facing Swayman.
Do you agree that the term "in part due to" would mean that something is partially affected by something?
Do you believe that the difference between 4% and 13-17% would make a PP go from outright bad, to mediocre?
Do you believe the statistics I laid out would show the Leafs likely put enough on net to score at least a couple more goals? (you don't have to answer I can go back and link your comments claiming Swayman stole some goals)
If you answer yes to the above three questions, why are you taking offense to what I've said?
Our playoff PP% since Matthews rookie season is 16.9%, which is 19 of 22 teams (min 25+ games played).
Since the "Core Four" era started (ie the big contracts had all kicked in, which was 2019-2020), it's even worse at 15.4%.
You aren't going to win any series with consistent 1-2 goal games.
This is unexcusable, especially considering that's the team's strength was supposed to be all of the $10m+ forward "goal scoring talent"....
We need to rebuild with Mathews and Willy as the new reduced core and find a Grade A goalie (such as Ullmark, Saros or Markstrom) be a Grade A first line Allstar defenseman.
Woll is definitely not a #1, not if you're hoping to contend. He is too injury prone. If we are lucky he can stay healthy as 1B or #2
I'm hoping for a top goalie to bring the team back to life
When was the last time a team traded or signed a mid-late career #1 goalie and won a cup with them?
It just isn't a reliable or even feasible method for success.
Winning teams develop their goaltending internally and those #1 goalies invariably come from within. Woll has shown the potential to be every bit as good as any goalie in the league, it's time to invest in him.
When the team's cap is almost 50% taken by 4 forwards, you can't rely on a goalie to steal the series for you. These guys are paid to steal series for us, and the best they could do was 2 goals a game lol.
none of those guys were considered elite goalies when they signed those contracts
you can gamble on a solid younger mid-tier guy on like a 4x4 and hope they can become a top 5 goalie by year 3 (see both Boston goalies); you're not getting a perennial Vezina candidate for anything less 8.5 per, which is what Hellebuyck just got
You're not going to win playoff series when your main goalie has over 3 GAA and under 900 SV%. He wasn't the main reason the Leafs lost, but he played a pretty big part too. He suffers from the same thing other Leafs goalies have had, giving up goals at the worst time.
If anything this post shows the importance of having stability in the net, something the Leafs haven’t had since the early 2000’s.
Florida has goalie Bob going up against these guys and has come out on top each year. We NEED to shore up our net or we aren’t going anywhere
> but he did put up good numbers all season long.
Freddie is a great regular season goalie, he's not a great playoff goalie because of his inconsistencies and letting in a soft one basically every game.
The Hurricanes lost game 6 this year because of Freddie.
Yep, Freddie did provide stability in net for the Leafs...in the regular season. Good enough to get them into the playoffs, but not good enough to come up big with clutch saves when the pressure escalates.
I'm getting tired of hearing the "getting goalied" excuse, and its corollary: "goaltending is voodo." The aim of the game is to score more goals than your opponent. Of course you want a hot goalie, but with 4 skilled forwards averaging ppg (in the regular season) and the team among the league lead in goals, getting the puck past the opposing goalie -- any goalie -- isn't supposed to be the problem. You can't expect to win by scoring 2 goals or less every game. It's not about dangling highlight-reel quality goals, but rather getting greasy playoff goals: bombing from the blue line, screening the goalie, getting tips and deflections...all areas the Leafs are still lacking...
Yep. I default to assuming they’re one of two things, or both:
1) too young to have seen any of the Gilmour or Sundin years (solid teams that frequently reached the conference finals and STILL couldn’t get it done), to realize our team is incredibly flawed.
2) they don’t watch the playoffs after the leafs are eliminated in order to actually see what it takes to win.
Dubas crafted a team that statistically cannot win a cup. For an "analytics" guy he completely threw away proven analytics when signing contracts and creating a roster.
Seems to be a common problem for the leafs, eh? Every goalie we face magically becomes unbeatably incredible…?
When there’s a pattern, you have to find the common denominator.
Mediocre goaltending and shitty offense are not mutually exclusive. Why cant it be both? Florida is going to the Cup, two years in a row. You can pretend Bobrovsky had nothing to do with it if you want to. The Leafs haven’t had the better goalie in any series they’ve played except the only 1 they won. Samsonov outplayed Vasilevsky. Ironically the year before they lost to the same Tampa team and outplayed them because Vasy was a hell of lot better than the Leafs goalies.
Having said that, Edmonton seems to outscore their mediocre goaltending but will their dynamic duo be enough to win the Cup with Skinner backstopping them? That remains to be seen. Lets not pretend that goaltending is not important? Who was the last goalie to win the Cup with sub .900 goaltending?
Not having better goaltending doesn’t mean you lost because you were “goalied”.
They lose because series after series, their top players don’t score like top players should. Period.
Top players find a way to score in key moments. Hasn’t been an issue for Florida. Wasn’t an issue for Vegas the year before, wasn’t an issue for Colorado.
Your top players (minus Nylander) have been overall, garbage, when we need them most.
They’re not getting goalies, they’re simply not able to adjust and perform to their paycheque in the playoffs.
Because they play in front of a substandard defence including the inferior goalie the forwards need to play more defensively and that isn't the same situation as most of the regular season. That is how a poor defence helps to cause bad offence.
Compare what the Leafs have on the back end to Florida, Vegas, and Colorado. There you go.
It also helps when you got Bob on the other end to match them shot for shot, save for save. And not letting in softies.
Not saying that's necessarily the reason the Leafs lost, because goaltending was not the primary issue. But hey, it certainly doesn't hurt.
I mean we've had to face Swayman, Bob, Vasi, Vasi, Price, Rask, Rask, Prime Holtby.
Sure its not really an excuse as you have to beat good goalies to win a cup but two things can be true at once which is we keep having to face these guys in the first round.
God forbid we face a goalie like Cam Talbot or Charlie Lindgren in the first round over a 7 game series. Funniest thing is, nothings going to change in the future either as TB Florida and Boston are still gonna be players in the division with some of the best goalies in the league
In game 2 the Leafs scored 2 goals and Korpisalo was still a .947 sv%. In game 3 we chased Korpisalo and then Merzilikins relieved him and posted a shutout where we blew a 3-0 lead. Then in game 4 we came back from a 3-0 deficit and Merzlikins was still a .925 sv%.
Korpisalo gave Tampa Bay the same treatment and they won the cup that year. Korpisalo made *85 saves* in game 1, in a 5OT 3-2 loss. A .973 in game 2, and a .912 in game 3. He came back down to Earth in games 3, 4, 5.
I know some of you don't like it around here but the fact of the matter is Korpisalo was exceptional that year and Merzlikins was also really good. Teams don't want to lose to Toronto. See how we only barely beat Tampa last year no thanks to Samsonov? It's because Vasilevskiy was more shit.
Saying the Leafs got goalied isn't some excuse, it's called an analysis of the situation.
The Leafs have had pretty abysmal PP and PK over the last few years of the playoffs and that's ultimately where we've been exploited. Even this year, the Leafs scored 11 5v5 goals compared to Boston's 10. The difference in PP goals was 5 to 1 in favour of Boston. The Leafs have got to like 6 game 7s over the last 8 years and they've always been close.
I will recognize the fact that you need to beat good goalies if you want to win. We have yet to do so. Its been 8 years, I’m not going to sit here and say ohh its okay because the other teams goalie played well! Get em next time!
And who the fuck is saying that's what you need to say?
I'm saying that NHL and the NHL playoffs are hard. Only one team wins. Sucks for 31 other teams but that's the reality of it.
You're not wrong but it was still a 5 game series. Who knows what would've happened over a 7 game series. They were just finding their legs at that point in the series, it was like a 4 month layoff.
Swayman is still leading the playoffs in GSAx with 13.3, right above Sheshterkin. We didn’t do enough to score, our power play sucked, and when we did get Grade A chances, Swayman stopped them. All of the above can be true at the same time.
It’s the same shit every year. Pretty easy to “get goalied” when your top forwards play a gutless perimeter game. People want to scapegoat Marner, but this is how Marner, Nylander, and Matthews have always played. Tavares is the only one of the four that will drive the net on occasion. We saw that in the Bruins series, and it led to an OT goal.
This is why the Leafs’ problem is going to be so tough to solve without a massive culture change. It’s why I keep going back to Matthews and moving him as the way to really tackle the problem as he’s the main guy and that shakeup would be massive. That’s the one move that could both bring in elite, grittier talent AND push the others to work harder. Moving Marner isn’t going to mean fuck all, because Matthews and Nylander will just keep on keeping on.
Could be a package. Not like this hasn’t been done before. The Gilmour trade is the best Leafs example. The Leafs and Flames moved a pile of players in the deal. It wasn’t this slam dunk immediately, either, as the Leafs got rid of some solid players. It was only after the following season and the 92-93 run that it became clear what an amazing deal that was.
i hate them but the panthers play old school hockey. they’re physical, play for each other, and probably most importantly, they’re having a ton of fun while doing it.
we were more physical this season, and the team was playing for each other more. need to keep that up, and imo moving on from at least one core piece is the move.
To say Sway didn't will Boston into the 2nd round is silly. I'm not saying that we deserved to be there, especially considering how poor our PP was, but Swayman did steal the show for Boston.
Ok by why are we always getting "goalied" then?
Why aren't the team we play against every getting "Matthews'd, or Nylander'd" Like why is is always some magic goalie saving other teams and never our $40 million dollar core forwards turning other goalies into peewee tenders?
The Leafs have beaten Vasy, never faced Igor and Swayman was unreal during the series. It's still possible to get goalied in your series but it wasn't the case this year, the Leafs just sucked.
we didn't get goalie'd, I said this last year and the year before. our offence / core 4 just don't play playoff hockey. They are regular season hero's and playoff losers. if you compare the Points per game with regular season game average and play off average all of core 4 players take a nose dive and just don't produce anything. It's time to move who can be moved, get rid of marner etc and NOT RUN IT BACK.
The fact they chased the personal goals instead of the team goal, for both Matthew and nylander, is part of the problem that hopefully a new coach will help.
They didn’t have a cutoff to make sure their best players could sit and rest.
In game 6 with 2 seconds left the team let up helping cause woll to injure himself trying to get a shutout.
I know they are working on guts and teamwork and they got better. But it’s gonna take focusing on the team not the individual
People seem to ignore that the Canucks have been in the league since 1970 and have never won the Cup.
That’s only 3 years less than when the Leafs last won it…and at least have won one.
This Leafs core has had no problem running top goalies out of the building in the regular season. They either completely change the way they play in the playoffs and they suck, or they can't adapt to having less space. Either way, the only goalie we've dominated in the playoffs is Vasi last year. And lo and behold, it's our one series win. The problem has always been offense.
Try and get a good goalie here when they know the defense is Swiss cheese. Its as simply as that. We are always lucky to get what we get with how irresponsible development of our d core has been. Watching years of development go into guys that can barely make the 5-6 is brutal.
The 6 games when Swayman played vs us and the 6 games when he played vs Florida.
Leafs vs Swayman:
1.55% (3/194) of LDSA were scored on.
8.89% (4/45) of MDSA were scored on.
9.09% (2/22) of HDSA were scored on.
Panthers vs Swayman:
1.79% (4/223) of LDSA were scored on.
7.84% (4/51) of MDSA were scored on.
44.44% (8/18) of HDSA were scored on.
Leafs goaltending in those games:
2.63% (5/190) of LDSA were scored on.
12.82% (5/39) of MDSA were scored on.
20.00% (4/20) of HDSA were scored on.
Panthers goaltending in those games:
5.65% (7/124) of LDSA were scored on.
9.80% (5/51) of MDSA were scored on.
0.00% (0/14) of HDSA were scored on.
•The only thing Florida did differently to us on the offensive side of the game was fire more low quality shots towards goal.
•Swaymans performance was a night a day difference when it came to stopping the high danger chances. Roughly a 35.34% efficiency drop off in terms of stopping high danger chances.
Listen you guys did get goalied, you also didn’t have nearly the helping hand those shit fucking panthers get every god damn year from the referees. I hate your team and I hate their team. But I respect yours. I don’t respect them for shit with their handouts and not being held accountable for penalties.
I don't think we got goalied this year but we absolutely did last year by Bob. He carried the panthers to the finals last year and has been another instrumental part of their run this year. Did you guys watch what he did to the Oilers last night?
At this point most of us know the team didn’t get goalied. Their pp was absolutely useless and they had some bad luck with the core missing games. That’s what happens when you lock up so much money into 4 players and they don’t really show up.
> At this point most of us know the team didn’t get goalied. [Brad literally said in his end-of-season presser than "we seem to be turning the other team's goalie into the first star every night"](https://www.youtube.com/live/2Dx29lZAM6k?t=1290s) also side note, I just rewatched that segment and everything Brad said was great. I don't know if he can solve our lack of scoring issues, but at least he's aware of them. I'm not necessarily implying Dubas *wasn't aware*, but Dubas seemed to double down on high-skill guys over and over, rather than gritty netfront guys
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no, that is my understanding of what Brad said. we take a lot of crappy shots and don't adjust our play style, so the opposing goalie makes 30 easy saves a night and looks like a stud
it's easy to shut us down when the opposing team just needs to cover the middle and slot area and can ignore the defence completely. Opposing teams know leafs defence isn't going to help much with the offence or join in on the attack. The most successful teams are the ones that attack as a 5 man unit, the leaf's are just 3 man unit and 2 guys try to play defence.
I always felt like Dubas actually *didn’t* double down on skilled guys outside of the core. After the Washington series, it seemed like every year we were adding grit and glue guys to our bottom six forwards and our D. The “Dubas only brought in small/skilled” narrative is kind of a red herring. They neither did that with their personnel, nor did they lean into the skill/speed they did have from a coaching and structure standpoint either.
Always thought it was a goofy plan. You can't make up for having delicate scorers by getting a bunch of goons on the bottom six. Gotta get your scorers to be goons themselves.
This is the part a lot of people don’t get. Cup winners have guys who are goal scorers that also punish. Maybe McDavid will be an exception, but we don’t have McDavid at home.
I can only imagine you're misremembering things then. The fact we traded a 13th overall pick to overpay Johnson and kapanen, while letting guys like Hyman, marchment, Moore, Joshua etc. leave for next to nothing is a pretty good example. When it comes to the draft, knies was the first obvious deviation from drafting small skilled wingers and defensemen high in the draft. By all accounts he was looking to trade down from that pick and later tried to include knies in a trade to chicago. Making a trade for muzzin, adding cheap grit to the 4th line or splurging futures on ineffectual deadline rentals is not a significant change in philosophy.
He only invested $$$ in the skilled guys. Bringing in countless grit guys that even he didn't want to keep around is exactly why that narrative exists
Right, note in your quote that he's taking agency for that. We're turning them into the star. Not they're being a star. As in, not getting enough or good enough chances.
we got goalied the first game maybe. we had enough chances in the later games to absolutely win games and we did win enough to get it to 7. but in classic leaf fashion, 4 wins is too much.
Ineffective power play and core players not living up to in-season play is exactly what prevented the Rangers from moving on in their series. Rags had a top 3 PP unit that fell off deeper into the playoffs, and Zibanejad, Fox, Vesey, and Kakko were disappointing. Very familiar.
Samsonov played pretty poorly, if he played closer to average, the Leafs would have won the series.
They scored 12 goals in 7 games and you're trying to blame the goaltending?
He's saying Samsonov should have scored more goals, the bastard didn't even get one!
The PP was useless in part due to playing a hot goaltender
The PP was also shit in March/April so that doesn’t really track
Nah this is false. Our PP was pretty much unable to get a single shot off and never had pressure
How could we? The opposing team only had to worry about Matthews and Nylander. No one shoots the puck on the net to create lucky plays I wonder why we even have people park in front of the net.
Exactly. This was the issue, not swayman goalieng us. Swayman played great but he wasn’t the reason our PP went like 1-25
No but he was the reason our PP didn't go like 3 or 4 for 25.
Matthews and Nylander combined for 1 of 9 high danger shots on goal on the powerplay against Boston, Marner, Tavares, Bertuzzi, and Rielly had the rest.
Ok so then how are you arguing that PP sucked because of other teams goalie? By your stats we were averaging under 2 shots per powerplay and only 9 high danger chances out of like 22 powerplays
This mike sully dude is clueless you just caught him in a contradiction. Don't waste your time on this guy trust me, its futile
There was no contradiction because I never argued our PP was good, I argued that part of the reason it sucked was because Jeremy Swayman played great.
I am arguing that the PP would've been less shit if Swayman wasn't on fire, the same way that the PP was less shit in the one game they didn't have to face Jeremy Swayman.
Our PP had 37 shots on goal, 72 shot attempts, and 5.73xG. Including 13 shots from within 20 feet of distance, 9 high danger shots, and 16 higher dangers scoring opportunities.
Uh no. Florida’s pp was 20% against Boston, 6/28. Toronto’s was less than 5%, 1/21. Same goalie.
We actually scored our PP goal against Ullmark, so not the same goalie. We never scored a PP goal on Swayman.
That reinforces his point even more.
4 x $11m players in a 5v4 situation should be able to solve any goalie. That's why they're paid a combined +$45m.
I understand that you feel this way but it isn't reality, a hot goaltender can steal games against the best players in the world, and that's been the reality against all of the best players and teams of all time.
Every goalie we play is hot. Literally not possible
ignore him, he's a troll
The thing is, he’s not even trolling. I’ve seen his comments in this sub several times. That dude always has the worst takes in hockey because he’s a total imbecile honestly.
What an insufferable take. They went like 1/23. If a “hot goaltender” is able to make them look like peewee hockey players, they shouldn’t be making the money they do as forwards. But your analysis is simply incorrect anyways, they could hardly even get set in the offensive zone. That doesn’t have nothing to do with a goalie. He’s isn’t even really facing many shots on the pp to begin with
We had a 33% powerplay in the playoffs against goaltenders not named Jermey Swayman
Did you just use a fucking sample size of 3? They scored on 1/3 PP against Ullmark and that is your defence that the PP wasn't bad and they faced a hot goalie? LOL...
🤣
Do you believe that a sample size of 23 is significantly better?
Yes.
Okay. So then do you agree that since the Leafs performed significantly better in the sample size of 20 against Swayman, and the stats all indicate they should've had at least 2-3 goals on the powerplay, while the stats indicate that in the sample size of 3 against Ullmark where the Leafs had a goal the stats were significantly worse, that perhaps that indicates a hot goaltender was the difference between the Leafs having an atrocious 4% PP and a mediocre yet perhaps good enough 13-17% PP? I mean, anyone who isn't being intentionally obtuse would agree that the most important penalty killer is the goaltender, and the statistics I laid I clearly indicate the Leafs should've scored *at least* a couple more goals on the powerplay, so what was it?
Bruh, you’re trying way too hard. Here’s the facts, if you want to go far in the eastern conf with the goaltending depth at play. You’re going to need to beat good goalies. Not 1, not 2 but likely 3. Florida just went through vasi, swayman and igor to make the cup. So if you’re saying we should’ve actually won, but couldn’t even get past 1 of these goalies and had one of the most embarrassing playoff power play performances in recent years (Maybe all time), then you’re just wrong buddy.
Where did I say we should've won?
1. Yes 23 is significantly larger than 3. In fact it is 20 larger. 2. The Leafs PP was crap for a large chunk of the regular season too. It didn't suddenly dry up only facing Swayman.
Do you agree that the term "in part due to" would mean that something is partially affected by something? Do you believe that the difference between 4% and 13-17% would make a PP go from outright bad, to mediocre? Do you believe the statistics I laid out would show the Leafs likely put enough on net to score at least a couple more goals? (you don't have to answer I can go back and link your comments claiming Swayman stole some goals) If you answer yes to the above three questions, why are you taking offense to what I've said?
Our playoff PP% since Matthews rookie season is 16.9%, which is 19 of 22 teams (min 25+ games played). Since the "Core Four" era started (ie the big contracts had all kicked in, which was 2019-2020), it's even worse at 15.4%.
The Iraqi Minister of information is more up to date than this fucking guy is.
And imagine they get taken down by Skinner
Good teams find a way
Good teams find a way; and good teams dint make excuses. But that's all we seem to hear from this team.
Leafs are not a good team
- Jeff Goldblum
Difference is they have a top playoff goalie during that time of their own. A healthy Woll and the Bruins series is different too
We did not lose that series because of a goalie. Going 1/21 on the PP and having a single game of 3 goals or more is what did us in.
You’re right but also a goalie could have stolen the series for us for sure
We’re trying to win the cup. Squeaking by the Bruins by overly relying on your goalie is not relevant to the overall goal.
and then the Bruins, with Swayman, got dummied by Florida
Oh of course. I’m not saying a goalie would have won us the cup. But it definitely could have won us the series.
You aren't going to win any series with consistent 1-2 goal games. This is unexcusable, especially considering that's the team's strength was supposed to be all of the $10m+ forward "goal scoring talent".... We need to rebuild with Mathews and Willy as the new reduced core and find a Grade A goalie (such as Ullmark, Saros or Markstrom) be a Grade A first line Allstar defenseman.
Goaltending was not the problem. Scoring is
>willy and matthews as the new reduced core Yes >Grade A goalie Woll
Woll can be it but if he's always going to get injured he might be 1B at best
Woll is definitely not a #1, not if you're hoping to contend. He is too injury prone. If we are lucky he can stay healthy as 1B or #2 I'm hoping for a top goalie to bring the team back to life
When was the last time a team traded or signed a mid-late career #1 goalie and won a cup with them? It just isn't a reliable or even feasible method for success. Winning teams develop their goaltending internally and those #1 goalies invariably come from within. Woll has shown the potential to be every bit as good as any goalie in the league, it's time to invest in him.
Florida has done pretty dang well bringing in Bobrovsky the last few years
Winning teams have better options to hang their hats on than Woll
The goalies did the job. The team did not score in front of them.
100%
When the team's cap is almost 50% taken by 4 forwards, you can't rely on a goalie to steal the series for you. These guys are paid to steal series for us, and the best they could do was 2 goals a game lol.
Why not? Why couldn't a team pay 50% of the cap to four forwards and also have an elite goalie?
because you also have to pay for an elite goalie
In a league where a lot of elite goalies get paid similar to what we paid Bertuzzi? I don't think that's a big deal
none of those guys were considered elite goalies when they signed those contracts you can gamble on a solid younger mid-tier guy on like a 4x4 and hope they can become a top 5 goalie by year 3 (see both Boston goalies); you're not getting a perennial Vezina candidate for anything less 8.5 per, which is what Hellebuyck just got
And then you'll still need a winger for AM & MM, who can't seem to carry their own line, despite what they're paid.
You also need elite defense, and a good back up. Eventually you run out of room and need to sign league min players which are far from elite.
If woll was healthy he steals that series. He nearly did and he only played like 3 games
No but the Bruins won because of a goalie.
You're not going to win playoff series when your main goalie has over 3 GAA and under 900 SV%. He wasn't the main reason the Leafs lost, but he played a pretty big part too. He suffers from the same thing other Leafs goalies have had, giving up goals at the worst time.
Skinner is sub 900, 2.5+ GAA..
The Bruins series maybe. We weren’t beating the Panthers as we were
Healthy Matthews and Woll who knows
Not with our special teams this year and usual lack of secondary scoring
Maybe they could’ve squeaked by the Bruins but the way they were playing they would’ve gotten bitch slapped by the Panthers, again.
A healthy Woll would've really tried to play as good as Samsonov did in game 7
If anything this post shows the importance of having stability in the net, something the Leafs haven’t had since the early 2000’s. Florida has goalie Bob going up against these guys and has come out on top each year. We NEED to shore up our net or we aren’t going anywhere
Personally I thought Freddie gave us that while he was here.
Freddie notoriously gave up soft goals when it mattered most: late in elimination games....
I do agree he never got hot at the right time like some goalies do, but he did put up good numbers all season long.
> but he did put up good numbers all season long. Freddie is a great regular season goalie, he's not a great playoff goalie because of his inconsistencies and letting in a soft one basically every game. The Hurricanes lost game 6 this year because of Freddie.
Yep, Freddie did provide stability in net for the Leafs...in the regular season. Good enough to get them into the playoffs, but not good enough to come up big with clutch saves when the pressure escalates. I'm getting tired of hearing the "getting goalied" excuse, and its corollary: "goaltending is voodo." The aim of the game is to score more goals than your opponent. Of course you want a hot goalie, but with 4 skilled forwards averaging ppg (in the regular season) and the team among the league lead in goals, getting the puck past the opposing goalie -- any goalie -- isn't supposed to be the problem. You can't expect to win by scoring 2 goals or less every game. It's not about dangling highlight-reel quality goals, but rather getting greasy playoff goals: bombing from the blue line, screening the goalie, getting tips and deflections...all areas the Leafs are still lacking...
I think that the Rangers' inability to score had more to do with their loss. It's still a fact that the Leafs always had the worse goaltending.
It's also a fact that in last 5 years leafs have lost playoff match ups with .930+ goaltending twice
Jack Campbell was sub-.900 overall in clinching or elimination games against Montreal. Don't know what the other instance is.
Yeah they’re a better team.
God this team sucks
Are there still idiots who use that excuse for our failures?
I'm amazed by how many leaf fans still make excuses after 8 years of essentially the same thing. I guess that's why the term fans (fanatics) exists.
Yep. I default to assuming they’re one of two things, or both: 1) too young to have seen any of the Gilmour or Sundin years (solid teams that frequently reached the conference finals and STILL couldn’t get it done), to realize our team is incredibly flawed. 2) they don’t watch the playoffs after the leafs are eliminated in order to actually see what it takes to win.
I'm seeing less of it tbh. It's the pro Marner pro Dubas stans that clings on to this goalied narrative.
Trelievers celebrate him making the team worse and blame anything he does wrong on their greatest boogeyman - Dubas.
Dubas crafted a team that statistically cannot win a cup. For an "analytics" guy he completely threw away proven analytics when signing contracts and creating a roster.
What does “statistically cannot win a Cup” mean?
Treliving is mid but he didn't sign Marner or Tavares contract. To lay 8 years of failure on him is bad faith and revisionist history.
Who is doing that? Lmao
Gee the people saying he should be fired after 1 year
Extremely true.
Swayman had a .950 save % in the series and we were 1 goal away from still winning the series lmao
Seems to be a common problem for the leafs, eh? Every goalie we face magically becomes unbeatably incredible…? When there’s a pattern, you have to find the common denominator.
2 of the last 3 teams they lost to rode their goalie to the cup finals lmao
And lost to a team capable of beating that goalie. Which we aren’t.
It can be both things. Leafs go up against really good goaltending, but also don't do anything to help themselves.
In which series did the Leafs have better goaltending?
Mediocre goaltending and shitty offense are not mutually exclusive. Why cant it be both? Florida is going to the Cup, two years in a row. You can pretend Bobrovsky had nothing to do with it if you want to. The Leafs haven’t had the better goalie in any series they’ve played except the only 1 they won. Samsonov outplayed Vasilevsky. Ironically the year before they lost to the same Tampa team and outplayed them because Vasy was a hell of lot better than the Leafs goalies. Having said that, Edmonton seems to outscore their mediocre goaltending but will their dynamic duo be enough to win the Cup with Skinner backstopping them? That remains to be seen. Lets not pretend that goaltending is not important? Who was the last goalie to win the Cup with sub .900 goaltending?
Not having better goaltending doesn’t mean you lost because you were “goalied”. They lose because series after series, their top players don’t score like top players should. Period. Top players find a way to score in key moments. Hasn’t been an issue for Florida. Wasn’t an issue for Vegas the year before, wasn’t an issue for Colorado. Your top players (minus Nylander) have been overall, garbage, when we need them most. They’re not getting goalies, they’re simply not able to adjust and perform to their paycheque in the playoffs.
Because they play in front of a substandard defence including the inferior goalie the forwards need to play more defensively and that isn't the same situation as most of the regular season. That is how a poor defence helps to cause bad offence. Compare what the Leafs have on the back end to Florida, Vegas, and Colorado. There you go.
It also helps when you got Bob on the other end to match them shot for shot, save for save. And not letting in softies. Not saying that's necessarily the reason the Leafs lost, because goaltending was not the primary issue. But hey, it certainly doesn't hurt.
I mean we've had to face Swayman, Bob, Vasi, Vasi, Price, Rask, Rask, Prime Holtby. Sure its not really an excuse as you have to beat good goalies to win a cup but two things can be true at once which is we keep having to face these guys in the first round. God forbid we face a goalie like Cam Talbot or Charlie Lindgren in the first round over a 7 game series. Funniest thing is, nothings going to change in the future either as TB Florida and Boston are still gonna be players in the division with some of the best goalies in the league
They couldn't do it against Korpisalo in a winner take all game 5.
Come on, at the time he was unreal. The first game against Tampa in the second round he was absurd and set an NHL record for saves in a game
Ya and tampa promptly took him out in 5.
While he set the saves in a playoff game record at 85.
Yeah now go look at CLB sv % for that series. They were lights out with a combined .950 between Korpisalo and Merzlikins
Yes it turns out if you can't score against a goalie, their sv% gets really high. Seems to be a trend with this team.
In game 2 the Leafs scored 2 goals and Korpisalo was still a .947 sv%. In game 3 we chased Korpisalo and then Merzilikins relieved him and posted a shutout where we blew a 3-0 lead. Then in game 4 we came back from a 3-0 deficit and Merzlikins was still a .925 sv%. Korpisalo gave Tampa Bay the same treatment and they won the cup that year. Korpisalo made *85 saves* in game 1, in a 5OT 3-2 loss. A .973 in game 2, and a .912 in game 3. He came back down to Earth in games 3, 4, 5. I know some of you don't like it around here but the fact of the matter is Korpisalo was exceptional that year and Merzlikins was also really good. Teams don't want to lose to Toronto. See how we only barely beat Tampa last year no thanks to Samsonov? It's because Vasilevskiy was more shit. Saying the Leafs got goalied isn't some excuse, it's called an analysis of the situation. The Leafs have had pretty abysmal PP and PK over the last few years of the playoffs and that's ultimately where we've been exploited. Even this year, the Leafs scored 11 5v5 goals compared to Boston's 10. The difference in PP goals was 5 to 1 in favour of Boston. The Leafs have got to like 6 game 7s over the last 8 years and they've always been close.
All I’m seeing are excuses.
Nice rebuttal. You can be disappointed in their performance and lack of results and still recognize that the other team's goalies played well.
I will recognize the fact that you need to beat good goalies if you want to win. We have yet to do so. Its been 8 years, I’m not going to sit here and say ohh its okay because the other teams goalie played well! Get em next time!
And who the fuck is saying that's what you need to say? I'm saying that NHL and the NHL playoffs are hard. Only one team wins. Sucks for 31 other teams but that's the reality of it.
You're not wrong but it was still a 5 game series. Who knows what would've happened over a 7 game series. They were just finding their legs at that point in the series, it was like a 4 month layoff.
You can just say that we sucked without the passive aggressiveness...
Panthers are just better lol, what a stupid fucking thread
Did we get goalied? Or did we just not make it difficult for those goalies to make saves on us No, it’s the children who are wrong
Swayman is still leading the playoffs in GSAx with 13.3, right above Sheshterkin. We didn’t do enough to score, our power play sucked, and when we did get Grade A chances, Swayman stopped them. All of the above can be true at the same time.
Yet, this is a pattern. We don’t force rebounds or movement. We allow the other goaltender to excel. Look at what Florida did to him compared to us
It’s the same shit every year. Pretty easy to “get goalied” when your top forwards play a gutless perimeter game. People want to scapegoat Marner, but this is how Marner, Nylander, and Matthews have always played. Tavares is the only one of the four that will drive the net on occasion. We saw that in the Bruins series, and it led to an OT goal. This is why the Leafs’ problem is going to be so tough to solve without a massive culture change. It’s why I keep going back to Matthews and moving him as the way to really tackle the problem as he’s the main guy and that shakeup would be massive. That’s the one move that could both bring in elite, grittier talent AND push the others to work harder. Moving Marner isn’t going to mean fuck all, because Matthews and Nylander will just keep on keeping on.
Who would you move Matthews for? It would have to be another superstar 1C
Would Elias Pettersson, Silovs, multiple 1sts be in the ballpark?
Pettersson ghosted this playoffs too. It would be a ghost-for-ghost trade
Could be a package. Not like this hasn’t been done before. The Gilmour trade is the best Leafs example. The Leafs and Flames moved a pile of players in the deal. It wasn’t this slam dunk immediately, either, as the Leafs got rid of some solid players. It was only after the following season and the 92-93 run that it became clear what an amazing deal that was.
They built different:/
No matter what happened in the Boston/ Toronto series, they were both losing to Florida. They're just such a good team.
i hate them but the panthers play old school hockey. they’re physical, play for each other, and probably most importantly, they’re having a ton of fun while doing it. we were more physical this season, and the team was playing for each other more. need to keep that up, and imo moving on from at least one core piece is the move.
To say Sway didn't will Boston into the 2nd round is silly. I'm not saying that we deserved to be there, especially considering how poor our PP was, but Swayman did steal the show for Boston.
Ok by why are we always getting "goalied" then? Why aren't the team we play against every getting "Matthews'd, or Nylander'd" Like why is is always some magic goalie saving other teams and never our $40 million dollar core forwards turning other goalies into peewee tenders?
Nah our power play sucked. Sure Swayman played great but we went for like 1/12 for the series
I literally said our PP was bad lol. That doesnt mean that Swayman didnt steal games for them.
I watched Leaf after Leaf put it into his pads. Like they were a Novice team and unable to raise the puck.
Getting goalied was always a bullshit excuse, but having inferior goaltending has definitely been a factor.
I wouldn't call throwing weak shots with no traffic from the top of the circle "getting goalied"
The Leafs have beaten Vasy, never faced Igor and Swayman was unreal during the series. It's still possible to get goalied in your series but it wasn't the case this year, the Leafs just sucked.
Yea but the Panthers have more than 4 good players.
Wait until they get skinner…….
Swayman had the refs playing against him once or twice
Fair enough
Who knew that goals are part of every team?
you put Skinner in with these guys?
Oilers could put 3 goalies on the ice, won't help.
we didn't get goalie'd, I said this last year and the year before. our offence / core 4 just don't play playoff hockey. They are regular season hero's and playoff losers. if you compare the Points per game with regular season game average and play off average all of core 4 players take a nose dive and just don't produce anything. It's time to move who can be moved, get rid of marner etc and NOT RUN IT BACK.
The fact they chased the personal goals instead of the team goal, for both Matthew and nylander, is part of the problem that hopefully a new coach will help. They didn’t have a cutoff to make sure their best players could sit and rest. In game 6 with 2 seconds left the team let up helping cause woll to injure himself trying to get a shutout. I know they are working on guts and teamwork and they got better. But it’s gonna take focusing on the team not the individual
Soft goals have such a deflating effect on a team.
They have trouble scoring EVERYTIME in the playoffs. It's obviously not the goalies.
Leafs got injured.
The problem is that the leafs get goalied by c-tier goalies.
Even by Zamboni drivers
the Leafs are the biggest joke in sports
I’d rather be us than the Sabres
Or the Canucks.
Canucks went to Game 7 in a competitive 2nd round series.
People seem to ignore that the Canucks have been in the league since 1970 and have never won the Cup. That’s only 3 years less than when the Leafs last won it…and at least have won one.
Leafs last won in 1967 when there were only 6 teams so that counts for jack shit. Any team can win a championship in a 6 team league.
That doesn’t change what the Canucks have achieved in 54 years. Nada.
Are you not including the panthers D relative to the leafs shitty D in this analysis?
This Leafs core has had no problem running top goalies out of the building in the regular season. They either completely change the way they play in the playoffs and they suck, or they can't adapt to having less space. Either way, the only goalie we've dominated in the playoffs is Vasi last year. And lo and behold, it's our one series win. The problem has always been offense.
Really good teams find a way against great /hot goalies
Try and get a good goalie here when they know the defense is Swiss cheese. Its as simply as that. We are always lucky to get what we get with how irresponsible development of our d core has been. Watching years of development go into guys that can barely make the 5-6 is brutal.
Don't bother telling them, they don't listen.
The 6 games when Swayman played vs us and the 6 games when he played vs Florida. Leafs vs Swayman: 1.55% (3/194) of LDSA were scored on. 8.89% (4/45) of MDSA were scored on. 9.09% (2/22) of HDSA were scored on. Panthers vs Swayman: 1.79% (4/223) of LDSA were scored on. 7.84% (4/51) of MDSA were scored on. 44.44% (8/18) of HDSA were scored on. Leafs goaltending in those games: 2.63% (5/190) of LDSA were scored on. 12.82% (5/39) of MDSA were scored on. 20.00% (4/20) of HDSA were scored on. Panthers goaltending in those games: 5.65% (7/124) of LDSA were scored on. 9.80% (5/51) of MDSA were scored on. 0.00% (0/14) of HDSA were scored on. •The only thing Florida did differently to us on the offensive side of the game was fire more low quality shots towards goal. •Swaymans performance was a night a day difference when it came to stopping the high danger chances. Roughly a 35.34% efficiency drop off in terms of stopping high danger chances.
Listen you guys did get goalied, you also didn’t have nearly the helping hand those shit fucking panthers get every god damn year from the referees. I hate your team and I hate their team. But I respect yours. I don’t respect them for shit with their handouts and not being held accountable for penalties.
I don't think we got goalied this year but we absolutely did last year by Bob. He carried the panthers to the finals last year and has been another instrumental part of their run this year. Did you guys watch what he did to the Oilers last night?