whysoserious wrote:So Babcock, knowing that Hyman tore his ACL played him on two key penalty kill faceoffs in game 6 which the Bruins scored on and then also played Hyman in game 7 - more minutes then Matthews. That is just simply not excusable.
Yeah, as much as I don't think Babcock should be a fall guy this year I don't think he handled some of those situations very well. The problem was that they didn't have Tavares kill penalties pretty much all year, or any C for that matter. And, Hyman's injury doesn't explain why Marner went quiet and did nothing for the last several games, or why Kapanen was terrible on the PK all of the sudden, etc.
I'm just like, wait until the Leafs are the favourite and lose to an underdog to axe the head coach instead of nitpicking minutes or line-up decisions. Had Anderson not let in a bunch of weak goals in another game 7, the coach is probably looking pretty smart right now.
imo the Leafs absolutely need to tweak their roster to bring back some tougher forwards. Moore looks pretty promising. Hyman has become almost elite at what he does. But they don't need Kapanen, Johnsson, Nylander, Ennis, Marner, Marleau all kind of struggling to find middle of the ice. And if you look at the next wave of prospects, Petan, Bracco, Timashov, Brooks they're all cut from the same cloth. It might be wise to take the picks on one of Kap or Johnsson, see if Ennis can be re-signed for less. Marleau should be full-time 4th or 3rd liner, just purely a checker at this point.