OT: Leafs/NHL Thread

[ItsDanger]

Oilers defensive zone coverage and neutral zone decisions have consistently been bad in last few seasons. Disciplined teams take advantage as Marchessault just basically admitted.

[fbalmeida]

Leaf fans are mercilessly mocked and constantly lectured on how the Oilers, not the Leafs, are the prime example of how to build a Stanley Cup contender around a skill-based core of hyper-stars.

So um... How is that working out for ya, Oilers fans?

[rapstarter]

It really is amazing how expansion teams with horrible team names and jerseys continue to make fools of the legacy teams with history and large fanbase. Like how do Canadian teams go 30 years without the cup? Feel like it shouldn't be this hard.

[Kingsway_fan]

Leaf fans are mercilessly mocked and constantly lectured on how the Oilers, not the Leafs, are the prime example of how to build a Stanley Cup contender around a skill-based core of hyper-stars.

So um... How is that working out for ya, Oilers fans?

You have to be a 90 year old to have witnessed a cup in Toronto,lol...

Makes the Raptors NBA championship so sweet!

[Madvillainy2004]

Oilers are a game away from choking too.

It's not because of Connor and Draisaitl. The Oilers gave Jack Campbell $5M per for 5 years. Not exactly the best run franchise.

Exactly... when the Oilers lose, it's not because of their top 2 players. They show up always! Same can't be said for rhe leafs "top dogs"

Drai had 1 assist and was -7 in the last 4 games of this series lmao really showed up.

[Madvillainy2004]

It really is amazing how expansion teams with horrible team names and jerseys continue to make fools of the legacy teams with history and large fanbase. Like how do Canadian teams go 30 years without the cup? Feel like it shouldn't be this hard.

The NHL made the expansion draft VERY generous to Vegas/Seattle so they'd be good right out of the gate lol

[fbalmeida]

Leaf fans are mercilessly mocked and constantly lectured on how the Oilers, not the Leafs, are the prime example of how to build a Stanley Cup contender around a skill-based core of hyper-stars.

So um... How is that working out for ya, Oilers fans?

You have to be a 90 year old to have witnessed a cup in Toronto,lol...

Makes the Raptors NBA championship so sweet!

The Leafs have a 56 year cup drought and I've been alive for 43 of them. It's an international disgrace. Leaf fans that grow up to be hockey players, or that raise hockey players, should completely focus on putting a stop to this. Ontario's finest have to assemble at home and make it happen. Enough is enough.

[Badonkadonk]

In the NHL you can build a skilled roster and it won't matter in the playoffs bc the game is called completely differently. I'm not talking about toughness or grinders, I'm talking about teams that are willing to consistently break the rules knowing things won't get called. And then you have old-heads who'll just excuse it saying "that's playoff hockey".

Ovie's cup didn't happen until he was 32 and that was largely because they got Tom Wilson to murder people on the ice and dare the refs to call anything.

It's a poverty league, this playoff run reminded me why I stopped watching in the first place.

[ciueli]

It really is amazing how expansion teams with horrible team names and jerseys continue to make fools of the legacy teams with history and large fanbase. Like how do Canadian teams go 30 years without the cup? Feel like it shouldn't be this hard.

I'm sure it has nothing to do with the NHL being desperate to improve ratings in the American market and therefore having a vested interest in seeing US teams be successful and win the Stanley Cup every year.

[6ixpessant]

The team doesn't have a dog or a leader. Tavares was one of the dumbest signings in sports history.

[Madvillainy2004]

The team doesn't have a dog or a leader. Tavares was one of the dumbest signings in sports history.

The leafs franchise has made like 15+ worst signings Tavares. Nvm SPORTS history lmao

The Tavares deal is exactly what it was he played great for a few seasons and has been only good as he has gotten older. We're paying the piper these last 2 years but if he can be decent 5v5 and pot 30+ goals the next 2 years I can't say it's a bad signing at all. Wish he did more in the playoffs but losing one of his years to the injury against MTL was a brutal blow.

[fbalmeida]

In the NHL you can build a skilled roster and it won't matter in the playoffs bc the game is called completely differently. I'm not talking about toughness or grinders, I'm talking about teams that are willing to consistently break the rules knowing things won't get called. And then you have old-heads who'll just excuse it saying "that's playoff hockey".

Ovie's cup didn't happen until he was 32 and that was largely because they got Tom Wilson to murder people on the ice and dare the refs to call anything.

It's a poverty league, this playoff run reminded me why I stopped watching in the first place.

It's not just the old-heads. It's official league policy. Consider this absolutely surreal exchange between disgraced former NHL official Tim Peel and a hockey scribe Jeff Veillette.

Read on Twitter

Everything about this conversation is surreal, including the part where Mark Cuban himself chimes in.

[bballsparkin]

Drai had 1 assist and was -7 in the last 4 games of this series lmao really showed up.

He didn't look great last night. I wonder how much that slash from Pietrangelo effected him. It was a pretty vicious slash.

[Madvillainy2004]

In the NHL you can build a skilled roster and it won't matter in the playoffs bc the game is called completely differently. I'm not talking about toughness or grinders, I'm talking about teams that are willing to consistently break the rules knowing things won't get called. And then you have old-heads who'll just excuse it saying "that's playoff hockey".

Ovie's cup didn't happen until he was 32 and that was largely because they got Tom Wilson to murder people on the ice and dare the refs to call anything.

It's a poverty league, this playoff run reminded me why I stopped watching in the first place.

It's not just the old-heads. It's official league policy. Consider this absolutely surreal exchange between disgraced former NHL official Tim Peel and a hockey scribe Jeff Veillette.

Read on Twitter

Everything about this conversation is surreal, including the part where Mark Cuban himself chimes in.

He also called Matthews soft as well recently as well. This sport has some serious issues if the officials view players like that.

[fbalmeida]

For sure. It spans from the highest echelons of the League (George Parros, head of player safety LMFAO), all the way down to officials and their personal prejudices against specific players.

[tanuki1031]

Leaf fans are mercilessly mocked and constantly lectured on how the Oilers, not the Leafs, are the prime example of how to build a Stanley Cup contender around a skill-based core of hyper-stars.

So um... How is that working out for ya, Oilers fans?

This is a thing?

I only recall the Oilers being mocked before for getting and blowing over a decade's worth of high lottery picks including multiple #1OAs, top-3s and still being mocked for flubbing it in the present with McDavid and Draisaitl.

MacT, Chiarelli, Holland - haven't heard any of their regimes being cited as model builds, not even close.

Genuinely curious who/what fan base has been using the Oilers to chide Leafs fans. Must be bandwagon Oilers fans because real Oilers fans are likely looking at Holland with just as much disdain as the previous GMs.

[canz55]

The NHL is the only sport in the world where the rule book is basically thrown out the window in the playoffs.

Steve Dangle said it beautifully on his podcast: "the NHL and their teams are managed by psychos, governed by psychos, played by psychos and watched by mostly psychos.

[JB7]

As I said I can understand why free agents wouldn't want to sign for a Canadian team, but you'd think some American born players wouldn't mind sticking with the team that drafted and developed them because of the ties they created over the years from when they were drafted until their mid-20s when they become free agents and instead of choosing to leave that perhaps they would stay. At any rate it just sucks that they leave instead of wanting to stay and its why I think its somewhat unfair to criticise Canadian teams for not being able to win the cup for so long when they have the deck stacked against them.

They do, have the deck staked against them to some degree (taxes/weather). But considering Canadian talent still wins a lot of championships, if Canadian teams can show they are capable of winning, they can draw talent that wants to win in a Canadian city.

I just don't think AM is that type of guy.

Any team that could sign Matthews and give him the money he's looking for will likely not be competing for the cup or else that team would face something similar to the Leafs where they have to get rid of possibly good players to fit a big Matthews contract into their cap. I don't know how many cup contending teams could be able to do this even if they were willing to give up the assets to get him.

Also when talking about being under the microscope in Canada, I don't know why athletes would want to avoid playing hockey in a market that cares passionately about the game and will come out with strong support for their team nearly every year unless they really suck for multiple years or something. Unless I'm missing something this doesn't seem to be nearly as much an issue in the NFL, NBA or baseball where star players choose to go to small market teams to avoid the media and fanatical fans and possible criticism if they play poorly.

If a team like the Rangers trades for him, I don't see them having a lot of success, as they will probably run into the same problems as the Leafs trying to build out the roster. But it is NY. Just having AM would be a success for them.

The team that could potentially build a competitive roster around a maxed out AM is Arizona, because they can build a team from scratch, with cap space and a number of draft picks and young players on cheap deals.

Other sports have this problem too. I don't know how many star players want to go to the Knicks. Dolan is one reason. The other is the pressure to win in a market like NY, that has not seen a championship for a long time.

Well for this year's playoffs the facts say otherwise. 4/5 games against the Panthers were one goal games. 4/5 games the Leafs didn't give up more than 3 goals in the Florida series. However on the other side, the Leafs NEVER scored more than 2 goals the ENTIRE Florida series and they only scored more than 2 goals 3 TIMES THE WHOLE PLAYOFFS and that's including the 7-2 blowout against Tampa in game 2.

You can't win only scoring more than 2 goals 3 out of 11 games in the playoffs. This year the goaltending and defense played well enough to give the Leafs a chance to win games while the offense played well below what they are capable of and its what ultimately cost them the Florida series. The interesting thing is that the Leafs were able to score against the Lightning with much fewer good chances while the Panthers gave the Leafs plenty of great chances that they failed to score on.

5/6 games in the Tampa series they looked better than the Leafs most of the time on the ice and the Leafs still found a way to win. In pretty much every game against the Panthers I felt the Leafs were as good if not better in most of those games and yet they couldn't find a way to win. If the Leafs offense scores even a little more they're probably leading this series if not already have won it. People all the time say that the Leafs ability to prevent goals is their weakness and while I don't disagree that they can improve, I've always maintained that their inability to score in the playoffs is the bigger problem.

Again, because teams that are generally successful in the NHL playoffs are strong defensive teams, it usually results in low scoring games. To win in the playoffs, the Leafs need to be able to win in tight checking low scoring games, which they have not been able to do.

When Matthews came into the league and people were comparing him to McDavid, the way Matthews played in his first few years made that comparison more reasonable. In the past couple of seasons even with his 60 goal year last year, we clearly see that McDavid is the better player. Matthews has a great shot although maybe this year it was hampered by injuries that saw him from looking like a great player to merely a good one. This entire season he seemed off and not looking like he did in previous years. I'm just hoping that's mostly to do with injuries and not something else.

The two things that McDavid has that Matthews doesn't is speed and great puckhandling skills. Most of Matthews goals come from his shot and putting in goals around the net. McDavid much like Draisaitl can score on you in any number of ways from using their shot to deking the goalie out of their pants. Nylander has that sort of speed and scoring/puckhandling ability although he doesn't show it enough compared to McDavid or a MacKinnon.

If Matthews had better speed he'd be an even better play, but unfortunately he lacks that and so it makes him less of a threat on offense compared to McDavid. Right now Matthews is looking like a great player in his career and maybe even a generational one if he can stay healthy and play his best, but McDavid is already well on his way to being considered one of the all time greats in the game. So trying to compare the two is abit unfair to Matthews when McDavid is on a level above almost everyone else.

I'm not comparing them one to one. The idea is Matthews is considered one of those players on another level like McDavid. Crosby and Ovie were both thought of as generational stars. Crosby was clearly better, but they were still considered together as generational stars.

Question for you: Who was the better player when it came to winning: Gretzky or Messier?
Messier was a player built for playoff hockey. Gretzky was not.

What's the point of drafting and developing star level players if you aren't willing to pay them to retain them? You can say that some of them performed below expectations when it mattered most in the playoffs, but every sane GM would sign their best young players and run with them and see how far they get with them. Sometimes it works out and other times it doesn't, but I don't see any problem with giving this core a few shots and now that they've shown that even with extra help its not enough, then moving out one or more of the core shouldn't be out of the question.

Also Dubas will forever be criticised for 'overplaying' some of his players, but as I said Nylander now looks like a great contract even though back then people were angry at Dubas for 'caving in' and Matthews is the face of your franchise so I don't know why its an issue to pay him and Marner is the only one that you can make the case that's 'overpaid' by a couple of million or so. Even if both Marner and Matthews collectively take 3-4 million less, while that isn't nothing that little bit of extra money shouldn't be the difference between winning and losing in the playoffs.

They have been paid like the type of talent that can carry a team to success, but they have not. They have been given 7 playoffs to try for a run, with one round won in those 7 years. Time to move on. I would keep Nylander over M&M. Matthews can get the team the best return, and Marner is the most over rated of the 4, and not worth investing massive dollars into.

I think as long as he's healthy MacKinnon will still be a great player well into his 30s like Crosby is right now. I don't think he's going to drop off a cliff anytime soon. Also losing Kadri isn't nothing to the Avs, but it was injuries that killed them the most this year and they still were able to get into the playoffs comfortably once their best players came back. If the Avs are healthy and they can improve their team abit they'll be right there at the top and be Stanley cup favorites again.

MacKinnon, whether he can maintain his play or not, cannot do it alone, and the team is gradually losing its talent to FA. Kadri, while untrustworthy when it came to stupid dirty plays, was still their #2 C and productive. Losing him hurt the team, but signing him at age 32 to a 7 year deal would have hurt them more.

A guy like Nick Suzuki isn't exactly super big or physical and yet he's playing center for the Habs. If Marner tried who knows how it would turn out.

Marner's too soft to play C. It's the reason he is so overrated. While extremely talented, he is moved off the puck too easily.

Maybe, maybe not. Hard to say one way or the other. Having a goalie that can play well almost every game is tough and having them do it consistently for years is even tougher which is why its somewhat rare to see these days. If there's one position that you should try your best to not overpay for its definitely for a goalie.

Goaltenders are generally all built the same now. Over 6 feet (and the bigger the better), and they all play the butterfly style. Just trying to cover as much of the net as possible. I'm waiting for the day a team signs a guy the size of a sumo wrestler, sticks gear on him and just has him stand in front of the net all game.

[C_Money]

There’s too many flaws in the sport for my liking. It all comes down to goaltending which is random AF. Your 3rd stringer could get hot and win the cup for you. The star players don’t actually matter.

[Tha Cynic]

For sure. It spans from the highest echelons of the League (George Parros, head of player safety LMFAO), all the way down to officials and their personal prejudices against specific players.

Man does Parros hate the Leafs. His history of how he punishes the Leafs and the **** other teams get away with against the Leafs havs has astonishing during his time. It may have something to do with him getting beaten up in a fight when he faced the Leafs and then the fans laughing at him about it.

I used to watch hockey as much as basketball, but the officiating and the obvious bias against Canadian teams did it for me. I now tune in for the playoffs, but man seeing this again makes me wonder why i bothered. Last year the Leafs were eliminated because they called back a goal on a "pick" that happens hundreds of times a game with no call. This year the other team scores a goal on an obvious, blatant interference and they let it go. I actually sat there waiting for the ref to wave it off, and it never came. I was then waiting for Sheldon Keefe to try to challenge it and that buffoon didn't even say anything.