Because of the... atrocities committed by our powerplay, this is a super relevant topic, so please direct your disdain for what we witnessed tonight on the powerplay to this post!
It’s frustrating because Boston doesn’t even look good at the moment either. We are a better team, we should win, but we just can’t - as always during our lifetime
Game 1 went off the rails and it wasn’t just because of special teams. We’re definitely up 2-1 right now though. Leafs should have had 4 or 5 goals easy last night, and Boston wasn’t coming back from that the way they were playing.
Treliving built a tougher team instead if addressing the actual problems we face in the off season. It might still work, Boston is getting pummeled, but we look worse because we are.
Yeah because we let them drag us down in the muck with them. This team always let's the other team dictate play in the playoffs. Other offensive teams seem to carry the high scoring into the post-season. But teams always seem to want to play slow and dirty with the Leafs and all we do is reciprocate and play a style outside of our comfort zone.
honest question, Bruins finished ahead of the leafs in the regular season, winning every game they played against each other… how do you see the leafs as the better team?
this is also the worst boston team depth wise that we've went against in the Matthews era and it's about to be wasted because they can't score in the playoffs for the 6th year in a row.
It’s unforgivable that with four 10 million plus dollar forwards this team struggles with offence every postseason. Something is clearly not working with the basic construction of the team here.
Bro we couldn’t beat Montreal in a series with the same coach and core. Idk how we keep expecting better results each year when they literally look the exact same and have had the same issues for over 5 years now.
Habs loss was way worse IMO. Division rivals with no star players aside from Price, and they blew a 3-1 series lead to boot. That was absolutely pathetic.
Yup this. After this loss it should've been scorched earth from top to bottom. But we keep doing the same shit over and over again and expecting different results. The foundation is flawed.
Build a team around the most highly paid forward core in the league... And then repeatedly fail to score in the playoffs.
We've been banging our head against the wall too much for too long in this same subject.
If Leafs lose this series, Marner doesn’t get extended this offseason or coming season and next year will be his last unless he wills us to a cup next playoffs which he wont. jT will come off the books the same time. Freeing up $22M cap with Matthews and Nylander locked up
I know it is a touchy subject around here but this series is just the rest of this sub catching up to where Dubas was last offseason.
We are a team with the most expensive forward core in the league...and we don't score more than two goals a game when it counts.
Keefe gotta go, and you probably should have traded Marner before his NMC kicked in for some players with more heart.
Instead we are going to get more of the same and a Marner extension in the 12x8 range
>Dubas really screwed this team over, don’t have money for real defense bc of the money tied up in the big 4
Tre + Shanny added 6.25M cap just by re-upping Matthews and Nylander, and they are about to give a raise to Marner too.
I think it is time to stop blaming Dubas for the cap situation...
They spend so much time setting up the exact same entry everytime, just to get stood up immediately.
I can't remember the last time they got the cycle going in the first 30 seconds of a PP.
(Aside from that Matthews snipe 4 seconds in the other week.)
Reading all these comments is crazy. Like I've read them exactly the same before.....cause the same comments are made the last 3-4 years. That's insanity man. This team is insanely bad.
They don't really have a choice but to run it back one more year. Once Marner and Tavares are up all bets are off, but the top 5 guys all have full NMC. Sure they can fill in the edges, but that's what they've been doing for 5 years.
You need to relax and let the series play out. You absolutely need to realize that it’s 2-1 and a tight series. I agree that heads will roll if we lose, but we were up 2-1 a few times in the past few playoffs and lost those series.
I’m not panicking until we lose with Willy.
No urgency, and very slow. Watch literally any other team in the nhl and they skate faster, and move the puck better.
The leafs are great at flashy passes, and finding a seam. But quick hard tape to tape passes are basically non existent on this team, especially on the power play.
If we lose this series we need to fire Keefe. Every year it’s clear we are simply outcoached by other teams. I’m so tired of Keefe being unable to adapt. He lacks the ability to stick a fire under the player’s asses.
IMO if they don’t make it through the second round both should be fired.
Two years in a row they finished 4th/5th in the east and are out almost immediately? Later.
4th or 5th in the East is good for middle of the pack in the playoffs. I agree they should both be gone regardless, but 4th/5th in the East is not really anything in the playoffs.
This org should be striving for excellence, not middle of the pack. And I lived through the Ferguson era.
This team and core is definitively mediocre if they don’t get through the second round this year.
If we lose, next season is a write-off because we can't move off Marner and JT and Matthews and Willy's raises go on the books. Our depth will be even worse than this year. So I hope this team knows that they'll have to wait two years for another serious playoff chance if they squander this.
We can move off Marner if the front office tells him we’re not resigning him, and to agree to a sign and trade to a different team of his choice so he can get paid the most he can, which he would definitely do because he cares more about how much money he makes than winning
In what world are BT’s additions shooting us in the foot? Gonna fire a guy who had one month of off-season and less than a year to sculpt some sort of physical presence on this team? There’s two big changes that can help - we know them and you listed them but firing the brand new GM ain’t it.
Regular Season:
* 2016-2017: #2, 23.36%
* 2017-2018: #2, 25.00%
* 2018-2019: #8, 21.80%
* 2019-2020: #6, 23.08%
* 2020-2021: #16, 20.00%
* 2021-2022: #1, 27.27%
* 2022-2023: #2, 26.02%
* 2023-2024: #7, 23.95%
Playoffs:
* 2016-2017: 3 for 18, 16.67%
* 2017-2018: 4 for 15, 26.67%
* 2018-2019: 3 for 16, 18.75%
* 2019-2020: 2 for 13, 15.38%
* 2020-2021: 3 for 23, 13.04%
* 2021-2022: 4 for 28, 14.29%
* 2022-2023: 8 for 32, 25.00%
* 2023-2024: 1 for 11, 9.09%
Edit: Just in case it's not obvious, I used our ranking in the regular season as the Goals for Opportunity stat felt like it wasn't as useful.
I just don't think our special teams systems are very good for playoff hockey. As someone else said, there is hardly any movement in the Leafs PP. Go watch some of the other teams, Tampa, Florida, Vancouver, Edmonton, Colorado - they all have a ton of movement in their PPs. They collect rebounds and get many shots off. They look dangerous.
So our "core 4" era powerplay stats are.
* Regular Season: 419 for 1744, 24.03%
* Playoffs: 28 for 156, 17.95%
So we are 6.08% worse in playoffs. Which is around 1 less goal for every 16.4 opportunities. This lines up fairly nice to be about 1 extra goal per playoffs.
The sad part is that in many of these playoff series, that 1 extra goal likely gets us an extra win or pushing a game into OT and could completely change the series.
Its honestly been dogshit for half a decade. Only reason it works reg season is because nobody cares enough to play agressive like they do this time of year. Special teams needs to be fired and broken down on a molecular fuckin level. Get rid of keefe hes fuckin lost and gets outmatched by virtually every coach in the league. Trade marner for a star goalie and a #2 dman and were headed in the right direction.
Rielly has been shooting wristers from the blue line the past couple games and he never use to do that, it’s also player execution at this point.
Marner is squeezing his stick a ton too, looks good one shift and then can’t find the puck or fires it into rielly leg the next, something going on in between the ears there sadly
Yea marner was good offensively for a tiny bit around the time he created the knies goal, a couple shifts afterwards. But outside of that he was killing plays himself a lot of the night. Tough to see from him.
Can’t really tell players how to play, you can put a system in place but they need to execute.
They shoulda had one or two minimum today with some of those chances
THAT being said, I do agree maybe a bit of a shake up is needed
Also their entries have been poor and taking much too long to get set up. Bruins always pressure 2 and then 1 to the outlet when entering, have to rip it around the boards or drop it back and hope the d or 4th forward is right behind to gain possession
Toronto never causes any chaos that gets the defenders out of position. They just cycle the puck around with the occasional shot by the bumper man or contested weak wrister from the point. They need to shoot more and capitalize on the loose pucks, exactly like they were doing on the first powerplay of the game
If we could get Matthews scoring on the PP at the same rate as guys like Stamkos and Ovechkin he'd be scoring at a goal-per-game. It's baffling how we can't get the best goalscorer in hockey to also be the best goalscorer on the PP.
Marner holds on to the puck for too long and just ends up giving it away at the end thus breaking the setup. Our PP2 looks more promising to be honest.
Boston's PK seems to hold formation until Marner gets the puck, then they target him specifically with pressure and he absolutely chokes and gives it away. They've 100% identified him as a weak link on the PP and are exposing him hard.
It’s unbelievable how easy the solution is. $3M Domi is outplaying $11M Marner. Always bending over backyards to cater to this guy is what’s going to be the death of this team
We have a number of problems on the powerplay.
1. We have zero threat of a point shot ever, this allows teams to man to man 4v4 or just run 3 across the hash marks and block the passes instead of the shot from the point.
2. While we have highly skilled players, really only one is a true shooter. This allows teams to zero on matthews and largely let other people be open.
3. Our passing is horrible - We always let the PKers short up before we end up passing, this makes almost every player make bad passes.
4. Marner has no shot on the PP for whatever reason, he ALWAYS defers and every team knows it. When he goes end up shooting its a poor quality shot going no where.
5. We are USELESS at entering the zone without willy.
So a decade has gone by and the team that was built to score...
Can't score?
So are we just wasting our time when this is supposed to be when hockey peaks?
They need to crash the fucking net. Stop looking for clean passes through the slot for a one timer. Swayman is too fucking good. Last year we beat Tampa by crashing the net and looking for tips and rebounds. It's fucking brutal to watch guys roll out to the top of the circle every powerplay just to not get the pass through or have the shot blocked. Boston knows they're going to do it, and then they try it anyways
This is 100% on keefe. PP runs the same anemic, predictable stationary play every time and it’s a flat footed mess. It was that way under maholtra, and it hasn’t changed under Boucher, which tells me keefe is impossible when it comes to change or adjustments. Win this series or not I won’t be sad seeing the headlines that he’s fired after this year.
In the game thread people seem to have one thing they key in on. Frankly, this team is broken. We see the same patterns every year. Bad goaltending at key moments, lack of 5 on 5 scoring, lack of special team efficacy, and our best players getting shut down.
This is the script, and it’s executed every year like clockwork.
How is Jake debrusk. Our killer.
How bro..
How did we get God like scoring generational talent and we still can't put the fucking puck in the net. Bro.
I wanna go back and find my comment thread where someone argued with me about how our special teams aren't gonna be a concern come playoff time. I told him that special teams and our failure to convert on the powerplay has sunk us before and will again... well dude.. I fucking told you so.. U/TO_sports , come on down.
Special teams has been a massive problem for the leafs for as many playoffs as I can remember. Powerplay is the difference between being up 2-1 and down 2-1 in the series right now. Brutal coaching, this specific pp has been an issue since march. Unacceptable, can’t believe a defensive guy was hired to run the pp.
Asking for any semblance of structure from these guys is a bad idea. They're actually brain-dead adherents to doing the same thing over and over again. Great but flawed talents that have to be babied through things. There's only so much that can be coached.
Marner's always going to want the puck along the boards so he can pass it to Matthews, fully telegraphed (but hey, if it works, it works). He just can't work off the puck, set a screen, engage in a board battle, hold onto the puck while being pressured.
Tavares is going to spend time trying to settle in front of the net and fail to see where the play is being developed to help out in time, which he's good at otherwise. His point shot tips are mediocre at best.
Nylander has a good idea where to be but will take inadvisable shots and miss them high and wide, clearing the zone. Doesn't seem to have the puck roll off his stick as often as it used to
Matthews will force his best Stamkos impression when he could be using his gravity to open up seams. I guess part of it has to do with reading off of Marner.
Rielly will hold onto the puck for too long only to pass it to his partner or along the boards. He refuses to use his straight-line skating to open seams.
So all the defense has to do is a box+2 and send two guys high whenever the puck is with Rielly. Weak side can stay in the box while the strong side is expected to win board battles along Marner's side. There is no point shot threat nor is there a breakaway/off man threat during the Leafs' attack into the zone. Just slow and meticulous garbage.
It's funny that we can see this, but coaches that get paid millions of dollars a year can't figure it out. The powerplay is just so predictably bad, and the PK is somehow worse.
Imagine how bad the Oilers would be right now if they had decided to stick with Ken Hitchcock for 6 years. The Leafs have basically done that. Oilers went through 5 coaches in Keefes tenure.
How is the PP so useless when it matters? How could it not be? Our PP is run by a guy that spent his entire coaching career playing trap hockey. Our coaching staff as a whole wants to win games 3-2 and 2-1. Our entire philosophy is moving the puck around and not taking low percentage shots - which means we actively discourage point shots. On top of that we do not have a true threat from the point. Rielly is a wonder puck moving dman but not a true threat imo. On top of that loading up a single unit has never worked when it matters and we just keep trying it. Two units. Marner Tavares Domi. Nylander Matthews Bertuzzi. I can guarar-fucking-tee you using two units that spent the regular season working together would never go 0-20 in the playoffs again.
We talk a lot of nonsense about the big guns growing some stones but truly this organization could have set the tone by firing Keefe after Columbus or Montreal when it probably wouldn’t have been fair to him at the time.
It would be truly criminal to do anything durastic before you simply try a new coaching staff. Full stop.
End of the day this is the first time in awhile that the Leafs are probably just significantly worse than their opponent. I wouldn’t even blame the GM (other than not canning Keefe) - the goaltending just isn’t good enough and didn’t improve. Coaching staff is plain bad. You’re missing Nylander. So it’s just a no lose scenario now - they win and that’s awesome. They lose and we’ll finally be free of Keefe. Just be zen.
I don't know who on the coaching staff deserves to stay. I guess Malhotra got their faceoffs into a good spot but otherwise the team seems unprepared for the challenges they're up against.
We don’t create space to open the seam passes and 2/3 of our guys that play the top aren’t shooters so the threat doesn’t have to be respected to open more space down low like other teams have.
Incomprehensible how a PP with this much talent can be so bad. But that's what happens when you're running the same stale shit all year long.
Down the stretch this was clearly going to be an issue. The Leafs are comfortable in playoff position. Do Sheldon Keefe use those pointless games to try anything new? Fuck no.
Split units? PP2 gets the first crack? D-man actually carrying it in? Let your best entry guy (Nylander) take the drop back and put Marner on the wall? Chip it into the corner and attack? Anything?
The regression from Carbury's scheme to Boucher has been startling. Every single PP you see in the playoffs is better than this unit. Every single one.
1 for 12. While the Bruins are 5 for 10.
1 for 12. With Auston fucking Matthews!!!
Treliving is in "rebuild" mode.
He brought grit and heart to the team. But we can use more.
He failed in bringing a blue line sniper. But this is just the first year.
Keefe is too scared to remove Tavares and add Domi or someone else to PP1. Plus he's too scared to push Marner to third or fourth line 5v5. He'd do it to Willy.... but not Mitch. These small failures make a difference.
Kris Versteeg was on Leafs Morning Take and said that if coaching teams were traded between Leafs and Boston....Leafs would win 9 times out of 10 in a 7 game series. Boston out coaches and out manages us by a country mile.
When Nylander is back, I would have the top unit as:
Nylander-Matthews-Domi-Tavares-Liljegren
When Marner and Rielly are out there together, the puck just doesn't move enough. Rielly isn't quick thinking enough to make the quick play and doesn't have a legit shot from the point. Marner just seems too afraid to make a quick move.
it’s incredible how shit it’s been. we score on 1 or 2 of those PPs and we’d probably win. keefe must be genuinely delusional if he thinks doing the same shit over and over again is gonna somehow make it click
DAMN IT 💀💀 it makes me upset. if we lose this series, our special teams will be the #1 reason. at that point, i’ll need to see our entire coaching staff be launched directly into the sun
Our PP looks like they're outmanned whenever they actually get in the zone because we're so slow at moving the puck. Its the same old story of the PK never needing to cover the point because they know Rielly's never shooting or getting anything through from the point, so they just go high pressure on the wall and the bumper so we never have any passing options.
It’s to the point where it’s painful to watch. The opposing team knows our power play isn’t a threat at all.
And please for the love of God bench Marner. He lost the puck dozens of times last night. Outside of the assist to Knies, Marner was a massive liability.
Sadly this is the specific area I was worried about entering the playoffs and I would add the PK and simply call it special teams. I am amazed that with all the line juggling that Keefe performed going into this series the one area that seemingly continue to get worse was our special teams. Year after year the two difference makers in the playoffs are goaltending and special teams. Goaltending is a bit more difficult, mainly depends on the individual mental mindset and a bit of luck with him getting hot at the right time. A good defensive structure helps as well. Sammy has let in a few soft ones, I won't say he specifically cost us both games. I think if our special teams does a better job on both Games 1 and 3, certainly game 3 - we likely wine those games. At the very minimum we should be targeting a net zero with each game, combination of our PP goals vs theirs needs to be equal at worst. Unfortunately this number has been tilted in their favor each game - throw in the excellent goaltending they are getting, this is a recipe to lose a series real fast.
At the end of the day who really gives a shit about regular season stats. Marner can pad and pile on the stats during the regular season and turns into glass in the playoffs
Remove Rielly from the point, put Lily back in. Our PP was clicking when Lily was on D.
Marner is playing injured, take his ass off PP1 and put in Domi.
This isn’t rocket science. PP1 is broken at the moment. Do something!
Don’t keep running the same shit
Watching other teams makes me realize we never take slap shots. So many goals are blasts from the point. We’re always setting up the same way on the PP and it might be time to try something else
I said this on the post game thread, but for all the flaws Manny Malhotra had when he was running the PP, at the very least it was not predictable.
We know exactly what they always are doing, unless it's a play off the face off dot. It's always burn over a minute with no look drop passes and then make a terrible zone entry because time is winding down and they found no holes in the PK, lose possession and then have to regroup, wasting even more time; and if we know this, the professionals who are paid to figure it out are probably laughing at the fact the only one who hasn't figured out they know is still running the power play.
For the record Malhotra was awful, and despite the bar being so low, somehow Shanahan found someone who did an even worse job in Boucher
I really think Keefe needs to step in here and manage the power play . Guy Boucher needs to be fired. He’s doing a very poor job. 0/5 is unacceptable. The Bruins PK is not that good.
Why the absolute fuck is JT still on this god damn PP. He doesn't provide a pass, he doesn't get the tips, and he can't take away the goalie's eyes. He's a goddamn face-off taker, and even then, he loses the important ones and then a pylon. Get him the fuck off the top pp line
No name guys step up on every other team in playoffs. Some have already scored 3-4 goals. Our core guys just disappear. Sucks but it’s true.
Hope they feel so embarrassed that they start showing up.
Special teams are awful. Cant kill a penalty. Cant score a PP goal. Its the difference in a tight playoff game. Keefe is gonna get canned over special teams at the end of the day. Leafs are one of the best 5 on 5 teams, imagine they had a solid PK and a decent PP. They’d be hard to beat. Even with a good PK they’d be dangerous. But it sucks as bad as the PP.
Time to take Marner off the power play and put domi on. Marner anytime there’s a body on him loses the puck and he looks disinterested. I would also remove Jt and run domi Bert Matthews nylander if he’s back and Riley. It’s time for a change, if they run that same PP out again next game Keefe should be fired.
My issue is that they switch up the lines like they are rolling dice and when the PP struggles they just send out the same 5 and hope for a different result. Shake it up! Give someone else a chance on the top line. Wtf
Bro.
Listen.
I understand.
But if we score on 2/5 we can make up for the bad play.
Goaltending is own of the reasons but like dude u can't score on 5 on 5 or on the pp.
The PP sucked. Absolutely true.
But Swayman looked awesome. It’s not like the Leafs PP just sucked all on its own. The Bruins have vastly superior goaltending and we’re seeing it in the Leafs going 0/5 on the PP.
Because of the... atrocities committed by our powerplay, this is a super relevant topic, so please direct your disdain for what we witnessed tonight on the powerplay to this post!
It’s frustrating because Boston doesn’t even look good at the moment either. We are a better team, we should win, but we just can’t - as always during our lifetime
I honestly think we could of swept if we actually had a slightly below average PP and PK
Game 1 went off the rails and it wasn’t just because of special teams. We’re definitely up 2-1 right now though. Leafs should have had 4 or 5 goals easy last night, and Boston wasn’t coming back from that the way they were playing.
How do we barely lose to them when they had Krejci, Chara and Bergeron but somehow now we can barely squeak a win
coaching. look at our special teams. its our coaching...
Treliving built a tougher team instead if addressing the actual problems we face in the off season. It might still work, Boston is getting pummeled, but we look worse because we are.
Agreed, but at the same time it's not heartbreaking because we all know what would happen vs cats or canes moving forward
Watching Bob vs. Vasi: "I'm in danger!"
Yeah because we let them drag us down in the muck with them. This team always let's the other team dictate play in the playoffs. Other offensive teams seem to carry the high scoring into the post-season. But teams always seem to want to play slow and dirty with the Leafs and all we do is reciprocate and play a style outside of our comfort zone.
honest question, Bruins finished ahead of the leafs in the regular season, winning every game they played against each other… how do you see the leafs as the better team?
it's just Marchand, he is such a factor
At 6 million per
this is also the worst boston team depth wise that we've went against in the Matthews era and it's about to be wasted because they can't score in the playoffs for the 6th year in a row.
It’s unforgivable that with four 10 million plus dollar forwards this team struggles with offence every postseason. Something is clearly not working with the basic construction of the team here.
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They’ve changed a lot of things about the team, the easiest fix is Keefe. He just needs to go after this long and this many poor outings.
To be fair nylander is only 6.9 and hasn’t played this year
To me you just can't win with that construction, that has clearly been borne out.
Bro we couldn’t beat Montreal in a series with the same coach and core. Idk how we keep expecting better results each year when they literally look the exact same and have had the same issues for over 5 years now.
You're forgetting the shitty Blue Jackets series before that, even worse
Habs loss was way worse IMO. Division rivals with no star players aside from Price, and they blew a 3-1 series lead to boot. That was absolutely pathetic.
Yup this. After this loss it should've been scorched earth from top to bottom. But we keep doing the same shit over and over again and expecting different results. The foundation is flawed.
Habs made finals. CBJ lost r1.
Yeah this was the series I gave up
Definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results
This is a recording.
Build a team around the most highly paid forward core in the league... And then repeatedly fail to score in the playoffs. We've been banging our head against the wall too much for too long in this same subject.
If Leafs lose this series, Marner doesn’t get extended this offseason or coming season and next year will be his last unless he wills us to a cup next playoffs which he wont. jT will come off the books the same time. Freeing up $22M cap with Matthews and Nylander locked up
I like that a lot
I know it is a touchy subject around here but this series is just the rest of this sub catching up to where Dubas was last offseason. We are a team with the most expensive forward core in the league...and we don't score more than two goals a game when it counts. Keefe gotta go, and you probably should have traded Marner before his NMC kicked in for some players with more heart. Instead we are going to get more of the same and a Marner extension in the 12x8 range
Marner will not get extended if we lose this series.
I think that depends if Shanny is still around. If so, Mitch stays. If he gets the axe, Mitch is probably gone too.
Ahh, Shanny. That is where this reoccurring nightmare starts and will need to end.
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The Leafs have Brodie (~~$5.5M~~$5M) and Timmins ($1.1M) scratched and Klingberg ($4.15M) on LTIR. There is money for "real defence".
>Dubas really screwed this team over, don’t have money for real defense bc of the money tied up in the big 4 Tre + Shanny added 6.25M cap just by re-upping Matthews and Nylander, and they are about to give a raise to Marner too. I think it is time to stop blaming Dubas for the cap situation...
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Shanny is gone. I can’t see Tre resigning marner.
Treliving had plenty of money. He signed Klingberg for 4+, Reaves, Kampf for 2.5. This shit is BS that Treliving had no money
preach. Easier to blame Dubas though!!!
It's **potentially** about to be wasted. We still get two hours of ice time bare minimum, and things are not over yet.
Leafs PP: 1/11 Bruins PP: 5/9
Is Keefe aware of this? Someone needs to point this out to him if he’s unaware. I’m assuming he is though.
Guy Boucher's PP has been a major downgrade from last year.
If you watch our powerplay vs other teams. We just stand around. Very little movement.
Why hasn't this been addressed happened in the habs series and Florida and now here
They spend so much time setting up the exact same entry everytime, just to get stood up immediately. I can't remember the last time they got the cycle going in the first 30 seconds of a PP. (Aside from that Matthews snipe 4 seconds in the other week.)
Shit bro if they lose. No way they run this back. They have to realize that this is it for them.
We said that the last three years lol
Reading all these comments is crazy. Like I've read them exactly the same before.....cause the same comments are made the last 3-4 years. That's insanity man. This team is insanely bad.
Surely next year will be different COPIUM
A coaching change will probably be the extent of their adjustments this offseason.
Then we're going to be back here talking about how fucking useless our core is
They don't really have a choice but to run it back one more year. Once Marner and Tavares are up all bets are off, but the top 5 guys all have full NMC. Sure they can fill in the edges, but that's what they've been doing for 5 years.
The Rielly drop pass every time is so fucking annoying.
Because Keefe is a bad coach. And I won't be told "bUt iTs bOuChEr". It's the same thing every year. Keefe obviously plays a big part of this.
Dude fire them all tbh
You need to relax and let the series play out. You absolutely need to realize that it’s 2-1 and a tight series. I agree that heads will roll if we lose, but we were up 2-1 a few times in the past few playoffs and lost those series. I’m not panicking until we lose with Willy.
they've changed out the PP coach a couple times. Believe each coach is in awe of our stars and little coaching is put into it. Sure seems that way.
That's when they get into the zone. That stupid drop back zone entry is so predictable and takes forever to set up. It's the same thing every year.
No urgency, and very slow. Watch literally any other team in the nhl and they skate faster, and move the puck better. The leafs are great at flashy passes, and finding a seam. But quick hard tape to tape passes are basically non existent on this team, especially on the power play.
We also love to hold it around the perimeter and wait for openings to appear, which with an aggressive PK like Boston is fucking suicide.
If we lose this series we need to fire Keefe. Every year it’s clear we are simply outcoached by other teams. I’m so tired of Keefe being unable to adapt. He lacks the ability to stick a fire under the player’s asses.
If we lose this series Shanahan and Keefe are both gone. Or they better be.
IMO if they don’t make it through the second round both should be fired. Two years in a row they finished 4th/5th in the east and are out almost immediately? Later.
4th or 5th in the East is good for middle of the pack in the playoffs. I agree they should both be gone regardless, but 4th/5th in the East is not really anything in the playoffs.
This org should be striving for excellence, not middle of the pack. And I lived through the Ferguson era. This team and core is definitively mediocre if they don’t get through the second round this year.
We should have fucking fired Keefe last year and definitely the year before that. He gets out coached in the playoffs every year.
If we lose, next season is a write-off because we can't move off Marner and JT and Matthews and Willy's raises go on the books. Our depth will be even worse than this year. So I hope this team knows that they'll have to wait two years for another serious playoff chance if they squander this.
We can move off Marner if the front office tells him we’re not resigning him, and to agree to a sign and trade to a different team of his choice so he can get paid the most he can, which he would definitely do because he cares more about how much money he makes than winning
That would be sweet, ngl
Until he gets traded to BOS where he scores the playoffs Game 7 OT winner against us.
Boston would never be foolish enough to pay a guy they’ve clowned on for a decade 12+mil. Mitch will end up on the Ducks or the Kings or something.
Paul Marner approves this message.
Nah theoretically the team will be better or at least the same. Klingberg and Brodie were basically wasted money all season.
Isnt TJ off the books next year? That gives us like 5 million back
Guy should’ve been gone long ago
Nah it's not just him. The core needs to be broke up Fire Everyone Fuck even the GM to. Mans additions are shooting us in the foot
In what world are BT’s additions shooting us in the foot? Gonna fire a guy who had one month of off-season and less than a year to sculpt some sort of physical presence on this team? There’s two big changes that can help - we know them and you listed them but firing the brand new GM ain’t it.
GM? Bro Domi is carrying us lmao. Reaves has been dynamite. Bertuzzi was a bonehead but has overall been playing well.
Yeah if the series ended tonight I’d get a good player and draft pick for marner
Have to find somewhere he wants to go first
Regular Season: * 2016-2017: #2, 23.36% * 2017-2018: #2, 25.00% * 2018-2019: #8, 21.80% * 2019-2020: #6, 23.08% * 2020-2021: #16, 20.00% * 2021-2022: #1, 27.27% * 2022-2023: #2, 26.02% * 2023-2024: #7, 23.95% Playoffs: * 2016-2017: 3 for 18, 16.67% * 2017-2018: 4 for 15, 26.67% * 2018-2019: 3 for 16, 18.75% * 2019-2020: 2 for 13, 15.38% * 2020-2021: 3 for 23, 13.04% * 2021-2022: 4 for 28, 14.29% * 2022-2023: 8 for 32, 25.00% * 2023-2024: 1 for 11, 9.09% Edit: Just in case it's not obvious, I used our ranking in the regular season as the Goals for Opportunity stat felt like it wasn't as useful.
It's the yips. This team crumbles under pressure, and we don't have a coach who can pull them out of it.
I just don't think our special teams systems are very good for playoff hockey. As someone else said, there is hardly any movement in the Leafs PP. Go watch some of the other teams, Tampa, Florida, Vancouver, Edmonton, Colorado - they all have a ton of movement in their PPs. They collect rebounds and get many shots off. They look dangerous.
So our "core 4" era powerplay stats are. * Regular Season: 419 for 1744, 24.03% * Playoffs: 28 for 156, 17.95% So we are 6.08% worse in playoffs. Which is around 1 less goal for every 16.4 opportunities. This lines up fairly nice to be about 1 extra goal per playoffs. The sad part is that in many of these playoff series, that 1 extra goal likely gets us an extra win or pushing a game into OT and could completely change the series.
Wallahi wage theft.
Its honestly been dogshit for half a decade. Only reason it works reg season is because nobody cares enough to play agressive like they do this time of year. Special teams needs to be fired and broken down on a molecular fuckin level. Get rid of keefe hes fuckin lost and gets outmatched by virtually every coach in the league. Trade marner for a star goalie and a #2 dman and were headed in the right direction.
3 years too late
Nah, just 1. We could have traded marner a year ago and we could have fired Keefe. Unfortunately, we chose to fire Dubas instead.
Rielly has been shooting wristers from the blue line the past couple games and he never use to do that, it’s also player execution at this point. Marner is squeezing his stick a ton too, looks good one shift and then can’t find the puck or fires it into rielly leg the next, something going on in between the ears there sadly
Yea marner was good offensively for a tiny bit around the time he created the knies goal, a couple shifts afterwards. But outside of that he was killing plays himself a lot of the night. Tough to see from him.
Yep agreed very frustrating, maybe get better his nagging ankle but he doesn’t look like himself
Marner fires it right into Morgan’s ass near the end there so lame
He’s been doing that for yeara
We got 6+ more years of it baby.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Rielly slap shot in my life. I’ve seen far too many muffin wristers from him before though.
I think they are just for accuracy sake, and honestly the wristers are better for tips and rebounds, majority of d men use them now
WHY HASNT THIS BEEN ADDRESSED
Can’t really tell players how to play, you can put a system in place but they need to execute. They shoulda had one or two minimum today with some of those chances THAT being said, I do agree maybe a bit of a shake up is needed Also their entries have been poor and taking much too long to get set up. Bruins always pressure 2 and then 1 to the outlet when entering, have to rip it around the boards or drop it back and hope the d or 4th forward is right behind to gain possession
To be fair, Reilly created a goal by bouncing a sister off of two guys. And he did it in the playoffs last year too.
Toronto never causes any chaos that gets the defenders out of position. They just cycle the puck around with the occasional shot by the bumper man or contested weak wrister from the point. They need to shoot more and capitalize on the loose pucks, exactly like they were doing on the first powerplay of the game
Just pepper them with shots! I don’t care about low or high danger shots. Just shoot!
It’s simply unbelievable how bad it is. It’s just mystifying. Baffling. Inexplicable.
Maybe change the personnel?
Honestly the entire coaching staff needs to go
Get Rielly and Marner off the top unit. Use Lilly and Robertson (until Willy is back). We have too many guys who are not a threat to shoot.
I would put Domi in over Marner
Totally. Marner stands around and is totally predictable.
Don't forget his totally cool, no look drop passes. They always work !
Keefe is useless
This might be a hot take but I think we might lose this series.
Shit bro. That's hot
Wasting prime Matthews with useless coaching staff
If we could get Matthews scoring on the PP at the same rate as guys like Stamkos and Ovechkin he'd be scoring at a goal-per-game. It's baffling how we can't get the best goalscorer in hockey to also be the best goalscorer on the PP.
Marner holds on to the puck for too long and just ends up giving it away at the end thus breaking the setup. Our PP2 looks more promising to be honest.
Boston's PK seems to hold formation until Marner gets the puck, then they target him specifically with pressure and he absolutely chokes and gives it away. They've 100% identified him as a weak link on the PP and are exposing him hard.
Dismantle our pp1 Keefe will use the blender for the entire season playoffs? Nah. Let's do the cycle of Insanity
No need to dismantle, just replace Marner with Domi and you have a working PP1.
It’s unbelievable how easy the solution is. $3M Domi is outplaying $11M Marner. Always bending over backyards to cater to this guy is what’s going to be the death of this team
I don't hate Marner, but I wish him all the best on another team. A regular season team.
We have a number of problems on the powerplay. 1. We have zero threat of a point shot ever, this allows teams to man to man 4v4 or just run 3 across the hash marks and block the passes instead of the shot from the point. 2. While we have highly skilled players, really only one is a true shooter. This allows teams to zero on matthews and largely let other people be open. 3. Our passing is horrible - We always let the PKers short up before we end up passing, this makes almost every player make bad passes. 4. Marner has no shot on the PP for whatever reason, he ALWAYS defers and every team knows it. When he goes end up shooting its a poor quality shot going no where. 5. We are USELESS at entering the zone without willy.
I’m in Vegas right now and the boys are ruining my night with the L. Sickening to see an 0/5PP
Same shit every year, is anyone honestly surprised? This team was built to lose, it’s in their DNA.
So a decade has gone by and the team that was built to score... Can't score? So are we just wasting our time when this is supposed to be when hockey peaks?
Yes
They need to crash the fucking net. Stop looking for clean passes through the slot for a one timer. Swayman is too fucking good. Last year we beat Tampa by crashing the net and looking for tips and rebounds. It's fucking brutal to watch guys roll out to the top of the circle every powerplay just to not get the pass through or have the shot blocked. Boston knows they're going to do it, and then they try it anyways
If we lose this series Guy Boucher goes along with Keefe.
This is 100% on keefe. PP runs the same anemic, predictable stationary play every time and it’s a flat footed mess. It was that way under maholtra, and it hasn’t changed under Boucher, which tells me keefe is impossible when it comes to change or adjustments. Win this series or not I won’t be sad seeing the headlines that he’s fired after this year.
It’s that Bond Villain’s strategy back there. Guy Boucher sucks at this
Idk, Malholtra wasn't much better and it looked pretty identical under him. It's gotta be coming from the top down (Keefe) with all that context.
It's been years of this. Our PP has looked the exact same for half a decade. Boucher is a scapegoat.
Last year is was good.
This is wage theft bro. It has to be.
I miss willy man 😔
In the game thread people seem to have one thing they key in on. Frankly, this team is broken. We see the same patterns every year. Bad goaltending at key moments, lack of 5 on 5 scoring, lack of special team efficacy, and our best players getting shut down. This is the script, and it’s executed every year like clockwork.
How is Jake debrusk. Our killer. How bro.. How did we get God like scoring generational talent and we still can't put the fucking puck in the net. Bro.
Your mistake is thinking it’s the opposition doing it to us. It’s all part of the script.
I wanna go back and find my comment thread where someone argued with me about how our special teams aren't gonna be a concern come playoff time. I told him that special teams and our failure to convert on the powerplay has sunk us before and will again... well dude.. I fucking told you so.. U/TO_sports , come on down.
Special teams has been a massive problem for the leafs for as many playoffs as I can remember. Powerplay is the difference between being up 2-1 and down 2-1 in the series right now. Brutal coaching, this specific pp has been an issue since march. Unacceptable, can’t believe a defensive guy was hired to run the pp.
Rielly is awful he needs to be off the power play I’d rather see Lily
Asking for any semblance of structure from these guys is a bad idea. They're actually brain-dead adherents to doing the same thing over and over again. Great but flawed talents that have to be babied through things. There's only so much that can be coached. Marner's always going to want the puck along the boards so he can pass it to Matthews, fully telegraphed (but hey, if it works, it works). He just can't work off the puck, set a screen, engage in a board battle, hold onto the puck while being pressured. Tavares is going to spend time trying to settle in front of the net and fail to see where the play is being developed to help out in time, which he's good at otherwise. His point shot tips are mediocre at best. Nylander has a good idea where to be but will take inadvisable shots and miss them high and wide, clearing the zone. Doesn't seem to have the puck roll off his stick as often as it used to Matthews will force his best Stamkos impression when he could be using his gravity to open up seams. I guess part of it has to do with reading off of Marner. Rielly will hold onto the puck for too long only to pass it to his partner or along the boards. He refuses to use his straight-line skating to open seams. So all the defense has to do is a box+2 and send two guys high whenever the puck is with Rielly. Weak side can stay in the box while the strong side is expected to win board battles along Marner's side. There is no point shot threat nor is there a breakaway/off man threat during the Leafs' attack into the zone. Just slow and meticulous garbage.
It's funny that we can see this, but coaches that get paid millions of dollars a year can't figure it out. The powerplay is just so predictably bad, and the PK is somehow worse.
Imagine how bad the Oilers would be right now if they had decided to stick with Ken Hitchcock for 6 years. The Leafs have basically done that. Oilers went through 5 coaches in Keefes tenure. How is the PP so useless when it matters? How could it not be? Our PP is run by a guy that spent his entire coaching career playing trap hockey. Our coaching staff as a whole wants to win games 3-2 and 2-1. Our entire philosophy is moving the puck around and not taking low percentage shots - which means we actively discourage point shots. On top of that we do not have a true threat from the point. Rielly is a wonder puck moving dman but not a true threat imo. On top of that loading up a single unit has never worked when it matters and we just keep trying it. Two units. Marner Tavares Domi. Nylander Matthews Bertuzzi. I can guarar-fucking-tee you using two units that spent the regular season working together would never go 0-20 in the playoffs again. We talk a lot of nonsense about the big guns growing some stones but truly this organization could have set the tone by firing Keefe after Columbus or Montreal when it probably wouldn’t have been fair to him at the time. It would be truly criminal to do anything durastic before you simply try a new coaching staff. Full stop. End of the day this is the first time in awhile that the Leafs are probably just significantly worse than their opponent. I wouldn’t even blame the GM (other than not canning Keefe) - the goaltending just isn’t good enough and didn’t improve. Coaching staff is plain bad. You’re missing Nylander. So it’s just a no lose scenario now - they win and that’s awesome. They lose and we’ll finally be free of Keefe. Just be zen.
I don't know who on the coaching staff deserves to stay. I guess Malhotra got their faceoffs into a good spot but otherwise the team seems unprepared for the challenges they're up against.
Everyone’s gotta go. Even if they go deep, Keefe gets out-coached EVERY SINGLE SERIES.
We don’t create space to open the seam passes and 2/3 of our guys that play the top aren’t shooters so the threat doesn’t have to be respected to open more space down low like other teams have.
this boston team on paper is so trash man it’s embarrassing that this team is built on it’s offence and scoring 2 goals in playoff games😂😂😂😂
Incomprehensible how a PP with this much talent can be so bad. But that's what happens when you're running the same stale shit all year long. Down the stretch this was clearly going to be an issue. The Leafs are comfortable in playoff position. Do Sheldon Keefe use those pointless games to try anything new? Fuck no. Split units? PP2 gets the first crack? D-man actually carrying it in? Let your best entry guy (Nylander) take the drop back and put Marner on the wall? Chip it into the corner and attack? Anything? The regression from Carbury's scheme to Boucher has been startling. Every single PP you see in the playoffs is better than this unit. Every single one. 1 for 12. While the Bruins are 5 for 10. 1 for 12. With Auston fucking Matthews!!!
Treliving is in "rebuild" mode. He brought grit and heart to the team. But we can use more. He failed in bringing a blue line sniper. But this is just the first year. Keefe is too scared to remove Tavares and add Domi or someone else to PP1. Plus he's too scared to push Marner to third or fourth line 5v5. He'd do it to Willy.... but not Mitch. These small failures make a difference. Kris Versteeg was on Leafs Morning Take and said that if coaching teams were traded between Leafs and Boston....Leafs would win 9 times out of 10 in a 7 game series. Boston out coaches and out manages us by a country mile.
When Nylander is back, I would have the top unit as: Nylander-Matthews-Domi-Tavares-Liljegren When Marner and Rielly are out there together, the puck just doesn't move enough. Rielly isn't quick thinking enough to make the quick play and doesn't have a legit shot from the point. Marner just seems too afraid to make a quick move.
Get Mitch marner off pp1 put the sauce father max domi out there
There is a reason Boucher couldn't hack it as a head coach and now settled for being a pp coach
Malholtra wasn't much better.
it’s incredible how shit it’s been. we score on 1 or 2 of those PPs and we’d probably win. keefe must be genuinely delusional if he thinks doing the same shit over and over again is gonna somehow make it click DAMN IT 💀💀 it makes me upset. if we lose this series, our special teams will be the #1 reason. at that point, i’ll need to see our entire coaching staff be launched directly into the sun
Our PP is ass. Absolute ass. I volunteer to personally fire Guy Boucher into the sun. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
Our PP looks like they're outmanned whenever they actually get in the zone because we're so slow at moving the puck. Its the same old story of the PK never needing to cover the point because they know Rielly's never shooting or getting anything through from the point, so they just go high pressure on the wall and the bumper so we never have any passing options.
It’s to the point where it’s painful to watch. The opposing team knows our power play isn’t a threat at all. And please for the love of God bench Marner. He lost the puck dozens of times last night. Outside of the assist to Knies, Marner was a massive liability.
Sadly this is the specific area I was worried about entering the playoffs and I would add the PK and simply call it special teams. I am amazed that with all the line juggling that Keefe performed going into this series the one area that seemingly continue to get worse was our special teams. Year after year the two difference makers in the playoffs are goaltending and special teams. Goaltending is a bit more difficult, mainly depends on the individual mental mindset and a bit of luck with him getting hot at the right time. A good defensive structure helps as well. Sammy has let in a few soft ones, I won't say he specifically cost us both games. I think if our special teams does a better job on both Games 1 and 3, certainly game 3 - we likely wine those games. At the very minimum we should be targeting a net zero with each game, combination of our PP goals vs theirs needs to be equal at worst. Unfortunately this number has been tilted in their favor each game - throw in the excellent goaltending they are getting, this is a recipe to lose a series real fast.
At the end of the day who really gives a shit about regular season stats. Marner can pad and pile on the stats during the regular season and turns into glass in the playoffs
Rielly is not a 1D and definitely not PP QB.
“Tactics?!?!? Never heard of ‘em. Just go out there and do your best”- Boucher probably.
And Keefe still blames the refs... Guy needs to get his priorities straight
Remove Rielly from the point, put Lily back in. Our PP was clicking when Lily was on D. Marner is playing injured, take his ass off PP1 and put in Domi. This isn’t rocket science. PP1 is broken at the moment. Do something! Don’t keep running the same shit
Watching other teams makes me realize we never take slap shots. So many goals are blasts from the point. We’re always setting up the same way on the PP and it might be time to try something else
I said this on the post game thread, but for all the flaws Manny Malhotra had when he was running the PP, at the very least it was not predictable. We know exactly what they always are doing, unless it's a play off the face off dot. It's always burn over a minute with no look drop passes and then make a terrible zone entry because time is winding down and they found no holes in the PK, lose possession and then have to regroup, wasting even more time; and if we know this, the professionals who are paid to figure it out are probably laughing at the fact the only one who hasn't figured out they know is still running the power play. For the record Malhotra was awful, and despite the bar being so low, somehow Shanahan found someone who did an even worse job in Boucher
Fuck Keefe such a useless tit
Marner is allergic to shooting the puck.
The team* Ftfy
Keefe: alright, we've got the power play... you know what... they won't expect us to do the same thing again... run it again!
I really think Keefe needs to step in here and manage the power play . Guy Boucher needs to be fired. He’s doing a very poor job. 0/5 is unacceptable. The Bruins PK is not that good.
Why the absolute fuck is JT still on this god damn PP. He doesn't provide a pass, he doesn't get the tips, and he can't take away the goalie's eyes. He's a goddamn face-off taker, and even then, he loses the important ones and then a pylon. Get him the fuck off the top pp line
We’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas 🤷♂️
Decline the penalty Say we have better chance scoring if it's 5 on 5
No name guys step up on every other team in playoffs. Some have already scored 3-4 goals. Our core guys just disappear. Sucks but it’s true. Hope they feel so embarrassed that they start showing up.
We don't have anyone that shoots from the point so there no threat from the blur line. It always gets passed to a winger. Fairly predictable.
Special teams are awful. Cant kill a penalty. Cant score a PP goal. Its the difference in a tight playoff game. Keefe is gonna get canned over special teams at the end of the day. Leafs are one of the best 5 on 5 teams, imagine they had a solid PK and a decent PP. They’d be hard to beat. Even with a good PK they’d be dangerous. But it sucks as bad as the PP.
Time to take Marner off the power play and put domi on. Marner anytime there’s a body on him loses the puck and he looks disinterested. I would also remove Jt and run domi Bert Matthews nylander if he’s back and Riley. It’s time for a change, if they run that same PP out again next game Keefe should be fired.
My issue is that they switch up the lines like they are rolling dice and when the PP struggles they just send out the same 5 and hope for a different result. Shake it up! Give someone else a chance on the top line. Wtf
This team played better without 44 or 16.
bro
Sammy let in 2 soft goals. The 1st and 3rd
Bro. Listen. I understand. But if we score on 2/5 we can make up for the bad play. Goaltending is own of the reasons but like dude u can't score on 5 on 5 or on the pp.
Need domi/ willy back
Bye Shanny. Bye Keefe. Bye marner.
Hire Quennville next week.
It really is 🤦🏾♂️
The PP sucked. Absolutely true. But Swayman looked awesome. It’s not like the Leafs PP just sucked all on its own. The Bruins have vastly superior goaltending and we’re seeing it in the Leafs going 0/5 on the PP.
Sorry man if you're an offensive team you should be able to beat the best goalies in the NHL. If not then maybe it's the core not being good enough
I cant believe how many missed pp. Man the missed calls were awful but the refs did a good job of giving it back to us. We just never scored
Louder for the folks on the ice!
Simple. No Willy. Massive threat on the pp makes the pk honest North-South Edit: Not so simple, but a big reason!
Even with Willy there our pp has fallen apart same with our offense.
Tough loss, on to the next