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Bullfrog said:My take-away from that chart: Gauthier = defensive beast.
herman said:
The good quadrant (top-right) is good at generating chances and good at limiting chances. Most of the Leafs live in very good at generating chances, and giving back almost as much. Left of the red line means they give up more than they create.
herman said:Bullfrog said:My take-away from that chart: Gauthier = defensive beast.
In this game, that is rare. But it is also kind of useless.
Bill_Berg said:So the Leafs got rid of every player that gave up more chances than they generated?
herman said:Bill_Berg said:So the Leafs got rid of every player that gave up more chances than they generated?
Check out who we added though
herman said:Leafs defense is a bit more dependent on how the forwards develop in terms of their responsibilities supporting the puck and giving open options to their defense.
Matthews and Marner* and Nylander are really good at quick backchecks and stealing the puck, but if the other team gets set up in our zone, they're almost non-entities. Nylander is probably the strongest defensively of the three, and that's somewhat horrifying given how everyone believes he's the worst DZ player ever to wear the Leaf (erroneously).
Larger numbers = more shots against. For reference, the team-wide shots against Threat% is +8; Matthews is +16, Marner is +13.
What has changed on the positive for the Leafs, even after losing Gardiner, is that there is far more puck competence on the backend now. Rielly, Muzzin, Dermott, Barrie, Schmaltz, Holl are all pretty comfortable handling the puck for more than two seconds. I think Ceci is okay if you support him with short outlets; same with Marincin. All they need to do is get the puck cleanly to a forward.
*Don't give me this nonsense that Marner is better defensively. People only think that because Marner looks like he's working harder (hunched over waterbug). Similar to Kapanen, they're always chasing the puck that way because they're in the wrong place.
Agreed, but I was mainly referring to third pairing left side. Neverthess, I think right side will be significantly improved over last year. Barrie big upgrade on Hainsey, Ceci - Zaitsev may be a wash, both started with some promise but tailed off. I'm hoping Liljegren will be a solid upgrade of Ozighanov. On the leftside, last year was mainly Rielly, Gardiner, Dermott, this year Muzzin will replace Gardiner. I'll take that.Nik the Trik said:slapshot said:But I agree with you left side looks really scary until Dermott gets back. The M word on the left side I don't even want to think about...
The Left side is Rielly and Muzzin along with the best of the bottom pairing possibilities, whether it's Harpur or Marincin or whoever. That's almost certainly still going to be better than a right side of Barrie-Ceci-Holl/Schmaltz/Liljegren
Coco-puffs said:Bullfrog said:I'm completely fine with Marincin as a 3rd pairing/PK guy. At this point of his career, he is what he is. I'm not particularly passionate either way.
I'm curious to see what the other guys bring in pre-season.
I agree with you. Out of the (non-Sandin) options right now, I'd lean strongly towards Marincin over Harpur and Gravel.
Even when Dermott returns, I think I'd rather have Marincin in the lineup as the 6th D over anyone not named Liljegren or Sandin.
Rielly - Dermott
Muzzin - Barrie
Marincin - Ceci