Leafs @ Sabres - Mar. 5th, 7:30pm - TSN4, TSN 1050
- Thread starter CarltonTheBear
- Start date
AvroArrow said:
Andersen was the one who initiated contact outside of the crease.
lc9 said:
If there's one thing worse than plus minus, it's using an entire units combined plus minus.
It's like saying that unit gave up a combined 47 shots on net last night.
Andy007
Active member
Well, there may have been some absolutely bonkers set of circumstances that contributed to the first four Buffalo goals but boy did Toronto ever look listless out there.
I'm also not sure whether the forwards deserting the defensive zone is an actual encouraged team philosophy or not but man, that has got to stop. The defense is constantly forced to make those end to end stretch passes that rarely hit their intended target. I'm not sure why there seems to be such an aversion to carrying the puck and using their elite speed and skill.
I'm also not sure whether the forwards deserting the defensive zone is an actual encouraged team philosophy or not but man, that has got to stop. The defense is constantly forced to make those end to end stretch passes that rarely hit their intended target. I'm not sure why there seems to be such an aversion to carrying the puck and using their elite speed and skill.
bustaheims
Active member
Honestly, I thought, for the most part, the Leafs were the better team last night. They had a rough start, and stopped playing for a few shifts after they tied it, and, with Buffalo getting all the bounces going their way . . . the score did not reflect the play on the ice, as far as I'm concerned.
Andy007
Active member
bustaheims said:
Well, we're talking about a Buffalo team sans Eichel so being the better team shouldn't be all that hard a feat to accomplish. That being said, I'm not sure I agree. Buffalo looked like the Harlem Globetrotters for a fair chunk of the 2nd period. And while 4 of those goals were all essentially flukes, most were a result of relentless pressure and a whole lot of standing around in the defensive zone (on Toronto's part). At one point I thought the shot clock was busted; it was very kind to Toronto.
herman
Well-known member
bustaheims said:
I forgot where I saw it, but someone ran the numbers for ?good? wins, where shot share was clearly in the winner?s favour after adjustment; it?s not as common as we would expect. Over a longer period of time, it generally leans towards consistent winning, but on a game by game basis, it?s noisy.
All in all, I agreed we played the better game, but we still had too many little mistakes that snowballed ? some bad turnovers that didn?t lead to direct goals but led to extended time in our end, resulting in bad line changes that eventually ended up in our net. We attacked largely from the net front corners, rather than trying harder to get it to or across the middle. Ryan O?Rielly played really well too.
bustaheims
Active member
herman said:
Agreed. And, I think the issues were compounded due to the fact that the mistakes seemed to come in concentrated bursts, rather than being spread over the course of the game as they usually would be. On a more typical night, the amount of mistakes the Leafs' made don't come back to haunt them to the extent they did last night.
herman
Well-known member
bustaheims said:
It's where the leaders on the team would get their teammates to buckle down and trust their system and execute what they have control over. There were certainly shifts where Nylander started to try to do too much on his own. I thought the 4th line of Martin - Plekanec - and Komarov had some nice stabilizing shifts to help reset things (and then score semi-accidentally!).
I don't know what it is about the Sabres' barn, but this seems to happen to us there a lot.
Highlander
Active member
Is Connor Brown redundant on this team when you have a player like Hyman essentially doing the same thing. I would rather have a guy like Johnsson come up (although he is probably on the wrong wing)Strangelove said:
Zee
Active member
I'm not throwing the towel in just yet, or claiming the season is a waste and management should have built even more for the future. I take this as a regular up-and-down stretch of the season that teams usually go through. Leafs were 4-3-3 in the 5th set of 10 games this season before reeling off a 12-2 record right after that. I think the Leafs can get hot again and hopefully it's at the right time (in the playoffs)
herman
Well-known member
I saw the significant contact being the skate to pad right at the border of the blue. I see the most confounding issue for the refs being Andersen clearly moving his upper body to box out Larsson, which is more obvious from net front views.
In any case, the refs have moved towards rulings on these where coin toss decisions will break in favour of the on-ice call. It has to be astoundingly obvious to overrule the ref's call. We had one go against the Leafs (cue Matthews eye roll gif) before they had their big pow wow, and one go for the Leafs after that, and now this one goes against. It evens out at the end of the season. Good teams don't stake their wins and losses on refs' decisions but on things that they can control themselves.
In any case, the refs have moved towards rulings on these where coin toss decisions will break in favour of the on-ice call. It has to be astoundingly obvious to overrule the ref's call. We had one go against the Leafs (cue Matthews eye roll gif) before they had their big pow wow, and one go for the Leafs after that, and now this one goes against. It evens out at the end of the season. Good teams don't stake their wins and losses on refs' decisions but on things that they can control themselves.
hockeyfan1
New member
herman said:
While that looked clearly like goaltender interference on the part of the Sabres, still, we cannot say that the referee cost us the game, not when we played poorly thereafter.
If one were to look back at say, an example harking back to the 1993 Western Conference Final between the Leafs & the L.A.Kings, that non-call on Wayne Gretzky, the penalty blatantly visible to all except the referee (Fraser), and wonder whether that cost us the game (it did) and what if it had been called, would we have won, etc. Would it have changed the trajectory of the series, etc.
In an event like that, no matter how good a team plays, some situations are beyond their grasp.
You still have your point made about good teams not staking their losses on the refs decision but on what they can control. However, my point is, in reference to that, there are times when that control goes out the proverbial window beyond a team's expectations or probables.