Penguins @ Leafs - Oct. 11th, 7:00pm - CBC, TSN 1050

[CarltonTheBear]

Just imagine if we had a Mike Richards or Jeff Carter or players like them at C, how more well rounded our lineup would be.

You picked LA's 2nd and 4th best centres, without mentioning that their best centre/forward is from Slovenia?

 

[Heroic Shrimp]

The Leafs look flat, slow and unprepared.  Sounds like a familiar theme from last year.

The only logical next step is to extend Carlyle's contract.

This joke was the high point of the thread....

for sure 

I read another forum tonight (HF?)

Leafs fan #1 "Not Randy. The top players have to eat this loss!"

Leafs fan #2 "I think Phil has had enough to eat"

OK, now THIS is the high point of the thread.

Seriously, though ... I know it's boring to rag on Kessel but I do have to wonder whether his apparent lackadaisical attitude toward training is starting to catch up with him.  (Yes, I understand that he is injured in some way.)

The Leafs were doomed the second their best player arrived for camp noticeably overweight and talking about how he didn't really train or skate at all over the summer.

He said he skated 10 times but he didn't say that he did not train.


https://twitter.com/DamoSpin/status/514197460215160832
Damien Cox @DamoSpin ? 1h
Word is three of the fittest Leafs during pre-camp testing were Cody Donaghy, Connor Brown and Phil Kessel.

James Mirtle @mirtle ? 2h @GrinWithGuilt @almuirSI @bobbycappucino I don't think Kessel is in poor shape. Have covered him for five years

Look, his team's best player is a warrior-saint and ours is a fat, apathetic slob, and that's all there is to it.

 

[ZBBM]

The Leafs look flat, slow and unprepared.  Sounds like a familiar theme from last year.

The only logical next step is to extend Carlyle's contract.

This joke was the high point of the thread....

for sure 

I read another forum tonight (HF?)

Leafs fan #1 "Not Randy. The top players have to eat this loss!"

Leafs fan #2 "I think Phil has had enough to eat"

OK, now THIS is the high point of the thread.

Seriously, though ... I know it's boring to rag on Kessel but I do have to wonder whether his apparent lackadaisical attitude toward training is starting to catch up with him.  (Yes, I understand that he is injured in some way.)

The Leafs were doomed the second their best player arrived for camp noticeably overweight and talking about how he didn't really train or skate at all over the summer.

He said he skated 10 times but he didn't say that he did not train.


https://twitter.com/DamoSpin/status/514197460215160832
Damien Cox @DamoSpin ? 1h
Word is three of the fittest Leafs during pre-camp testing were Cody Donaghy, Connor Brown and Phil Kessel.

James Mirtle @mirtle ? 2h @GrinWithGuilt @almuirSI @bobbycappucino I don't think Kessel is in poor shape. Have covered him for five years

Look, his team's best player is a warrior-saint and ours is a fat, apathetic slob, and that's all there is to it.

I'm no Sid fan but the guy's in fantastic shape, on top of his talent.  He also preaches sermons to birds on Sunday mornings and comforts the destitute.

 

[Kin]

I'm no Sid fan but the guy's in fantastic shape, on top of his talent.  He also preaches sermons to birds on Sunday mornings and comforts the destitute.

I mean, sure, he's only got 6 goals in 26 career games against Ottawa but he also has 19 assists so I don't know if "comforts" is the right word exactly.

 

[hap_leaf]

Just imagine if we had a Mike Richards or Jeff Carter or players like them at C, how more well rounded our lineup would be.

You picked LA's 2nd and 4th best centres, without mentioning that their best centre/forward is from Slovenia?

That's true but I didn't diss Kopitar; I am a fan.  He is big and plays the style I like to watch.
I'd trade all of our centers for all of theirs.  Would anyone disagree?

 

[CarltonTheBear]

I'd trade all of our centers for all of theirs.  Would anyone disagree?

Would I trade arguably the worst group of centremen in the NHL for arguably the best? Yeah, I guess.

I'd trade all 4 of our centres for just Kopitar. Wouldn't even think about it.

 

[2badknees]

I'd trade all of our centers for all of theirs.  Would anyone disagree?

Would I trade arguably the worst group of centremen in the NHL for arguably the best? Yeah, I guess.

I'd trade all 4 of our centres for just Kopitar. Wouldn't even think about it.

Heh heh, I was trying to figure out if it was a trick question.

 

[bustaheims]

No. And that may be a problem, is what I'm suggesting.

Considering he put up some of the best fitness scores among the all the players at the Leafs' training camp, I'm going to say pretty emphatically that, if his summer training regimen is an issue, that issue lies entirely with the other guys on the team.

 

[L K]

No. And that may be a problem, is what I'm suggesting.

Considering he put up some of the best fitness scores among the all the players at the Leafs' training camp, I'm going to say pretty emphatically that, if his summer training regimen is an issue, that issue lies entirely with the other guys on the team.

It's driving me nuts.  He made that offhanded comment about how he didn't skate a lot during the offseason.  His fitness scores were fine in the early camp evaluation.  He then got a lower body injury and now he has no explosiveness.  What a shock.

But don't give that information to Healy or Craig Simpson.  They can just parrot him being out of shape over and over again.

 

[Kessel Run]

No. And that may be a problem, is what I'm suggesting.

Considering he put up some of the best fitness scores among the all the players at the Leafs' training camp, I'm going to say pretty emphatically that, if his summer training regimen is an issue, that issue lies entirely with the other guys on the team.

It's driving me nuts.  He made that offhanded comment about how he didn't skate a lot during the offseason.  His fitness scores were fine in the early camp evaluation.  He then got a lower body injury and now he has no explosiveness.  What a shock.

But don't give that information to Healy or Craig Simpson.  They can just parrot him being out of shape over and over again.

There's your problem there, thinking that Glenn Healy is gonna make sense.

 

[L K]

No. And that may be a problem, is what I'm suggesting.

Considering he put up some of the best fitness scores among the all the players at the Leafs' training camp, I'm going to say pretty emphatically that, if his summer training regimen is an issue, that issue lies entirely with the other guys on the team.

It's driving me nuts.  He made that offhanded comment about how he didn't skate a lot during the offseason.  His fitness scores were fine in the early camp evaluation.  He then got a lower body injury and now he has no explosiveness.  What a shock.

But don't give that information to Healy or Craig Simpson.  They can just parrot him being out of shape over and over again.

There's your problem there, thinking that Glenn Healy is gonna make sense.

It's not just Healy though.  It's Healy, Simpson and Hughson, it's the Star/Sun writers, and then that trickles down to the fans who start accusing Kessel of being overweight and out of shape.  It's tiring.  Then Kessel will start refusing to do interviews again and people will complain about that too.

 

[Kessel Run]

No. And that may be a problem, is what I'm suggesting.

Considering he put up some of the best fitness scores among the all the players at the Leafs' training camp, I'm going to say pretty emphatically that, if his summer training regimen is an issue, that issue lies entirely with the other guys on the team.

It's driving me nuts.  He made that offhanded comment about how he didn't skate a lot during the offseason.  His fitness scores were fine in the early camp evaluation.  He then got a lower body injury and now he has no explosiveness.  What a shock.

But don't give that information to Healy or Craig Simpson.  They can just parrot him being out of shape over and over again.

There's your problem there, thinking that Glenn Healy is gonna make sense.

It's not just Healy though.  It's Healy, Simpson and Hughson, it's the Star/Sun writers, and then that trickles down to the fans who start accusing Kessel of being overweight and out of shape.  It's tiring.  Then Kessel will start refusing to do interviews again and people will complain about that too.

Oh yes, agreed. It's the same thing with the constant Phaneuf bashing, when he makes mistakes just like every other defenseman. Broadcasters say it enough and then it becomes truth. Fans of other teams are relentless too.

 

[bustaheims]

It's driving me nuts.  He made that offhanded comment about how he didn't skate a lot during the offseason.  His fitness scores were fine in the early camp evaluation.  He then got a lower body injury and now he has no explosiveness.  What a shock.

But don't give that information to Healy or Craig Simpson.  They can just parrot him being out of shape over and over again.

The truth just doesn't fit well into the narrative people have bought into, unfortunately.

 

[Madferret]

In defense of all of us parrots it was a fairly stupid comment to make by Kessel. If he doesn't realize yet that trolling the Toronto media is a terrible idea I'm not sure he ever will.

 

[Kin]

No. And that may be a problem, is what I'm suggesting.

Considering he put up some of the best fitness scores among the all the players at the Leafs' training camp, I'm going to say pretty emphatically that, if his summer training regimen is an issue, that issue lies entirely with the other guys on the team.

I might have missed it as I sort of zoned out during the pre-season but did they really make public the results of the fitness testing they did?

 

[CarltonTheBear]

I might have missed it as I sort of zoned out during the pre-season but did they really make public the results of the fitness testing they did?

They weren't officially released, but Cox tweeted that Cody Donaghy, Connor Brown and Phil Kessel were the 3 fittest Leafs during testing.

 

[bustaheims]

I might have missed it as I sort of zoned out during the pre-season but did they really make public the results of the fitness testing they did?

cw posted some quotes about it earlier in the thread. They didn't release the specific results, but, some of the more general ideas about the findings made their way to various media types.

 

[Kin]

cw posted some quotes about it earlier in the thread. They didn't release the specific results, but, some of the more general ideas about the findings made their way to various media types.

Yeah, that seems like a long ways from the sort of quantitative hammer that smashes an opposing viewpoint into unfounded gibberish to me but there you go.

 

[bustaheims]

Yeah, that seems like a long ways from the sort of quantitative hammer that smashes an opposing viewpoint into unfounded gibberish to me but there you go.

I think if you take it combined with how well Kessel has played over his career while following a similar training regimen, it pokes more than enough holes in the theory that he's out of shape to sink it.

 

[Kin]

Yeah, that seems like a long ways from the sort of quantitative hammer that smashes an opposing viewpoint into unfounded gibberish to me but there you go.

I think if you take it combined with how well Kessel has played over his career while following a similar training regimen, it pokes more than enough holes in the theory that he's out of shape to sink it.

I agree to the extent that given that Kessel would never have been ESPN's first choice for their annual body issue that trying to directly tie a bad start to whatever perceived issues there might have been in camp with his fitness doesn't necessarily have merit.

But that said, given the relative paucity of hard facts that we have concerning Kessel's physical fitness and, in a broader sense, the way the Leafs measure these things and whether or not a player is rated vs. a fixed standard or if they're rated against themselves then I don't think you can just dismiss it as being a subject of consideration. You're right that Kessel's past performance with a similar training routine is relevant but I could grab a dozen quotes from athletes who would say that physical training becomes more important as they get older and that what worked for them at 22 might not work as well at 27.