Round 1: Toronto Maple Leafs vs. Montreal Canadiens
- Thread starter CarltonTheBear
- Start date
OldTimeHockey
Active member
L K said:
I watched the goal again. You're correct. For some reason I had it in my head that it was from further out. It's not as bad as I thought. It was horribly played by both Dermott(the giveaway) and Bogosian(why are you trying to play goalie?)
OldTimeHockey
Active member
Nik said:
LOL and this is why people have a hard time with Nik. I'm always up for someone explaining the game of hockey to me though.
OldTimeHockey
Active member
Bender said:
If I'm coming off that I'm putting all the blame at Campbell's feet, I apologize. Definitely not what I'm trying to get across. I just don't think Campbell should escape all blame. Like I've said before, being a goalie myself, I am a defender of the position in general. I just don't think Campbell is an NHL starter. I don't get the feeling that he's going to stop the shots when he has to.
I fully agree that Marner and Matthews have to be better. I fully agree that Thornton should have been in the pressbox. Keefe needs to be better. That's two playoff series in a row where he didn't adjust when what the Leafs were doing, clearly was not working.
(Side Note, Andersen put up a .936 last year against Columbus and a .922 vs Boston the year before yet he's categorized as being the exact same thing as I am pegging Campbell as. A goalie that can't make the big save at the right time. Yes I know it's a bigger sample size for Andersen)
Guilt Trip
Active member
I never took it that you were blaming Campbell for the Leafs exit. I don't think he was either but it seems he's been given a free pass on the stoppable goals. Freddie didn't get a pass despite putting up excellent numbers and letting in fewer cheapies.OldTimeHockey said:
I'm a goalie too so I tend to always defend them. I like Jack and I think he played very good but he has to share in the blame here. He didn't get it done and I agree with OldTime, the Leafs need to get a 1A goalie for next season or they could be in big trouble.
Anyway, the whole team needs to be better and so does the coaching staff.
It's still mostly the shooting just like it was last year, it just is. I get the need for a timely save but this is a 5 or 7 game series and if you're forced to make every timely save and your team gives you no run support and therefore no margin of error (and you ignore goals that should've gone in but were saved) then I'm not really sure what more there is to do. Put the puck in the net just one more time than they did in Game 5 & 6 and this conversation doesn't even happen.OldTimeHockey said:
Kin
New member
OldTimeHockey said:
I really thought "the Leafs didn't play a game where they dominated the Habs but lost" was fairly straightforward. "Oh yeah, well here's a small stretch of game 6 where they badly outshot the Habs but lost because of a deflected goal" was not a particularly solid rebuttal but if that's why people have a hard time with me I suppose that's my cross to bear.
Kin
New member
Bender said:
Yeah, also it defines "can't make the big save" as "can't make every single big save". I'm pretty sure Campbell did, in fact, make some big saves. The standard here isn't a particularly fair one and doesn't legitimately contrast Campbell to lots and lots of goalies who have won playoff series being less good than he was. The difference between goalies who win series and goalies who don't is not whether or not they ever let in goalies that theoretically could have been stopped.
bustaheims
Active member
Nik said:
Agreed. Quite frankly, Campbell is the only reason game 5 wasn't completely out of hand before the end of the 1st period. Same can be said of the most of games 6 and 7. Did he let in some goals he'd like back? Sure, every goalie does - win or lose - but, at the same time, because of his play, the Leafs had a chance to win every single game of this series, and that's all you can reasonably expect of any goalie. If they showed up before the 3rd period in any of the final 3 games, the Leafs knock off the Habs with relative ease.
Whether or not he's a starting goalie moving forward is an open question, but, of all the players who saw the ice for the Leafs in more than one game this series, he shoulders the least amount of blame.
Guilt Trip
Active member
That was actually game 6. Game 5 he wasn't good on goals 2 and 3.bustaheims said:
ZBBM
Active member
Nik said:
Sure, it's not "the" difference but it is "a" difference. And I don't think we can just dismiss the idea that a bad goal at a particular time in a game/series doesn't have a magnified impact on a particular team under a given circumstance. Goal 1 G7 may have been just an unfortunate goal to many teams in many circumstances, but to a team that was teetering on the edge of blowing a series lead again? It may not be provable, but it is plausible that that particular goal had an outsized impact on a mentally fragile group.
My take on this loss is simple. No drive... No hunger.. the Habs pushed and never gave up. Even Hyman was not himself. It was like they never cared. Thinking we will get a goal when we need it so why push the whole game. Is it not the coaches job to motivate his team, as I seen we never started a game until at least the second. That's on the coach.
Highlander
Active member
I don't think it is drive Nutman, its the intangible killer instinct that guys like Perry just sweat. The youngsters have picked it up as well; Suzuki, Caulfield, Koki, and Price was the Price we used to know.
Playing Jumbo at all and especially PP1 when Willie should have been there is crazy and sorry Austin's stupid smirking smile when they were trying to beat the shit out of him was not good. A killer would have been pissed and done something about the abuse. Think Perry would have been smiling in that situation?
We had them and we didn't finish them off, I don't think it was for lack of trying. When we out-shot them in that overtime dramatically and didn't get the goal, well that's the way the cookie crumbles.
To see the way they dominated the Jets gives our loss a modicum of relief of some sorts. Said it before, these Habs may just surprise. We do want the Cup to come home don't we.
Playing Jumbo at all and especially PP1 when Willie should have been there is crazy and sorry Austin's stupid smirking smile when they were trying to beat the shit out of him was not good. A killer would have been pissed and done something about the abuse. Think Perry would have been smiling in that situation?
We had them and we didn't finish them off, I don't think it was for lack of trying. When we out-shot them in that overtime dramatically and didn't get the goal, well that's the way the cookie crumbles.
To see the way they dominated the Jets gives our loss a modicum of relief of some sorts. Said it before, these Habs may just surprise. We do want the Cup to come home don't we.
Kin
New member
bustaheims said:
So one of the ways I think you have to look at it is like if you were going to give Campbell a letter grade for how he did, I think that fairly the worst you could say about him is that he was a B. Now, you can say that the Leafs need better than that to win if you like(but as pointed out, I don't think it's true) but even if that's true it raises a couple of questions:
Q: Has Campbell established he's incapable of providing that?
A: Obviously not. It was his first time in the playoffs. People comparing his numbers to Andersen forget that Andersen had other playoffs before Columbus and the frustration with him was cumulative.
Q2: If the Leafs need "A" calibre goaltending to advance, is there anyone out there in the NHL who has shown that they bring that every year?
A: Not really. Goaltending is volatile these days and especially so in the playoffs. Price, who I think is still on the short list of best goalies in the world, has pretty good playoff numbers and is paid accordingly. Beyond that...Rask? Fleury? Vasilevsky?
Q3: If you need that sort of goaltending to advance, and need someone who's a safe bet to deliver that consistently, aren't those guys going to be incredibly hard to find?
A: Well, yes. Which is why of the handful of guys on the planet at that level none will be on the market.
None of this, obviously, is to suggest the Leafs don't need to have another good option in net along with Campbell. Like I said, the position lends itself to volatility. But after what we just saw from Campbell in the regular season and the playoffs, I really don't think a clear cut better option is going to present itself that will be both affordable and available. Moreover, I think he's earned another shot.
Kin
New member
Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate said:
It was well into the second period of the third straight game where the team had come out flat. If that's what shook up a "mentally fragile" group then, again, there are much much bigger problems than a goalie who occasionally let in a theoretically stoppable goal.