Maple Leafs

[mooneyes]

Geez Marner is on fire lately. 11 points in the last 6 games, and a little before that he had an 8 game, 17 point streak. Hoping to see him keep it up in the playoffs

Yeah he is playing great! I'm by no means a Leaf's fan but cool to see. Well that and I have a nice rookie card of his, nice seeing it's value go up and up. lol

[WillyC]

Mitch Marner has the best hockey vision since Wayne Gretzky... even better than Mario and Sid.

[chakhae1]

Marner needs more love. I believe he has the most points in the NHL since January and it is not even close. Wow, had no idea that Matt Tkachuk and Gaudreau were near the top of the scoring leaders either.

They were talking about the Leafs 4th line yesterday on the FAN 590 and how terrible it is and how it needs to be blown up. The consensus was to put Kerfoot down there with Blackwell and give a college kid an audition. I think Spezza can still contribute offensively, but the likes of Simmonds and Clifford do not provide much of anything anymore.

[jameslacarte]

Boston & Toronto always makes for a good game. Its gonna be a rough 3rd period, sure wish Simmonds was dressed tonight. We're down to 4 D-Men now, hopefully Lybushkin & Holl are not hurt too bad. Holl just got the full cage off & im betting he has it back again or at least a pile of stitches..
C'mon Matty, lets hit 50 tonight, only need 1 more!!

[chakhae1]

Held on for the win. Would like for it to have been a blow out but a win is a win. Kerfoot has wound up being one of the most reliable forwards on the team this year and how he ends up on the 4th line just shows how deep our team is and how bad our 4th line usually is. Simmonds is done. Blackwell and Spezza both provide more and even Clifford throws his weight around more than Simmonds did as a Leaf.

[jameslacarte]

I think the thought in putting Kerfoot on the 4th line was to make that line more defensively responsible. Before he got there our 4th line wasnt very good in our zone, heck, they werent even good in the Offensive zone. Kerfoot will help that line be better. Nice to see Mikheyev get moved up to the 2nd line, he deserves it. He is playing well for us right now. If that kid had any luck he would have 25 goals, maybe more.
Nylander has been down on the 4th line alot lately, good place for him. What a waste of 6.5 Million!! Plain & simple he is a loafer, He hangs out around the blue line waiting for someone else to do the defensive job in our zone. Nobody in the NHL has had more Breakaways this year than Nylander (18) & he has 4 goals from all those breakaways. I thought he was supposed to be a great shooter? I couldnt tell you how many times I see the other team score a goal on us & you see Nylander just behind the Goal scorer cause it was his guy. He is so horrible defensively!! Can you believe he told the Coach & Management that he wanted a bigger role this year & thought he should be a Penalty killer. Funniest thing i have heard all year long...

[jameslacarte]

Clifford is a joke too!! At least Simmonds will fight. How many times did Marchand cross check Tavares last night? Easily more than a handful. Clifford was on the ice when Kampf got smoked by MaCAvoy & he did nothing there either. After the 1 goal the Boston D-Man took a cheap shot at Kerfoot & it was Mikheyev that went to his aid. There were many times Clifford should have done something last night but he didnt, he didnt even get in anyone's grill. Send him back to the Marlies cause his NHL career is over.
Sure would luv to see Spezza get his 9 more points to reach 1000 but unless he gets hot i dont think he's gonna get there this year

[cygnusx1]

As good as the Leafs look at times, it's certainly concerning that the most important parts of playoff hockey (team toughness, defence, goaltending) have all been glaring weaknesses at various points of the season

[chakhae1]

There was an article in The Athletic by jonas siegel that talks about exactly why Nylander and Tavares have been struggling the second half the season. Tavares has come out of it but late but basically Nylander in the first half of the season was up there in takeaways and creating chances for himself and his team mates, but now all of his metrics have taken a steady decline. To me it seems like he's stopped caring and he's not even shooting as much as he used to either. When your best skill is your shot, why don't you use it? Beats me. I find it ironic that the only consistent part of that line Kerfoot is demoted to the 4th line, but that's only b/c our 4th line needs all the help it can get.

I think Blackwell will help that out, but simmonds doesnt fight either and we don't need him to. The nhl isn't about that anymore. The 4th line is a momentum changing line that should be able to hit and cause turn overs, but we have no one that does that.

[chakhae1]

Keep Willy on the third line and let him learn how to play responsibility all over the ice and flourish on the powerplay. Sounds good don't it? lol. Another solid performance against a desperate team that basically has to win out to have a chance at the playoffs. Personally, I hope Vegas doesn't make it and someone like Dallas gets in. To me Vegas is one of the most over rated teams in the league ever since they got into the NHL. They got good fast b/c they drafted well their expansion year and everyone gelled quickly, but they were never an elite team in my opinion.

How about Liljgren playing awesome with Gio too? He is making the Leafs not miss Sandin and when he comes back I have no idea where he's going to play. He might not even suit up for the playoffs with Timmy playing as well as he is and Holl settling down in his 3rd pair role. Muzzin will obviously fit in somewhere. Probably with Holl again and keep Boosh with Rielly or Brodie.

Simmonds finally showed up. The entire forth line played well and did what they were supposed to do, but i don't know how long they can maintain that type of play. Spezza plays best five one five with guys that can get the puck and give it to him so he can create offensively. That's why he's still a viable option on the powerplay b/c a good unit typically has guys that can do just that. I would rather have Blackwell there with Kerfoot and Simmonds will be there b/c of how loyal Keefe is, but hopefully last night's game is a sign of things to come.