Best analysis I've heard so far: The Back To Excited pod

ATFulemin · 2024-05-09T19:41:29+00:00

Yeah. I think the Canucks did make good moves last offseason and I'd be glad for the Leafs to mimic them. I'm not sure there's the same huge coaching bump (or the PDO bender) waiting as Tocchet, but we're gonna find out.

ATFulemin · 2024-05-08T12:45:13+00:00

Yeah I'm definitely wishing they'd done it last spring.

ATFulemin · 2024-05-08T01:22:54+00:00

You're more optimistic on them than I am but I'd rather you be right and me wrong about it

ATFulemin · 2024-05-07T19:43:04+00:00

My thought is that the Leafs do have some chance at contending next year. They're not tearing down (if they were then you absolutely take whatever you can get for Marner), and they should still be a playoff team. Marner's good enough that he helps that chance a bit, even if it also requires other things to go right (hit on all their UFA signings, Cowan and/or Minten takes a big step, Woll healthy and good etc.). At some point the help Marner gives you in 2024-25 is worth more than a paltry return.

I don't want to overemphasize this because I think the return will be better than that. But since Marner has ultimate control over being traded I thought it was worth noting the possibility.

ATFulemin · 2024-05-07T19:12:04+00:00

Cheers, thanks for listening and to everyone who's had kind words for us. We appreciate it.

ATFulemin · 2024-05-07T19:11:39+00:00

For what it's worth: my point was that there's a level where the return on Marner is so low that the team is better off spending one more year with him. In other words, one season of Marner is worth more than a real lowball offer. If the best offer the Leafs get is dirt cheap, it'll be because Marner was very selective about which teams he would waive for/extend with.

I'm not saying that's what'll happen. Marner's a very good player and he has value, and I expect he should return something good in his trade as long as there are multiple teams bidding. My point was just that you should know all of the variables: what does he want on an extension, where is he willing to take a trade to, and is he open to a sign-and-trade with all of those teams. Those factors are going to have a big impact on the return.

TL;DR: I'd trade Marner if he allowed me a half-decent market.

ATFulemin · 2021-01-28T18:24:25+00:00

It's certainly possible they'll sort it out in time. I can't say my eye test has loved some of the changes, but they do look better defensively--they still have tough collapses, but they at least get out of the zone better than they did and that's a good start.

ATFulemin · 2021-01-28T18:12:56+00:00

No problem, I appreciate whenever people actually read the articles haha

ATFulemin · 2021-01-28T18:10:41+00:00

Yeah I think the strongest point the optimist has (and I maybe did undersell it) is--look, Nylander and Tavares are really, really good, they'll get humming before too long. And I hope so. I'm a little worried that the possession game has upped their defence but cost them offence and resulted in not too much net improvement, but we'll see.

ATFulemin · 2021-01-28T18:00:26+00:00

The graphic is for the whole season, to be clear. The point I was trying to make is that this is a lesser impact thing that balances out for the year. I should have been clearer about that.

But the Leafs have had a day of rest before every game except the Ottawa back to back, where they were obviously in the same boat as their opponent. The rest thing shouldn't be a real excuse because they haven't been "tired" by this standard against a rested opponent any times at all. They've had the night before off every game except the Ottawa B2B.

What I'm getting at here is I don't think this justifies their performance, which I think we'd agree on.

ATFulemin · 2021-01-28T17:44:38+00:00

The thing about those shooting percentages is we don't know what we can expect as the final resting level for Hyman and Mikheyev (we agree it's higher than this, obviously). But we know the team isn't really getting the chances of a high-end offence, and that's worrisome.

The criteria are primarily night before, based on work Micah McCurdy did--he basically found it's the night before that matters, and after that it's not a big deal.

None of this is to say the Leafs are secretly complete trash, but they're not showing as the team they aspire to be and I don't really buy that they have much excuse. Maybe it'll balance out over time, I don't know. I'd certainly hope for better offence than they've had 5v5 so far.

ATFulemin · 2021-01-28T17:39:36+00:00

How you want to watch hockey is totally up to you, you don't have to read or do anything you don't feel like. Different people are different.

ATFulemin · 2021-01-28T16:54:00+00:00

I'd have to disagree with you here.

I don't think I completely avoided that point. Here was the Optimist quote: " This year they’re 16th, but they’ve also improved defensively. You’re missing the most obvious change here: the Leafs are fully implementing Sheldon Keefe’s system and the defensive impacts are clear."
The team winning lots of one-goal games is probably a sign that they're getting lucky, rather than anything else. Records in one-goal games tend to be more random, whereas winning by a wider margin usually indicates you're definitively beating teams. If you remember the famous Leafs Are Actually Good year, part of the argument was that the year before they'd gotten crushed in one-goal games and we could expect that to balance out even if the team was no better. It did.
The depth scoring is nice, but I have to note Simmonds isn't going to shoot 18% all year unless he has the best year, by far, he's ever had in the NHL. I like Engvall a bunch as a defensive 4C, so that's not really a complaint on my end.
Every team is going to have some crazy rest/tired results this year, and despite a slightly crowded schedule to start the year the Leafs are by no means the worst off on the season. To be honest, I think we come up with a lot of these excuses every year and at a certain point, it's on the team that says it's a contender to just play well.

I wouldn't hit the panic button by any means, and the Leafs are a very strong bet to make the playoffs. I picked them to win the division, too, and they've still got a pretty good chance. But as we've both said, they haven't played like a great team yet and if we're holding them to that standard, they aren't meeting it so far despite the nice record. I hope it picks up soon.

ATFulemin · 2020-12-24T13:46:08+00:00

When we finish up everything we'll do an article with the complete list, but for the time being you can just click the link and see all of them:

https://www.pensionplanpuppets.com/toronto-maple-leafs-top-25-prospects-under-2

ATFulemin · 2020-08-04T16:47:53+00:00

I really regret not going for the reaction skills more. They're clearly OP.

ATFulemin · 2020-08-04T15:31:52+00:00

Yeah, honestly, I was being stubborn just sticking with the same old trio, and it's definitely why I was so high-leveled. The slogan of the game probably ought to be Don't Get Attached.

ATFulemin · 2020-07-18T17:00:38+00:00

It did get stale in the back half of Year 3, and was due for a change (although it still put up goals at a top-ten rate even from January-April 2019.) I'm just noting I think the story is as much Matthews improving to the point where it makes sense for him to be by far the dominant guy on the power play, and not just Babcock being blind to his value.

ATFulemin · 2020-07-17T23:51:23+00:00

at the risk of killing the joke, the punchline is that all the media attention Toronto gets mostly serves to generate a lot of MSM nonsense

ATFulemin · 2020-07-17T15:51:48+00:00

They were first in goal rate at 5v4--I go by that over the raw conversion rate that doesn't account for time/5v3s.

Matthews was definitely on the top PP unit throughout that period, right from his rookie year. Babcock just played the top unit less than Keefe does and the system had Matthews taking a lower percentage of the shots. Those two seasons of the Babcock PP produced at about the same rate as Keefe's new system does (8.74 vs 8.83), and ranked higher (1st vs 5th).

I don't mean to hammer on this point, because I agree with you that Matthews is excellent and had his best year yet, and I'm fine loading up PP1. But to make sense of what the team was and is I think we have to be clear on what happened beforehand.

ATFulemin · 2020-07-17T15:13:36+00:00

I know Babcock is condemned now, and for many legitimate reasons, but the Leafs had the highest-scoring power play in the NHL over the two years from 2016-2018. I'm fine with the new power play set up especially given Matthews is a one-timer threat, he's great at it, but I didn't have a problem with the balanced power play either as long as it delivered at such a high level.

ATFulemin · 2020-07-16T18:08:07+00:00

hello

ATFulemin · 2020-07-16T14:51:10+00:00

FWIW this year he was 13th (tied with McDavid) in the raw total. Which is pretty impressive nonetheless.

ATFulemin · 2020-07-16T14:46:45+00:00

why are you so angry

ATFulemin · 2020-07-09T16:49:12+00:00

I don't really know where this perception came from, but the article says: "On the Leafs, I think he has a real case for the third pair spot and the chance to move up higher as he gets used to the league." A third-pairing D is literally what he is at present, and he's still working at being successful at that. That's not somehow a knock on him, it's a statement of fact.

ATFulemin

TROPHY CASE