2016-17 Centennial Leafs General Team Discussion

[hockeyfan1]

[tweet]891719018868092929[/tweet]

Maple Leafs had one of the lowest man-games lost in the 2016-2017 season:

Maple Leafs also had second lowest cap hit of injured players (CHIP) or salary lost to injuries:

 

[herman]

https://theleafsnation.com/2017/08/03/mix-c-ds-will-the-leafs-use-gardiner-and-rielly-in-the-same-roles-this-upcoming-season/

I was already semi-dipping into this in another conversation here this morning, but this article explores the forward/defence match up on last year's Leafs.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

Babs did of course make the switch late into the season giving Gardiner the toughs instead of Rielly, and kept that deployment up during the playoff series against Washington (Gardiner received the bulk of the minutes against Ovi, and quietly did a pretty good job I must say).

Who knows how Babs decides to start this season but hopefully he's reviewing how everything went down this past season and realizes that he definitely has more than one option there.

 

[Coco-puffs]

Babs did of course make the switch late into the season giving Gardiner the toughs instead of Rielly, and kept that deployment up during the playoff series against Washington (Gardiner received the bulk of the minutes against Ovi, and quietly did a pretty good job I must say).

Who knows how Babs decides to start this season but hopefully he's reviewing how everything went down this past season and realizes that he definitely has more than one option there.

He was kinda forced to do it though.  Rielly was not fully recovered from his high-ankle sprain and he was struggling.  He needed easier competition just to survive.  I do think Gardiner showed he is capable of handling it though, so hopefully Babs doesn't feel like he can't trot out either one.  That said, whether its Hainsey or Carrick, that's a drop off from the Top 3.  So I'd look at it more like its not that Babs doesn't trust Gardiner, its more he doesn't trust whoever he's partnered with.  You should expect Zaitsev to see some heavy minutes no matter if Babs puts Rielly or Gardiner with him.

 

[herman]

Gardiner/Kadri and Rielly/Matthews is the mix I'd like us to lean on.

Rielly + Matthews = FIRE EMOJIs all over the place. And Gardiner has the gap control for the hard matchups.