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2024-25 Toronto Maple Leafs General Discussion

CarltonTheBear said:

Fairly obvious where Matthews, Marner and Nylander would slot in here once they return. That's of course assuming they're healthy.
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Is Jarnkrok in playing condition?
 
Bender said:
Is Jarnkrok in playing condition?
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Not exactly imminent but definitely eventually soon probably.
 

Somewhat interesting of Berube to note that Jarnkrok is capable of playing centre. I said sometime before this season started I was pretty surprised Keefe never tried him there last season. Not that I think he would definitely thrive there but we saw 4 imperfect options all get tried there throughout last season and Jarnkrok never got thrown into that rotation. That exact same thing has so far happened this season. So obviously I'd prefer to see a trade bring in a real centre but if the deadline passes and that doesn't happen it'll be interesting to see if Berube is more open to trying Jarnkrok in the middle.
 
I saw someone clip this on Twitter but I can’t find it

Starts at 6:40

Gotta say, the man is consistent: always trying to acquire and ask his coach to play RH centres from Sweden
 
 
herman said:
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The bottom-6 forwards not producing goals is obviously no secret but I didn't think it'd be quite as big of a gap between the other Eastern conference playoff teams as laid out there. 20 goal difference between us and CAR, NJ, WSH.
 
CarltonTheBear said:
The bottom-6 forwards not producing goals is obviously no secret but I didn't think it'd be quite as big of a gap between the other Eastern conference playoff teams as laid out there. 20 goal difference between us and CAR, NJ, WSH.
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For funsies, I expanded the table referenced

TeamGoals by forwards 7-12Goals by forwards 1-6Goals by forwards 1-6 5v5
Carolina Hurricanes*4710663
Florida Panthers4711364
Washington Capitals4612073
New Jersey Devils4011167
Detroit Red Wings379951
Ottawa Senators3610051
Tampa Bay Lightning2714582
Boston Bruins3410059
Toronto Maple Leafs2612876

Note that the data I added (from Natural Stat Trick) was simply sorting by goals, which is what I think MLHS did too, not sorting by Forwards TOI. It's not really a comment about playstyle or deployment, per se.

The top 6 Leafs are making up for the bottom-6 deficit. The top 6-bottom 6 gap would be far wider if Matthews was fully healthy, as he'd normally be 40ish by now, rather than 20 goals (i.e. Tampa territory). The Leafs are doing a good deal of the work at 5v5 too; by percentage of top 6 goal scorer totals, they are basically in the same 5v5 proportion as Carolina, Florida, Washington, New Jersey -- ~60% scored 5v5. The other three teams are dining a bit more off the special teams (~50-55%).

I don't know if I have any point to this, just curious to see it.

For the Leafs bottom six, L4 has a purpose and it's mostly to safely kill time; L3 is supposed to have a purpose but the mix of players being deployed there suggest there's only concepts of a plan, nothing tangible. It's literally where the coaching staff stuff the players that are caught in the transition between Dubas/Keefe puck and Treliving/Berube puck.

edit: just noticing MLHS ignored Boston, so I'm going to add them. They are on par with Ottawa.

Maybe there is a note to be made on playstyle/deployment... The ones with heavier contributions from the bottom six scorers tend to roll 3-4 lines and have a fair spread of offensive blueliners.
 
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Nylander - 31.15 goals/82 games played - on pace for 49.2
Matthews - 52.85 goals/82 games played - on pace for 41.0
Tavares - 33.80 goals/82 games played - on pace for 35.87
Knies - 22.03 goals/82 games played - on pace for 33.76
McMann - 23.22 goals/82 games played - on pace for 29.67
Marner - 27.33 goals/82 games played - on pace for 24.30
Robertson - 15.30 goals/82 games played - on pace for 13.96
Paccioretty 29.25 goals/82 games played - on pace for 11.08
Lorentz - 7.48 goals/82 games played - on pace for 7.45
Kampf - 7.27 goals/82 games played - on pace for 5.86
Domi - 15.40 goals/82 games played - on pace for 5.23
Holmberg - 8.57 goals/82 games played - on pace for 3.81
Reaves - 5.67 goals/82 games played - on pace for 0
Dewar - 7.11 goals/82 games played - on pace for 0

Four players are playing ahead of their career pace and the rest are behind. A few guys are probably close enough to their career pace (Robertson, Lorentz, Kampf). Marner probably deserves a pass for his overall play so really a goal scoring drop off is almost entirely a byproduct of Matthews (health), Domi (awful play) and the Holmberg/Reaves/Dewar black hole.
 
It's kinda crazy to see Willy on pace for 50 goals (basically) but be 27th in the league in points with just a point per game. At 5-on-5 he's about to blow past his career high in goals. That's 22 in 82 games which he hit in each of his last 2 seasons. He's currently at 19 in only 55 games. But he has just 9 assists at 5-on-5. That's pretty bad. 255 players this season have more than that. Ilya Lyubushkin has 10!

It's easy to blame this on Holmberg, which is obviously a factor as Nylander has zero assists with the two of them on the ice this season in 137 minutes. But his assists are also down considerably with Tavares on the ice with him too. Past two seasons he's recorded 1.02 assists/60 with JT as his centre, this season it's just 0.64.
 
Barring some sort of discount from Marner right now (not happening) I'm fairly comfortable letting him stay unsigned until after playoffs.
 
Guilt Trip said:
Marner....You know what you're getting with him. Rants numbers this year away from Mac are not good at all. Marner can play without 34.
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There's that - and, even at his peak, he's a similar caliber offensive weapon (better goal scorer, but not as good a playmaker) while being a less well-rounded player. Rantanen doesn't kill penalties and isn't particularly strong defensively. They're both 90+ point wingers, but only one provides real help at both ends of the ice and in all situations.
 
CarltonTheBear said:
Barring some sort of discount from Marner right now (not happening) I'm fairly comfortable letting him stay unsigned until after playoffs.
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His agent apparently likes to go to free agency.
The way the Leafs played it last summer, they did not really disagree as their actions during the media storm spoke louder than words.
His agent knows letting him walk for nothing could be very tough for the Leafs.

There's about a 90% chance the Leafs fall short in the playoffs which will enhance their negotiating position.
The team is competitive and probably will be until the end of Matthews contract IF Marner hangs around. Maybe not if he doesn't.

Marner would prefer his baby grow up around family.
Marner says he wants to play in Toronto.
Marner is one contract away from becoming the Leafs 1st or 2nd all time leading scorer - which is all but certain to land him in the HHoF
The team is made up of many of his friends and is very likely to be competitive at least until the end of Matthews contract.

There is plenty of incentive on all sides to get a deal done. It's not going to be cheap. He's a very good player.
 
bustaheims said:
There's that - and, even at his peak, he's a similar caliber offensive weapon (better goal scorer, but not as good a playmaker) while being a less well-rounded player. Rantanen doesn't kill penalties and isn't particularly strong defensively. They're both 90+ point wingers, but only one provides real help at both ends of the ice and in all situations.
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That's a big difference for me.
 
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