Blue Jackets @ Leafs - Mar. 3rd, 7:00pm - SN, SN 590

[Britishbulldog]

Gotta put Clarkson out after the goal of course.

Exactly.  I am a pretty laid back guy but that was frustrating coaching.  Absolutely idiotic use of assets.  As usual.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

1st line showed up. Gardiner I thought played well. And Reimer. The rest brutal.

 

[mc]

Good.  We deserved to lose.

Yup. A tie there would have further masked all the glaring flaws this team has.

 

[Kin]

As for the Kessel line . . . outside of not being able to put the puck in the net, they've been pretty good most of the night and have created almost all of the Leafs scoring chances. I have no issues with them. They can't do it all, though, and they're all too frequently being relied on to do just that.

My point with them wasn't that I have an issue with them, just that they, like the rest of the team, have been less effective in the 2nd and 3rd than they were in the 1st and the difference there can't be attributed to anything other than themselves. Have they still been good on balance? Yes, but part of there being a back and forth as opposed to being hemmed in for 20 minutes is having them take a shift to the Blue Jackets and they didn't do that after the first. Again, that's not on Carlyle.

Positioning is an element of coaching but it's also an attribute of a player's game and they struggle with that because they're not a very good collection of defensive players. Carlyle might exacerbate that but he just can't do anything about guys forgetting who they're covering.

 

[Stronger Than All]

post-olympic march out of the playoffs continues

 

[L K]

2 points out of 6 coming off the break and the schedule is about to get tough. 

 

[Kin]

Well, at least Reimer was pretty good.

It's a shame that this lousy effort by the team might mask that, really, Reimer should be getting more of a look down the stretch.

 

[ZBBM]

I get the point that plugging in a new defensive defenseman into a flawed system won't fix the defense.  But I think Nonis will feel compelled to add somebody new to the blueline.  It'll probably end up being a move like O'Byrne though.

 

[Kin]

It's hard to argue with that.  The only thing I can counter with is a lack of accountability?  I mean, if the team is continually not working hard, eventually that just becomes an acceptable part of the team culture.  If Phaneuf isn't going to stand up in the dressing room and do something about it, then the coach should.

Short of being a convenient go-to buzzword, I'm not sure what "accountability" ultimately means. Yelling at them? I'm sure Carlyle has done that ad nauseum. Benching them? Who? I don't know what you do really.

 

[Redleaf]

You've just isolated their number one problem here. The core of this teams defense is either too inexperienced, or too offensive minded.

Defence is, and always has been, a team thing, not a defenceman thing. The biggest defensive issue with the team is the system they play, not the guys on the blue line who are part of it. Adding a defensive defenceman or a more experienced player or two isn't going to have a material impact on that. They're not going to suddenly start playing a different system than the one their coach has been deploying them in all season.

Completely agree with the bolded part. But, team defence comes mostly from the players who can play that way, not what the coach shows them. Team Canada could have had a monkey coaching at the Olympics and they still would have won the gold, based almost entirely on their defensive play. That was the players, not the coaching.

Edit: show me a team full of good two way players and I'll show you a good coach. That seldom works the other way around.

 

[L K]

It's hard to argue with that.  The only thing I can counter with is a lack of accountability?  I mean, if the team is continually not working hard, eventually that just becomes an acceptable part of the team culture.  If Phaneuf isn't going to stand up in the dressing room and do something about it, then the coach should.

Short of being a convenient go-to buzzword, I'm not sure what "accountability" ultimately means. Yelling at them? I'm sure Carlyle has done that ad nauseum. Benching them? Who? I don't know what you do really.

I don't really know either.  But something has to happen.  This team is going to get destroyed in the playoffs at this point if they are lucky enough to hold on to a playoff spot.

 

[ZBBM]

Well, at least Reimer was pretty good.

It's a shame that this lousy effort by the team might mask that, really, Reimer should be getting more of a look down the stretch.

He ought to get some starts on this next stretch.  I'd give one of all remaining B2Bs plus another start on the 5-game trip.  More if Bernier falters and he picks it up.

 

[Kin]

Completely agree with the bolded part. But, team defence comes mostly from the players who can play that way, not what the coach shows them. Team Canada could have had a monkey coaching at the Olympics and they still would have won the gold, based almost entirely on their defensive play. That was the players, not the coaching.

Torino doesn't really help that argument. It's a combination.

 

[Redleaf]

Completely agree with the bolded part. But, team defence comes mostly from the players who can play that way, not what the coach shows them. Team Canada could have had a monkey coaching at the Olympics and they still would have won the gold, based almost entirely on their defensive play. That was the players, not the coaching.

Torino doesn't really help that argument. It's a combination.

That's why I said 'mostly'. But I also think the Torino team was defensively weaker as a unit. I mean, Bryan McCabe made that team....

 

[Kin]

That's why I said 'mostly'. But I also think the Torino team was defensively weaker as a unit. I mean, Bryan McCabe made that team....

Who I'd take defensively over PK Subban. It was a really good defensive unit.

Anyways, I think the point remains that it's a combination and I think it's fair to say that Carlyle is doing some things defensively that aren't helping the team. I absolutely agree that he doesn't have much to work with but he's still a part of the problem.

 

[Redleaf]

That's why I said 'mostly'. But I also think the Torino team was defensively weaker as a unit. I mean, Bryan McCabe made that team....

Who I'd take defensively over PK Subban. It was a really good defensive unit.

Anyways, I think the point remains that it's a combination and I think it's fair to say that Carlyle is doing some things defensively that aren't helping the team. I absolutely agree that he doesn't have much to work with but he's still a part of the problem.

Fair enough. I'm just not buying into the argument that coaching is the achilles heel of this team.

 

[bustaheims]

Completely agree with the bolded part. But, team defence comes mostly from the players who can play that way, not what the coach shows them. Team Canada could have had a monkey coaching at the Olympics and they still would have won the gold, based almost entirely on their defensive play. That was the players, not the coaching.

Edit: show me a team full of good two way players and I'll show you a good coach. That seldom works the other way around.

Yes. The Leafs aren't Team Canada. We all know that. But, at the same time, if you don't believe that coaching had influence on the outcome of the Olympics, then I don't know what to say to you.

A good coach can make a team look much better defensively than the talent on the roster would imply that they would be. While the Leafs may not be brimming with defensive superstars, they are, as a group, talented enough as players to be a reasonable defensive group if they're deployed probably and taught a system that maximizes their strength. Right now, neither of those things are happening.

 

[Redleaf]

Completely agree with the bolded part. But, team defence comes mostly from the players who can play that way, not what the coach shows them. Team Canada could have had a monkey coaching at the Olympics and they still would have won the gold, based almost entirely on their defensive play. That was the players, not the coaching.

Edit: show me a team full of good two way players and I'll show you a good coach. That seldom works the other way around.

Yes. The Leafs aren't Team Canada. We all know that. But, at the same time, if you don't believe that coaching had influence on the outcome of the Olympics, then I don't know what to say to you.

A good coach can make a team look much better defensively than the talent on the roster would imply that they would be. While the Leafs may not be brimming with defensive superstars, they are, as a group, talented enough as players to be a reasonable defensive group if they're deployed probably and taught a system that maximizes their strength. Right now, neither of those things are happening.

Unless you're talking about playing a trap game, I don't agree. This team has too many offense-first players. We've been through this, you and me, many times. You know where I stand on this. I'd trade 3-4 offense-first players on this team for two-way guys (add a few defensive D-men), and we get that much closer to the team you think we should be seeing now. That's the only way it happens.

 

[bustaheims]

Unless you're talking about playing a trap game, I don't agree. This team has too many offense-first players. We've been through this, you and me, many times. You know where I stand on this. I'd trade 3-4 offense-first players on this team for two-way guys (add a few defensive D-men), and we get that much closer to the team you think we should be seeing now. That's the only way it happens.

All trading offensive players for defensive players is going to do to this team is turn them from a team that gets inconsistent secondary scoring to a team that gets no secondary scoring. Without changing the way they play defence, they're not going to improve defensively. The type of talent on the roster isn't going to matter until that happens.

As for the trap, I'm actually advocating quite the opposite. The Leafs are already playing a very passive defensive system, like the trap is. It's not working for them at all. What I'm saying is they should be playing a much more aggressive defensive system - one that takes away time and space from their opponents and forces them to make mistakes, so they can take advantage of their speed and skill.

 

[Redleaf]

Unless you're talking about playing a trap game, I don't agree. This team has too many offense-first players. We've been through this, you and me, many times. You know where I stand on this. I'd trade 3-4 offense-first players on this team for two-way guys (add a few defensive D-men), and we get that much closer to the team you think we should be seeing now. That's the only way it happens.

All trading offensive players for defensive players is going to do to this team is turn them from a team that gets inconsistent secondary scoring to a team that gets no secondary scoring. Without changing the way they play defence, they're not going to improve defensively. The type of talent on the roster isn't going to matter until that happens.

No. All it will do is help keep the puck in the offensive zone more (and on Kessel and JVRs sticks), keep shots on net and goals-against down, improve the goaltenders stats, and ultimately put more W's up on the board. Oh... and improve the coaches record.