Penguins @ Leafs - Feb. 20th, 7:00pm - TSN4, TSN 1050
- Thread starter CarltonTheBear
- Start date
Strangelove
New member
Nice complete performance by everyone. It's been a while since we could say that.
Kapanen is fun to watch when he's mad and aggressive.
Kapanen is fun to watch when he's mad and aggressive.
Kin
New member
bustaheims said:
Thing is, I really don't think this is true. When they're playing at their best they can beat anyone, yes, but A) I think that's true of probably 2/3rds of the league and B) I still don't think that makes them as good or as well rounded a team as Tampa, Boston or St. Louis. It's a team with a lot of offensive talent in their top lines but as we've seen with a lot of other guys in the past when super talented offensive players aren't scoring they get accused of laziness. So when they're on they can score with anyone but the difference between what the Leafs are and what they did tonight is more than just work ethic or whatever.
bustaheims
Active member
Nik Bethune said:
They dominated a team that is a legit Cup contender tonight - not just beat, but absolutely controlled the game 5-on-5. This wasn't a case of the them looking good against a middle of the pack team, or just hanging with a top team. They played an elite game against an elite team.
bustaheims said:
What I liked about last night too is that we didn't need the big-4 to carry us to victory. Yeah each of them got on the scoreboard but it was a relatively quiet game for them all things considered.
bustaheims
Active member
That's about as dominant a performance as you'll see.
herman
Well-known member
bustaheims said:
I don?t know the specifics of what Nik is highlighting but I don?t think he?s talking about this single game sample. My read is that the Leafs aren?t up to snuff with those elite teams in off-puck-play. On offence the Leafs have a lot of zing and all 5 skaters are pretty involved and relatively synchronized. Off the puck, it?s largely individuals trying to get the spots their coaches told them to be. Team reads and defensive coordination is still very very immature. Hence managements decision to lean even more heavily into a style that actively seeks to avoid those situations as much as possible.
I.e. ?work ethic? or puck hunger or whatever you want to call it that gets the puck on the Leafs? sticks will paper over their deficiencies on defense enough to win a lot of games.
Kin
New member
bustaheims said:
Are the Penguins really a "legit cup contender"? I guess by virtue of their record and the presence of your Crosbys and Malkins they are but they're also a team where the broadcast crew was talking about giving Sullivan the Jack Adams because they couldn't believe the results he was getting with the roster he had. I tend not to believe "Legit Cup Contender" is a real thing anymore and you might as well pull names out of a hat when the playoffs show up anyway.
Regardless even if they are then Legit Cup Contenders can have bad or even so-so nights. And middle of the pack clubs can have really good nights. The Flyers, for instance, are another mid-tier team with a handful of really good players and they beat the Caps 7-2 a while back. The gap between the mid-tier teams and the better teams is not so big that results like this are all that uncommon.
I think, for what it's worth, that I'm pretty consistent in my read of the team this way. When they lost on Tuesday I was the guy saying that outside of a handful of ridiculous plays by Crosby, who as good as he is doesn't do that sort of thing night in and out, it's a game they probably should have lost by a goal or two but instead it's a game where they went down 5 and people started tearing their hair out.
Since the term keeps coming up, who are the "legit contenders" this season? I mean if Pittsburgh's not one of them is it just Boston and Tampa?
Highlander
Active member
Happy Birthday Hockey Fanhockeyfan1 said:
Frank E
Active member
bustaheims said:
That's about as dominant a performance as you'll see.
But as you mentioned, they hardly ever play this well.
I think the problem is not inconsistency. I think the problem is that they're consistently average, and inconsistantly great or terrible.
They're sitting 14th in P%. Super average.
But they have games like Tuesday's, and all the naysayers (some are us) hold it up as proof positive that they suck.
Then they have games like last night's, and the super-positives (some are us) hold it up as proof positive that they're legit.
I just think they're an average NHL team, as they're 14th P% place suggests.
Hobbes
New member
Nik Bethune said:
Since the Christmas break the Cap are 11-10-1 and they're a contender but the Pens who have been through even more injuries and are 16-5-2 over the same period arent't? Dallas at 15-5-2 isn't a contender but the Blues at 10-9-4 are? I get the gist of what you're saying but...I'm confused.
Frank E said:
They're 5th over the past 3 months, that's about half a NHL season. Does that make you feel any more confident about them?
Kin
New member
Hobbes said:
So ignoring that I said I think the term is largely meaningless I think my first thing I'd say is that I think the largest sample sizes give us the best picture of a team so I don't tend to think that "the last 2 months" or whatever tells us more than just their record(provided there wasn't some sort of seismic roster shift that prompted a huge swing). If two 80 point teams were hot at different times, they're still just two 80 point teams.
With regards to Pittsburgh specifically, as I said re: Sullivan, if a team looks to be seriously outperforming their roster then I'll be a little less inclined to take their record as the be all and end all. So in the case of the Penguins, where it's hard not to look at them and see a case of a so-so team being buoyed by some almost certainly unsustainable goaltending, the reason I'd be less shocked if they lost their first round match is how uncertain I am about Jarry maintaining this level of play.