I think Toronto's problem in the new era is a simple one. Their #1 guy has no edge in the playoffs. Surely Matthews has an elite shot and very good with his reach on the defensive end, but he has no emotion when the team around him is scrumming around or throwing their body around. He can't claim he's 5'1". He's a big guy and can throw his body around a bit. But the fact that 3 (Matthews, Marner, Tavares) of their top 4 scorers never get their hands dirty shows that they as an identity, don't value scrapping their way to get what they need. Their identity at the top is just off. Nylander despite being smaller in stature will muck it up a bit but it's simply not enough. When that large Tavares contract comes off the books they'll likely have to spend it on D, but they have to find a way to perhaps deal Marner and break up the internal club of Marner and Matthews, and get a scrappy scorer to give a new identity. In the past every team's star has been willing to get scrappy. Matthews is certainly unique in that regard that he'll agitate but won't get physical at all.
The Leafs have outshot the Bruins 32-23 even though the Bruibs have had 5 powrplays to the Leafs 2. Samsonov has been horrible. That's the difference.
Shots tell part of the story. The Bruins have had some slot quality chances, and looked dominant. I don't think Samsonov has looked bad at all this game. It's just the quality chances given up by the Leafs has been glaring. That defence is mediocre. Treliving had a chance to shore that up and went of a guy who was overpriced and played under 10 games this year for them. Add in sitting a shot blocker in Giordano and what do you expect?
Reaves has been so effective since the signing... lol.
What a liability, coupled with a terrible defense group and they sat 2 guys they probably shouldn't have.
Shots tell part of the story. The Bruins have had some slot quality chances, and looked dominant. I don't think Samsonov has looked bad at all this game. It's just the quality chances given up by the Leafs has been glaring. That defence is mediocre. Treliving had a chance to shore that up and went of a guy who was overpriced and played under 10 games this year for them. Add in sitting a shot blocker in Giordano and what do you expect?
Fundamentally the Leafs just never shored up a position of weakness through a position of strength. 4 star forwards in Taveras, Marner, Matthews and Nylander and a crap defense. In 6 years or whatever it's been all they needed to do was trade one damn forward to strengthen their defense.
And they just wouldn't do it all those years, they just couldn't fathom giving up a star forward.
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They needed D and goaltending and he blew all his money on forward UFAs
One thing that Treliving was bad for was trying to bandaid and bargin bin his goalies. He finally got a good one in Markstrom and I figured he'd learn from that.
If you have a contending team you need to have a real goaltender.
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