ECSF: Toronto Maple Leafs [ATL2] vs Florida Panthers [WC2] - Florida Wins 4-1

[CroFlames]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

Florida over Tampa Bay every day of the week.

I've never actually been IN the water in Miami; but holy hell is the water in the Gulf warm and the beaches nice.

[Blaster86]

Holy ####, where was this Tkachuk in the play-offs when he played for the Flames?!

[butterfly]

Originally Posted by tvp2003

This came up on my feed this morning:

https://twitter.com/user/status/1653761657452253184

First period of game 1. End of the 1st period, Flames up 11-2 in shots, Tkachuk with a wicked hit on Klingberg. But then he decides he wants to fight someone too -- ends up injuring his hand wrestling with Michael Raffl (?) who didn't even want to fight.

If he stops that nonsense then he's someone who should excel in the playoffs because he's got good hands around the net and in the corners and can score from those hard areas of the ice. We're seeing it now.

Hard to believe that was only a year ago. I thought Tkachuk fought Klingberg, totally forgot about Raffl.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

Holy ####, where was this Tkachuk in the play-offs when he played for the Flames?!

Probably being asked to tone it down.

The idea that Tkachuk was terrible in the playoffs for the Flames is a myth taking on a life of it's own. He was a young player still progressing. No one should look at a 24 year old player and think that they have reached their peak performance, especially when it comes to playoffs.

[Toonage]

No, Tkachuk's game is more focused now even if its still rooted in some pest behavior. He's contributing in all aspects of the game.

He did not do that for the Flames in the playoffs. He looked almost obsessed with taking players off their game and often to the detriment of his own. From points to his actually being injured from that behavior.

So has he matured? Probably. But he wasn't good in the playoffs for the Flames.

[tvp2003]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

I generally agree with you, but if Rafl didn't want to fight him, then why did he charge after him and knock him down behind the play and then start pushing him around when he got up? My read on that play was Rafl did want to fight him, but there was no reason for Chucky to oblige.

Perhaps, but it's Tkachuk who eventually grabs Raffl and puts him in a headlock (and possibly throws a gloved punch as well). From there Raffl finally drops the mitts (and proceeds to land a few) before they fall to the ice. Raffl hadn't fought anyone the entire season prior to that.

[Mathgod]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

Spoiler!

Smile about being dismissed in 5 games by the Oilers?

[CroFlames]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

Smile about being dismissed in 5 games by the Oilers?

That's as good as it gets for Flames fans, I'm afraid.

[FanIn80]

1. Time to develop and mature
2. Icetime befitting a highly-skilled superstar
3. Given a letter and treated like it actually means something
4. Older teammates who respond to his leadership
5. Younger teammates who also respond to his leadership (because of #4 above)
6. A coach who makes him the focal point on the power play
7. A coach who uses him in key situations like overtimes, shootouts and dying minutes of the game

Who knew all you had to do was let the guy grow up, leverage his natural leadership, give him proper icetime and allow him to play to his strengths? I mean sure... quite a few of us knew that, but you can't expect a Hall of Fame bound coach with a lifetime of hockey experience to know that, can you?

[TheScorpion]

Impossible. Tkachuk couldn't have been the focal point of the team, because Darryl already made himself the focal point of the team.

[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

Probably being asked to tone it down.

The idea that Tkachuk was terrible in the playoffs for the Flames is a myth taking on a life of it's own. He was a young player still progressing. No one should look at a 24 year old player and think that they have reached their peak performance, especially when it comes to playoffs.

What?


I watched the guy play. He was over-amped and ineffective. If he was being asked to tone it down, he was doing an awful job of it. With Florida he is crashing and banging, but looks ridiculously poised with and away from the puck while doing it.

[JohnnyB]

Tkachuk wasn’t terrible in the playoffs for the Flames. He had some impact with great plays at times. He just wasn't anything close to what he's showing now.

He just seems happy, confident, and looks like he's living his best life with the Panthers now. He's having a great time being a leader and a star and probably enjoying life off the ice a lot more too. Calgary just wasn't the place for him to do that. Such is life.

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by jayswin

But my point was that he was clearly dealing with injures in recent playoffs, and that playoffs when he was still super young and developing shouldn't be held against him as a whole generalization of his playoff abilities.

And yet that's what many fans including yourself have done.

Hey I was a huge Tkachuk fan and said that he was going to have a career year after Gio and his terrible leadership left. There was no way Muzzin firing a puck at him would have made him lose it. So what did he do? have the 2nd highest point total in Flames history since 1992. and then what did he do in the playoffs? Crap all except for a period in game 7 against the Stars and the Game 1 against the Oilers.

His skating was atrocious, unless you blame that on his hand injury... lol and a ton of people in here was really hesitant on giving him $9mil+ because of his skating.

Doesnt matter anyways as I highly doubt he would have re-signed here after his previous contract with us. He wants to walk to work in sandals.

[PepsiFree]

We could go back and forth on what Tkachuk was or wasn't but if the conclusion was as simple as "most hockey fans are terrible at evaluating talent and predicting outcomes" then that would be a conclusion with endless amounts of evidence to support it.

Most people are wrong all of the time. The only people who are right are people who are consistently positive or negative as natural cycles dictate they're going to be right for a while eventually.

Tkachuk was great. He was young. He got better every year. He's taken yet another step. He's proven just about every negative thing said about him wrong.

[SuperMatt18]

And in the end it's actually all kind of irrelevant.

The Flames didn't make the decision and say "We will be better with Huberdeau, let's trade Tkachuk for him". Tkachuk was the one that decided he wanted to move on, it wasn't the Flames evaluating that he wasn't a good player, it was the player turning down more money to play in the Flames organization because he wanted to be in Florida."

And Florida paid a big price with Huberdeau, Weegar, Schwindt, and a 1st. Based on that package you would expect Tkachuk to be the best player in the trade by far, and he was the youngest of the NHLers in the deal.

And what is interesting is that it sounds more and more like Florida really was the only spot he wanted to be, and I do wonder how long he was thinking that considering his parents had already started building a house in the area months earlier.

After his play in round 1 Blues fans were actually complaining on twitter that the Blues didn't move heaven and earth to bring the hometown boy home, and Andy Strickland (who seems to have insight into the Tkachuk family a lot) said it wasn't really the Blues that didn't push their cards all in but that in the end it was Tkachuk that controlled where he wanted to go and that Florida was really the only choice.

[FanIn80]

More of that unicorn talk...

And now they’re together against the Maple Leafs -- Maurice as first-year coach of the upset-driven Florida Panthers. Tkachuk as maybe the most unique National Hockey League star, the rare combination of skill, brawn, personality, combustion and leadership, and a likely finalist for the Hart Trophy as most valuable player. All of that in one player.

Over the past two NHL seasons combined, the scoring leaders in the league are McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Tkachuk in that order. Marner is sixth, 17 points behind Tkachuk; Matthews is seventh, 22 points behind.

Tkachuk is eighth in penalty minutes in that time. His younger brother is third. Most of the players around the Tkachuks are designated fighters or those who take up space at the bottom of NHL lineups.

https://torontosun.com/sports/hockey...atthew-tkachuk (Warning: It's a Steve Simmons article)

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

What?


I watched the guy play. He was over-amped and ineffective. If he was being asked to tone it down, he was doing an awful job of it. With Florida he is crashing and banging, but looks ridiculously poised with and away from the puck while doing it.

The tone it down part was sarcasm. It goes back to when some of his team mates asked him to tone it down before.

Again, he is a year older and more experienced. That's the main difference this year. It's not rocket science that young players get better with more experience. People saying, oh why couldn't he have done that last year, seem to be missing the part about a 24 year not even being close to their peak yet.

[GullFoss]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

More of that unicorn talk...





https://torontosun.com/sports/hockey...atthew-tkachuk (Warning: It's a Steve Simmons article)

This is so tough to read. Could have been here another 5 years if not for the decision to bridge him.

[Snuffleupagus]

Originally Posted by GullFoss

This is so tough to read. Could have been here another 5 years if not for the decision to bridge him.

A 3 year bridge is the dumbest thing a team can do for a top three player on their team, it's essentially telling the player we're not sure your game is worthy of a long term contract so show us for the next 3 years. of course Treliving was dumb enough to back load it to a $9m QA and a walk into the sunset

2 year bridge or long term, nothing in between is acceptable

[Jason14h]

https://www.espn.com/nhl/insider/sto...atthew-tkachuk

Rub a bit of Bennett in the wounds as well