@theleafsnation401 The Maple Leafs head to Boston for Game 1 of the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs against the Boston Bruins. Zack Phillips gives us his breakdown and best bet for the game.
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18 Comments
First
Leafs will lose tonight
Nylander most likely out
im hoping for a sweep so the changes that need to get made will be made. if they make it even remotely close they will just run it back. the core of this team simply does not have the leadership, heart, compete or even shame when they shit the bed. they just roll over, count their money and go hang with beiber. there is NOTHING the leafs have done to give fans any sort of hope that they figured it out or that they all of a sudden decided to take a hit to make a play. they have proven over and over again its just a job they do for 60/80 mins at a time and then the bugger off. they are what they are….they have proven it over and over…..just listen to them when they tell you exactly who they are.
3 losses coming up ..
keefe keefe keeefeeeee dude
Put on the Rocky soundtrack and get ready
The most frustrating thing in the world is to watch the Leafs do the same thing over and over again — since Keefe became the coach — and sacrificing too much for the sake of maintaining possession.
I can't count how many times they lose the puck trying to make a zone entry on a power play — and then the other team goes down the ice and scores a shorthanded goal — or at least completely nullifies the PP.
I hate the slingshot setup — even though it works most of the time — but when it doesn't work they’re in huge trouble. The PP % drops drastically, and they find themselves slogging through trouble a lot even though they have the extra man.
And I can't count how many times their defense gets to a puck behind the net after the other team shoots it in and they try to make that sneaky little 20-foot pass in front of the goaltender to the center who's ready to break it out to the wingers. Usually a recipe for disaster.
And the defensemen constantly look like they’re trying to find and then pass a marble out from behind the net. Or the get the puck stuck in their skates, they get driven into the boards, the other defenseman starts to panic and goes behind the net to help get the puck out of the first defenseman's skates, and now you have nobody watching the front of the net where the other team’s forward is. Inevitably the other team scores in one of those situations every game — because it happens 12 times a game!
I've been watching these guys play since 1968 — when I was 8 years old playing house league in Etobicoke — and most of the Leafs teams throughout the decades were remembered for something they did — or almost did — in the playoffs. Or for not making the playoffs. The Sittler-McDonald years, the Vaive-Anderson years, the Clark-Gilmour years — all of them “almost” did something substantial in the playoffs. But then the 2005 -2011 years were a joke, and Phaneuf-Kessel was only slightly better than that.
But the Matthews-Marner-Nylander-Tavares group is the only group that always gets to the playoffs – which is great — but then can’t deliver more than a single playoff-round win in 8 years.
If they don't pick up their pace in the O-zone, if they don't get the puck out of their own end better, if they don't keep causing their own problems by screwing around as much as they do trying to "do possession things” when they should be trying to defend first and get the puck out, and if $45,000,000 in forwards don’t score in the playoffs — even though they always score in the regular season — the results are gonna be the same for this generation of Leafs.
Sad — but true.
The byrdz hat👌
good stuff! Go Leafs
leafs and bruins are evenly matched but boston has far superior goaltending which has been leafs problem for years good show zach i always enjoy it thx
must win or we toast
It would be great for us Leaf Playoff Supporters if the Leafs could at least earn a split in game 2. 😀 It could really make a difference. Sammy is 3 games into one of his health stress conditions- so I hope he is rested until he recovers.
GO LEAFS GO 💙
the biggest problem with last game is we played right into there game and i feel Sammy was left high and dry but i believe we bounce back tonight
..if you understand that inducing those less fortunate among us to wager with rent, food or fuel designated dollars indicates what you are… asshole..
Crunch time. Go Leafs!
The Leafs are a great house league team. They half listen to coaching because on most nights they can line up and roll most teams. Then they travel and they find out that not having an identity, not listening to coaching, and bad habits will cost you against teams that are also talented.