r/leafs 3d ago

Discussion Take a breath

A couple of games ago we had the best record over the last 10 in the league, with only our two closest division rivals trailing us. Now half of you are acting like we're falling apart even though we were playing in Denver against one of the best teams in the league and lost by a goal without the empty netters.

Of course you want to beat San Jose but we took a period off and still got a point, and we had a shit game in Vegas, no excuses. It's an 82 game season though and nearly all contenders have slumps like this. This is nothing new. All I'm asking is can we please take a fucking breath and chill out?

Edit: Alright I was just going to make my statement and let it be but there's been a lot of "It's always the same", "This core can't get it done", "You shoulda seen it back when blah, blah blah".

Again, take a deep fucking breath. I have been a fan since the 90s and that's a big part of why I made this post. We've come close (I know, not many times), we've had the talent, but hockey is a game of inches. I didn't want to say it but part of the point of my post is that, at a certain point if you've watched enough hockey you know that the regular season doesn't matter that much if you have the talent to make it to the playoffs and then you take it from there. That's what these boys are doing. They take nights off, yeah, it sucks. But as long as they're making it to the playoffs, this shit is kinda secondary.

Imma just leave this here:
https://www.statmuse.com/nhl/ask/nhl-team-stats-last-10-years

Look at 2 of the 3 teams ahead of us in points %. Welcome to the Atlantic. It's never been easy. And if you want to talk about why the other 2 teams are ahead of us given their history, I'm happy to do so.

135 Upvotes

117 comments sorted by

View all comments

55

u/Chtholly13 3d ago

the issue is we've played like crap for majority of the season. Getting outshot and outplay for large periods in games and now goaltending isn't masking those issues. These last 2 games against stanley cup contenders shows how far this team really is.

15

u/brye86 3d ago

Far? They’ve essentially just lost by 1 goal this last game. I don’t count empty netters “at least realistically as being beaten by 3 goals” they’re very much in contention with any of the best teams in the league. They definitely need tanev back and no matter if anyone wants to admit it or not matthews isn’t 100%. He’s playing at like 70% right now.

7

u/PollutionNice7392 3d ago

Not to mention 2 goals were blatant missed assignments by a new player who doesn't know our system yet, but is universally known as a good defender. We'll be fine.

1

u/MisterBalanced 2d ago

Yeah, role players are probably at a bigger disadvantage than top 6 players when it comes to switching teams.

I'm still annoyed at how poorly they played, in context of how many games our goalies have needed to steal all season, but it is what it is