GDT - Game #1: Leafs @ Sens, Oct 12, 2016, 7pm

The fact that ottawa won that game with all the Dung they had to endure with Matthews putting the leafs up 3 times, is pretty impressive.

Hoffman had a really poor game, you hate to single out a player in game one but he needs to pay attention to the finer details of the game, especially protecting the puck.

Toronto's goalie was also poor, which really helped us.

Yep, Frederik Andersen was pretty Dung for the Leafs. Also, good point on Hoffman. All his chances seem to either come on the PP or off the rush, with very little being generated from sustained puck pressure in the offensive zone.

PTFlea wrote:The fact that ottawa won that game with all the Dung they had to endure with Matthews putting the leafs up 3 times, is pretty impressive.

Hoffman had a really poor game,  you hate to single out a player in game one but he needs to pay attention to the finer details of the game, especially protecting the puck.

He's usually pretty good at that so I wouldn't worry too much. Double-hat-trick v. the Habs to follow.

Overall, I think we all should tip our hat to the team winning that game. First, it was a barn-burner, the kind of game that either team could have easily won. Second, Austin Matthews came on the scene and had the whole world watching, then proceeded to destroy us.

-Phaneuf seemed to have some issues, wasn't really at full speed
-Ceci got better as the game went on
-Turris really got a lot better as the game went on
-Stone also got a lot better as it went on
-Ryan had some unfortunate moments, but overall he was very good last night
-Brassard was excellent, fits in like a glove here!
-Varone was very strong as well, made some very creative plays and looked right at home in his 10 minutes
-The 4th line was good for most of the night. I doubt we can complain too much
-Boro had some really strong moments and some moments where he just couldn't keep up - especially on the one Mathews goals where he got deked inside out, then still couldn't stop him from scoring
-Wideman was fairly weak, I wasn't impressed

Great to get the 2 points, good PK, impressive powerplay for the most part. Lots of work to be done though

SeawaySensFan wrote:

PTFlea wrote:The fact that ottawa won that game with all the Dung they had to endure with Matthews putting the leafs up 3 times, is pretty impressive.

Hoffman had a really poor game,  you hate to single out a player in game one but he needs to pay attention to the finer details of the game, especially protecting the puck.

He's usually pretty good at that so I wouldn't worry too much. Double-hat-trick v. the Habs to follow.

He'll get up to speed. I was very concerned about him last year, but he has the tools to be a big time impact player for us and I trust Boucher to get him to that pitch every night.

SpezD, good points about Boro and Wideman. The door is wide open for Chabot. I hope we see him vs the Habs on Saturday.

I'm a big Boro fan, but wasn't impressed with him in preseason or last night. He probably should've got a penalty when he had to hustle off the bench and chopped down that Leaf player that was breaking in alone.

tim1_2 wrote:SpezD, good points about Boro and Wideman.  The door is wide open for Chabot.  I hope we see him vs the Habs on Saturday.

I'm a big Boro fan, but wasn't impressed with him in preseason or last night.  He probably should've got a penalty when he had to hustle off the bench and chopped down that Leaf player that was breaking in alone.

I'm scared to think how Chabot would have faired in that barn-burner though. But yeah, big problems for Boro and Wideman if they can't tidy up, there are players waiting in the wings for their chance and Boucher has no allegiance to either, I would guess.

I'd certainly think about putting Chabot in vs the Habs and limiting his time, but even with last change we still saw Boro paired against Mathews a few times, one of which led to a cluster**uck in our own zone and a goal.

Brassard is so good...everything he does out there, he does with a purpose. He's a pain to play against, you can so tell, but he's also got a ton of skillz.

tim1_2 wrote:Yep, Frederik Andersen was pretty Dung for the Leafs.  Also, good point on Hoffman.  All his chances seem to either come on the PP or off the rush, with very little being generated from sustained puck pressure in the offensive zone.  

He generated a great scoring chance on the rush and dinged one off the post/crossbar. Sustained pressure in the offensive zone is unnecessary if you can score on a great shot off the rush. Please stop trying to make Hoffman into what he is not.

That said, he played a little too loosey-goosey with the puck in his own zone. He managed to get the puck back on most occasions but what works against the Leafs may not work well against better teams.

From a possession point of view this was a bad game for everyone in red. Don't just single out Hoffman. Ryan was horrible covering Matthews yet somehow he escapes with an even +/-.

They were bad but they won. Take the W and the 2 points.
PK was 4 for 4.
PP didn't score but looked good in limited (2 tries) opportunity.
Way too many shots on goal given up, again.

This was to be expected -- Boucher said it will take 6 weeks to fully implement his system. That's not to say they will be bad for 6 weeks but they will continue improving over that time. They could be good-enough to win against most teams in just 3-4 weeks. Biggest concern is how they will learn when they play badly and lose. It's not like Boucher can point to the loss column and say this is what happens when you play that way. I guess he'll just pin that picture of Matthews holding up the 4 pucks on the bulletin board.

wprager wrote:

tim1_2 wrote:Yep, Frederik Andersen was pretty Dung for the Leafs.  Also, good point on Hoffman.  All his chances seem to either come on the PP or off the rush, with very little being generated from sustained puck pressure in the offensive zone.  

He generated a great scoring chance on the rush and dinged one off the post/crossbar.  Sustained pressure in the offensive zone is unnecessary if you can score on a great shot off the rush.  Please stop trying to make Hoffman into what he is not.

That said, he played a little too loosey-goosey with the puck in his own zone.  He managed to get the puck back on most occasions but what works against the Leafs may not work well against better teams.  

From a possession point of view this was a bad game for everyone in red.  Don't just single out Hoffman.  Ryan was horrible covering Matthews yet somehow he escapes with an even +/-.

Nobody's singled out Hoffman, he's been one of main players discussed. Pretty much my first comment after the game was how it looked identical to the way we played last year, and it came complete with an undeserved W.

Saying something like "sustained pressure in the offensive zone is unnecessary if you can score on a great shot off the rush" is pretty silly. Sometimes you score with a great shot on a break, sometimes you gotta grind for it in the offensive zone. Players have to be capable and willing to do both. There have always been criticisms about Hoffman's game, and those will continue. He can improve, but he has to WANT to improve.

PTFlea wrote:Brassard is so good...everything he does out there, he does with a purpose.  He's a pain to play against, you can so tell, but he's also got a ton of skillz.

Yeah I'm gonna try and find the game to download so that I can watch him play the whole thing. He did sound great. I listened to the 2nd of TSN go on my way back home and he seemed like he knows how to recognize oportuinities.

tim1_2 wrote:SpezD, good points about Boro and Wideman.  The door is wide open for Chabot.  I hope we see him vs the Habs on Saturday.

I'm a big Boro fan, but wasn't impressed with him in preseason or last night.  He probably should've got a penalty when he had to hustle off the bench and chopped down that Leaf player that was breaking in alone.

You? A Boro fan? I hadn't noticed...

I think they put in Chabot also since Montreal will likely have Sergachyov in there and they will want as much speed and mobility from the back end.
I wouldn't be surprised if this is a game where they go with 7D as they will want also enough grit and slide Boro to help match MTL's new and improved grit.
Plus probably give more time on the ice to stone and turris.
I'm being sold in the idea of 7D. Especially if it gives more TOI to some of our better players.

One thing is for sure is that I'll be watching attentively this game!

too much time spent in the defensive zone for my liking.  A some have mentioned, looked alot like last year.  

Looks like we still need to upgrade our dmen.  I get the feeling phaneuf is getting too much faith put in him to stabilize that 2nd unit, and it might not work out.  Of course it's only game 1 but speed is the game and he looked quite slow out there.  

The bottom pairing was atrocious.  Boro/Wideman is going to be bad and I hope they can figure out how to play better than they did because that was just not impressive at all.  I really wish they'd give Claesson a try again.

Also, Diddle Auston Matthews and Toronto.

Flo The Action wrote:

PTFlea wrote:Brassard is so good...everything he does out there, he does with a purpose.  He's a pain to play against, you can so tell, but he's also got a ton of skillz.

Yeah I'm gonna try and find the game to download so that I can watch him play the whole thing. He did sound great. I listened to the 2nd of TSN go on my way back home and he seemed like he knows how to recognize oportuinities.

It's great, his on-ice awareness is very high and his passing is tape to tape. He's gonna be fantastic for us - or so it looks anyway.

Hoff-Machine wrote:too much time spent in the defensive zone for my liking.  A some have mentioned, looked alot like last year.  

Looks like we still need to upgrade our dmen.  I get the feeling phaneuf is getting too much faith put in him to stabilize that 2nd unit, and it might not work out.  Of course it's only game 1 but speed is the game and he looked quite slow out there.  

The bottom pairing was atrocious.  Boro/Wideman is going to be bad and I hope they can figure out how to play better than they did because that was just not impressive at all.  I really wish they'd give Claesson a try again.

Also, Diddle Auston Matthews and Toronto.

Phaneuf was great last year, it's game 1 and he looked slow, but there's no reason to think he won't rebound.

Too much time spent in the defensive zone was huge.  Boucher wanted it out in 7 seconds I think he said, last night it felt like 140 before we chipped the puck out at one point.  It was Cameron all over again, but I trust Boucher to correct that.

PTFlea wrote:

Hoff-Machine wrote:too much time spent in the defensive zone for my liking.  A some have mentioned, looked alot like last year.  

Looks like we still need to upgrade our dmen.  I get the feeling phaneuf is getting too much faith put in him to stabilize that 2nd unit, and it might not work out.  Of course it's only game 1 but speed is the game and he looked quite slow out there.  

The bottom pairing was atrocious.  Boro/Wideman is going to be bad and I hope they can figure out how to play better than they did because that was just not impressive at all.  I really wish they'd give Claesson a try again.

Also, Diddle Auston Matthews and Toronto.

Phaneuf was great last year, it's game 1 and he looked slow, but there's no reason to think he won't rebound.

Too much time spent in the defensive zone was huge.  Boucher wanted it out in 7 seconds I think he said, last night it felt like 140 before we chipped the puck out at one point.  It was Cameron all over again, but I trust Boucher to correct that.

You can't implement a new system without seeing the old system at work. Give it a few weeks and hopefully we'll see some of those bad habits corrected. That said, I noticed Ottawa was trying to make passes to players in full speed which was nice to see. Additionally, the Brass-Ryan, Turris-Stone combos looked really good.

I thought the Pageau line was very ineffective which was unsurprising considering Varone and Pyatt were relatively invisible last night. I imagine the Varone honeymoon will be over by the end of the month and we'll see him go to Bingo in exchange for Lazar. I'd also like to see Dzingel play on the 3rd line and slide Pyatt down to the 4th. Nice to see Neil throw his body around but is his role ever unnecessary considering the pace of the game and size of the players now.

I am not sure how to stabilize the D seeing that Chabot is a LD. We may see Claesson or Englund up here sooner than later. That 5/6 pairing was atrocious.

DefenceWinsChampionships wrote:

PTFlea wrote:

Hoff-Machine wrote:too much time spent in the defensive zone for my liking.  A some have mentioned, looked alot like last year.  

Looks like we still need to upgrade our dmen.  I get the feeling phaneuf is getting too much faith put in him to stabilize that 2nd unit, and it might not work out.  Of course it's only game 1 but speed is the game and he looked quite slow out there.  

The bottom pairing was atrocious.  Boro/Wideman is going to be bad and I hope they can figure out how to play better than they did because that was just not impressive at all.  I really wish they'd give Claesson a try again.

Also, Diddle Auston Matthews and Toronto.

Phaneuf was great last year, it's game 1 and he looked slow, but there's no reason to think he won't rebound.

Too much time spent in the defensive zone was huge.  Boucher wanted it out in 7 seconds I think he said, last night it felt like 140 before we chipped the puck out at one point.  It was Cameron all over again, but I trust Boucher to correct that.

You can't implement a new system without seeing the old system at work. Give it a few weeks and hopefully we'll see some of those bad habits corrected. That said, I noticed Ottawa was trying to make passes to players in full speed which was nice to see. Additionally, the Brass-Ryan, Turris-Stone combos looked really good.

I thought the Pageau line was very ineffective which was unsurprising considering Varone and Pyatt were relatively invisible last night. I imagine the Varone honeymoon will be over by the end of the month and we'll see him go to Bingo in exchange for Lazar. I'd also like to see Dzingel play on the 3rd line and slide Pyatt down to the 4th. Nice to see Neil throw his body around but is his role ever unnecessary considering the pace of the game and size of the players now.

I am not sure how to stabilize the D seeing that Chabot is a LD. We may see Claesson or Englund up here sooner than later. That 5/6 pairing was atrocious.

I really liked Varone. I'm not necessarily arguing that he'll be jettisoned to Bingo, but I thought he was quite good. Creative, drove the play, made some smart decisions. Pyatt is a 4th liner through and through, I wish we could move Dzingel up there and put Pyatt on line 4.

And yes, Neil was a factor, even though he only played 5 minutes. You need him to be physical like he was and not take penalties.