Playoff predictions 2021

My brain says the leafs win. My heart hopes the leafs lose.

It’s like Xmas all over again. Leafs out of the playoffs yet again. The gong show continues.

Thanks for $300 leafs

A truly delicious result. Jason Spezza was their best player, which is hilarious. Matthews and Marner showed again that they just aren't the solution.

tim1_2 wrote:A truly delicious result.  Jason Spezza was their best player, which is hilarious.  Matthews and Marner showed again that they just aren't the solution.

Spezz really was their best player. How sad.

The best part about the Leafs' on-going playoff failures is that there isn't an easy way forward for them to fix any of this. They can swap out the old guys (Spezza, Thornton, Simmonds, whoever) all they want, but those guys weren't the problem. Or, they can take the approach that they just got unlucky with injuries (Tavares, Muzzin for game 7) and that things will be better next season....

All of this ignores the fact that Matthews and Marner failed again. There's that old saying "your best players have to be your best players", and for Toronto, this hasn't happened in the playoffs. To me, it looks like Matthews never finds that other gear that star players normally have. If you look at a guy like Crosby, he always seemed to elevate in the playoffs, and you can say the same thing for a bunch of star players, but not Matthews or Marner. Marner looked nervous the whole time, and Matthews looked like he didn't care. Matthews basically plays the same all the time, whether it's exhibition, regular season, or playoffs, and just lacks that intensity that the playoffs demand.

The idea of trading Nylander was tossed around forever, and is still a possibility I guess, but he actually looked good in the playoffs. And I just can't see them trading Matthews or Marner…...so what do they do? Not a good spot to be in.

Serious question: Would you rather have the Leafs entire organization of players right now, or the Senators?

tim1_2 wrote:The best part about the Leafs' on-going playoff failures is that there isn't an easy way forward for them to fix any of this.  They can swap out the old guys (Spezza, Thornton, Simmonds, whoever) all they want, but those guys weren't the problem.  Or, they can take the approach that they just got unlucky with injuries (Tavares, Muzzin for game 7) and that things will be better next season....

All of this ignores the fact that Matthews and Marner failed again.  There's that old saying "your best players have to be your best players", and for Toronto, this hasn't happened in the playoffs.  To me, it looks like Matthews never finds that other gear that star players normally have.  If you look at a guy like Crosby, he always seemed to elevate in the playoffs, and you can say the same thing for a bunch of star players, but not Matthews or Marner.  Marner looked nervous the whole time, and Matthews looked like he didn't care.  Matthews basically plays the same all the time, whether it's exhibition, regular season, or playoffs, and just lacks that intensity that the playoffs demand.

The idea of trading Nylander was tossed around forever, and is still a possibility I guess, but he actually looked good in the playoffs.  And I just can't see them trading Matthews or Marner…...so what do they do?  Not a good spot to be in.  

Serious question:  Would you rather have the Leafs entire organization of players right now, or the Senators?  

The Senators, we could've beaten the Habs and our pipeline is better. We also have a ton of picks this draft as well.

For sure. I am not sure we would have beaten Toronto but I am basing that off their regular season success so who know. We would have 100% beaten the Habs.

Flaunting a little but I did say at the beginning of the year that I could see Montreal winning our division and to watch out for Winnipeg. I am obviously hoping for Winnipeg here but it would be nice to see Mtl win and get obliterated by Tampa, Boston, Carolina, or the Isles. There is satisfaction in that too.

tim1_2 wrote:The best part about the Leafs' on-going playoff failures is that there isn't an easy way forward for them to fix any of this.  They can swap out the old guys (Spezza, Thornton, Simmonds, whoever) all they want, but those guys weren't the problem.  Or, they can take the approach that they just got unlucky with injuries (Tavares, Muzzin for game 7) and that things will be better next season....

All of this ignores the fact that Matthews and Marner failed again.  There's that old saying "your best players have to be your best players", and for Toronto, this hasn't happened in the playoffs.  To me, it looks like Matthews never finds that other gear that star players normally have.  If you look at a guy like Crosby, he always seemed to elevate in the playoffs, and you can say the same thing for a bunch of star players, but not Matthews or Marner.  Marner looked nervous the whole time, and Matthews looked like he didn't care.  Matthews basically plays the same all the time, whether it's exhibition, regular season, or playoffs, and just lacks that intensity that the playoffs demand.

The idea of trading Nylander was tossed around forever, and is still a possibility I guess, but he actually looked good in the playoffs.  And I just can't see them trading Matthews or Marner…...so what do they do?  Not a good spot to be in.  

Serious question:  Would you rather have the Leafs entire organization of players right now, or the Senators?  

I’d rather they trade Marner then lose Matthews to FA in a few years. Cupless. What a beauty.

Marner is the obvious choice to trade. Which of course means they will trade away Nylander. It kinda makes sense as Nylander's performance likely means he'd generate a better return.

wprager wrote:Marner is the obvious choice to trade. Which of course means they will trade away Nylander. It kinda makes sense as Nylander's performance likely means he'd generate a better return.

I don’t know. You look at Marners regular season stats and there are teams salivating to get him.
His cap hit of course is much higher.
Marner might also do better playing along side players who come out and play to win.

The thing I take away from the kids in Toronto is that it’s the Hall/Eberle Edmonton 2.0. A bunch kids that couldn’t do it as center pieces to a team that had to be relied on but could be extremely good with a better supporting cast.

Matthews ain’t no leader either but you put him with better players that can lead on another team and you may have success.

Flo The Action wrote:
Marner might also do better playing along side players who also underwhelmed.

I don't understand this sentence.

tim1_2 wrote:

Flo The Action wrote:
Marner might also do better playing along side players who also underwhelmed.

I don't understand this sentence.

Fixed. Working and typing… you can lose your train of thoughts.

Predict how many games for Scheifele. I'm going with 2.

wprager wrote:Predict how many games for Scheifele. I'm going with 2.

So hard to tell what the wheel of justice will land on for this one.  I could see it being 2 games, but I'm hoping player safety doesn't wuss out.  I'm going with 6 games.

4 games! That’s actually 2 more than I thought they’d dish out.

Definitely helps the Habs forward.

Way too many games. Should have been 1 or 2 at most.

Too few games. Should have been more. While I agree the technique of the hit wasn't too bad (although certainly he left his feet), he wasn't even trying to play the puck...you could tell he was just interested in hitting the guy as hard as humanly possible.