That's not quite fair. Dermott is a left defenceman. He had to replace Rielly or Muzzin if he was going to play in the top 4. To displace Barrie or Ceci, he would have had to play on his offside.

There are comments here saying that dermott CAN play his offside. So like I said, if he was so good, they would move him to his off-side and play him there

That's the point. The leafs don't have him in the top 4. He is capable, well, for when Muzzin and Rielly were injured, so I'm not saying he should be in the top 4. In 2 or so years, when Rielly's deal is up, we will see just if he's able for a top 4 job. I'd be shocked if he isn't.

PS. @Lyle_Bubas I have a suggestion for a new chart. Make a Dermott chart .

Well, I think this year will be his year where he shows just how good he is. Same as the whole leafs lineup pretty much. If he can make the top 4 this year, then leafs fans will have proved their point. If not, well, maybe he isn't that good. We will have to see.

"if he's good on his offside they'd play him there", ok but in place of who? Ceci? So now you'll have a third pair of Ceci-Barrie. Neither of those guys can play their off side, so that would be an atrocious pairing. At least with Rielly-Ceci and Dermott-Barrie, there is one semi-competant partner on the ice

He was never displacing Holl, who played excellent with Muzzin, no reason to break that up either - there was nowhere for him to play if he went to his offside.

Besides, I'm sure they'd rather give him some runway, some training camp etc. to try it out, not throw him on his off side for the first time in 2 years after coming off surgery and missing the first month of the season

1) Babcock wasn't even given the chance to play Dermott in the top 4 this year.

2) There was really only a month in the regular season where Ceci was playing ahead of Dermott in the lineup. The only reason Ceci was ahead of Dermott in the playoffs was because of experience.

Exactly.

If ceci is as bad as you think then why wasn’t he scratched by either coach lol? In fact he played over 20 mins a night in Toronto. They could’ve ran a D core of:

Reilly-Dermott
Muzzin-Holl
Maricin/Sandin-Barrie

But they chose not to.

You can’t have it both ways. Either ceci is better than leafs fans give him credit for, or dermott isn’t as good as you think he is.

Personally, I think it’s #2. I think ceci still sucks, but dermott just has so much hype around him and no substance

Ceci was ahead of him the whole year lol he averaged way more minutes throughout the season. Over 20 mins compared to 17

lmao your evidence to prove that babs would try dermott on his offside is 3 games in a row out of 64 games in the regular season? Also, it was Rielly who played the left side, not dermott in those playoff games.

Also, as was mentioned, Dermott is more of an offensive, skating, puck moving guy (like Schmidt), not a big defending defenceman like Muzzin. So bringing in a vet like Marincin to penalty kill and play shutdown minutes made more sense



again, you can't just say Holl is a career AHLer when he played literally #1 RD minutes with Muzzin and weathered the storm, playing great.

If Dermott is in the top 4, it means playing one of Ceci, Barrie, or Rielly on their offside, where they are much diminished and not nearly as effective. That doesn't make sense. Dermott was fine on the third pair, and Ceci played as well as he could've with Rielly

Ceci is not good, but he's an experienced defender, a penalty killer, stronger, bigger, and more accustomed to top minutes, and naturally shot right. That's why he played in the top 4 over an injured dermott who was getting back up to pace with the rest of the league

Don’t engage with Miles_Togo. He’s an anti leafs troll. You know it’s bad when Im arguing with him defending the leafs because he was saying how bad they are lol.

If I’m actually defending the leafs, this guy clearly is just a troll lol

That is really interesting seeing as Rielly played with Hainsey from start to finish of every single game during the playoffs and Dermott absolutely played full-time on the right side the entire playoffs as anyone who watched should know. You are really bad at simply making things up to suite your agenda.



The never ending excuses fans come up with to defend a team's clearly dreadful job of developing their D.

Funny how the anti-Leafs' troll actually knows about the Leafs' and the real Leafs' fans believe that Dermott was paired with Rielly (playing on the left side) during the 2019 playoffs.

I’ve talked with @Lyle_bubas over a number of issues and while we don’t always see Eye to Eye I can guarantee he knows WAYYYYYY more than you do.

bro it took me like 5 SECONDS to look this up, cmon

by the looks of it, they threw the d pairings into a blender, sometimes it was dermott gardiner, hainsey-zaitsev, muzzin-rielly, rielly-dermott etc. A little different than "mike babcock had dermott stapled to the left side throughout this playoff series"

Because they aren't going to play 2 leftys on the 1st pair and 2 rightys on the 2nd pair lmfao. I do find it quite funny how you consider penalty killing the same as even strength though. Ceci averaged 17:32 compared to Dermott's 16. Take into consideration that Dermott was eased into game shape by playing around 11 or so minutes for the first 10 games and its starting to look like Dermott did actually play higher up in the lineup then Ceci once he was healthy

even if you take PK out Ceci still played more LOL thanks for proving my point. Dermott never played higher in the lineup than Ceci. and certainly not in the playoffs either. you can either have: Ceci isnt as bad as everyone thinks he is since he played heavy minutes under TWO different coaches OR dermott isnt as good as leafs fans think he is. cant have it both ways.

He averaged more minutes because Dermott took some time to get back into game shape but once they were both healthy Dermott played higher up in the lineup. Take out those 10 games and Dermott played more. Once Muzzin and Rielly went down Dermott also played the most in all situations.

In the playoffs they werent going to throw out Rielly-Dermott and have one of Ceci or Barrie play on their offside as a 3rd pairing so that was out of the question. and when Muzzin went down in the playoffs they had to fill a whole at 1RD and 2LD. they didnt trust Sandin or Marincin at 2LD and their only other 1RD was Barrie who doesnt compliment Rielly at all. That would leave them with the option to put Dermott on a 1st pair on his offside in the playoffs and put Ceci on the 2nd pair on his offside with a partner who he has only played half an hour with in his career. Or they could put Ceci on the top pair on his strong side and let dermott play with a partner in Holl who hes played with a lot and had quite a bit of success with. Of course Ceci played a bit more in the playoffs, he was really their only option

I stopped taking any of this seriously at " Muzzin/Rielly are elite"
Muzzin is a run of the mil 2LD and Rielly is one of the weaker 1RD in the league. The guy is a turn over machine and given he has had some of the best talent in his forward group in the whole league he still has managed to be little more than a 50% corsi and Fenwick player at 5v5 play.
How the hell you get elite out of either of those two is beyond me.

BAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHA

Have we reached peak stupid yet? Auston Matthews was on a line with Freddie the Goat too, by that standard.

Oh my gosh...Dermott and Rielly were on the ice together as the Leafs' were dealing with an injury that left Hainsey out for 10 minutes. That clearly supports your position that Rielly and Dermott were partnered together in those playoffs with Rielly playing on the right side. (incidentally, Dermott had just got on the ice and he played the rest of that lengthy shift on the right side)

The only thing that doesn't support your position is ALL OF THE EVIDENCE.

At 5v5 in the 2019 playoffs:

Rielly with Hainsey: 103:36
Rielly with Dermott: 10:36 (7% of Rielly's 5v5 ice time).
Dermott with Gardiner: 70:37



No, they didn't do that at all. The Leafs' D-pairings were more set in stone than any other team in the playoffs. On rare occasions line changes or special teams led to a shift or generally a partial shift with someone else - as will always be the case with hockey. Hainsey played with Zaitsev 2% of the time. Did you watch the games? This is embarrassing.



As I said - Dermott played on the right side during the entire playoffs - which he did - full stop. If you are going to push the ridiculous argument that on occasion during a shift change he ended up on the other side for a few seconds like is the case in every single game for every single D who has ever played in the NHL, then you are just making a complete fool of yourself.

It doesn't surprise me that you think that as you two are wrong about everything.

Says you. You’re legit just a troll.

When you get everything wrong, and refer to the posters who actually get things correct as trolls, you just make a fool of yourself. But there is no sense stopping now. You would have to actually learn things.

I’m not following your dermott argument with Lyle_Bubas so I can’t comment there, but everything you said last night about leafs vs habs was just embarrassing and wrong on your part. It wouldn’t surprise me if you are Toronto Bag Heads CF account

Don't worry - once the season starts I will be sure to remind you about how ridiculously wrong you were about the Leafs and Montreal.