Hey, at least there isn't a top 4 of
Morgan Rielly-Ron Hainsey
Jake Gardiner-Nikita Zaitzev

or Tyson Barrie, Cody Ceci with Reilly

Mine:

NYI (Pretty solid and sure in a ? division)
Canes (You can say this is a wild card, but I think the after the 180 we could recover and get some chemistry)
Pittsburgh (Their last good year. Then they tank for Bedard to replace Crosby)
Devils (Hot take, but it's not out of this world. They had a Grade A offseason and took some huge steps forward)
Philly (The In'n out curse comes to an end. They had a decent offseason and could still replace the devils)
Capitals (Ovi has a sub 30 goal season and they fall off a cliff)
Rangers (They've gotta finish behind Tom Wilson
Blue Jackets (They're tanking and there is no other team in this division that is)

And there’s no reason why Heiskanen is bellow Both Hughes, Dahlin, Power, Lafreniere, Tkachuk and Stutzle, and there’s isn’t any arguments for that, Heiskanen in his worst playoff year still won the same number of rounds as all of their careers combined. There’s an argument for Svech, but Heiskanen is still better, he’s in the same tier as Makar and Pettey.

Almost all of them have been heavily sheltered with superstars while Heiskanen had to carry ECHL players all year long.

Hertl or slightly worse than him is a better comparison

I swear Dubas built this 19-20 D-core to be bad on purpose. He COULDN'T POSSIBLY have thought this D-core was good enough to do anything, mch less competing for the playoffs

Imo Chytil ceiling is a good 2c, not quite Hertl level

Rielly-Barrie was the oddest pairing I have seen in a while but was also surprisingly good as their puck possession numbers were scary together. In certain situations it was perfect. Rielly-Ceci on the other hand made me wish we had Hainsey back lul

Ironically

Rielly-Hainsey
Gardiner-Zaitsev

Back in 2017-2018 helped the leafs finish 11/31 in goals against that aint bad.

If Muzzin or McDonagh could have been added that could have helped them greatly but Lou decided to go spend on rental 3cs.

*4Cs

That 17-18 D-core was also awful. We got bailed out hard by goaltending.

Plekenic was a 3c but on the leafs he basically had to play 4c as he aint passing AM, NK, and TB. Kadri though moved him up the lineup after he got suspended the first time so during gm 2-6 he was ironically our 2c with Marner and Marleau

Its like when Lou got Pageau who on most other teams would be a 2c but with the Isles he is the 3c as Nelson and Barzel be better.

He was acquired to be our 4C, though.

mmm he was brought in as center insurance. Yes he played 4c but Lou's main goal was to have someone in case AM got hurt again.

Basically Matthews insurance was the main reason cause man for 2 years AM could not stay healthy

Thoroughly disagree with that. Any time you improve your depth is acting as extra insurance, but all he was doing was improving the 4C position, just as he did with Boyle the year before.

They were that good?!?!

I guess Andersen was better than I thought.

Andersen was legit top 5 in the league back then

Andersen, minus the injuries has been a good goalie for the past couple years no matter how much leafs fans sh*t on him

Andersen was amazing. The majority of the Leafs fan base will NEVER appreciate what he did.

From the outside looking in (not being at all a Leaf fan); Andersen truly had some fabulous seasons. You don’t even need to stats, when you watched the Leafs he was their “carry”. He carried the Leafs when the young kids weren’t quite good enough and when the team didn’t even know there was such a thing as “defence”.

I love Freddy, he won’t win a cup with Carolina (just my take), but I really would like to see him get one.

I was just listening to a radio show (don’t know the name, was driving).

They were discussing the KK/ Dvorak situation (now that some time has passed).



If KK was not drafted 3rd overall.. it would’ve change ideologies so fast. A lot of media and fans were stuck on “potential” and the guy he could be with that draft position. But when you realize the pick was a stretch and even more so just disassociate the pick with the player, KK was not a good contract to match for Montreal who honestly got an amazing contract in Dvorak that still gives them flexibility to sign/ extend CC and Suzuki.

It hurts losing KK, but I think the Habs are a better team without him and there will be more stability in the lineup. KK is great and I do think he’ll do okay in Carolina but Dvorak is:

Reliable
Strong and somewhat gritty
Special teams (both PP and PK)
Strong in all three zones
Great AAV
4 years
25 years old
Good team guy
Healthy


I personally think the Habs will actually have a better regular season with a legitimate stable Center lineup

Suzuki
Dvorak
Evans? Or whomever takes it

As your 3C’s is great when you put them with the Habs extremely talented and deep wings. Dvorak is gonna get some much needed love now that he’s in Canada imo.

3C is Poehling's job to lose. Evans would be better on the fourth line with Lehkonen in a defensive role.

trotz: "matty on this play we need you to pass the puck out of the defensive zone"barzal: "no, i don't think i will" pic.twitter.com/xCL7J3lGfP

— JFresh (@JFreshHockey) September 11, 2021

Well Freddie was 4th in Vezina voting that year

Lmfao can’t blame him,

Barzal can exit the zone and neutral zone as well as anyone.

Guys on my team Canada 9.9/10.

Still pains me to this day not selecting him. My favourite player from his draft.

Barzal is pretty much a one man system lol.

If only Trotz saw the it the same way 🥲 give the kid a full time winger and you got 90 points easy 😤