Modifié 26 juin 2022 à 0 h 59
Quoting: Analytics_are_good
We can’t continue to use the idea that “we faced a better team” as a reason to justify the loss. If you want to win the cup you have to win against your opponent no matter how good they are, every team that’s won during their first breakthrough has had to face at least 1 team with more pedigree than them. Do you remember the Penguins first cup run under Mike Sullivan? No one gave them a chance with that D core and forward depth, people predicted a 1 and done in round 1. But elite coaches can elevate unproven / low talent players & make them effective, they’re not here to make these types of excuses about the opposition having more talent on paper.
Second, I’m not sure which players we specifically look at when talking about poor/underperforming players. There’s not 1 guy that specifically stands out, just everyone is having the same issue. They can’t make a breakout pass, can’t find a seam on the cycle. Everyone says we need to get players with better puck carrying ability, better buildup skills, the ability to pass through traffic, better transition defencemen. But if everyone on the team struggles with every fundamental skill, then maybe it’s not that the players aren’t talented or smart. Maybe the way the formation that doesn’t allow the support players to give the puck carrier a clear path to transport it from one area to another? Maybe they can’t find seams on the cycle cuz the way players are instructed to move from one area to another doesn’t provide anyone enough space to make a pass through traffic?
Looking at something from a position of: "we lost therefore we must have done something wrong" isn't actually a legitimate way of eval. Not in hockey, not in science, not in business, not in anything. If you go looking for demons, you'll find them. The problem is that when done this way they tend to be in your head and not real (or to be more precise - blown way out of proportion).
Do you want to know the actual 'reason'? Hockey is a slot machine and two evenly matched teams will produce results that look exactly like this. There are smaller things to work on for sure (see below), but at the end of the day two major calls going in one teams direction at pivotal moments (P3 11:59 game 6 being the big one) is more than enough to tip the scales.
Smaller things:
The Leafs are a heavy cycle team (this isn't actually a bad thing). Many fans have noticed it when we go long periods of time in the Ozone with pressure where we don't actually manage to get a shot or opportunity off and that can be frustrating. It does tend to work out but when so much of your offense is based around the cycle it becomes (a little bit) easier to counter in a series of games compared to one offs in the regular season.
A fix to this would be to work on expanding our ability to generate offence off the rush at much higher levels. We had individual players capable of doing this but the team tactically wasn't invested in it so it was never sustained or part of the game plan except for small situations (like our PK where it was very effective although even then it was momentary and not sustained)
Further to that point our defensive ability off the rush is where we give up most of our chances against. Nearly every other aspect has improved dramatically (to the point where our D is underratedly good) however rush D continues to be vulnerable and is a weakness that coaches continue to exploit against us. This being so weak is one of the key reasons why we lose to bad teams in such dramatic ways so often as we can easily fall victim to Carlyle puck - a staple of bad teams.
The thing that Tampa has over us essentially is that they are famously able to swap between a cycle or a rush based team dependent on who they play and we are unable to. That doesn't mean we are bad, it doesn't even mean we aren't good. Its really ****ing hard to be excellent at one let alone both.
At the end of the day, if that phantom call doesn't happen in game 6 we probably aren't having this convo and I think that should say all you need to know about how few issues the team actually has. So roster wise fixes should be minimal outside of maintenance. The needed tactical adjustments can be made without a coaching change (if they don't happen then we can start talking about it), and hire Mitch Korn to be the goalie coach ffs.