Admittedly, after last season’s playoffs, I haven’t followed this the team with the same level of excitement as I have the previous few seasons. I was quite enthusiastic when the Dubas and Keefe era began and was excited about their vision, but 3 years, I think they’ve done a good job acquiring good players but just how they’re used in the system, it doesn’t really suit their strengths, or player profile doesn’t fit the system.

Ever since Keefe took over, his vision has been clear, and it’s to be a high-possession and high event team like the 2016 Penguins. You need guys are relentless forecheckers, have elite puck carrying talent and have the vision to be a playmaker or offensive defenceman in the offensive zone by making quick touches. I have nothing against this philosophy but I just feel the guys we have (outside of a few) don’t fit that system.

Most of the guys on our support cast (Kerfoot, Engvall, ZAR, Kampf, Hunt, Holl, Benn - and earlier guys like Vesey, Ritchie, Lyubushkin, Bogosian, Dermott) are simple minded players; like they have a defence first mindset so they’re more familiar with making simple plays like just winning those board battles and clearing the zone, dumping it in, chasing, generating rebounds off point shots.

But the way we run our system, especially against those bottom-table teams, is we try to experiment for the whole team, including these defensive-minded players into playing puck possession, make those clean zone entries and quick touches passes on the cycle with defencemen pinching. Yet it doesn’t lead to any outcome, like how many times have we given up an odd man rush off a bad pinch and the forwards on the ice have no clue how to cover? It’s pretty basic stuff but they just don’t think the game at an advanced enough to try those cross-scene and cross-slot passes off quick touches and it leads to mistakes.

I’m not singling out the coach but I honestly the players we have are more than capable are of leading us to a championship - even the scapegoated depth pieces like Kerfoot and Holl, but their success and struggles comes down more to the tactics they play under and the way they’re being used. One things I’ve noticed about Keefe is that he doesn’t really care much about the matchups, sometimes he throws the Kerfoot line with Rielly pairing, and other times Holl with Matthews, to me it doesn’t make sense cuz you’re not allowing the players to be in a situation of strength and familiarity.

If someone like Torts, Trotz or Cooper were coaching our current group, they would be more successful because they would put a lot of emphasis on getting those matchups right, having different types of players play in a situation that suits their strength. Getting your capable defensive forwards & shutdown D against a top line not only forces them to play with a straight forward mentality, also gives easier competition to everyone else.

Another thing I don’t get is, if you want to be this puck possession team, that’s fine but the players that have been available like Zacha, Tolvanen, Sprong, Milano, Strome, Domi and Mike Reilly, we’ve passed on to protect our defensive minded guys like Holl and Kerfoot, and we try to force them to mold into playmakers and offensive-defenceman which is doesn’t lead to much production and actually causes mistakes.

So this type of coaching and player recruitment given the philosophy we want to run, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

Thoughts?

Thoughts on my assessment?

Sorry for the post but what are ur thoughts on my assessment?

I think when you have high offence stats your depth guys need to be defensive guys. With some offence though. That’s why the leafs got ORielly, because he’s a 2 way player

Yeah I agree. But I feel the system we’re using when these defensive-first depth guys are on the ice like Kerfoot is too complex, like they should just play dump & chase and try to generate some rebounds, instead of making all those cross-slot passes and quick touches.

@Banks

For some reason, CapFriendly software directs the OP's posts to me. I've never had anything to do with this thread.

My bad, that was me. I tagged your username but then removed it to prevent others from quoting it, wanted to hear your opinion on this since you post a lot.

I’m suspecting this is MitchMarnerElite/PenguinsFanSheary/AnalyticsAreGood (a user on this site with different accounts)
If it’s not him, it’s someone like him who tags people in things he posts.

I don’t hate it myself but I understand how you could be annoyed by it.

Yes I changed my username from @analytics_are_good a few weeks ago.

I suspected as much lol

Okay, mystery solved.

I don't see every game Toronto plays, so I'm not sure that I'm entirely competent to weigh in on this issue. My only thought is that I don't think you can have an offensive top 6 and a defensive back half (including defensemen) -- as my esteemed friend @Saskleaf implies, you need guys to connect the two sides. So you need at least two defensemen who can make the first outlet pass but are also defensively responsible.

Acquiring any of Zacha, Tolvanen, Sprong, Milano, Strome, Domi and Mike Reilly. Tolvanen might have been on waivers when they had 50/50 contracts and even if it wasn't they only do have 49/50 (they may have put in a claim but who knows). As for the rest, all but Milano and Sprong weren't affordable, and Milano signed way later. Worth considering that not every player is available to every team be it via FA or trade. The focus was clear that Dubas wanted to bring in strong forecheckers, and he has done that.


I do think Keefe needs to get better at calling matchups though. Sometimes I wonder if he just doesn't bother chasing them or if he feels like he doesn't have the right personnel at times. There has had been a ton of turnover in the Leafs roster, especially in the bottom 6, which never really had a specific role/identity over the different roster iterations, so there's a ton of experimentation going on there. They look to have found something that they like and works with the bottom 6, obviously they won't be retaining everyone but if they can retain some guys and replace the rest with similar players maybe they will get something good there.

As for the Leafs dcore, they are performing well but I do think they have an issue with pairings and matching roles. There seems to be an issue caused by not having a good partner for Rielly other than Brodie who is also their top defensive guy. Holl only ever seemed great (at times) with Muzzin but other than that not really. Holl is playing the third highest minutes among Dmen on the team, so he's naturally going to be put out in many situations, some that aren't ideal for him especially being paired with either Sandin.




I think Kerfoot was also supposed to be one of those guys, no clue what happened to his offense, but it completely disappeared this season.

My post from 2 years ago continues to be relevant lmao

Lol

Thanks for the feedback. I agree, that’s where matchups come into place I guess, you play ROR-JT-Marner with Sandin-Liljegren and 58-34-88 with 44-78, and then you play the bottom lines with Giordano-Holl or Brodie-Holl against highly skilled players. I don’t feel our coach emphasizes enough on that, he thinks that a top team doesn’t need specific roles and situations for different players, everyone should be on the same pages

Thanks for the feedback. Tbh if it were 2019-20 I would agree that we don’t have the pieces to really match up against the opposition. But I can’t say that anymore, ever since 20-21 we’ve had a lot of really capable defence-minded players like Kerfoot, Mikheyev, Engvall, Kampf, Lyubushkin, Muzzin, Brodie and Holl, yet we never took advantage of it, and we often put these guys into situations where they’re out there trying to stickhandle through traffic, make clean zone entries, look for cross-slot and cross-scene passes which is counterproductive.

So that’s why I’m not sure what’s Dubas and Keefe’s vision, if you’re going to acquire all of these stellar defence-first mindset players and not use them for shutdown system, it kinda defeats the purpose of their existence.

I got to admit that I'm not too familiar with coaching strategies, but it seems to me they are trying to have strong forechecking lines that could produce offense on the counter, which is why they aren't just dumping the puck into the zone. Like you mentioned in your original post, they are trying to emulate the 2016 Pens. The issue isn't really that these guys are defensive minded, it's that a lot of them, not all, struggle with handling the puck or handling passes. Most if not all of them (from the forwards) can skate though. There are also in need of building chemistry. Kerfoot has mostly played in the top 6 in recent years in Toronto, now he's playing a different role with different linemates.

When I was talking about not having the pieces to match up against opposition, I was talking more about the defence, since sure they have the players, but something about the pairings just don't seem right to me. For example, losing Muzzin requires them to form a new shutdown pairing. The choices are either Giordano-Brodie, Giordano-Holl, or Brodie-Holl. Things that they need to consider is that they need someone with Rielly and Sandin+Liljegren can't be relied on yet to be a pairing. The minutes are pretty spread out between the 6 defenders, so there's really not too much you can do but to play them their minutes by having them play their roles. They don't got a TWD with a strong defensive game who can play 25.

Yes exactly. I think our next step would be to add a defenceman, either Grzelcyk or McCabe depending on who's available for lower cost. That way, we can roll McCabe-Brodie or McCabe-Holl with Kerfoot-Kampf-Acciari, have them play against Stamkos and Kucherov, or maybe Jarnkrok-Holmberg-Engvall. It is important for both bottom 6 and 2 pairings to be comfortable in a matchup situation, but I feel Keefe doesn't emphasize it, he doesn't know which line is supposed to play against the top line and he doesn't prepare for it. Really, he just wants to find a moderate system that works for everyone's skillset, and so far it hasn't worked terribly but it's still flawed.

Yeah, with Muzzin being officially done, I think they will try to get McCabe if they can't find someone at a more reasonable cost.