i,d take Knies and Benoit right now, Knies would look good in Boston, and Benoit plays the game tough.
2025-2026 Leafs Season
- Thread starter glamphotographer
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You can have those guys on your team. But need to surround them with more physical players. That was evident in the Florida series. Nothing was done over the summer to improve toughness. They actually got worse. Treliving has no clue at all. Not even a plan. Captain goes down on a dirty hit and no blood on the ice. This team is irrelevant now. But i did appreciate playoffs for the last 9 years
Love to see the Leafs winning back to back, vs. Bruins and NY Rangers, winning 4 badly needed points for wild card.
Hope they continue to win and make it into playoff.
CP
Hope they continue to win and make it into playoff.
CP
if you watched last nights buff/bos game, you,ll realize just how asinine that statement is
...They did try adding goons. Simmonds, Clifford, Reeves, come to mind but it never worked because it'd all end up one goon fighting another goon. The problem I was alerting to was that they lack a "fighting spirit" in the core group. The core four all play the same way, always turn the other cheek when being bullied. They don't want any physical confrontations. They think they're giving 100% with their skills and pushing back is not part of their job description.
The physical guys alone can't do much except getting into the odd fights but the team would still be intimidated. We see how guys like Gilmour, Clark, OV or McDavid would not shy away when being pushed around and that would bring set the tone for the other players to follow. The recent Matthews/Gudas fiasco was just one of many similar incidents. One vivid memory was when Matthew's was ragdolled onto the ice, he got up with a smirk and skated right to the bench and the team had no response. They had guys like Kadri and Bunting who played with truculence but they were considered trouble makers and didn't belong in this core group.
My whole point was that to change the "chemistry", they need more than adding one or two tough guys. They also need to start with the core players getting more involved physically. By that I don't mean to ask them to fight. They just need to show that they won't get intimidated when being bullied by grabbing the attacker and the who team on ice should all jump in. That's what team toughness is about.
They can't do anything right.
With the loss to St Louis forget about that plan plus they would have to jump at a minimum Washington, Utah, Vegas, New Jersey, LA, and Nashville to get there.
4 teams are effectively tied for 5th worse by points percentage. Florida, Toronto, St Louis, and Winnipeg. Very unlikely for any of these teams to catch 4th. So, 5th is right there for the taking. St Louis is on fire so it's unlikely them. Winnipeg just beat Colorado and they're 3 pts from a playoff spot so forget about them also. It's most likely down to Florida or Toronto for the 5th spot and they have a game in April which could mean something. Leafs have the lowest regulation wins of the four teams which is the tie breaker.
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Calgary beat Vancouver so they're 5 pts behind the Leafs with a game in hand so I suppose there's a chance.
However, of their remaining 9 gams they have 3 against Colorado.
However, of their remaining 9 gams they have 3 against Colorado.
Treliving just got the axe. Just 1 more head to roll. And a new era can begin
It seemed like Gudas was willing to take his punishment and didn't really attempt to fight back much. Domi got him a few times.
At least it was a regular that went at Gudas in Domi... if it had been Pezzetta or an AHL plug it would have made the team look worse..
At least it was a regular that went at Gudas in Domi... if it had been Pezzetta or an AHL plug it would have made the team look worse..
