But that’s the point; it’s not “again.” Nothing precisely like THIS has ever happened to the Leafs. They’ve had bad years, but I don’t ever remember them playing well all the way to February and then suddenly being stupefyingly bad for two months. We’re not talking about short streaks; this is a team that played very good hockey for four months, and now has played almost sub-NHL hockey for two months. To be honest, I can’t ever remember ANY team suddenly collapsing this badly, and with such an amazing difference in skill, at that point in the season. I’m sure it must have happened some season, to someone, but I can’t recall it.
It’s a genuinely bizarre collapse. Everything was going well and poof. It’s just so weird, and yet I cannot fathom why it happened.
I don’t think I was threadshitting at all. I mean, we could open a pit thread on the Leafs and I would tell you exactly what I thought, and I am sure that more than a few others here would enjoy the pile on.
Last year I watched the Stars go from being a top 5 team in late November to missing the playoffs (with a record 95 points), so I know what failure looks like, but like RickJay said there has never really been a collapse quite like this one. In January I was thinking that the Leafs could have won a playoff round or two. Now, it is just wait until next year.
That’s just it; they weren’t playing very good hockey for four months, they were just incredibly lucky for four months. Kessel and Lupul were scoring at ridiculously high rates (discussed here. Note the very first comment on the article that, in hindsight, actually overestimated their eventual productions).
Here is a good summation of the statistical explanation.
In the end they’re basically the same team they’ve been for the past few years and there was little reason to believe that their early success was anything but a mirage.
The Minnesota Wild of this year are another cautionary tale of buying into a team defying the odds and winning despite all evidence pointing to their not being that good.
soulmurk, there’s a heck of a lot more wrong with Toronto right now than shooting percentage. I agree they were lucky, to some extent, but the team right now is not just not getting as many pucks go in.
RickJay: I agree, but their extraordinary shooting percentages earlier in the season are a big part of why they overachieved and why, when those regressed to the mean, the team seemingly fell apart.
As postulated in the second link above there are numerous ways to be successful in the NHL (generally teams need at least one of: elite goaltending [Rangers, Los Angeles], stifling defense [St. Louis, Detroit] or very strong possession metrics [Pittsburgh, Boston] to be successful), but Toronto doesn’t do any of them particularly well.
The point I was trying to make is that the team this year is little different from team last year, so there was really no reason to expect them to do or to maintain what they did earlier in the year.
I’m watching the Montreal/Washington game on NHL gamecenter, I’m watching the Montreal feed since I refuse to watch anything dealing with the Capitals. There is no commentary at all. I know NHL Gamecenter can be be a bit strange at times, I’ve seen them have a French language broadcast at times. But I’ve never seen a game with no commentary at all. Is there a strike in Quebec or is this just a weird NHL gamecenter quirk?
It’s NHL gamecentre as I’ve watching RDS right now and Pierre Houde and Marc Denis are chatting away.
If you want a good/fun French-language radio feed, look for an online version of 98.5 out of Montreal - Martin McGuire and Dany Dubé. McGuire (not to be confused with the blowhard Pierre), is hands-down the most exciting and best play-by-play guy I’ve ever heard in either language, and I like Houde’s work! So ridiculously exciting to listen to, and I suspect that might be true even if you don’t understand a word he says! He’s partial to the Habs, of course, but I think he’s very fair in his level of excitement either way.
Ottawa holds the tiebreaker over Buffalo and so clinches a playoff spot if they can win any one of their remaining four games without resorting to a shootout. Washington’s victory eliminated Winnipeg. Florida is no further ahead than Ottawa, though like the Sens they have a game in hand, but then Florida has to play Washington again, so they aren’t out of the woods either. Washington could conceivably finish 3rd and Florida 7th or 8th. Ottawa could technically still beat New Jersey for 6th but it’d be super unlikely.
Buffalo, meanwhile chose a bad day to lose to the Leafs. They’re in trouble, but, obviously, there’s still time. They don’t play anyone they need to lose, though, so will need help.
Calgary is eliminated, as some of the teams ahead of them play each other and so at least some must finish above Calgary’s max points. Colorado, at least, needs help. Otherwise who knows? Because the Pacific is a weak division it remains wholly possible that 9th-place Dallas could finish third overall.
Well today’s game is big time for the Wings from what I can see. If they can’t get it together again, I see a first round exit. They have had an epic collapse of their own since the streak ended. (well technically it started the game before, but that was away so it wasn’t part of the streak).
Was looking ahead at the Devils upcoming schedule and a few things immediately sprung to my attention:
Their game against the Islanders is a must win if they want to hold off Ottawa because their next game against
Detroit, in Detroit, will be very tough as they’re an incredibly good home team and a pretty surprisingly bad road team and so will be fighting tooth and nail for positioning with Nashville and Chicago to try and get the fourth seed and home ice in the first round
They play Ottawa in their respective 82nd games and will need any combination of 3 points earned or lost by Ottawa by then or else that game will decide the final 6/7 seedings, which is not a desirable situation.
Excellent fan-made video about the highs and lows of the Maple Leafs’ season. It’s 14+ minutes long, but worth the watch regardless of how you feel about them as a team.
I have to admit, these sorts of videos are one of my most favorite parts of hockey (and sports in general–even baseball can be made exciting with the proper editing and music).