Hello! It’s me, back from the front lines of explaining why puck possession is a good thing to a few Tampa Bay Lightning fans on twitter. Help, I’ve fallen into 2011 and can’t get out. Anyway, let’s talk about you now. How are you? Aren’t the rookies good at hockey?

The Leafs

Toronto Maple Leafs: Average Andersen Through Six Games | Editor in Leaf -- "A save percentage of .851% and a GAA of 4.29 is not how Leafs Nation envisioned the goalie stats looking six games deep."

'He knows he's my guy': Maple Leafs' Babcock backs struggling goalie Andersen as Panthers, Reimer visit Toronto | Toronto Sun -- How awkward is it that Reimer's in town exactly when Freddy is doing so poorly? "Reimer didn’t want to comment specifically on the latest Leafs net nuttiness but, yeah, he knows the drill. 'It’s like anything, you have to bury your head in the sand, whether it’s Toronto, Florida, San Jose or Vancouver,' he said."

Can Frederik Andersen turn things around in goal for the leaky Leafs? | ESPN -- "It's fun to watch them," Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said a day before his team faced Toronto. "I think it's ... the new NHL, where teams have gone a bit younger. These guys just possess a ton of skill. It's almost akin to the North America team that I had a pleasure of being a part of [as assistant coach] -- just a lot of young guys who have a lot of skill and have a lot of fun playing the game. You can see it when they're on the ice.''

Maple Leafs rookies setting the pace for NHL's freshman class | Yahoo Sports -- A nice list of how many rookies are on each team and how many goals they've scored.

THE LEAFS NEED TO GET FREDERIK ANDERSEN OUT OF THE NET RIGHT NOW | BY JEFF VIELLETTE -- MY PET PEEVE AT TLN IS HOW THEIR HEADLINES ARE ALL CAPS.

Other Hockey News

2016 Penguins engraved on Cup with a typo? | Sportslogos -- Fvgeni Malkin, y'all. Oops.

Injured fan gets big surprise | Blues NHL site -- "Did you cry?" Tarasenko asked. "No," Alex answered. "If that happened to me when I was nine, I would have cried," Tarasenko said.

Wayne Gretzky On Hockey History, Dreaming Big And Canadian Pride | NPR -- Gretzky was on NPR's Morning Edition! I love that show. Yay.

Why is goal scoring in the NHL up and can it last? | Our old friend Berkshire -- Did you guys read my game preview this past Tuesday? I hope you did because now I'm feeling perspecacious -- a lot of other people are wondering why goal scoring has risen, too. "A 20.39 per cent increase in scoring chances has led to an 11.95 per cent increase in scoring, which seems like diminishing returns, but has resulted in a noticeable change."

The Carolina effect: Can an NHL team win without a superstar? | ESPN Insider -- "What about a team that didn't quite bottom out or hit the lottery magic; does its group of young players have the same ceiling? The Carolina Hurricanes are a fascinating study in that regard."

‘We didn’t want clones’: NHL’s newest franchise in Las Vegas begins to take shape off the ice | National Post -- "What was once a two-man show — McPhee and assistant GM Kelly McCrimmon — has morphed into a brimming front office. The near-final product includes nine directors, a senior advisor, 14 scouts, one analyst and two assistants. (A ruling on additional hockey analytics hires is imminent, McPhee said, while the coaching staff likely will be named some time next spring.)"

Fanatics logo, not Adidas, will be on NHL replica jerseys | Puck Daddy -- Do y’all like 'em?

Martin Biron has 'ideal' plan for resting NHL goalies | CBC -- "Rather than split starts as teams often do when playing on consecutive days, the former NHL netminder suggests it might be more beneficial to have the starter play both and then sit out the next game." Huh.

Why Steven Stamkos has another Rocket Richard trophy in him | THN -- "Stamkos said after Tuesday’s game the team’s vibe has changed for the better. The players are having fun again. They know Stamkos is safely their captain for the next eight seasons. Kucherov is staying put. Heck, even Jonathan Drouin’s trade request is rescinded. And the Lightning’s collective mood has shifted from stormy to sunny."

And to finish it all off, here’s a quote from a concerned Bolts fan to the Raw Charge game recap:

I feel bad for Anderson...

He’s getting a lot of pressure placed on him, and from what I saw last night, the Toronto team in front of him is incredibly chaotic. They’ve certainly got skill players, but holy cow did they look like chickens running around in a pen being chased by a fox.

I tried to discern what system Toronto was attempting play in front him, and it honestly looked like a free for all.

Watch how they let Stamkos wheel around the back of the net on Kuch’s goal… only to have all 5 guys get into a tight 1-3-1 in front of Anderson as Stamkos comes out front with not a single Toronto player taking any real defined role on the play other than staring at the puck. Even if he makes that save, Namestnikov would have been the guy to collect the garbage.

I really don’t think Anderson can be blamed. Any goalie backstopping for that kind of chaos every night would look just as bad when the league’s most prolific offense enters the building.

But the Toronto media disagrees with me as they seem to think the chaos in front of Anderson doesn’t matter and more pressure on Anderson is needed.

And that was BEFORE last night’s game!

Hopefully for Toronto Babber can right the ship, because if last night was any sort of accurate measure of Toronto’s hockey system, it’s going to be another long year there regardless of who is standing in the crease trying to make sense of what both teams in front of him will do next.

"System Trumps Chumps" - Tampa t

Posted by tankerkevo on Oct 26, 2016 | 2:47 PM up reply unrec (2)

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