I don't think I've ever seen a team look good in the 1st, unbelievably horrible in the 2nd and good in the 3rd and OT... like 2 completely different teams. It was unbelievable last night how night and day they were and the sad thing is this isn't a rare occurrence. They were just holding teams off for the period they sucked in earlier.
How can a team literally just give up in the middle of a game only to turn it back on? It doesn't make sense to me.
PS: This isn't to take anything away from the Jets. Simply a Leafs fan looking at his team and not understanding it
I don't think I've ever seen a team look good in the 1st, unbelievably horrible in the 2nd and good in the 3rd and OT... like 2 completely different teams. It was unbelievable last night how night and day they were and the sad thing is this isn't a rare occurrence. They were just holding teams off for the period they sucked in earlier.
How can a team literally just give up in the middle of a game only to turn it back on? It doesn't make sense to me.
PS: This isn't to take anything away from the Jets. Simply a Leafs fan looking at his team and not understanding it
The Leafs are a very fragile team right now. Not a lot of confidence and it's easy to rattle them.
It comes with the territory of being a young team and rising expectations.
They are a very young team, three of their defense are previous AHLers (Holzer, Kostka when he plays and Fraser) and they don't have a lot of vets on the team. That said, it looks like they went up to 6th place with the shootout win last night so if they can beat Buffalo and Tampa Bay they should solidify a spot in the playoffs.
Carlyle has been a great coach for them, that's for sure.
They are a very young team, three of their defense are previous AHLers (Holzer, Kostka when he plays and Fraser) and they don't have a lot of vets on the team. That said, it looks like they went up to 6th place with the shootout win last night so if they can beat Buffalo and Tampa Bay they should solidify a spot in the playoffs.
Carlyle has been a great coach for them, that's for sure.
Shoot out loss. Carlyle was stupid enough to give MacArthur, Franson, and Phaneuf a chance over Grabovski.
The only AHL'er that is now no longer an AHL'er is Fraser..he's a soli #5-#6D...the other two are garbage. Carlyle is too stubborn, he'll lose 5 in a row with Holzer than make a change.
If we don't make the playoffs, Carlyle better be gone because we're giving up points due to his terrible decisions every game.
Shoot out loss. Carlyle was stupid enough to give MacArthur, Franson, and Phaneuf a chance over Grabovski.
The only AHL'er that is now no longer an AHL'er is Fraser..he's a soli #5-#6D...the other two are garbage. Carlyle is too stubborn, he'll lose 5 in a row with Holzer than make a change.
If we don't make the playoffs, Carlyle better be gone because we're giving up points due to his terrible decisions every game.
Nonis has final say in callups and demotions right? Holzer is waiver-exempt, just saying...he could say "Enough is enough" and call up Gardiner, though that would really be stepping on Carlyle's toes. And yes, having Holzer on the ice is basically having no exit strategy out of your zone.
Not at all and I've seen every leaf game since the last lockout. As bad as the Leafs have been, I haven't seen it like that. It wasn't a case of a bad period.. it was like they turned into a peewee team.
Leafs do well when they outwork/out hustle the other team. Carlyle is good @ pushing & the youngish team complies. Unfortunately the nhl schedule is especially hard this year & they can't keep it up throughout every game. Leafs got off to a good start working their butts off, now the rest of the teams are starting to gel & work harder, making for tough opposition every night. As the other teams improve, it's getting clearer who should still be in the AHL.
Goaltending is very questionable & there's not enough real NHL skill in the defense core.
They've lost 5 in a row and are in sixth place. They're still likely to make the playoffs.
Not if they continue playing the way they have lately. The past 2 weeks I've seen a team that is incredibly generous with giveaways, can't clear the puck out of its own zone, questionable goaltending, bad defensive coverage, it's like Ron Wilson's back behind the bench.
For a time, I was *almost* optimistic about them making the playoffs.
Its ridiculously weird. Not because of the actual abysmal 2nd, but because they play likely the best team in the league in the 3rd 2 times this week coming back from a 3 goal deficit to force SO after playing terrible for 40 minutes.
it should be noted that the Jets are a bad 3rd period team, so losing the 3rd by one goal is somewhat expected for them.
To answer your question, when it was 4-1, Carlyle blew up his lineup and it seemed to work. Thats the difference between him and Wilson, Wilson never made adjustments.
They're a young team in a rough patch/slump, it wasn't like this earlier in the season. Not to mention Carlyle adjusted lines on the go, and actually found combinations that worked nearing the end of the 2nd period. With more players coming back from injury/returning to the lineup (ie Liles, Lupul, Frattin, soon to be Gardiner), it will take some time to get the machine humming again.
Ottawa the best 2nd period team in the league? wat?
Toronto mostly confounds me because they play so well early to early mid season and then ???
I don't get it.
Well, it used to be terrible starts to the season followed by great finishes, only to fall short. Now its better starts, either way, the Leafs can't seem to play a full season.
Not if they continue playing the way they have lately. The past 2 weeks I've seen a team that is incredibly generous with giveaways, can't clear the puck out of its own zone, questionable goaltending, bad defensive coverage, it's like Ron Wilson's back behind the bench. 
2 times this week coming back from a 3 goal deficit to force SO after playing terrible for 40 minutes.
