LFR19 – Game 7 – Soft – Devils 5, Maple Leafs 2

LFR19 – Game 7 – Soft – Devils 5, Maple Leafs 2

Hey, remember when the Jays punched their ticket to the World Series? Yeah, of course I do. That was like a week ago. That was last night. Oh my god, the Leafs are unwatchable. Let’s go. It starts with an A and ends with anxiety. Off the charts levels of passion. That’s just a with you wherever you are. Welcome to Lf. Leafs lose 5 to2 to the New Jersey Devils. What kind of video is it going to be? I don’t know. Let’s wait and see. But first, let me tell you about NHL Fantasy Stars. It’s an app. It’s a great app. It’s a fun app that you can get on the Apple Store and on Google Play. And that team is far less likely to let you down. And if they do, it’s your fault. So, you’re not putting your happiness into something you have no say in. I said like in Dragon Ball Z like I I meant say on or say in. You can rip open packs and make your own team. Gold packs, silver packs, base packs, and you can even hope for an allstar card. They’re hard to find, but they’re fun when you do. And on top of getting the best players, you can also train them so you get more points for their stats. I trained up a whole bunch of my guys today. They’re already gold trained. You can get them platinum trained as well. Philip Forsber, Wyatt Johnson, I was really happy to pick that one. Nico, he sure I didn’t have him in my lineup tonight. Once again, look for that purple app there in the Apple Store or on Google Play. That’s NHL Fantasy Stars. It’s a lot of fun. You can play against me and try to beat me, but I doubt it. Want to see something crazy? I’m actually leading my division by one point right now. And the guy in second is called LFR Subscribe YouTube. That’s that it can’t be a coincidence, right? NHL Fantasy Stars Apple Store and on Google Play. Now for the Leafs. Oh no. Uh oh. Oh. After the Blue Jays punch their ticket to the World Series, I was so happy because all I have is my imagination. But the imagination is based in fact. The LA Dodgers are favored in that series, but the Blue Jays are the Blue Jays. and it was really hard to get to the World Series and they punched their ticket and it was in a really rare fashion. They were down 02. They were down 32. They were down 3-1 in the seventh inning and then bang. If you want more on all that, by the way, Jesse Blake on the STP YouTube channel was streaming live the whole time. We cut clips from it, the Springer dinger and also the whole ninth inning and Hoffman actually closing the deal. Tears pouring down his face. That’s the best of Toronto sports right now. And it might be distracting from what I think is an early season storm with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Okay. Okay. I I know. I know. Steve, you’re overreacting. No, no, no, no, no. Um last video was overreacting where I completely lost my mind and screamed at the top of my lungs. You react that way when you’re disappointed. You react that way when your your disappointment grows into outrage because I look at this team and I thought they were capable of much better. And I tell you what, they’re capable of much meaner. Like I’ve been exchanging some social media stuff with people and they’re going, “Marnner, Marner. Oh, they could have used Mner, Mner, Marner.” Okay, we’ve known for months now they weren’t going to have Mner and obviously it was going to have an effect. He was fifth in scoring last year. played in the power play, played in the penalty. Wow. Played on the power play, played on the penalty kill. That’s an important player, but you go out and you get other players and you change the style of the team because you have to. You went out and got Brandon Carlo last season, you still have him. You went out and got Scott Lton last season, you still have him even though he’s injured. You want to get bigger and meaner? Here’s Dakota Joshua. Here’s Nick Wah. Bobby McMahon is playing bigger and meaner. You go out and you get a little skill as well. Matias Machelli is capable of great things. William Knander is one of the top scorers in the NHL right now by points. And Eastston Cowan, he he had a little cup of coffee and it’s it he might get back into the lineup next game. Honestly, after the way they performed tonight, he probably should. To me, the Leafs problems run so much deeper than they don’t have Mitch Mner. They’re not playing the way that we were told they were going to play at all. This isn’t a heavy forchecking team. This isn’t a heavy grinding team. This isn’t a heavyhitting team. This isn’t a tough team, a fighting team. This isn’t even a team that will stick up for each other. I yelled and screamed my face off last video just from what I saw the Seattle Kraken due to Anthony Stolars and Brandon Carlo and the rest of the Leafs did nothing about it. They had opportunities after that little skirmish to do something about it and they still chose to do nothing about it. I shot my video before I saw Stallers call out the Leafs himself. And then on Monday, he had an opportunity to walk those comments back. Walk the comments back where he called out the team’s defense, where he called out William Knander, and he didn’t do it. It was a breath of fresh air. It was a moment from which you could build. And oh my goodness, coming into town, the New Jersey Devils. That is a really good team. But you’re in your barn. You’re on two days rest. All those things are good news. And you won the division last year. And yeah, you look a little different, but you know what? That’s probably the best the Metro has to offer. Or second, it’s them or Carolina, right? Could be Washington. Could be Washington. They’re in there. They’re going to make the playoffs. They’re going to be a top three team in the Metro. You’re the Leafs. Are you going to win the division again? I don’t know. I don’t know. May maybe not. like based on what you saw at the beginning of the season, what you expected at the beginning of the season. Maybe not top three though. They ought to be. And it started okay. John Tvaris scored a goal where you score goals. This line was excellent tonight. The whole night. And it’s probably the only thing you could say about the Leafs that was consistently good. The second line was the only line that showed up tonight. I liked Bobby McMahon individually. Nick Robertson individually was fine. Matthew Ny individually was okay to fine. Oliver Ecman Larson was fine. Austin Matthews that might have been the worst game of his career. Like I’m not kidding. It regular season that might have been the worst regular season game of his career. And you might be like, well no, I’m sure you could point to games where he had giveaways or something along those lines. No, no, no. I’m not talking about necessarily um like dang it or bad giveaways or very obviously negative things. You’re Austin Matthews. You’re one of the most gifted offensive players in the world. You’re the best goal scorer in the world. Or at least that’s your brand. That’s what you’re supposed to be. He was useless tonight. He couldn’t generate a thing. He had that one between the leggy weird little move. And he didn’t score on that by the way. I don’t know if you noticed that. Outside of that, he didn’t generate a thing. And again, we come back to the narrative. Martner Mar and obviously Max Doi is not Mitch Martner, but Matthew Ny has looked great so far this season. And he’s played with Austin the whole time. Five on five power play. Even on the penalty kill, he’s playing with Austin 99% of the time. Why does he look fine? Austin has four goals. It doesn’t matter to you the two of them are in an empty net. know they all count but you keep track of those things especially on nights where he can’t do anything and you can be like all the fans are turning the media’s turning here’s Craig Baruv on the long process of trying to get the Matthews line rolling it’s obviously not good enough I don’t feel like they have sustained pressure in the offensive zone I’m getting tired of it to be honest with you it’s getting late early for the coach don’t worry about what I’m saying is mad now again what happened last game the the Leafs are up one- nothing right now that’s good That’s good. That’s such a good start. It’s crazy that the Leafs had a lead in this game knowing the way it ended. Jack Hughes has the puck, hands it off, leaves the zone, and by the time he returns to the zone, it’s like the Leafs had forgotten he existed. This is way too much time and space for Jack Hughes there, Max. Uh, listen, I’m not expecting him to score from here, even though he’s Jack Hughes. But look at the front of the net after all that. After Stallers, not just talking about not getting stuck up for when he’s getting crashed into, after being like, “The other goalie had an easy time and I didn’t.” Andre Pot is deep enough in the blue paint that it’s going to have to be on a stick. Now it’s Andre Pot. I know a lot of Devils fans are come see come saw on Andre Pot, but that’s why he was such a prolific playoff scorer on the Tampa Bay Lightning. He gets to areas like this. He’s an underrated player who’s been injured a lot, but it’s in his bag. And the Leafs who uh listen, if we’re looking for identity, they challenge well. They know when to challenge. I don’t know why they challenge this. Like again, Palot is very deep in the blue paint. Yeah, he’s not touching Stallars and Stalars isn’t fighting for the blue paint. Like, okay, Palot’s there, so I can’t get to it. You didn’t try. If it’s goalender interference, where’s the goalie? If your goalender interference, interfere with the goalie. And as far as I can tell, Andre Pal was just existing and that’s why it was allowed. So now the Leafs have a penalty to kill. And there’s a guy who was a big part of the penalty kill last year and he’s not there anymore. Stop me if you heard this before. That’s right. Lane Lambert. Lane Lambert was the assistant coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs last year and now he’s the head coach of the Seattle Kraken who just came to town. Remember that? That was fun. Hey, you want to see a screen grab or no one looks good? I have never seen a goalie that big cover so little of the net. And also, oh my god, everyone just go to the net with the Leafs. It’s so bad. Now it’s 2-1 Devils. You went from leading to tied to now you’re down in very short order. And then you want to see something you never see. This is a 4on one. How Brendan Dylan scores joining the lineup of defensemen who haven’t scored in forever. who are scoring on the Leafs 3-1 Devils. Now, just when I was starting to get down on them, who shows up the second line? How do you do Matias Michelli with the easiest goal you’ve ever scored? William Knander, to his credit, was called out last game and he was one of the few Leafs who had a good game. Like, he looked like he was engaged. He looked like he was trying much harder. He was working very hard, which was part of the problem. And that hard work led to this goal. Leafs are right back in it. 351 left in the second period. We got a chance to tie it. It’s the new look. First line. Here we go. This is 5 seconds later. Jack Hughes breakaway slapshot. I You didn’t even see those on TV growing up there, Jack. Oh, a a forward taking a slap shot on the rush. What? Maybe Oie. Maybe Oie. It’s 42 and the air just gets sucked out of the building. And then what do you see for the rest of the game? The Dallas run the Leafs show. The Leafs didn’t get any shots in the third. They didn’t get any scoring chances. The ones they did get were kind of fluky. Max Doy comes in and he knocks Jake Allen stick out of his hand. Puck ends up in front and Nick Robertson whiffs on the thing. He was one of the only Leafs to look even sort of kind of good in the third. Dude, you want to know how out of ideas they are? They had him on the first line. So, okay, what do we got? We’ve had Yarn Croak up there. We’ve had Machelli up there. We’ve had Doy up there. We’ve had Robertson up there. We’ve had Cowan up there. And several of those players are not guaranteed to uh go through the entire season without being a healthy scratch. Benois fought at the end of the game. That was it. How’d he do? It doesn’t matter how he did. I would rather him win. He did okay. Didn’t get the last lap, but whatever. He showed that he gave a gosh darn. And at the end of the day, you’re nothing. The team is nothing right now. They’re not an offense first team. They’re definitely not a defense first team. They’re not a crease crashing team at either end of the ice. They they don’t clear their own crease. They don’t crash your crease. Not with nearly enough consistency to win games. They’re not tough. They’re not angry. They’re not mean. They don’t fight. They don’t nothing. They’re a goalie and several other men. That’s basically it. And the biggest disappointment in this game for me besides the lack of anything after what Anthony Stallar said, well, Chris Tanov getting injured. I didn’t like that very much. And obviously that’s going to hurt you, but it’s not an excuse because they were awful before he even got injured. The biggest disappointment, Austin Matthews. Bro, we’re getting a clinic in what a superstar is with Vladimir Guerrero Jr., there wasn’t a single doubt in this player from the moment he hit his first home run in the Yankee series in game one. There wasn’t a doubt in this player. The first doubt crept in yesterday when he walked into the Sky Dome wearing your jersey, an outdated version of your jersey. It was an easy joke for everyone to make. And what did he do? He showed up big in a big game in the city in game seven. Imagine that. And now he’s playing for a championship. You want a pennant? They’re American League champions. Woo! Baseball’s different than hockey. Now they’re playing in the World Series. And you show up to the arena today. Everyone showed up to the arena today in Blue Jay stuff. I thought that was great. But you show up wearing the Vlatty jersey. You’re going to repay the favor and you were one of the most futile players on the entire ice. Again, it wasn’t so much what you did like, you know, no big giveaways. No, you didn’t shoot the puck into your own net. I don’t even know. It was what you didn’t do, which was generate anything. N again looks fine. Looks totally fine. What’s up with you? What on earth is going on with you? William Knander didn’t have the greatest night Saturday night and he was called out for it and he answered back with a useful game. He’s factored into like half of the Leafs goals this season and he got another two assists tonight. But Austin was so useless in this game it like negated every improvement kner made. Like you’re going to hear a lot about the Leafs and most of it is going to be negative. Again, all compliment who I think is doing well. Stallers, he didn’t have his best game in this one, but he made some huge saves. Stallers has been incredible so far this season. John Tvaris looks legitimately great. William Knander has for the most part been pretty good and the numbers prove that. Matias Machelli is getting better and better. Matthew Ny, look at the numbers he’s put up. That’s a useful player and he’s playing in all situations. Max Doi. I I mean, how did I skip ahead to Maxi? He makes $3.75 million. Morgan Riley has been mostly good. Mostly good. Mostly. Oel is performing way above his head for what’s expected of him at this point in his career. Simone Benois is picking up his socks and he was the only player with any snarl in this game. Dakota Joshua is still finding a spot. I still want more out of him. Drew a penalty late that gave the Leafs a chance to get back in it. Like Nick Robertson, he’s feisty. He’s usually generating at least one or two chances a game. I’m not here to just be like the team sucks right now, which means all the players suck. I don’t think that’s true. I think they’re disjointed and woefully meek as little lambs, which I’ll get to in a second. For the most part, they look fine. Hate what’s going on with the bottom six. Hate what they’re doing at the front of the net. Hate the way the highest paid player on this team and one of the highest paid players in this league is playing. He looked awful tonight. I think I think that was one of his worst games as a Leaf. I really do. If he plays like that every night, they’re dead. They’re dead. If he plays a little better than that, they’re dead. The playoffs, no shot. Jack Hughes had a hat-tick. What did you have? Listen, the 2013 Leafs were bad. Like, they were bad, but people kind of like them. And it shouldn’t be lost on us that a huge reason for why people kind of like them was they beat people up. I’m going to get to questions now because I was going to say this, but but someone beat me to it. What’s different from 2019 in 2020 to now? The goalie. The rest is just as soft and purposeless. Not sure the answer is in the room at this point. This right here from Luke with your team. You’re always going to compare them to other teams, but usually different versions of the team that you cheer for. Right now, seven games in, the Leafs most closely resembled the 2019 2020 Leafs, which weren’t anything. They sucked. That team was awful. They were so so mid. Barely made the playoffs. Arguably didn’t make the playoffs because they had to go to the qualifying round. and they’re building with ice advantage literally and lost. Were they a high octane offensive team? No. Were they a great defensive team? No. No. No. No. No. No. No. Were they a physical team? No. They were identity identityless and awful under Babcock. Babcock got fired. Sheldon Keefe came in, they were magical for a month, month and a half, and then they reverted back to a different version of the identityless team from the beginning of the season. I don’t know. I don’t understand how you have Saturday night’s performance and two days rest and follow it up with this game. Again, I I keep saying like you could lose Saturday night’s game. It was a close game. You can lose this game. The Devils are a good team. I said it from the moment they hired Sheldon Keefe. I’m like, you know what? I think he’s that team and Sheldon Keef are a match made in heaven. And he’s got a better decor there than he ever had in Toronto. If he gets a few saves, they’re going to be unreal. Look at him. You can lose to the New Jersey Devils. You can lose to some of the better teams in this league. You can’t go down without swinging. Of all the things I expected to be, I of all the things I expected the Leafs to be this season, I never would have anticipated them being this soft. They’re a soft, weak, scared team, and they’re going to lose a lot of games if that continues. Is it an issue for Matthews to produce offense we need uh to put Willie on his line? He’s factored in on 60% of our goals. He’s our only source of offense right now being on pace for 140 points without scoring on a goalie. Okay. So, what they’re doing is they’re taking Knander, who is producing fine, uh, off of his line that is producing fine, and they’re putting him with Austin to make Austin click. And what is actually happening is they’re ruining the second line, and nothing improves with the first line. If Austin doesn’t pick up his socks. Sorry. Sorry. Like you’re the you’re the captain for goodness sake. Not a question, but a reminder the Leafs increased their ticket prices before icing this roster. Oh, buddy. With the Blue Jays performing the way they are, let me let me tell you something. The Leaf’s next two games, besides the fact that these two games are on the same night as the World Series, the Leafs next two games are this Friday and this Saturday, they are backto back games against the Buffalo Sabres. You just had a home stand, a fivegame home stand. You did not win more games than you lost on this fivegame home stand. If you stink against the Buffalo Sabres backto back, it’ll be nine games in and I think it’s both feet on the panic button. What do you think? What What is wrong and how do they fix it? Leave a comment in the comment box down below. But for now, that is it for this one. Thank you very much for watching. Click like if you like this video. Click subscribe if you really liked it. Tell your friends. Please donate to my Easter Seals team. It’s a charity that helps out kids with physical disabilities. If you donate to anybody on my team that is Rachel’s Raiders, we need you. If you donate to anybody on my team, you are automatically entered for two tickets to see the Leafs against the Ottawa Senators on December 27th. It would make a great Christmas present. And remember, they increased ticket prices this season. So,

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Steve Dangle recaps and analyzes Game 7 of the Toronto Maple Leafs season against the New Jersey Devils

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