LFR19 – Game 26 – Gabagool – Maple Leafs 4, Panthers 1

LFR19 – Game 26 – Gabagool – Maple Leafs 4, Panthers 1

Unreal win. Fabulous win. All right, now wins game nine. Let’s go. It starts with an A and ends with anxiety. Off the shelter with you wherever you are. Welcome to Lf. Victory puppies. If you missed it last time, for every Leaf’s win, we upped it. It’s going to be 50 bucks for the ow Felix. It’s going to be 50 bucks for the Humane Society of Durham Region, man. Leafs win 41 over the Florida Panthers, fully planting their flag and establishing themselves as a contender in the NHL. Yeah, no, I know. Just quiet your face. You can only win the games in front of you. That was a big one. And they’ve won the last two games in front of them by a combined score of 9-2. Might I Wait. Nope, that’s wrong. 9 to3. Listen, we can’t do the playoff updater every video for the rest of the season on account of it’s the beginning of December, but at the time I am shooting this, the Leafs, no longer in last place in the East, are three points out of a playoff spot. They’re also two points out of last place in the East, which is currently occupied by Florida, by the way. Do you expect that to continue? No, you probably don’t. Two of the teams three points ahead of the Leafs have played two more games. Like buddy, I’m telling you, the usual rules do not apply this season. Oh, you got to be in the playoffs by this date or that date. Have the Leafs been good up to this point in the season? No. And they’re still right there. And if the last two games are an indicator of how they’re going to play the rest of the way, that’s good news. Speaking of good news, before we talk about the game, I want to talk about some bad news. Uh Brandon Carlo is gonna be out for a while. What’s wrong with him? I don’t know. No one knows. On November 15th, Elliot Freeman tweeted, “Carlo out for Toronto daytoday lower body.” Two days later, Leaf’s PR tweets, “Maple leaves D. Brandon Carlo has been placed on injured reserve retroactive to November 13th, 2025.” And they did that to call up Jacob Quillin. But like when you’re on injured reserve, like not even long-term injured reserve, just injured reserve. You got to be there for a certain amount of time. And that certain amount of time is not exactly daytoday. And today, Craig Barube said that Brandon Carlo will miss extended time. He has to get something done. It didn’t go the way we thought. Does that mean Brandon Carlo will need surgery? Probably, says Craig Barup. The surgery could be a wisdom tooth removal for all we know. We know nothing. Like, we’ve talked about this on the show. Carlo had a horrible start to the season, but like last year when the Leaves got him, he looked pretty good. Then he’s dayto-day. Then he’s injured reserve. Then he’s getting surgery on I guess his wisdom teeth. I don’t know, Steve. It couldn’t be his wisdom teeth because the Leafs said it was lower body. Ah, Elliot Freriedman said it was lower body. The Leafs haven’t said anything. Like, listen, I don’t expect to know everyone’s injury all the time. Medical privacy and all that. I I understand, but like give us a timeline. Give us something. Surgery surgery like you could be out a couple weeks. There’s procedures where you’re only out a couple weeks. He might be done for the season. Everything is open to interpretation and everyone’s imaginations run wild. And I think the Leafs are doing this to keep a lid on things. And I think it’s having the opposite effect. It just makes the Leafs seem shifty and incompetent and gives them no credibility with the fans whatsoever, which was a relationship I thought they were trying to repair. I just don’t understand why you got to act like everything is an episode of The Sopranos. Chrisa, what do we do about the media thing? All these guys are wearing wires. It’s called being vague, D. A guy gets injured, whatever happened there, you just say it’s lower body. It could be his feet, could be his knees, could be his piece of deal, could be anything. And the best part is, D, you’re not even lying. Chris, whatever you do, this thing of ours, you keep it quiet, okay? You tell him he’s on vacation. He’s out getting you down. Gaboo, I don’t care. But if this goes wrong, you understand, Christopher. Oh. Anyway, I hope he’s okay. I hope he’s back soon. Have some Gaba goooo. Let’s talk about this game today in stats that don’t sound real, but they probably are because it’s the Leafs. They have scored on their first shot of the game for the third straight game. And it’s the third line again. Kind of. The third line was on the ice. It was actually Troy Ster who on NHL.com doesn’t have a picture despite the fact that he’s been in the league for over 500 games. How dare you? The puck definitely deflects off something. I thought it was off Nicholas Wah. I don’t care what it was off of. It went to the back of the net. But how did it go to the back of the net? Well, Bobby McMahon with the puck down low finds Troy Stetcher at the point. Simple enough. Not exactly the greatest setup from the Panthers in front, but part of the reason they’re all out of sorts is Dakota Joshua and Nick Wah are in there in front of the net causing havoc. By the time the Panthers scramble out of the havoc, it’s too late. And I wouldn’t say Babski is screened here, but it changes direction too fast. He can’t keep up with it. No goalie can. I’ve watched this replay a bunch of times during the making of this video. I still think this is going to end up being Nick Wah’s goal. I don’t know. I don’t care. One- nothing because of the third line again. And they weren’t done. Puck heading into the Panthers zone. There’s a defenseman skating backwards. There’s a forward skating forwards. And it’s Dakota Joshua. There’s a 50/50 puck off a play that, by the way, began with a Dzone draw in the Leaf zone. Troy Stetcher just airmails it out. That results in a 50/50 puck. What happens with the 50/50 p? Well, Dakota Joshua just messes with it a little bit. He doesn’t come out with possession, but his teammate does. There’s Bobby McMahon. McMahon finds open space. Joshua doesn’t quit on the play. He gets the puck right in front of Bob. Whoop whoop. It always when I’m doing an impression of a left-handed shooter, it’s it’s very odd to me. Whoop. I mean, shooting right, I suppose, isn’t much better for me, but it’s it’s better. And all three of Ster, McMahon, and Joshua pick up their second point of the game in less than eight minutes. Gosh, this looks so much more like what I thought the Leafs would be. Like the Leafs depth was all over this game. We’re not even done talking about it. But what did I say recently? You move off of Marner, you don’t have as much star power, obviously, but like you’ve had all this star power for so many years and you’ve only been able to get so far with it, right? like you’ve had some good regular seasons, some really good regular seasons, but in the playoffs, well, you know, you end up faltering against the Panthers, who during last year’s playoffs were the deepest team I’ve ever seen. So, you replace the star power with better depth than you’ve had in years. At least that’s the theory. Where it really falls apart is if the depth sucks. And this season, the depth has not pulled its weight. There’s also been a billion injuries, which hasn’t helped. But like, look at the Panthers. No, wait. They’re last in the East. Well, look at a bunch of other teams in the league who have had to contend with this. It’s not great and it’s not fun. But if you put together a third line that is capable of taking over shifts, taking over periods, and taking over games, that gives you a really good chance of winning. And you can have nights like tonight where the first line I thought actually looked pretty good. The puck just wasn’t going in. And the second line, which has been carrying the team all year, doesn’t have to do everything. Now, I don’t expect the third line and the fourth line to score every single night, but they got to be a threat. Even late in this game, there were shifts where the third line just needed to keep the puck deep. That was all they had to do. You didn’t even have to get a shot off. I don’t care. And they did. If if the way they’ve played this season, it’s an if. But if this third line can keep playing this way, the Leafs might have a shot at the playoffs yet. They take a two nothing lead into first intermission. There was there was a great play where Wool made a save and McCabe cleared it off the line, but other than that, the Panthers didn’t look all that dangerous. And deep into the second period, you still have a two nothing lead. Oh, and you get a power play. That might be the worst thing I’ve ever seen. I could describe exactly what happened to you. Or I could just say, you ever seen that old footage of like an old Japanese game show where everyone’s in like a bodysuit and they got to go up this ramp? It’s like a smooth ramp and it’s covered in like dish soap. Yeah, it looked like that except the Leafs were the only ones covered in dish soap. Sam Reinhardt looked like he felt bad. The Leafs power play has not been good this season. It wasn’t good to start last season, but it eventually picked up and it looked like it was picking up and it very hasn’t picked up. Five forwards. No, not everyone loved the five forward setup last year, but it worked on a lot of nights. It worked. The Leech power play numbers were pretty good. and Mitch Mner in the role that he was playing in back there as the guy running point. That kind of worked, but I think it’s very rare to have the guys to do that. I mean, dude, what was the unit? It was N. I’m pretty sure Matthews, Nelander, Tvaris, Mner, that’s nuts. But you take one guy out of there and it’s significantly less nuts. In fact, it’s nuts to try it. I don’t want Austin Matthews at the point. What? Stamco’s in his prime. Posternnak, Cutrov, Ovetchkin. Dude, those guys play the point on the power play. What is that? Anyway, it was a mess and bad and Florida’s now within one because of a dumb shorty. But luckily, it was just the one dumb shorty and the Leafs head into the third with a 2-1 lead. But, you know, squeaky butt time. Um, you’re in Florida and only up one in a must-win. Oh no. Now early in the third, the Panthers also have a chance to tie it because Panthers fans, they were complaining. You could hear they were complaining because the Panthers didn’t have a power play. Man, imagine playing a team and that team commits infractions against your favorite players and those infractions aren’t called. That would drive you nuts, right? That would you’d probably be very frustrated about that, I imagine. Not referring to anything in particular. Anyway, the Panthers get their power play because of two reasons. The NHL’s officiating crew in this game was Wes McCaulay and Gourd Dwire. They’re basically the most experienced officiating crew you can have in a game. They were looking to give the Leafs one. They absolutely were looking to give the Leafs one because the Leafs have gotten a power play in this game and the Panthers hadn’t. Second reason is Mackey’s Samuskevich is an enormous disgraceful diver. Everyone’s got to have their thing. Everyone’s got to have their little signature. Sort of like how Sam Bennett skates right at you like a torpedo and then punches you at full speed and has never called for it. He’s done it at least three times. Well, Mackie Samuskevich sort of likes to get in behind you and like grab you and fall down. How do I know that? This is the Leaf’s first game against the Panthers this season. Well, because he did it twice in this game. Here’s him doing it to Troy Stcher in the first period. Shout out to Tic Tac Tomar for finding that you’re a disgrace. When it comes to diving in the NHL, you first get a warning and that’s not made public, but the second infraction is a $2,000 fine. If that’s not called a dive, like retroactively that the NHL is not doing its job. That was disgraceful. Not to mention, he did it more than once. Luckily, the Leafs kill it. Puck didn’t lie this evening. And what do the Leafs do? They go to the net. Steven Lorent working hard down low. He want a cup. He want to come in this building. Was it in that building specifically? Doesn’t matter. He throws it in front of the net where Scott Lton is there ready to battle. And he does battle and he’s working and yeah, puck hits a skate. Who cares? He created his own luck. Nifty little move. Buries it. Big Sally because he knows how big that goal is. Rodriguez takes a penalty late because you can’t do that. And the Panthers were running around everywhere. And the Leafs very wisely were just like, uh, we’re not only putting one defenseman back there, we’re putting two. They barely tried to score. They basically just tried to keep the puck as far away from Joseph as they could, which ended up being good. The Panthers eventually pulled Sergey Babroski, who was spectacular, like robbing Nick Wah. The Bobby McMahon breakaway. He didn’t even move, but he can’t stop him when he’s not in the net. John Dvar burries the empty netter with only seconds remaining. And the Leafs get a very very valuable two points questions. How much do you love Tony Stretcher aka Troy Stretcher? I love him a lot. Like I when he was in the Stanley Cup final I it was either it’s difficult because the two Stanley Cup finals blend together. There were moments where he did not look good at all and it was like the Oilers got to get this guy out of the lineup. But that was then. This is now. Also, there’s a fairly big difference between the hockey that’s being played right now in December and uh toward the end of the Stanley Cup final, but he’s currently in the top six uh top four actually. Getting Tanov back will help, but it doesn’t sound like he’s particularly close. Listen, the Leafs needed mobility back there, something fierce, and he brings that. Does he have the size to move, guys? Eh, not really. but he works really hard and it’s not like anyone who was in the decor earlier the season was moving guys anyway. Is Stcher the best waiver pickup in recent memory? That depends what recent memory is for you because I think Troy Stetcher is the Leaf’s best waiverwire pickup since I’m going to throw a name out there and it’s going to punch you right in the face. Curtis Malaney. Yeah. Yeah. He was a waiver claim. He was awesome as a Leaf. Think about it. I cannot think of a better one. That guy was the Leafs backup and an extremely good one at that for a year and a half. Held the fort in the game that got them into the playoffs in 2017. The Leafs in recent memory haven’t been a team that gets guys off waiverss. They’re the team who loses everyone on waiverss. So, it’s still early days. He hasn’t been here that long. But yeah, Troy Steter, best waiver claim for the Leafs since Curtis Molaney. Seriously. My friends, 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. Gobble go.

Steve Dangle recaps and analyzes Game 26 of the Toronto Maple Leafs season against the Florida Panthers

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