3416

[3416]

dream brother, my killer, my lover

[3416]

a girl came up to me in my 50 person office yesterday and said she noticed i've worn all sorts of hockey merch to work but none for the right team and then proceeded to tell me how much she loves kreider and specifically kreider and zibanejab and how it's been awful this summer and i could not actually believe my ears. another victim of the summer of hockey divorce in my vicinity this whole time...... when i struggle to find people who even care about hockey in the first place usually....... wow WOW

[3416]

I loooveee the little little things that this game is made up of it's too concept

could you talk about his point streak in 22 a little and maybe breakdown what exactly went wrong with their playoffs exits in the past decade

bc on paper you'd think they're stacked but even I know that you need like depth and a good d core and goaltending pair and stuff but your analysis would be cool!

oh boy. this might end up extremely long again so apologies ahead of time

mitch just kind of had an insane run from the end of october to mid december 2022 where he scored in every game for 23 consecutive games. he's listed as 20th for longest season point streak in history and 12th by unique player. of all the streaks in the top 20, he is one of only three active players (the other two being patrick kane and sidney crosby) and is the most recent 20+ point streak in the league and the only one from this decade. he demolished the leafs' previous franchise record by five games, a record that, before him, had been held since darryl sittler (1977-78) and ed olczyk (1989-90).

regarding franchise records in general, at the end of last season, mitch was the active leader in points (and would have probably easily broken the all time record in another three years), assists (on track for all time leader in another two years), shorthanded goals, and shorthanded points, and still is the all time leader in assists by a rookie, empty net goals, and points in consecutive home games, concurrent with his overall point streak and ended up snapping in less games (20) but after a longer amount of time (end of january 2023). he's also tied with charlie conacher from 1932 for the franchise record for fastest goal to start a game with seven seconds. basically, he's left his mark on the leafs whether the fans like it or not lol

as for why the leafs just couldn't get it done in the playoffs for a decade now, the realistic answer is it's complicated. depth was a problem and defense was almost always lacking, yes, but goaltending was actually a fairly recent issue in comparison. it's hard to pinpoint exactly where the problem started because there were some signs going even way back. so.... an overview.

at the end of the 2015-16 season, the leafs were dead last in the league by a decent number of points. after the full time debuts of auston, mitch, willy, zach hyman, and connor brown in the 2016-17 season, the team completely turned it around to make a meteoric rise to clinch their first playoff birth since 2013. they were outplayed by the capitals in a six game series, but really they exceeded expectations. the caps were by far the favorites as the first seed and presidents' trophy winner that year, and the leafs were the lowest seed wild card in the east who only clinched a playoff spot in their second to last game of the season. despite that, every single game in the series was a one goal game, with five out of six games going to overtime and game 2 going to double overtime. so for the most part things were looking up and the fanbase was positive about the future (think this past year with the habs).

in the 2017-18 season they lost in seven to the higher seeded bruins where they were again the underdog after recovering from a 3-1 series deficit.

in the 2018-19 season they lost in seven again to the higher seeded bruins. after three years with no playoff round win, I think this is where leafs fans' uneasiness started to surface a little, but for the most part it wasn't that bad yet especially since most of the outcome for this series loss was put on bad officiating and nazem kadri's suspension.

the 2019-20 season is probably when we can pinpoint when things changed. this was the year babcock got fired and the subsequent list story came out, and it was also the year mitch landed his controversial contract extension (less than a year removed from dubas's first year as head gm, signing jt in free agency, willy and his own extremely publicized contract dispute, his sitting out of half the season, and dubas having to fly to sweden to get him to resign a few scant minutes before willy would become ineligible to play in the nhl for the rest of the season, so we can maybe attribute dubas caving too much to what mitch's agent proposed partly to this, alongside other factors and pressures). then covid hit and the bubble happened. this was the first time in this era where the leafs would be going into a playoff (or play-in, in this case) series as the favorites. this is also where they started losing a lot of their depth, because they had just tied up almost half of their entire cap in four players banking on it increasing in future years, and then of course the cap froze. so they proceed to lose in the full five games in which they never once had a lead in the series, where three of the five games were shutouts.

the 2020-21 year gets a little weird with the shortened season and a new all canadian team north division, but the leafs won that, so they went into the series against the montreal as the clear favorites. jt got injured in the first game, but his absence for the rest of the series can't really be blamed for what happened next, because although the leafs lost that first game in a close 2-1 battle, they actually won the next three straight and then somehow blew a 3-1 series lead again to a wild card team and lost. in the previous year, mitch began to get a lot more criticism with his new deal and lack of playoff production, but it really amped up this year and this was probably when he first started getting the brunt of the blame of their failings, a lot of it due to an admittedly really stupid play he made in game 6 that resulted in the habs receiving a two man advantage, which they later scored on less than a minute later. it pretty much cost them the game (and arguably the series). this was also the year fans found mitch's address after they lost and were throwing habs gear on his lawn, and probably when a lot of people finally realized how ugly the fanbase could get.

throughout all this, the entire team severely lacked forward and defense depth, but in the 2021-22 season, the leafs lost their starting goaltender in free agency. luckily, their backup goaltender stepped up. they went into the playoffs against the lightning once again as the favorites and higher seed, and once again fell in a full series. in fact, they would actually go into the third period of game 6 with a 3-2 series lead and a 3-2 lead on the scoreboard, and proceed to blow it again.

the 2022-23 season was when goaltending started to look like a possible problem, because it's when they lost their backup turned new starter in free agency again and had to resort to ilya samsonov, who did alright initially, but was a clear step down from freddie andersen and jack campbell. they won their first playoff series that year in a rematch against the (this time better team on paper) lightning in six games. mitch silenced a lot of the critics with 11 points in six games, but the team still fell short in the second round against the panthers, who had superior depth and goaltending.

2023-24, dubas was fired and replaced with treliving, mitch's no move clause kicked in, the leafs were not the favorites to win the playoff series rematch against boston, and with subpar goaltending compared to past years, willy missing the first half of the series, auston missing most of the latter half, and mitch rushing back from a still not fully healed high ankle sprain, it's not really a surprise they lost this series, although they almost clawed their way back from another 3-1 deficit. joseph woll was a big part of the comeback and was a bright spot in this run until getting injured in the dying seconds of game 6 trying to make an honestly needless save, which subsequently made him unavailable for the game 7 that they lost. in that game, mitch was blamed for a flyby on pastrnak, who ended up scoring the game and series winning goal for the bruins, a play that ended up getting him so much hate multiple people (even florida's own head coach) spoke out afterwards about how he was getting unfairly scapegoated, both in general and for this loss specifically. you can also look to auston's "in my time here, I've learned that there's always a scapegoat, there's always a narrative" and keefe's "there are things that mitch marner does that don’t show up on our scoresheet but are really important to our team … my job as a coach is to help the entire team … I failed to do so, and I will take responsibility for that" quotes after that series loss that I never ended up posting for one reason or another.

come the 2024-25 season, they've fixed their goaltending and added decently to their blue line throughout the year, but you know what happens in the playoffs. their forward depth was still middle of the pack and it was one of their greatest weaknesses in the series against florida (the panthers' third line outscored the leafs' third line something crazy like 10-2, but I can't find the actual stat right now).

the leafs' overarching issue in the playoffs was and has always been lack of scoring, but it isn't as simple as players just needing to step up. one specific problem that was especially prevalent in the 2024 boston series was that they didn't really have decent puck moving defensemen. morgan rielly was supposed to be that and some of his peaks were great but he couldn't do everything alone, so a lot of times all but one of the leafs defensemen were abysmal at moving in transition or to the forecheck, so mitch would help out by doing it himself from the defensive zone and passing and moving up to the offensive zone to be part of the main attack force. but the leafs' forward depth was also lacking as well, so by the time he got to the offensive zone his teammates that couldn't hold their own would be getting pressured by the other team and send him desperate passes in bad areas that he'd never get any chance to set anything up properly.

in this 2025 florida series stat card I found, his xG control was abysmal largely due to his lack of xG and chances, but he led the team in defensive zone touches and was second in exits. I saw one person on social media refer to this as something along the lines of "their problem was essentially that mitch marner couldn't pass to himself" and honestly that about sums it up lol

mitch is also a very defensively sound player, and I think in the playoffs he has a habit of prioritizing not getting scored on more than trying to score himself and does it at a much more extreme rate than in the regular season. his scoring chances go way down but he retains and can even elevate his level of defensive play.

it's why he's the forward with the lowest 5v5 goals against per 60 in the playoffs out of the entire league from 2021 until now, and by a decent margin.

all in all, there are multiple factors and different degrees of issues every year as to why the leafs as a whole consistently fail to get it done, but for mitch specifically really a lot of his lack of production can be very easily improved upon if he just gets teammates who can defend and finish. their defense in their 2025 run was much better than in previous years and it showed especially in the ottawa series, but they just got outplayed by florida especially after game 3-4 when maurice switched the panthers' top two left wingers, changed out the entire fourth line, and line matched barkov away from 162334 because no other line could shut them down, which is when the problem began cropping up again.

honestly I'm scared to find out how long this post is. in any case I hope you enjoy the in depth explanations! let me know if you have any more questions :)

[3416]

the patient needs her lame ass interests to live..

[3416]

[3416]

top this bottom that we should all be focusing on what’s really important. #DRYHUMPING

[3416]

[3416]

oh ew is that really what i sowed? eww omigod i am NOT reaping that

[3416]

INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE | SEASON 1

[3416]

auston was asked about taking inspiration from mitch to participate in the hockey night in brampton event this year

"auston, mitch played in this last year. did you talk to him about what this would be like for you, and why you'd want to take part in this this year?"

"yeah, him, max, jt, you know, a lot of guys have kind of came through and played in this, and. you know, I think it's special just to obviously give back to the community, come here, like I said, you're meeting so many nhl alumni, different guys from all over the place. and it's just pretty cool to come out here and obviously do it for a good cause and obviously have some fun too."

[3416]

mitch now would be a beautiful time to pierce your ears

[3416]

[3416]

THERES SO MUCH TO DIG INTOOO

also I wanted to ask

in the 4nations goal breakdown he talks about how he and cale makar we like looking out for empty ice and he mentions how he worked on using his skates to control the puck and I just think that's so cool!?!

there's so many little things that I wouldn't think about that is actually incredibly deliberate and purposeful in sports thats so interesting to me

the whole game of hockey is in the details! :) which can make it an extremely interesting game to watch or analyze (people will literally do deep dives on 5-10 second clips I will always respect video coaches what they do is insane) but because of this the average watcher will definitely miss things and can skew the perception of a game or a player's ability based on their own biases

even with the eye test that can be useful in certain situations, people will misappropriate it to further whatever agenda they have. they'll say that the leafs in game 7 against the panthers got caved in (true) and mitch was a big part of why (false).

mitch creating a turnover in the middle of the first period was a big part of the momentum shift in their favor at that part of the game (you can see xG immediately rapidly climbing afterwards) but since no one could finish (of all the leafs scoring chances in the first period, they only started actually hitting the net in the last five ish minutes) he became "part of the problem" according to a lot of fans.

there's also the perception that the leafs' top players weren't physical enough or didn't follow through on their hits (fans really enjoy big booming hits and putting opposing players on their ass, which I get, but that doesn't mean they're the only valid type of hit). in game 7, auston and mitch were first and second respectively in number of hits and led all forwards in blocks through the entire playoff run. they didn't lead in total blocks or hits, but they still actually were contributing physically. it wasn't their job to knocking other players down or get into fights; their hits were meant to disrupt the opposing team and generate takeaways. despite this, you'll see a decent amount of fan and media sentiment that it "doesn't count" because they "weren't obvious about it" and "no one could remember these" when the real issue was the average fan's eye test couldn't actually registering anything lol

this turned into another rant sorry but yes I agree! there's so many little things that contribute and are extremely important to the game of hockey that in my opinion a lot of players might not get enough credit for

[3416]

they have to stop man

[3416]

he knew it was comingkldsjfklsd, he's so funny

[3416]

in yellow no less............ i could be a hockey journalist so easily man

[3416]

Good lord he looks good 😩