Focusing On The Toronto Maple Leafs

I am not posting a game day preview or notes today, heck things haven't really changed since the Wings last played the Leafs.

Instead I am going to focus on the Leafs since this is the last regular season meeting between the teams.

Toronto is 7-2-1 in their last ten games yet they still have their doubters, like it or not.

With 35 points, the Leafs are in the first spot of the wild card race, 4 points ahead of the Florida Panthers.

Leafs fans sound different now! "Stats look eerily similar to last year. Thinking there will be a different end result seems naive to me."
— James Mirtle (@mirtle) December 13, 2014

from Jonas Siegel of TSN,

The Maple Leafs don't have to look back too far in history to know how this story ends.
Toronto has happily snatched up 15 of 18 points in the past three weeks, but not without a few troubling signs of late that has the group on alert. An all too brief window of shot suppression and structure after a pair of November blowouts has veered precisely in the opposite direction.
The club has surrendered an average of 37 shots in the past six games, outshot by an average of nearly 10 in that span. They've scratched out wins on the strength on a powerhouse offence and of late, some fine goaltending, a formula history has proven flawed.

continued

from Rob Longley of the Toronto Sun,

Randy Carlyle, the hockey coach, is starting to feel like Randy Carlyle, salesmen.
And if he can’t sell this pitch to the work-in-progress group of Leafs players that are climbing up the NHL standings, he can’t sell it to anyone.
Prior to Friday’s practice at the MasterCard Centre, Carlyle and his staff had their latest meeting with a team that continues to win with asterisks. The message is simple, the audience somewhat complicated.
The team has gone on a productive 7-1-1 run over its past nine games and is on a nice, easy pace to be a factor in the playoff hunt. So how do you prod a group of players to be better, even as the points continue to pile up?

continued

from Dave Feschuk of the Toronto Star,

Speaking of victories lacking style points, the Leafs have reeled off their share of late. So even though they’ve compiled an impressive record of 7-1-1 in their past nine games, the local NHLers arrived at the rink on Friday to attend a pre-practice team meeting highlighting the deficiencies in their recent on-ice work. More than one player told the media the meeting focused on the team’s defensive game.
But head coach Randy Carlyle took issue with that characterization.
“We’ve got away from playing the right way,” Carlyle said. “That’s all-inclusive in a bunch of areas, not just defensive.”
One such area that’s been a focus is the team’s habit of skating wide circles rather than performing the preferred hard stop and start. When the Maple Leafs turn the puck over — and every team does — there’s a concern that the club’s typical reaction has become too lackadaisical.

To me it looks like the Leafs now have to win the right way but isn't it all about the 2 points, no matter how you win?

If you missed the post earlier today on the shootout record of the Wings including stats, go here, it isn't pretty.

TEAM STATS

	GP	RECORD	HOME	ROAD	L10	G/GP	GA/GP	PP%	PK%	PIM/GP	S/GP	SA/GP	FO%
	30	17-6-7	11-3-4	6-3-3	7-1-2	3.00	2.33	22.0	88.2	8.7	31.0	26.9	54.5
	28	16-9-3	11-7-0	5-2-3	7-2-1	3.36	2.86	20.4	84.0	9.3	30.0	33.6	51.1

Focusing On The Toronto Maple Leafs

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