TheLeafsNation After Dark

Preseason Game 4 - TOR vs MTL

MTL 1 - 2 TOR (Bell Centre)

22 SHOTS 27

The Maple Leafs win on the road in a chippy battle against the Montreal Canadiens to bring their preseason record back above .500

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Broadcast on:: 29 Sep 2024
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My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big row as man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend. My friend's still laughing me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to linkedin.com/results to claim your credit. That's linkedin.com/results. Terms and conditions apply. Linked in, the place to be, to be. Expand the way you work and think with Claude by anthropic. Whether brainstorming solo or working with the team, Claude is AI built for you. It's perfect for analyzing images and graphs, generating code, processing multiple languages, and solving complex problems. Plus, Claude is incredibly secure, trustworthy, and reliable, so you can focus on what matters. Curious? Visit cloud.ai and see how Claude can elevate your work. What's up, Leafs Nation. Welcome back to another Leafs Nation After Dark. The first one in the 2024-2025 season, and yeah, it's not quite a regular season game. We're not kicking off game one here yet, but it still feels good to get on here and talk about Leafs hockey. Game four of the preseason. You beat the Habs here tonight, two to one, in Montreal with a lineup that is basically a lot of AHL players, and a couple of guys who are competing for spots or trying to show Craig Berube what they can do, and how they could possibly fit in this team, or some guys here as well who could show that they should be the next ones up, we're gonna get that call. When it comes time, if someone goes down from the Leafs, or if someone's just not playing that well and you need someone to step up from the Marlies, who's that guy gonna be? This is your time to show them ahead of the season. Show them in person so it's not just on tape and based on what other guys in your organization are saying about you can make that impression. That's kind of what the Leafs had sent here tonight, that's the lineup that they sent out to Montreal, and the Habs on the other hand, if you're a Habs fan, I mean, this is a tough one to swallow where you're looking out there at a lineup of most of your NHL players, and you lose Ryan Barker, 40 seconds into the game, gone down the tunnel, never returns, Patrick Leine with him for the first four minutes of the game for the Habs there, does not come back, looks like that's going to be a significant injury for him, gonna last him a while, that's a significant loss for the Habs, and tough for a guy who's looking to kind of rejuvenate his career, turn it around, figure out if he can get himself back into the groove that he was in the early years when he was in Winnipeg there and trying to figure things out, taking a significant knee injury like that, it's going to be a tough road to come back from, and a little bit of a dagger there for the people in Montreal who are expecting at least some sort of excitement this season. Outside of that, they lose Arbor Jackai pretty quickly there as well, it's just kind of a tough one, but I think that the Leafs played a real good preseason game for what you're looking for, for kind of how you're trying to implement some of these systems and how some of those things are going to come through, I think some of what we saw out of some of these guys in this lineup was interesting, we'll get into some of the different guys who are going to be competing for spots and who have maybe made some headlines for themselves over the summer, but before we get into all of that, I want to remind you guys, if you are watching right now, please make sure to hit that like button, subscribe here to the channel, turn on notifications, whatever you got to do, the least season, regular season that is, is right around the corner here on the after dark show, we've got tonight's show, we've got next Saturday's preseason game that we're going to do at the end, and then we're also going to be doing morning take two shows this week, and then next week we're right back into it, Monday through Friday, 11am right here on this channel, Nick, Rosie, Carter, Hutton, Anthony Stewart, all those guys going to be popping through here, talking about this leaves team, breaking down the games from the night before, all beyond for the after dark shows, talking about everything that's going on in the game in real time, having some of those guys come through my channel, having you guys call in from the chat here as well, all of that is going to be incorporated in the show, and it's all going to be kicking up in the next week, so make sure you're subscribed to the channel, we don't want you guys missing a single thing as it's going on and as this season gets underway. As we get into tonight's game here, this two to one win, I do want to very quickly kind of just set some expectations in the chat and some things if you guys are going to talk about or are going to ask me about whatever is going to go on throughout the course of this stream here tonight. I don't care, win or lose, I really don't, and the first game that I was lucky enough to go to, the Leafs played the Sens in Toronto here when they iced the full team, and the Sens sent out their AHL team or whatever, yeah, it's going to be concerning and people are going to dunk on Leafs fans and say, well, you lost to an AHL team, an ECHLL team. I don't care about these guys going out there and winning that game because in reality, this is not ever going to be one of those mindsets for these guys or types of games you're going to go into with the mindset of, hey, we got to go all out to try to win this game. You're trying to get yourself ready to get back to regular season action, working your way back up to that full speed, the full pace, all of that, like you're trying to get yourself back up to that level, you don't care about the wins, you don't care about trying to go into a corner and take an unnecessary hit in a preseason game. At this point, you're just trying to stay healthy, be ready to go for game one. So I don't care about the wins and the losses, what I'm looking for is more some stuff with Buru Bay, I'm looking for special teams, especially with new coaches here. I want to know how they're going to line up, how they're going to position themselves, if it's going to look differently, feel differently is the pace, the tempo, all that kind of stuff going to be different from what we've seen in the past couple of years is the demeanor from Craig Buru Bay different is the way that the players respond to it different. I'm interested in those things. So we'll talk about some of that throughout the show here tonight as well. I'm also interested in, I'm also just kind of interested in some of the goalie stuff that we're going to see because Dennis Hildby was a guy that I was really excited about. I think that this guy is going to be a legit disgusting goaltender here. I hope it's in Toronto. I hope it happens for this leaves team, but I think he's going to do it in the NHL. He is a six foot seven goaltender off skates. He moves very well. He moves calmly. He looks poised in the net at any point. He looks like he's just not phased by anything that's going on. He played an incredible game here tonight makes 26 saves on 27 shots by the habs. The one goal that goes in, I mean, what are you going to do? It's a great pass by Lane Hudson, a Kirby Doc standing back door and it's tipped into the net and Hildby has no stick. It's also extra man for the habs out there on the ice. So he like, I think that he played a really good game here tonight. He gets a full game action playing against the habs team that's going for the most part. Be the team that they iced when ice when they get to game one of the regular season. So for him to come in here and play like that, especially behind the group that we've kind of discussed that went out there for the Leafs tonight, impressive game. I was impressed with what I saw from him. I was happy with the way he performed, all that kind of stuff. Like this was just a good, fun game to watch Dennis Hildby and Nett and what he did. I want to kind of get into the Nick Robertson stuff and I'm interested what you guys think in the chat. If anyone wants to call in and give your thoughts on Nick Robertson, whether or not he's going to make this team, how he played, what you would do with him. I would be interested in sending a message, whether it's on Twitter, whatever, tag us in the tweets. Find a way to get you a link so that you guys can call into the show. But Nick Robertson is an interesting case. I'm watching the last game. I watch the play that he does with Neelander where he pushes him. Neelander falls, goes head first. He leaves the game, head injury, whatever, obviously precautionary more than anything and it's like, yeah, that's a play that happens a lot. But regardless, that's still kind of a stupid play. It's just an unnecessary play in a preseason game and also a little bit lacking awareness given that it wasn't really a back check anymore. The Leafs are regrouping with the puck and turning up by. So some of that was just kind of like, what the hell are we thinking? What are we doing? But then he goes out in the second period, has an incredible second period and scores a goal. Well, this is a guy who we have all known is capable of scoring and we've gotten in discussions here in the chat. We've had people call in, we've had this conversation over and over and over again. The problem with Nick Robertson is that he doesn't really do anything else outside of the scoring. So when he doesn't score, he's not really providing much to your lineup. He's not providing much else to the game. And there are a lot of times where he doesn't score. So what is Nick Robertson offering you in this lineup? How is he going to be an impact player? Why is he a guy that Sheldon Keefe in the past should have been putting in the lineup on a nightly basis? Obviously, there was a rift there. He didn't like Keefe. Keefe didn't like him. There's a reason he wasn't able to play into this lineup on a consistent basis. There was a reason Sheldon Keefe didn't want him in night and night out. And whether or not you think he should have got more opportunity is up to you. Sheldon Keefe and the coaching staff here pretty unanimously didn't think so. Craig Burubay comes in and feels like, hey, this might be an opportunity for things to be different for him to get a different look, for him to have a new fresh set of eyes on him behind the bench in Craig Burubay. And yet as he goes to go into the season, he says, I want to trade, I want out of here. I have no issue with trading Nick Robertson. He's a guy that I kept looking at and saying, you know what, he's going to go somewhere else and he's going to score goals. He's going to be a really skilled player. He's going to be successful. How impactful is he going to be elsewhere? It's going to be situational. He's not making this top six Matthew Nye's ahead of him. Patrick Reddy comes in here now, Easton Cowan's pushing his way up. Max Domis in this lineup between the core four, Nye's Domi Bobby McMahon finding his way in Tyler Bertuzzi being in here last year. There was just no room. It was not going to work. And then his style of play doesn't work in the bottom six. So you've got to add other tools. I don't know that he's added those tools this season. I don't know that he's shown me enough to say, hey, he's changed as a player and added these things in order for us to say, we've got to keep this guy and he's going to be a guy who can fit into our bottom six. And then on top of that, if he's going to be in the bottom six, does he want to stay here in a bottom six role? Would he rather go to another team and try things out there? If he thinks he can be this exceptional player, a guy who can put up a ton of points, a ton of goals, whatever. I don't think that he would want to stay in this situation clearly until it means a little bit more to him to have an opportunity to go out there, improve himself and be put up into a higher role and have more responsibility and take on more. And I understand that I get that he's not going to fit into the bottom six. If he plays like he did last year, near before and he's not going to ever fit into the top. It's just not going to happen for Nick Robertson. The way that he's played here in the preseason has been very intriguing because I feel like it's going to push Leafs fans everywhere to start to feel like, Hey, this is a guy we've got to keep. And I understand why because you're looking at this kid out there who's buzzing and we kept saying, Hey, he can, he can score goals. He can be a goal scorer. He can be a skilled player. It just had never really come through yet. We hadn't seen it on a consistent basis and now all of a sudden it's happening. I'm going to play a little bit of devil's advocate. He's playing really well. He scored a couple of goals. This might be the time to sell on him. What happens if you go through the first couple of games of the season and he doesn't play it well? He plays like he did last season. What happens if he goes through and Craig Buru Bay says, I can't trust this guy. I can't fit him into some of these lines. I can't find minutes for himself. What if he turns to be defensively liable in situations where we don't need and now all of a sudden his value is going to start to diminish. It feels as though we're not Nick Robertson may not have taken enough of a step myself for him to fit into this lineup for the full 82 games. I think he will probably be here for game one, but I think they should be looking for an opportunity to move on from him if possible because the way that he's played so far and if he continues to play like this throughout the rest of the season or pre-season, he might start to look pretty desirable to some other teams. Like you're looking at Nick Robertson right now who's just starting to deal with this Leafs team. He was in RFA. He demanded a trade. He couldn't get out. He was like, "Okay, I need a contract so that I can go to camp." Signs a pretty cheap deal to stay here with the team, with the group. Come back. This might be another opportunity for some other team to come in over the top and say we got to have that guy. We can add him. We can find something for him. It saves you a little bit of cap, saves you a roster spot for someone else that you might be looking to fit in here, frees things up a little bit, and then maybe you can go and get draft picks compensation for that. We're just going to sit and wait and wait and wait and wait on this guy to develop and turn into something. How long do we need to wait? Jonathan Stewart in the chat, "Yeah buddy, you're completely clueless with these Robertson takes. Alameo." Jonathan, fair enough. This guy hasn't been able to get himself in the lineup since the day that he got here. Whether you want to blame COVID for not being able to develop and get through some of this stuff. That's fine. That's up to you. But he still has not shown this on a consistent basis since he got to this organization. He has not been able to stay healthy. He has not improved his defensive game. He has not added elements outside of scoring, and he does not score consistently enough for me. I see people in the chat saying he's matured, he's looked better. I agree with that. But Nick Robertson is the guy that gets sent down to the Marlies, says, "F you, I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be in this AHL. I need to go higher. I need to go higher. I need to be in the NHL. I need to be in that roster." And then he gets up there and he can't stay consistently. He doesn't want to be here. He asked for the trade out. There is no guarantee that this guy has taken enough of a step for him to be here consistently. He's 23, has not developed the way that you need him to. He's duplicate player of what you've got here in this organization already. Why do you need more about that? Let's get into some other players. I kind of wanted to talk about the Robertson stuff and just what I saw. This was a good game for him tonight. I'm not trying to knock the guy for anything that he's done in the past couple of games and how he's been through the preseason so far. I think he's looked pretty good, but it's been scoring. He hasn't done other stuff. He hasn't added the other things to the game that I've been kind of looking for. I think it looks good for him to get those bursts and score those goals like that to show that, "Hey, I can score goals. I can't be the skilled player who can contribute offensively," but outside of that, it just feels like some of the stuff isn't there. I know people in the chat are saying, "Oh, he's young. He's young. He's young." Guys, guess what? To say it, we're not here to fucking develop players anymore. This is year nine of Austin Matthews, Mitch Marner, William, Knee Lander, John Tavares. Austin Matthews is currently the same age as John Tavares was when he got here to Toronto. That's a depressing fact. There's no more waiting and developing and figuring it out. Either fucking make the lineup and play or you don't, and it doesn't matter anymore. You got to be ready to jump in where there's no more, "Hang on, hang on, hang on." He wants to be traded. He's got some higher stock right now. I'm ready to move on. If that's going to be the case, I just didn't want to come on to here into the stream tonight and be talking about, "Hey, wow, this guy looks great. He's worked himself into a lineup spot, not quite there yet for me." A couple other players that we saw here play tonight. I want to talk about Matthew Nye's a little bit because when you're going to talk about Nick Robertson and he's young, he's young, he's young and, "Oh, he looks mature." You want to talk about a guy who's maturing and actually looks like an NHL player and looks like he gets better every single day, becomes more and more and more ready to take steps and actually advance and make an impact in this roster be a guy who can go into the playoffs and be an impact player, a guy who can go alongside awesome Matthews, Mitch Marner, Nieland or Tavares, whatever line you need for him, a guy who can maybe play on your second power play, it's going to be Matthew Nye's. That guy's maturing, he's bigger, he's strong, he's physical, he's clearly going out there and playing like a leader on this team. Like, that is a guy who's taking steps and he looked good here tonight again. I think he played a pretty strong game, him and Holmberg combining for a pretty great play that leads to the second Robertson goal, strong play on the wall in the defensive zone, you're inside the blue line, winning battles, get the puck up and out of the zone outside the blue line. He's headed out, Holmberg makes a play up to Robertson, he goes in and scores the second goal and then that's what tees you up to win the game. Just seeing these guys take the steps like that is what kind of leaves me off of some of these other guys where you're looking at some of the other kids, like Nick Robertson just saying, "Hey, that's not there." And I watch Matthew Nye's mature the way that he has and at the speed that he has. And I see that and it's like, that's what you're looking for out of these young guys. Not a project, you're not working for projects, looking for guys like Matthew Nye's who are going and actually taking steps, doing it on their own and being ready to go and making impacts in the lineup. He looks good, he looked good here again, looks physically mature, looks mentally, emotionally mature and I liked what I saw out of him, I thought it was pretty funny as well when he goes in there and throws Matthew into the goal tenor and just says, "Screw it, screw it." All right, we got a super chat, first one of the 2024/2025 season. Super chat here, Rick Robittai, Rick with the Oilers logo. Thank you for the super chat, Rick. Rick says, "Nice" with the Canadian flag. Thank you, Rick. Appreciate that. A couple other things as well. I see we're at 240 concurrent viewers right now, way more than I kind of anticipated for a random preseason game here, I appreciate you guys. I appreciate you guys for all showing up for this one. We'll be back again next Saturday to break down that game and then we'll be back right in full swing and things October 9th for the first game of the regular season. As well, another thing. If you're new here, if you've been here before, how this works, it's just something I was doing before. I brought it over to the Leafs Nation channel, we're keeping it going in the after dark. Every 50 likes here on the stream, we're doing more smelling salts. I've got bottles of smelling salts. I've got a couple more bottles coming on the way here, we want to be doing these, make sure they're fresh, powerful, give me a little bit of a punch while you guys are watching. Every 50 likes, we'll do the smelling salts. We also did get our first set of 50 likes here on the stream tonight, so I appreciate you guys all for liking the stream as well. Make sure to hit that if you haven't already. Let's hit the smelling salts. Thank you guys, keep hitting like, let's get to 100, well let's do it at least one more time here on the stream, thank you. Alright, there you go, there's the first ones. Okay, one thing that I want to talk about, off the ice, still relative to this theme here obviously, Craig Brewbay. Every time the camera cuts to him on the bench, he looks animated, he looks engaged, and I'm not saying this in a way to say that Sheldon Keef wasn't engaged, but just watching how we interact with the players, maybe it's a preseason and he's just trying to do a lot more coaching. He's trying to teach these guys a lot, make sure the system's going to be in place, make sure everyone's buying into the system that he's got in place here, but the way that he kind of commands the bench walks up and down, engages with people, interacts with the other coaches, interacts with the players on the bench is really a breadth of fresh air from what I saw of Sheldon Keef. Obviously, Sheldon Keef was emotional, he was passionate, he was into it, he wanted to win. I'm not going to doubt any of that kind of stuff, but I saw clips of him in New Jersey from their preseason games that they've been playing, and Keef is on the bench, he's going through it right now, they're having a tough time in New Jersey, but the camera cuts to him, he's over there, he's looking up at the ceiling, he's sighing, he's saying, "Oh fuck, what's going on?" Blah, blah, blah. It's tough. I look at Brewbay, he's intense, he's fired up, he's getting these guys going, and it doesn't seem like he's flipping a switch to put on some type of act. I did not saying that Keef was putting on an act, but we would see him kind of do the Jekyll and Hyde, where he'd be really nice, the players coach, and everyone loves him, and it's all shoulder pads and laughs, and having a good time, and then it's like, "Oh my God, I'm so mad, I'm screaming at the ref, I'm kicked out of the game, we're just screaming at the guys on the bench for something here and there and then going into the media and apologizing and it's back and forth, back and forth." Craig Brewbay is straight to the point, he's get it done, tell you what you need, tell you what he wants, if you don't do it, you're not going to play, you're going to lose it. That's just how this guy handles his business, and it's fun to watch. I think we kind of went polar opposites when we had Mike Babcock to Sheldon Keef. We went this guy who was an asshole, according to a lot of players on the team, currently on the team in the past, players who have played for him before, like there's just been all these terrible stories about all the stuff going on, it's not being real good for him. And then you go to Sheldon Keef and it's like, "Oh, this is nice, like yeah, he's creative, he's willing to do stuff, he changes the lines, he's willing to change things up, he obviously wants to play those young guys more." And it's like, "Okay, well, maybe we went too far the other way because now we're sitting there being like there's no discipline, there's feels like there's a lack of structure, whatever it was, maybe it was just the inmates running the asylum kind of feeling with these players." Now back to Brewbay, it's like he played in the league, he gets it, he was a tough guy, on a Stanley Cup in St. Louis, obviously knows what he's doing, he's been around the league for a long time, he's not coming in here as a first time head coach like Keef was when he came to this team, he's gonna have fresh set of eyes, he just seems like a no nonsense type of guy, no BS, just straight to the point, and the way he's kind of conducting the bench back there has been extremely enjoyable to see, I've really liked it. From that point of Brewbay and how things have looked for this team, it's a little bit difficult to tell with pre-season and some of the guys in, some of the guys out, what's going on and who they're playing and whatever, but one thing I have really liked so far is the way that the penalty kill looks, it's not like we've had a huge issue with our penalty kill in the past, we have had some power play issues especially when it comes to the playoffs and it just kind of looks the same all regular season and then it gets to the playoffs and then it stinks and then we've got a big mess on our hands, but the penalty kill has looked like a lot of people. I'm Ryan Reynolds. Recently, I asked Mint Mobile's legal team if big wireless companies are allowed to raise prices due to inflation, they said yes. And then when I asked if raising prices technically violates those owners to your contracts, they said what the f*ck are you talking about, you insane Hollywood f*ck. So to recap, we're cutting the price of Mint Unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try at mintmobile.com/switch. $45 up front for three months plus taxes and fees from all the paid for new customers for limited time unlimited more than 40 gigabytes per month so it's full turns at mintmobile.com. My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big row as man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend. My friends still laughing me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get a $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to linkedin.com/results to claim your credit. That's linkedin.com/results. Terms and conditions apply. Linked in. The place to be. To be. Expand the way you work and think with Claude by anthropic. Whether brainstorming solo or working with the team, Claude is AI built for you. It's perfect for analyzing images and graphs, generating code, processing multiple languages, and solving complex problems. Plus, Claude is incredibly secure, trustworthy, and reliable so you can focus on what matters. If you're curious, visit claud.ai and see how Claude can elevate your work. Real enjoyable. Just by the way that they move, the way that they kind of are able to get in and out quickly and take away time and space for guys, they have set themselves up here now in a way where you're pretty much looking at a group that is getting into lanes, taking away lanes very, very quickly. If we switch over here and pull up the board that I can pull up, just briefly, one thing that I was looking at with this group, the way that they're setting up, you're getting a forward, let's say it pucks out here at the point. You're getting for the other team. You're going to get their D with the puck. They've got a D over in the middle, right? They're going to have some forward in one spot here, a forward maybe down low and then a forward in the slot. The way that the Leafs have set this up right now is they've got the one guy out pressuring the puck carrier. They've got another guy slotted back in here. A defenseman kind of tucked away into this spot, more or less guarding that winger, covering that winger, and then another defenseman here. They're very quickly taking away time and space from the other team, taking away lanes. This is a little bit different. It's not drastically different from what we saw before, but it is a little bit different from Kiefs. I'm not saying that this penalty kill needed to improve either, so don't get me wrong there. I'm just talking about what I've seen so far from what he's implemented, and they move fast. They move very fast. One thing that I notice is like this puck goes across that defenseman, pop out, right back in. Everyone obviously on the ace shifts, and then it's back. And you're heavy loading over to one side every time to where the puck is, to kind of suffocate that side of the ice, and not allow them to just freely move the puck around the zone anymore. Obviously, you know, we can get Rosie on. We'll get Huts and Anthony Stewart on to help break this down a little bit more in depth than those guys come on as well. But the way that this is going for me that I'm watching is enjoyable because it feels more like what we see happen to the Leafs power play when they get to the playoffs. You get to the playoffs, and as soon as you get there, it is no time, no space. You can't do anything. You can't do everything you want where you can just walk around like you do in the regular season. Take your time, take your time, get the perfect shot, take the shot, and you've got guys like Neelan or Matthew's, Marner Tavares, who are going to be able to bury because they're really good, really skilled players. They get to the playoffs. It's taken away fast. This penalty kill that's being run by the Leafs feels like what they have had happen to them when they get to the playoffs. We'll see what happens as it goes, and I want to watch it more with the guys who are going to be in the lineup regularly. But very obviously, this is the system that's going to be run. It's going to be run for the Leafs. It's going to be run for the Marlies. Like, that's just how it's going to go top down. Everyone in the organization is going to know it. That's why these guys who are playing in these preseason games, who we know aren't going to be playing for the Leafs, are operating this way. It's interesting. That was one thing I just kind of picked up on in the last game, and then really noticed it here tonight. You go 7 for 7 on the penalty kill, and a game that there was a billion penalties. Yeah, that's good. I enjoyed that. There's a positive from tonight as well. Powerplay, I'm not going to get into it too much. One thing that I have noticed a little bit is just they passed the puck with a little bit more of a purpose, which is something that we've had issues with this team in the past where it feels like they are just passing for the sake of passing. And I take my time, take my time, take my time. Okay, I'm not going to shoot so here, you have the puck. Like, you need to be passing the puck around with a purpose in mind. You need to be doing it with a little bit of intensity and a sense of urgency to make these things happen, to go and get it done. Like, you got to push, you got to push, you got to push, and then that opportunity will create itself because the other team is going to break down. Like what we saw on the Robertson goal, the way that the team was moving the puck around, forced Montreal to collapse down, opens Robertson up for time and space and he gets the shot off. Those are the types of things I'm talking about where it's just moving around, moving around, but moving it quickly and moving it with the purpose causes the other team to make the mistake and open it up for you. You don't need to make the perfect play. You don't need to lollie egg around until you want to get to that. You can just quickly jump in, make those passes happen, break down the other team, and then you score. Don't wait for them. Make it happen. Take it to them. Punch them in the mouth. Don't sit there and wait to be punched yourself. Other players, I wrote down a couple notes to some guys. We talked about Robertson, Nies. I want to talk about one more thing that I saw, and then we will get into the big thing that happened in the game here, and I'll give my thoughts. I don't know why. I mean, people are going to piss off both of them, but I'll give them. Let's talk about Timmons. Timmons has really... Timmons has really kind of lost the luster for me. When he first came here, I was really intrigued. He stepped into the lineup. He looked really good. He was fun to watch. He was creating offense. He wasn't a defensive liability. It was enjoyable. He was a cheap guy. He was a project. He was someone that we were going to look at and be like, "Okay, how are we going to make this work?" It really feels like at this point, he's just odd man out. He's the guy on the outside looking in. You look at his contract, he's $1.1 million. It's not like that cap is killing you, but for a guy that I think is probably like seven, maybe even pushing to eight, it's just... I don't see the need for him to be in the lineup or with this group. I feel like you might seem to go down to the Marlies. I think that he could probably just get claimed off waivers, so maybe it's a guy that you're going to look to try to trade. You're limited on roster spots. You're limited on cap. I like Lorenz. Grieves is going to be here. I don't think how one's making this team. Patrick Reddy is going to make it. Where are the spots coming from? Where are these roster spots coming from? You're going to have to move people. To me, he's an expendable piece. I look at some of the other guys who are coming up, some of the guys who are playing with the Marlies, and it feels like some of them might be even equivalent or ready to take a step, mature a little bit, and be able to jump in. It's not like I'm... I hate Timmons and think he stinks. I just think that he is an expendable piece for what we have. I think that if you're going to look at any of the guys in this roster and someone could go, it's going to be him. He's really not impressed me. He's having some real brain dead plays, which you kind of feel like shouldn't be happening for a guy who is technically a veteran, playing in some of these games with some of the other kids. He should be leading and being able to take those steps, avoid maybe making some of these just rookie or very early on mistakes or shaky mistakes. That shouldn't be happening from a guy like that. I don't know. I feel like he's just outside looking in. I just want to get that out there and say and kind of give my thoughts on where some of these guys are going to be and how this lineup will start to shake out. Other guy also here. Let's get to this super chat here from Tammy. Shout out to Tammy for the super chat. We appreciate it as always. Tammy, Zach, double fisting salts, Phillips. I do have two bottles of salt here. We need 100 likes though. I appreciate the super chat, Tammy, but if you want the double fisting 100 likes for the first preseason stream of like 230 people in here watching 100 likes, you know what? That's worth it. We'll do the double fist, but you got to get to the 100 likes by the end of the stream 15 away. So I had to like thank you though, Tammy for the super chat. Appreciate that. The other guy that I want to talk about because I haven't really got to talk about him yet, Greg Behnken did not know what to expect with this kid. Heard about him via Twitter. Heard about him reading the articles over at the LeafsNation.com like reading all the articles that our writers are putting out the amazing stuff those guys are doing. I'm reading stuff online about what he's doing in the KHL, checking stats. Like it all looks good. You never really know how it's going to translate. He's also a kid. This guy's awesome. Like I don't know that he's going to make the team. He's going to, he's in a tough spot there outside looking in as well. I don't think he's far off. I think you look at some of those guys that are going to be in the Marley's looking for a call up and kind of knocking on the door saying, give me my shot. You know, a guy like Pontus Holmberg, Bobby McMahon who are doing so. Those guys were playing in the Marley's, showed that they could be consistent, reliable players, dominated in their own essence in the Marley's in the AHL. Basically said, you cannot ignore me any longer. I need to come up to this NHL team because I am not an AHL player. I'm an NHL player. They get through the door. They get into the NHL and they say, I'm here to stay. Bobby McMahon, contract extension, like these guys are showing, hey, I can come up. I can develop. I can make my way through the minors. And then I'm going to come on to that team. I just feel like we're right there with Grabek and I don't think he's making the team out of camp. And that's not a slight to him at all. It's tough for the guy just given who he's got in front of him. But, you know, David Camp goes down with an injury, Yarn Crow, any of those guys or you even got a top guy and one of those bottom guys has to push up. Now you need someone to come through. If he's out there in the in with the Marley's, he's a guy that I'm looking at. How's he doing? How's he developing? Is he healthy? Is he maturing? Is he figuring out how to play a North American pro game? He's played the pro game in the KHL, but can he figure out the North American game? This guy is mean. He's not afraid of anybody. He goes out there and fights in the preseason game in Toronto and he's firing up the crowd. Like people are going nuts watching him. He's winning battles. He's a big guy, strong guy. It's fun to watch. It's fun to watch. Don't think he's making it. Don't think he's making it. But I do think I do think he's pretty close. He's impressive. Okay. Last thing that I want to talk about in the game, the not player related. This is the thing that I think might piss people off. It is what it is. It's got to be discussed. It's just there are a lot of people in the city of Montreal who are very, very upset here tonight. There are people in the city of Toronto who perhaps are in my apartment right now who are fans of the Montreal Canadiens who are very upset with what went on here tonight. I'm talking about Patrick Linet's injury. If you haven't seen it, credit to TSN for the clip that I'm about to quickly display onto the screen and I will not do for a long period of time because sorry everyone at the police station. I'm not trying to get us demonetized or taken off the internet. But this neon knee also tweeted out by our guy, the Golden Muzzy, Nick Elberga. This neon knee obviously is going to have Linetel for a long period of time. I do not think that this was an intentionally dirty hit. I think that this was an accidental neon knee. It is a tough play to watch. It's a tough thing to happen. I do not think that this was intentional. This is more so what I'm talking about. Look how Para is approaching him from 10 feet away. The way that he's approaching Linet coming in, Linet is going outside across and then as Para goes to step up, he goes back in across Para's body. Para at no point sticks his knee out or anything. He's right there. It's leaning into the hit. It's not sticking the knee out. It's sticking the body back in to try to make the hit. I agree that this is bad. It sucks. It probably should have been penalized. I think people in Montreal are ludicrous for thinking that this is like some block him up. Never let him play in the NHL type of play ever again. The follow up to this would be I do think that Arborjack. I probably should have or that guy should. Para should have fought Arborjack. I understand why Jack I was pissed. I understand why he's going to go out there and fight. That's what he's got to do. That's his job. You can't let the wires cross like that, brother. If he's not going to fight you, he's not going to fight you. You can't just jump the guy, sling him to the ground and start punching him in the back of the head like that. You're going to go do that. Then you're going to go around screaming like a jungle man. Go into the box, throwing everything. No shit you got thrown out of the game, man. No, obviously. That's just dumb to act like that. The refs are going to look at you acting like a psychopath. They're going to see what you just did, even if they were going to have the slightest bit of leniency on what they were going to do and how they're going to penalize you. Seeing you in the bench, throwing your stuff around and going nuts, screaming FU, FU, FU, like you're an IR loser. It's not going to help your situation. I think that that's just a wires crossed. You're like a little bit of a lunatic move. I understand why he's going to go out there and defend his guy and step in, but I mean, that was nuts. He just went nuts. Two 143 viewers, 110 likes here on the stream. Thank you, everyone. Tammy, thank you again for the super chat. You want to double fisting. All right. There you go. Triple sniff on double fisting. There you go. And also, by the way, with it, Ryan Reeves is going to definitely fight. Jack, I like you just 100% know that that's going to happen once you get to it. It's 100% happening. All right. I think we'll kind of wrap it up here. We got two segments. If you watch the show, you know what's going on, you know how you know how it goes. If you're new to it, we have two closing segments, grades of the game and play the game. As we get through them, I want you guys to send yours first, but I will give my grade of the game and then we do play the game and then we get out of here. That's how this show finishes. Also tonight, obviously pre-season. A lot of you guys showed up a lot more than I expected. So thank you all. Appreciate that. Appreciate the support. But we will have callers in the future. Obviously Nick, Rosie, Hotz, Stewie, those guys will come through here a little talk about the games, help break them down in the after dark show, help break down everything that's going on. But this is a fan show. This is a chat show. When I started doing this, I wanted to do it like the old school Leafs talk radio, you know, tuning in after the game, hearing people call in, be pissed off about guys on certain lines, being on all that kind of, just being furious at coaches and lines and gold tenders. That's what I wanted to hear. I wanted the fans. I wanted to hear the radio hosts. I wanted to open that up and have people be involved. So going forward, we want you guys to call into the show. We want you to be a part of it. We want you to jump in and give your takes, give your opinions, all that kind of stuff. We'll figure out a way to open up a line to get you guys the link so you can call in in the future. Obviously didn't have any here tonight understood, but that's where it's at. Let's get to the grades of the game. Let's start there. I don't have an animation for it yet, unfortunately, but grades of the game. Grade of the game for me tonight. I mean, I think I'm going to go with an A. The first thing I'm going to say is going to really piss off the Habs fans. But like, you're looking at a game tonight between a Leafs team that's sending out mostly HL players, a couple of veterans against a Habs team that's full blown. That's their NHL roster for the most part. Both gold tenders of the guys you're going to see this year mostly. This game was like a miso soup. It's not really filling. There's not really much satisfaction to it. You don't get what you want out of it to the same extent as a full meal. And there's a lot of salt. That's what this game was tonight. It was a miso soup. And I looked around and I watched a fairly bland, boring game. Eight minutes left in the second period. The shots are 12-12. There's not many crazy chances. There's a ton of penalties. But seven for seven on the penalty kill scored a power play goal. You got Nick Robertson involved gets two goals tonight, held to be played amazing 26 for 27 saves. It's just a good night from a lot of those guys. The thing that I'm going to say that's going to piss off the Habs fans is that you got out of here healthy. You got no injuries. Habs, unfortunately, you're going to have to deal with some significant ones now. Hopefully not for Ryan Barker. Line A, that one did not look good. But if you're a Leafs fan, you watch this. No one really gets injured. You get out of here healthy. You're all good. You move on to the next one. It's nice to see the team stepping up and being involved in the physical play like that, jumping in, defending each other, fighting Slofkovski and Rafi. That fights. I don't I don't know if I'm saying that name, right? Rafi Rafi. I've heard it in multiple ways. Apologies to him. I'll figure it out at some point here. But him jumping in and fighting Slofkovski is a foot taller. You know, Myers stepping in saying, Hey, I'm a big guy. I can show you that I can fight to going toe-to-toe Josh Anderson. Like, you know what? Good for them. Hilled to be amazing. I like what I saw from the penalty kill the way that the team played. That's where I'm at there. So I'll go with like an A. I think an A is a fair grade for a pre-season game that just felt boring and slow and had a lot of AHL players. And you won. Seven for seven on the penalty kill. You won. It's fine. Now we'll get to the final segment as you get out of here. I want you guys to send yours in the chat. I want to know what your guys thoughts are on tonight's game and what your favorite play of tonight's game was. I don't think you're going to guess mine. Let's get to our play of the game. Play of the game for me. Hilled to be cross I save on Cole Koffield. You just made it to nothing. You come back down the other way. Great pass across. I think it was Lane Hudson who slips the part. It was slip off. He slips the puck through to Koffield back door on the other side. Takes a one time shot. Hilled to be slides across, makes the glove safe. It's a guy who played really good all night. I was impressed with his demeanor. I was impressed with his poise. I was impressed with the way that he just kind of handles himself. And then to make that save in that period of time during the game when you've just taken that two goal lead, it could have flipped very quickly. You make it two nothing. It goes to two one. You're in Montreal. Cole Koffield scores. They're going to get fired up. They're going to get really excited. They're going to start pushing momentum and energy behind. Maybe be able to mount some type of comeback or be able to put a lot more pressure on you. He gets across and makes that save. He does it calmly, does it smoothly. He's not flailing around the net like goaltender we've seen here in the past two years with this team. He's just kind of poised. Gets across, makes the save. He's fun to watch. I feel like this guy's going to be up with this team very soon. And it's going to be interesting to see what he does with the opportunity. You know, we've had Joseph Wall not deal so well with injuries in the past. I hope he stays healthy. I hope Stoller stays healthy. But if this kid plays like that and develops the rate that he was developing last year in the minors, you're going to have to make some type of decision. You're going to have to do something about it. And it'll be a good problem to have if you've got three goal tenders who are going and he looked good. That save was awesome to me. So that's my play of the game. But that'll do it for me for the show here tonight. I appreciate everyone who tuned in. I appreciate everyone who watched, who liked, subscribed the super chats here as well. Thank you guys so much for that for participating. This is the first one. I didn't do too much promo. But thank you guys. If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to the channel. Hit the like button on your way out. Turn on notifications. I will be back with you twice this week. Myself and Rosie, I think both times, the best producer and the game producer Vic as well alongside us there. So we'll be back this week twice for leaves morning take. I'll be back Saturday night for the next preseason post game show, the after dark show. And then following that Monday, Tuesday, I will be hosting Nick comes back on Wednesday. And we are off to the races Wednesday night, I believe October 9th, first game of the regular season. We'll be back here breaking it all down. This has been another edition of leaves nation after dark. Donnie, maybe. Thank you all for tuning in. Make sure to hit that like button. Subscribe to the channel. We appreciate the support. Appreciate you guys all for tuning in. Look forward to seeing you guys I think on Tuesday for least morning take. See you there. Thank you for watching. And as always, keep leafing for more content just like this, including game previews, post game live shows, Leafs morning take Monday through Friday with Nick Alberge and Jay Rose Hill with special guests, as well as instant reaction videos. Make sure to be subscribed here to the Leafs Nation YouTube channel. Turn on notifications so you don't miss anything and drop a like expand the way you work and think with Claude by anthropic. Whether brainstorming solo or working with the team, Claude is AI built for you. It's perfect for analyzing images and graphs, generating code, processing multiple languages and solving complex problems. Plus, Claude is incredibly secure, trustworthy and reliable, so you can focus on what matters. Curious? Visit claud.ai and see how Claude can elevate your work. 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