SilverEagle wrote:It's Washington so anything could happen. They invent ways to blow it year after year.
True enough, but the Leafs are so soft, small and weak on the back end, Polak being their only physical defensive defenceman, that if Washington can't smoke the Leafs down low with the heavy game, with ease, Washington will have hit an all new low, they're literally built to smoke a team like the Leafs without breaking a sweat, if Washington even has to break a sweat to beat the Leafs, that's a bad sign for Wash, at that point, Pittsburg is looking pretty good to at least make the Finals again, even without Letang.
Because if the Leafs can play the speed game and just keep moving the puck out and up the ice without Washington being able to pound them into a paste, well then Pittsburg would be able to take that to the elite level and just light Washington up all over again, because, structurally, the Leafs are a poor man's Pens, they play the same style, just out skate the heavy game and keep it all offence all the time, throw a Crosby into the mix, and the Pens can just score their way out of trouble.
Losing Letang is the only thing which makes me doubt the Pens, if they had a healthy Letang, I would be picking them to repeat, but without Letang, it's a whole new ballgame, because if you took a healthy Letang and put him on the Leafs, the Leafs would be at a whole nother level just by that alone, because Letang plays 30 mins a night and he always has the puck, so it doesn't even matter if you're a "heavy" team, with Letang and high skill forwards, the heavy team never gets the puck, because Letang just gets to it first, and moves it out and up the ice to Crosby & Co, all night long, which is how the Pens won last year, to a tee.
It's like Chicago, they ain't what they used to be, they don't have the depth like they once did, but they still have Duncan Kieth, and as long as they do, they are in the hunt, Kieth + Toews and Kane, is all they really need to win, but if you take Kieth out, then they would be in trouble, he's the lynchpin that makes it all happen from the back end, same with Letang, Scott Niedermayer types both.
This why I'm not so big on Shea Weber for Subban, I mean, Weber is great n' all, as a complimentary guy, the #2, Pronger, Seabrook, the Big Nasty with the big shot, but he's not actually a great puck mover, he doesn't drive the play from the back end, and Pittsburg proved, so long as you have the puck mover, you don't even need the other guy, if you have a Niedermayer type, you don't even need a Pronger anymore.
It's the No Hit League now, you can't really intimidate anymore, if you're the Big Nasty, you just end up taking penalties with all these non-calls; "two minutes for hitting hard", so having a Big Nasty, just ain't that important anymore, because the way they call the game, it's made it all about possesion and puck movement now, European style, which means all Niedermayer all the time.
What the Habs actually did, was trade a Niedermayer for a Pronger, which is the last thing they should have done, because they can't move the puck anymore, and that's why they've been having trouble scoring all year, including last night, they are even more totally dependant on Price than they've ever been, the Big Nasty is indeed nasty, but it's not actually doing much for them.
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