43isprime

Pettersson so far this playoffs hasn't really added much to that line over Suter.

If the Leafs won it would have been Singh - it's bizarre that Singh gets the opportunity over Shorthouse.

Cole has been infuriating

I think I've finally figured out what empties means

Lost games to three of our goalies, but sure

I can't understand why Singh so often gets opportunities over Shorthouse when Singh is objectively worse. Much much worse. It's flat out stupid, frankly.

That penalty call on Lindholm was bizarre and horrendous.

Wow Suter sure gets a lot of chances without scoring

Drance reported that Tocchet had a long chat with Pettersson near the end of practice. This basically guarantees Pettersson's going off tomorrow.

Why even have challenges in the postseason? In the time it takes for the video guys to look at the replays and send a recommendation down to the bench, the Toronto guys could also be looking at the same replays and doing one of three things: (1) allow the goal, (2) disallow the goal, (3) request more time. Would this significantly slow down the game? When the stakes are this high, the priority ought to shift more to getting the call right. The penalty for an incorrect challenge is basically the NHL saying you have to gamble if you want to make sure the call was correct. Of course the regular season is different because many games may be played simultaneously. But in the playoffs, there may be at most 3 being played at one time. Maybe I'm just grumpy from the Josi goal and seeing Tocchet clearly not wanting to risk an incorrect challenge, but this just seems like a logical thing to do for the postseason.

Most of the speculation about the injury so far has stemmed from his poor play (frankly, he's been poor for around 3 months now, so not sure why some people are surprised he's not been great this series). But his deployment (as you mention, he does the PK), his faceoffs (he's taken 49 faceoffs in 5 games, which is a similar pace to his 799 in 82 games over this season), and the fact that he played Game 82 when some other core players did not, would indicate that he's not significantly hurt. I guess we'll only know for sure afterwards.

My point is he needs to do more to help his linemates, whoever they may be. If they don't capitalize on the chances and scoring environments that he creates for them, that's a different conversation.

The best players beat defenders one on one, and in doing so, create time and space for their linemates. What those linemates do with that time and space is up to them and their skill level. But Pettersson has not done this for his linemates on any consistent basis for a couple of months now at least.

Agree on both points. For someone being paid 7.35m (with an 11.6m contract in hand), he needs to have more than just subtle little plays here and there. Canucks have been outshot 25-16 at 5 on 5 with him on the ice (and outscored 3-0), and he's not being played in a match-up role. Forget about dominating - let's try to start by trying to even this up a bit. Tocchet keeps saying he needs to move his feet - indeed, it's how he needs to create space for himself. He's great when he has time and space, but he's got to use his feet to create that first.