http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/h ... e22114885/Quote:
But Randy Carlyle has seen this movie before.
And he doesn’t want a repeat viewing.
“Now I feel that we are slipping,” the Leafs coach said in response to a question about his team’s wildly successful last month since a 9-2 loss to Nashville. “The last couple games. We have to get back to that more energetic, more stop and go, more straight-line hockey.
“We do have some players that are continuing to do it. But I think as a whole we feel our game has slipped here.”
He knows. In large part because this isn’t new for the Leafs.
In fact, Toronto went 11-2-1 prior to the Olympic break last season, and there are certainly some similarities in the two streaks.
In that run, the Leafs scored a league-high 51 goals in 14 games (3.64 per game) with a league-high 12.5 shooting percentage and were outshot an average of 35.8 to 29.1.
In their current 12-game streak, the Leafs have scored a league-high 49 goals (4.08 per game) with a league-high 14.2 per cent shooting percentage and have been outshot an average of 34.1 to 28.8.
In terms of analytics, last year’s hot streak came with a 44.3 per cent possession rating, better than only Buffalo over the same time frame.
This year, it’s 42.7 per cent.
Which is better than only Buffalo.
If anything, this run is more unsustainable than that one.
Buffalo has also been one of the hottest teams in the league during that time frame.