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Post by blny on Jan 28, 2016 9:17:28 GMT -5
The Marlies may be leading the AHL, but a closer examination of their roster shows that their two leading scorers - the guys driving the bus - are career minor leaguers. TJ Brennan and Mark Arcobello are never going to be NHL mainstays. Nylander is a very good piece. Leipsic and Leivo are decent, but not spectacular. There's a lot of AHL experience on that roster. Be that as it may, the Marlies are winning and that has a lot to do with player development, IMHO ... Cheers. Who developed them though? Brennan was drafted by the Sabres and played games in their organization and Florida's before joining the Leafs. Arcobello has bounced from Edmonton to Nashville to Pittsburgh to Arizona and finally Toronto. These guys are 27 years old. The Leafs can't be given any real credit for developing them. They just signed effective minor leaguers. The Icecaps are appreciably younger. The only mainstay born before 1990 is Holloway. Bartley is as well, but he's played one game and likely won't be a fixture. I'm not a Lefebvre apologist, but I'm not going to heap praise on the Marlies for leading the AHL by hiring better/more AHL vets. AHL teams that lead the league with a young roster of drafted players impresses me. You don't really see that anymore either.
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Post by franko on Jan 28, 2016 9:18:50 GMT -5
Does she have the typical number of pairs of shoes as the average woman? Too many? a woman never thinks she has too many shoes in the closet, just as a man never thinks there is enough sex in a relationship. and yes, taking a woman shoe shopping is foreplay. can I say that on this site?)
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Post by franko on Jan 28, 2016 9:26:41 GMT -5
The method I've always wanted to try would be to compare one team's drafted players to the players taken with the very next pick, each and every draft. It only works for comparing the team in question to a random combination of other team drafting, with the same talent on the table, minus the guy we actually picked. In theory, the team picking first should be better than the team picked with the next picks... That's a reasonable theory. As blny says, scaling is necessary. For example, what if team picking 20 needs a forward really badly and picks one and team #21 picks a dman who turns out better. Is that the scouting department's failure? Some years (2008 for example) there are a ton of great defensemen chosen and not so many good forwards. Does one have to 'scale' the picks by position too? That would turn into a Monte Carlo simulation problem or worse. Can one compare scouting staffs that way? I don't know. PS. That's just for you, Franko. the only weighting I know is that I need to lose 5 pounds to get to the weight I need to be at to lose 10 more pounds to be 5 pounds closer to my goal weight.
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Post by Willie Dog on Jan 28, 2016 9:46:52 GMT -5
The Marlies may be leading the AHL, but a closer examination of their roster shows that their two leading scorers - the guys driving the bus - are career minor leaguers. TJ Brennan and Mark Arcobello are never going to be NHL mainstays. Nylander is a very good piece. Leipsic and Leivo are decent, but not spectacular. There's a lot of AHL experience on that roster. Be that as it may, the Marlies are winning and that has a lot to do with player development, IMHO ... Cheers. ] A winning environment breeds a winning mentality... You learn to be a winner and you can learn to be a loser.
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Post by blny on Jan 28, 2016 10:17:23 GMT -5
Be that as it may, the Marlies are winning and that has a lot to do with player development, IMHO ... Cheers. ] A winning environment breeds a winning mentality... You learn to be a winner and you can learn to be a loser. A winning culture for who though? The Marlies have been successful on the ice going back to the lock out, but this is the first season that the roster has had anyone on it with a real shot at being an impact player for the Leafs since Kadri in 12-13. So, we're talking about Kadri, Nylander, and Kapanen and Gauthier. That's 3 additional guys with a realistic chance. A winning culture with a roster full of career minor leaguers does nothing for the big club.
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Post by seventeen on Jan 28, 2016 10:56:47 GMT -5
I agree with both of you. Winning AHL teams often have a surplus of veteran minor league types. Good, solid AHL players who will never make the NHL. The Marlies have very few real prospects. Marner is still in juniour, but Toronto has drafted reasonably well recently, so the Leafs will improve over the next few years (from finishing low and getting those top stars you need). They do indeed appear to be doing a better job of developing players. I think Babcock was involved in setting up the system for the Marlies, to ensure consistency.
It's also really valuable to create a winning environment, something I pointed out that Lefebvre was highly unsatisfactory at, but the braintrust deflected by saying it was his job to develop players, not win. Talk about a loser statement right there. There have been numerous warnings over the last couple of years that this management team (I'm not sure if Bergevin falls into it yet, but he might) was in well over their heads. I say I'm not sure about Bergevin, because he may have been trying to support his coaching staff from an even worse situation if he didn't support them. Still, he gets demerit points for not admitting he'd made mistakes with the coaches and moving on. Instead he extended him. That goes against his management score.
I see that in Matthias Brunet's article he mentions that he thinks Therrien is an excellent coach. I like Brunet, so this statement bothers me. From a distance, it has been clear (to me at least) that Therrien was not up to the standards required of a Habs coach, and might not even meet the level of an average NHL coach. The signs included not making obvious decisions like managing Markov's minutes (even now when he says he should do it, he's not, which indicates he doesn't really believe there's an advantage to managing his minutes), lack of fairness in handling players, poor systems (which were incredibly obvious the previous 2 seasons) and other things we've discussed before. I'm puzzled as to why we see these faults and Brunet (along with Todd and a couple of other journalists close to the scene) still think Therrien's a good coach. He's not. You can only fool players for so long before they quit giving you everything they have and in today's NHL, your players have to give you everything. It wasn't a coincidence that after Pittsburgh fired Therrien their goal difference improved by a full goal per game. Bylsma didn't wave a magic wand. The shackles came off and the team responded.
The recent swoon has been deeper and more extreme than I anticipated, but I'm not surprised in the least the team is failing. Therrien set the stage and all it needed was Price's absence.
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Post by Willie Dog on Jan 28, 2016 11:03:04 GMT -5
] A winning environment breeds a winning mentality... You learn to be a winner and you can learn to be a loser. A winning culture for who though? The Marlies have been successful on the ice going back to the lock out, but this is the first season that the roster has had anyone on it with a real shot at being an impact player for the Leafs since Kadri in 12-13. So, we're talking about Kadri, Nylander, and Kapanen and Gauthier. That's 3 additional guys with a realistic chance. A winning culture with a roster full of career minor leaguers does nothing for the big club. Actually I disagree, the kids learn how to win and they bring it with them. The issue is really how the big club is structured, if the big club has a winning mentality the kids are fine, they bring enthusiasm and effort(see Chiacgo, Detroit, L.A.). With a guy like Babs at the helm, he has instilled a better environment for the leafs players, they're losing games but it is still positive as compared with the Habs where the end of the world is near. The Leafs can bring up players who are used to winning and they will be fine. Regarding the Habs the problem is with the big club and that filters down to the little club.
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Post by Willie Dog on Jan 28, 2016 11:05:52 GMT -5
I agree with both of you. Winning AHL teams often have a surplus of veteran minor league types. Good, solid AHL players who will never make the NHL. The Marlies have very few real prospects. Marner is still in juniour, but Toronto has drafted reasonably well recently, so the Leafs will improve over the next few years (from finishing low and getting those top stars you need). They do indeed appear to be doing a better job of developing players. I think Babcock was involved in setting up the system for the Marlies, to ensure consistency. It's also really valuable to create a winning environment, something I pointed out that Lefebvre was highly unsatisfactory at, but the braintrust deflected by saying it was his job to develop players, not win. Talk about a loser statement right there. There have been numerous warnings over the last couple of years that this management team (I'm not sure if Bergevin falls into it yet, but he might) was in well over their heads. I say I'm not sure about Bergevin, because he may have been trying to support his coaching staff from an even worse situation if he didn't support them. Still, he gets demerit points for not admitting he'd made mistakes with the coaches and moving on. Instead he extended him. That goes against his management score. I see that in Matthias Brunet's article he mentions that he thinks Therrien is an excellent coach. I like Brunet, so this statement bothers me. From a distance, it has been clear (to me at least) that Therrien was not up to the standards required of a Habs coach, and might not even meet the level of an average NHL coach. The signs included not making obvious decisions like managing Markov's minutes (even now when he says he should do it, he's not, which indicates he doesn't really believe there's an advantage to managing his minutes), lack of fairness in handling players, poor systems (which were incredibly obvious the previous 2 seasons) and other things we've discussed before. I'm puzzled as to why we see these faults and Brunet (along with Todd and a couple of other journalists close to the scene) still think Therrien's a good coach. He's not. You can only fool players for so long before they quit giving you everything they have and in today's NHL, your players have to give you everything. It wasn't a coincidence that after Pittsburgh fired Therrien their goal difference improved by a full goal per game. Bylsma didn't wave a magic wand. The shackles came off and the team responded. The recent swoon has been deeper and more extreme than I anticipated, but I'm not surprised in the least the team is failing. Therrien set the stage and all it needed was Price's absence. Didn't PK basically say he was sick of shooting the puck off the glass when asked about causing the 2 goals in the game... that to me speaks volumes about how "The System" is not working for the players.
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Post by blny on Jan 28, 2016 11:09:20 GMT -5
A winning culture for who though? The Marlies have been successful on the ice going back to the lock out, but this is the first season that the roster has had anyone on it with a real shot at being an impact player for the Leafs since Kadri in 12-13. So, we're talking about Kadri, Nylander, and Kapanen and Gauthier. That's 3 additional guys with a realistic chance. A winning culture with a roster full of career minor leaguers does nothing for the big club. Actually I disagree, the kids learn how to win and they bring it with them. The issue is really how the big club is structured, if the big club has a winning mentality the kids are fine, they bring enthusiasm and effort(see Chiacgo, Detroit, L.A.). With a guy like Babs at the helm, he has instilled a better environment for the leafs players, they're losing games but it is still positive as compared with the Habs where the end of the world is near. The Leafs can bring up players who are used to winning and they will be fine. Regarding the Habs the problem is with the big club and that filters down to the little club. Most of these kids come from winning junior cultures and given how many now jump from jr straight to the NHL (in part perhaps because they can't play in the AHL til they're 20), I don't see it having a huge impact. For me, the biggest impact is being able to play the way that best demonstrates why you were draft.
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Post by CentreHice on Jan 28, 2016 11:28:43 GMT -5
What bothers me most is that all of these weaknesses were evident last year...even into the playoffs....
Price had a season for ages....and we still pop-gunned our way into elimination...barely getting by Ottawa in Round 1. Price played lights out in Game 6. We won 2-0 on a first period Gallagher goal...and an empty-netter with 1 second left.
And what did Bergevin do over the summer to address our offence? Kassian, Semin, and Fleischmann. Two long-shots who weren't long in being shot.....and an aging 3rd line plugger.
Nothing but a house of cards...and this year, the key card has been removed...
Lots of blame to share between Berg and MT....
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Post by franko on Jan 28, 2016 11:33:16 GMT -5
I'm puzzled as to why we see these faults and Brunet (along with Todd and a couple of other journalists close to the scene) still think Therrien's a good coach. He's not. believe Todd has dropped his membership from the Therrien fan club:
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Post by blny on Jan 28, 2016 11:33:54 GMT -5
Given how hard they are to come by, and goal scorers are the most in-demand commodity in the league, it's certainly best if you can draft them. Aside from Galchenyuk, we've not really been in a position to draft elite goal scoring. It all comes back to the coach though. Gotta have a coach that will unleash the horses after you get the horses.
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Post by franko on Jan 28, 2016 11:35:06 GMT -5
yup MT is quick to turn our stallions into geldings.
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Post by CentreHice on Jan 28, 2016 11:54:28 GMT -5
Right. Which is why I'd have insisted that Therrien play Chucky in the role for which he'd been drafted. I've posted this clip before....but I won't bother writing out the transcript again. Starting at around 5:45... BIG CENTRE, STRENGTH DOWN THE MIDDLE, THEY DON'T COME BY OFTEN, YOU HAVE TO DRAFT THEM BECAUSE THEY'RE NOT AVAILABLE VIA TRADE.... Spent 2012-13 on the wing. Spent 2013-14 on the wing. Spent all but 12 or so games of 2014-15 on the wing. Started 2015-16 at centre, with a commitment that he'd stay there.......back to the wing with Desharnais as his centre. 4 years later...it's still Pleks and DD down the middle. As Skilly's figures have pointed out....MT was propped up by Theodore, then Fleury, now Price....enough already. The silver lining is HOPEFULLY another top pick this year....but no way MT gets his scalpel anywhere near him.
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Post by CentreHice on Jan 28, 2016 12:15:52 GMT -5
And HOPEFULLY, this guy returns to 100%....brings a tear to your eye to watch how good he is....and has had to be.....if only we had a brain trust to match....
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Post by seventeen on Jan 28, 2016 15:18:36 GMT -5
I'm puzzled as to why we see these faults and Brunet (along with Todd and a couple of other journalists close to the scene) still think Therrien's a good coach. He's not. believe Todd has dropped his membership from the Therrien fan club: He still thinks Therrien's a good coach but now feels change can't come with him in charge. But he still thinks Therrien's good. Go figger.
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Post by Skilly on Jan 28, 2016 16:35:31 GMT -5
I'm well aware. That's why I said to develop a formula ... I develop weighted formulas all the time for rating roads, for ranking and budgets. The only thing that would have to be agreed on is the criteria to analyze (round selected, games played, goals, etc) and the weights of each. Then you add up all the picks in that year to get an overall score .... A later round pick with less points might rate higher depending on the weights of the rounds, for example. You can't just weight the round though. You have to weight the whole draft. Otherwise, you can't compare the 20th pick from one year to the next. Without weighting each draft, the 20th pick would have the same probability of success every year and we know that isn't true. In my rating system you wouldn't compare drafts. You'd compare successes relative to the league in each season ... That's good enough to show if you have a successful scouting department. If you are consistently being more successful than the rest of the league, the strength or weakness of the draft doesn't matter. A team that finishes with success ratios ranked 5th 3rd 12th 8th, 6th in five years is more successful that a team that has 16th, 23rd, 8th, 17th, 20th ...as an example
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Post by seventeen on Jan 28, 2016 18:39:28 GMT -5
But wouldn't it be better to be successful in a good draft year than a weak one?
Ok I'm being a teensy weensie mischievous but it's a good question.
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Post by Disgruntled70sHab on Jan 28, 2016 18:51:38 GMT -5
believe Todd has dropped his membership from the Therrien fan club: He still thinks Therrien's a good coach but now feels change can't come with him in charge. But he still thinks Therrien's good. Go figger. Couldn't tell you one way or the other, but maybe Bergevin knows the game enough to know when his coach is toast ... I think he'll stick to his guns and, maybe, we'll see Therrien resign once the team is officially eliminated from the playoffs ... might be the best-case scenario for Bergevin ... now, if he were to refuse the resignation, that's an entirely new game altogether ... Therrien can then go back on L'antichambre and tell the new coach what's wrong with his team ... #supposition Cheers.
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Post by franko on Jan 28, 2016 19:33:03 GMT -5
Can't see that one happening. Resign means walk away from money.
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Post by Disgruntled70sHab on Jan 28, 2016 19:45:35 GMT -5
Does she have the typical number of pairs of shoes as the average woman? Too many? a woman never thinks she has too many shoes in the closet, just as a man never thinks there is enough sex in a relationship. and yes, taking a woman shoe shopping is foreplay. can I say that on this site?)REPENT DUDE! ... Mrs Dis has an extensive shoe collection ... most have dust on them ... oh yeah ... the thread ... maybe Berg and Therrien should buy their wives some shoes start to look out of the box ... what have they got to lose at this point ... Cheers.
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Post by franko on Jan 28, 2016 19:49:28 GMT -5
Still trying to wrap my head around it: were our preseason expectations that unrealistic? Is this team as bad as it looks? Is MT that bad as a coach?
I would answer no to all three questions. MT may be mediocre but he isn't as terrible as the team is playing (again I must go wash my mouth out for supporting the guy). Price hides blemishes but not that many. Even an awful team should be able to win occasionally.
Perfect storm is all I can think.
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Post by franko on Jan 28, 2016 20:00:25 GMT -5
a woman never thinks she has too many shoes in the closet, just as a man never thinks there is enough sex in a relationship. and yes, taking a woman shoe shopping is foreplay. can I say that on this site?)REPENT DUDE! ... Mrs Dis has an extensive shoe collection ... most have dust on them ... oh yeah ... the thread ... maybe Berg and Therrien should buy their wives some shoes start to look out of the box ... what have they got to lose at this point ... Cheers. I'll edit: a woman never thinks she has too many shoes in the closet just as a man never thinks there is enough sex in a relationship.However, I maintain that taking a woman shoe shopping is foreplay. -- for her.
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Post by PTH on Jan 28, 2016 20:33:47 GMT -5
Still trying to wrap my head around it: were our preseason expectations that unrealistic? Is this team as bad as it looks? Is MT that bad as a coach? I would answer no to all three questions. MT may be mediocre but he isn't as terrible as the team is playing (again I must go wash my mouth out for supporting the guy). Price hides blemishes but not that many. Even an awful team should be able to win occasionally. Perfect storm is all I can think. I think the biggest blame has to be on Pacioretty not being the leader he was expected to be... when he's not scoring, he's not getting much done. Kovalev could be a leader in a way Pacioretty doesn't have. That, combined with the absence of Price and Gallagher, led to a death spiral.... and now that they all have doubts, they can't get their confidence back, so you have guys trying to do too much, or not playing their game, etc. I also think the early season wins dulled the competitiveness of some of the guys, leading to a little bit of slacking off, just when those key injuries hit. It also meant that MT didn't want to fiddle around with a winning lineup, so defense pairs and forward lines were remarkably stable, as they had been throughout camp, so when it was required to rebalance them, there was zero chemistry for any new line combos, or new defense pairings.
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Post by Skilly on Jan 28, 2016 21:01:09 GMT -5
But wouldn't it be better to be successful in a good draft year than a weak one? Ok I'm being a teensy weensie mischievous but it's a good question. No, I don't think so ... You success ratio might be higher in a good year, because the players are better. But wouldn't it be harder to get a good player in a weak year, so that shows that your scouting staff can still draft well in bad years. My two cents anyway.
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Post by franko on Jan 28, 2016 21:07:27 GMT -5
MT didn't want to fiddle around with a winning lineup, so defense pairs and forward lines were remarkably stable, as they had been throughout camp, so when it was required to rebalance them, there was zero chemistry for any new line combos, or new defense pairings. I can see that. but it's been two freakin' months . . . shouldn't there have been some sort of rebalance and chemistry by now?
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Post by CentreHice on Jan 28, 2016 21:10:39 GMT -5
Could Detroit's staff have been THAT good???
Lidstrom (Rnd. 3. #53) Datsyuk (Rnd. 6. #171) Zetterberg (Rnd. 7. #210)
I think that, as well as astute scouting, we have to look at other aspects of organizational strength here. i.e. development....usage....coaching....building....
I don't believe in LUCK.....
And I think Shanahan, Babcock, Lamoriello, Lemaire are on the right track in Toronto....they are going to tank it and rebuild....might be 3 years....but they'll be back....
And we'll still be spinning our tires and wasting our core's window.
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Post by PTH on Jan 28, 2016 21:12:57 GMT -5
MT didn't want to fiddle around with a winning lineup, so defense pairs and forward lines were remarkably stable, as they had been throughout camp, so when it was required to rebalance them, there was zero chemistry for any new line combos, or new defense pairings. I can see that. but it's been two freakin' months . . . shouldn't there have been some sort of rebalance and chemistry by now? Of course... but by then, the death spiral was on.
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Post by Willie Dog on Jan 28, 2016 21:47:16 GMT -5
Still trying to wrap my head around it: were our preseason expectations that unrealistic? Is this team as bad as it looks? Is MT that bad as a coach? I would answer no to all three questions. MT may be mediocre but he isn't as terrible as the team is playing (again I must go wash my mouth out for supporting the guy). Price hides blemishes but not that many. Even an awful team should be able to win occasionally. Perfect storm is all I can think. I think the biggest blame has to be on Pacioretty not being the leader he was expected to be... when he's not scoring, he's not getting much done. Kovalev could be a leader in a way Pacioretty doesn't have. That, combined with the absence of Price and Gallagher, led to a death spiral.... and now that they all have doubts, they can't get their confidence back, so you have guys trying to do too much, or not playing their game, etc. I also think the early season wins dulled the competitiveness of some of the guys, leading to a little bit of slacking off, just when those key injuries hit. It also meant that MT didn't want to fiddle around with a winning lineup, so defense pairs and forward lines were remarkably stable, as they had been throughout camp, so when it was required to rebalance them, there was zero chemistry for any new line combos, or new defense pairings. MT doesn't want to fiddle around with a winning lineup? ?? He has repeatedly messed around with Galchenyuk whenever he's had success.. he broke up the egg line... he took galchy off the top line when the line was doing well. Along with patches i also lay blame on pleky and dd... they have both been in the #1 centre position for longer than 2 games this season and done diddly.
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Post by PTH on Jan 28, 2016 22:55:22 GMT -5
I think the biggest blame has to be on Pacioretty not being the leader he was expected to be... when he's not scoring, he's not getting much done. Kovalev could be a leader in a way Pacioretty doesn't have. That, combined with the absence of Price and Gallagher, led to a death spiral.... and now that they all have doubts, they can't get their confidence back, so you have guys trying to do too much, or not playing their game, etc. I also think the early season wins dulled the competitiveness of some of the guys, leading to a little bit of slacking off, just when those key injuries hit. It also meant that MT didn't want to fiddle around with a winning lineup, so defense pairs and forward lines were remarkably stable, as they had been throughout camp, so when it was required to rebalance them, there was zero chemistry for any new line combos, or new defense pairings. MT doesn't want to fiddle around with a winning lineup? ?? He has repeatedly messed around with Galchenyuk whenever he's had success.. he broke up the egg line... he took galchy off the top line when the line was doing well. Along with patches i also lay blame on pleky and dd... they have both been in the #1 centre position for longer than 2 games this season and done diddly. Saying that Galchy was doing well at center is just blindly looking at numbers, he wasn't strong in his own zone and still has multiple defensive issues. Condon had strong numbers at first but over time the same happened to him - his game got analyzed, and now his weakness for wraparounds and goal-stuffing from beneath the goal-line is being exploited by every team we face.
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