From time to time, Fulemin likes to do some Optimist/Pessimist articles, where he examines an issue facing the Leafs, and debates it from the perspective of a starry-eyed optimist and a jaded, bitter pessimist. We decided to do the same for this podcast. We took a few issues that are facing the Leafs in recent weeks - in particular, their possession play, the slumps of William Nylander and Mitch Marner, and Mike Babcock’s perplexing lineup combinations.

We also discuss Martin Marincin’s callup from the minors in some depth, and unfortunately realize that this means Roman Polak might play top four minutes. Nonetheless, we persisted through the dismay this caused us and went on to the aforementioned topics. Full timestamps are as follows:

  • Martin Marincin’s callup, where he will play in the lineup, and what this means for Connor Carrick’s chances of playing [0:47]
  • How seriously should we take the Leafs possession issues [7:30]
  • Are William Nylander and Mitch Marner’s slumps more than shooting percentage mirages [15:00]
  • I rant about Mike Babcock’s lineup optimization and Fulemin bravely talks me off the ledge [31:03]/

As always, let us know what you think. The audio is a little quiet this time - we got some feedback that there was some mismatch in how loud we were, so we might have overcorrected - that said, it should be uniform, so hopefully it’s not too much of a problem.

You can find us on Soundcloud, iTunes, or basically any other podcast store. See you in a couple weeks!