I feel for Tavares a bit but boy was that crowd fun to watch tonight

Didn't want to gloat in front of Leafs fans tonight, but I'll admit it was a cathartic game to watch.

They put on a show tonight that was an impressive effort

I feel like if he had signed with the Sharks instead of the Leafs that the reaction wouldn’t have been has hostile, but maybe I’m totally off base

Oh, it still would have been hostile, but not nearly as bad. The Sharks were at least a dark horse team, everyone was kind of anticipating him to go to the Leafs once his contract is up, so once he jumped ship, it looked like he'd been planning it all along. I guess I don't know if he was planning it all along, but it's hard to see it a different way as an Isles fan.

That said, I'm from Iowa, so I have yet to talk to an Isles fan in person about Tavares leaving.

Its kind of hard to say that you put up 6 on an elite team considering that we:
are missing half of our top 4
starting our backup
on a back to back in a stretch where we play A TON.
Missing our best shut down centre
and so on.

That being said, the Leafs played like absolute **** after the 1st ended (where they were doing fairly well, out chancing the isles by a good margin) and hung the goalie out to dry.
Leafs did not adjust to the trap and the rest of the game was basically:
Breakout > bad entry > get stuck and don't set up > Turnover without generating a scoring chance > back in our end > isles set up and get a chance or two > Leafs eventually get the puck back after way too long Repeat.

Only Leafs who showed up tonight were JT, Marner, Hyman, and Holl and Sparks showed up for the first half.

Long story short, The isles wanted it more, and won. Game meant more to yah, and the isles played better and deserve it (even though much of the fan base are acting like children).
At this point the only thing left to do is put the game behind us, get healthy, never ever complain about Gards value on this blue line ever again (PSA to gards haters) and focus on showing up for important games (aka the playoffs), unlike last year where we only showed up for like 2 games (and still pushed it to 7).

Just to be clear, I didn't make this post to **** talk the Leafs. And I'm not going to tell Leafs fans how to react to the game. Rough losses happen, and I doubt this game really affects the trajectory of the season for you guys. You'll still make the playoffs, probably win in the 1st round, then either get knocked out by the Bolts or beat them and go on to have an impressive postseason run.

The whole thrust of this post was to point out that the Beau-Barzal-Bailey line looked good tonight. And considering guys like Komarov and Kuhnhackl were recently put on a line with Barzal, I think that's a point worth making. No need to try crazy stuff with our best forward, we've had the guys he plays best with all along.

These need to be the lines going forward. As for the UFAs on the top line, who do you think stays and who goes? Lee's gotta be a lock, but there's a lot more uncertainty around Nelson and Ebs. I'd like to keep both but idk if that's even smart, considering our prospects coming up.

It depends. If Brock will take anything under 5m aav, keep him. If Eberle is willing to take a one or two year contract, or if he’s willing to take a longer contract with no NTC or NMC, keep him. Both looked good this year and have clearly bought into Trotz’ system. But you can’t overpay them, and you can’t get caught paying them 5m+ in 4-6 years when they’re 33ish and past their prime.

So it’s a tough situation. Especially since I don’t think the Isles will land a big fish in UFA, so if they let them walk they might not be able to replace them with a different guy in UFA.

Yeah, I agree that they probably won't get any great free agents, so they'll have to keep one of Nelson or Eberle. Tbh, I think they'll keep both and trade Ho-Sang. Why he hasn't gotten a real shot yet is beyond me, but if they haven't given him a shot at this point, I'm not sure that they ever will. He's played well enough in the AHL to justify another extended call-up imo. So either he replaces Eberle or he's the odd man out. Just my thoughts though....