#at least i know my buddies on here will not move on from SV with me🥲

[gorematchala]

I'm basically finished with the Teal Mask, I fought the last boss as far as I know. I need to go talk to Carmine again to see what Kieran's problem is but I kinda have final thoughts already. I love what SV have done with boss fights. In teal mask they dont even bother explaining why the loyal three are bigger or stronger, and thats great cuz I dont care, those were like real boss fights from a real RPG. The Ogerpon fight where you have an endurance run against all 4 terra forms was awesome. I really loved it. The fucking Ursaluna fight with the PLA music was so godlike. But besides the new Pokémon, the new moves for the new and returning mons, and those boss fights, the rest of it was kinda like, I was just playing it to see that other stuff

The new region is cool and well constructed. There's a hidden cave I didn't know about till I fought Fezandipity that was really deep and interesting. But the problem from the main game bleeds over, which is that Miraidon/Koraidon controls like shit. When youre driving Wyrdeer in PLA basically nothing halts your momentum. You can jump and make turns and switch to Braviary and you just keep moving. And Braviary launches you up quite a bit so you dont always have to climb everywhere. Miraidon comes to a complete stop for like two full seconds if you fall from too high, its flight isn't very smooth, if you stop flying to drop faster you cant start flying again, theres no dive button during flight and theres no way to ascend, bumping into anything while moving has a bonk animation that lasts forever. Its literally the problem that every open world game except MGSV has which is that you have this massive open area with some stuff to do in it kinda, but traversing the map sucks dick. Monster Hunter Rise and PLA got away with this by having smaller maps and better shovment. MGSV got away with it by having D-Buddy/Gear Walker. SV have you wading through the muck of the games framerate and input lag on a bike that drives bad and its so frustrating because there is good stuff in there

The dialogue was also surprisingly weak this time around too even for Pokémon. It was just kinda more boring than anything but there's no mystery to it so you're just kinda like yeah yeah lets get on with it. In Shield I genuinely didn't know what was up with Eternatus so even if the writing wasn't anything special I was at least engaged. But thats why now I'm at the go talk to Carmine part and I'm just like, I got Sinistcha, I got Blood Moon, I got Ogerpon, thats basically all I was here for. And I need to catch the Loyalty Trio mostly for my home dex. Also all of you freaks who hated Hau and Hop need to apologize to them after Kieran's behavior

I just hope I feel more into it when indigo disk comes out because I love Archaludon a lot and I want to enjoy using it in game for a while. I keep forgetting Dipplin exists I need to catch him too. I sure hope they dont try to make the next gen games look like "Nintendo hire this man" again!!!!!!! I knew this style of game was gonna be a bad idea years ago, thats why I shit on PLA before it came out!!!!!!!!!! I hate you Breath of the Wild!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[plms-hockey]

Leafs @ Canes - Game 24 - Nov.24.17

KEY NARRATIVES

Toronto Maple Leafs (14-8-1) vs. Carolina Hurricanes (9-7-0)

This morning Dylan Fremlin wrote this extremely important piece of analytical sports journalism at TheLeafsNation.com about why you should love the Carolina Hurricanes. He covered reasons 1-5, and now I'll be taking up the mantle to cover 6-10.

10. They have to play in the horrible hellscape that is the Metropolitan Division

I'll say it before and I'll say it again. The metro sucks, and every day I'm grateful that the Leafs only have to play those teams three times a year instead of four. I'll take our single-headed Demogorgon in the form Tampa Bay thank you. Carolina, on the other hand, has to play Pittsburgh, Washington, and Columbus four times a year. It's like watching a beautiful young buckling, filled with hope and potential, dumped into a forest filled with direwolves.

Someone, please protect Carolina.

9. JvR + TvR, Brother Battle

I touched on this when the Leafs played Carolina back in October, but, boy, am I a sucker for a family/friends/juniors-buddies narrative. James van Riemsdyk's younger brother Trevor plays for the Canes now, and we should have a better matchup this time considering JvR was injured/recovering from injury last time they played.

An added element of fun in this matchup is that one brother is a forward and the other's a defenseman, which means there's lots of potential for them to actually compete head to head. And while I don't think this will make the brother showdown of the week after Jordie and Jamie Benn got physical last Tuesday, it is a chance for JvR to even up his record against his brother, which currently sits at 1-2 in TvR's favor.

8. Carolina's Home for Blackhawks Cap Casualties

Now if you're like me or almost any other upstanding human being and hate the Chicago Blackhawks, this is another reason to love Carolina. The gross mistreatment and abandonment of puppies — I mean promising young players, due to cap mismanagement is just another way to find Chicago infuriating. Luckily, a number of these abandoned players have found loving homes together in Carolina.

Dylan mentioned one in the shape of one of my favorite goaltenders, Scott Darling, who was signed over the summer into his first NHL starter role. While he has had a bit of a rough start, I hope with my whole heart gets that he gets steadier feet under him as the season goes on. He deserves it, ok?

They also have Teuvo Teravainen, who was dealt to Carolina in June of 2016 to entice the Hurricanes to take on  Bryan Bickell's cap hit. Then this last summer, Marcus Kruger and Trevor van Riemsdyk were offloaded through Vegas.

Anyway, they're all together and happy now with a superior team in red. #AdoptDontShop

7. They are Actually Good-Fun

As mentioned, they're doing very well in possession metrics, and are currently first overall in  CF% league-wide at 5v5. They're giving up the fifth-fewest shot attempts which is great but, even better, they're top of the league in Corsi For per 60 — by a significant number, too. They're currently averaging 66.47 CF/60 which is over 3 more shot attempts per 60 at 5v5 than the second place team (EDM with 63.44 CF/60).

6. If you liked the 2016-17 Leafs, you should like the 2017-18 Hurricanes

They play a similar style but trade star power for a more even balance of talent between the front and back end. Though, the most reminiscent component is their Pace. Pace is a metric that can be calculated by simply adding Corsi For and Corsi Against together. This tells you how many shot attempts you're going to see between both teams on an average night.

The Leafs were first in the league last year with a delightful season average pace of 118.13 per 60. They've now responsibly moved closer to the middle of the pack which makes sense considering they're maturing as a team (though their CF and CA has dropped a bit recently, in part due to the more conservative style they played while Matthews was out. I'd expect them to at least be in the top third of the league in Pace for better or worse by the end of the season). Anyway, freewheeling, high shooting, high goal total games were one of the most enjoyable things about last year's Leafs' team, even when they weren't winning a lot towards the beginning of the season.

If you miss that vibe, you can find it nightly in Carolina. They're currently sitting at a beautiful and terrifying pace of 120.45 per 60 at 5v5. They're second in the league, right after the Blackhawks (?? I don't know what's going on there). But unlike the Blackhawks (or last year's Leafs) who have a fairly even CF% percentage, a huge portion of those shots are coming from Carolina, which should start creating a lot of extra goals for Carolina if they can bump up their 7.43 shooting percentage just a bit.

At the risk of getting burned at the stake as a Leafs blog: the 2017-18 Carolina Hurricanes are like the 2016-17 Leafs... but better at hockey.

Don’t kill me.

5.5 Jeff Skinner Again

Squeezing this in here but my top spot also has to go to Jeff Skinner, who has the gentle demeanor of benevolent Woodland Elf King, smiles with the warmth of a thousand suns, and skates with the grace of a Swan Prince.

Gif Source

In other news, the Leafs will also be present.

In all seriousness, there's an amazing development down south. It's been confirmed that, for his first time as a Leaf, Matt Martin will be a healthy scratch. We've been begging for this, as Matt Martin's presence is really the only thing that regularly stops the Leafs from doing away with any semblance of a traditional fourth line.  Tonight they will roll four scoring lines in the following form:

Hyman - Matthews - Marner Soshnikov - Kadri - Komarov JvR - Bozak - Nylander Leivo - Marleau - Brown

If there's any game that would convince Babcock to try to bench Martin, it makes sense that it would be this one. With the high octane offense and talented but not exactly heavy-weight defense that Carolina is icing, they’ll both need extra scoring andthere probably won't be a lot of "flies to keep off" as Babcock’s fond of saying. Basically, most people on the Canes roster aren't going to try and crush Mitch Marner (at least they better not. Please, my favorites, play nice).

And while I'd obviously like the Hurricanes to start winning more games in general... I would love it if they could just... not do it tonight, considering in many ways this game is a battle for Toronto's soul. While logically we all know you can't decide whether or not something "works" in a single game, if the Leafs have a terrible showing tonight it wouldn't shock me to see Babcock use it as a justification to shove Martin right back into the lineup. Yet, if they can go out and tear it up, we may earn ourselves more of this configuration, perhaps even with Kapanen subbed for Soshnikov (I know, I know, now I need to tag this article as NSFW because those lines would be too filthy).

Anyway, this game isn't stressful and I'm not emotionally compromised at all. It's all fine.

Some Key Numbers

53 - Jeff Skinner - Left Wing 20 - Sebastian Aho - Left Wing 57 - Trevor van Riemsdyk - Defenseman 86 - Teuvo Teravainen - Right Wing 5 - Noah Hanifin - Defenseman 27 - Justin Faulk - Defenseman - Captain 11 - Jordan Staal - Center - Captain

THE HIGHLIGHTS

THE POST GAME

Score: W 5-4

I'm going to keep this one short because somehow my team won and yet I am still mad and that’s not a state of mind one should write from. I'm happy for Frederik Andersen who is currently the MVP of this team and the only reason they won this game. But I'm mad at everyone else.

To be frank, Carolina was completely robbed by Freddie, and I thought to myself, "Oh gosh, we're part of the problem. We're fortunate enough to take advantage of Carolina's utterly crap luck and we don't deserve these points."

Ok, dramatics over. What happened?

The Leafs got run the hell over the entire game. In all situations, they had a CF% of 30. Yes. Thirty. They were somehow even worse in the expected goal front with 27.52%. Basically, Carolina shot more and they shot better.

The reason Carolina lost was simple: Cam Ward.

They started their backup goalie who posted an absolutely abysmal .750 sv%. Darling came in for the third period and honestly didn't do fantastically, as much as it pains me to say, only posting an .889 himself.

Silver linings from this game (barring the two points the Leafs took home) included Josh Leivo scoring a goal which is always nice as well as a trigger for a cascade #Frievo tweets. Seriously, though, they should probably put him in the lineup a little more.

Kadri also got an assist which brings him to a career high nine-game point streak.

Once again the Hyman-Matthews-Marner line looked great, with Marner having the best possession showing on the team. He was 7.1% better than Matthews who sat in second place. Unfortunately, he was still only at a CF% 48.28.

What a mess of a game.

Anyway, I can only hope that the final remaining game between Toronto and my Carolina crush is a more even matchup.

Statistics courtesy of Corsica.Hockey.com and Hockey-reference.com.