The Toronto Maple Leafs lost after leading through two periods for the first time this season in Philadelphia on Tuesday night.
10 thoughts:
1. Patrick Marleau said between periods that he “screwed up” and came across the line with his feet on the faceoff that led to him getting kicked out and Claude Giroux scoring. But it was really marginal. To me, that was a ticky-tack call and Babcock was well within his rights to be angry about it. I totally understand cracking down on instances such as these:
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But this is as far as Marleau ever crossed over on that play:
Marleau never really twists his feet around here. He more edges forward slightly due to his momentum, thinking the ref was about to drop the puck (so did Couturier a little bit).
Nervous about getting penalized, Zach Hyman then got cleaned out on the retake and Claude Giroux pounded it in.
2. I’ve been monitoring how Tyler Bozak, the king of tying up the stick and winning draws with his feet under the old rules, was going to adjust to new laws. He won just 27% in this game vs. Philly and is at 49.6% on the season. He was over 56% in the prior two seasons – one of the best in the league.
Like how the league showed video of Komarov’s visor use when discussing the rule changes, I’ll bet Bozak made it into the faceoff reels.
3. One line I’m surprised Mike Babcock has not gone back to is William Nylander on Bozak and JVR’s right wing. Not that it was lights-out amazing or anything, but it gave the team a shot in the arm a few times when Babcock went to it during the Western Canada road swing.
The line of Kadri, Komarov and Nylander has combined for one goal for and one goal against in 68 minutes of even strength ice time together while getting outshot 50-22 and outpossessed 60/40. A big part of that is due to starting just 22% of their shifts in the o-zone while taking on tough matchups. You’re pretty happy if that line just breaks even as far as goals for/against.
Last year, the trio did not break even:
| Season | Player 1 | Player 2 | Player 3 | TOI | CF% | FF% | SF% | GF | GA | GF% | OZ FO% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17-18 | Nylander | Kadri | Komarov | 68:13 | 40.29 | 35 | 30.56 | 1 | 1 | 50 | 24.59 |
| 16-17 | Nylander | Kadri | Komarov | 294:36 | 48.39 | 48.02 | 46.69 | 12 | 16 | 42.86 | 36.36 |
To me, Nylander looks good early in games often times but it seems like he gets bogged down in the tough minutes and lack of o-zone looks when he’s on that line. Nylander and Kadri also play the game at very different speeds.
4. Frederik Andersen bundled the initial handle leading to the 2-2 Flyers goal, but it’s fitting the Leafs got burned by a double deflection off of a point shot. While they’ve generally cracked down on high-danger scoring chances in the last 10 or so games, they’ve been giving up an absurd number of shots to opposition defencemen lately. In this game, they gave up 16 to Flyers blue liners, including five from Radko Gudas.
5. Against Pittsburgh on Saturday, they gave up 16 as well, including eight from Kris Letang alone.
The Edmonton game wasn’t quite as bad with 13, but seven came off the stick of Oscar Klefbom.
In their stolen win against Calgary – Andersen’s 47-save performance – a whopping 21 shots came from the Flames defence.
For a point of reference, if you add up the shots per game rates of their six regular D, the Leafs average a little less than eight shots per game from their defence. The Flyers average a little less than 11 from their blue line on an average night.
6. It’s a mix of couple things: seemingly by design, the Leafs collapse low in their own zone and do not cut off the points often, so they get worked low-to-high frequently and it can easily devolve into a shooting gallery. They also have not generated enough offensive-zone time lately, particularly when leading, as they have for substantial portions of the past four games.
One sort of feeds into the other. The Leafs need to generate more cycles and zone time, but when they’re defending like that inside their own zone, they’re often just flipping and chasing into neutral ice once they recover the puck, hoping to catch teams that way. Even if it works, it lends itself more to stretch hockey and one-and-done rush exploits than it does setting up the offensive zone for any sustained period of time. It’s looked rather rope-a-dopey at times lately.
7. I was surprised to see the Flyers pressure Mitch Marner so aggressively on the half-wall just before the Leafs’ 2-1 power-play goal. As Anthony has pointed out several times in his notebooks, teams are having success on the PK against the Leafs by simply jamming up the middle and taking away their favourite play to the man in the middle, knowing there isn’t a major shot threat on the half-wall of that unit. With a behind-the-back pass to Rielly, Marner took Michael Raffl out of the equation and Rielly could step into his shot with an open lane to get it through.
8. With his power play goal, James van Riemsdyk is now on-pace for 39 goals, including 16 on the power play (the next best in PP goals pace is Nazem Kadri with eight). He’s scored four of the Leafs’ last seven power-play goals dating back to Nov. 10. You can knock the need to shelter him and his give-and-take play at even-strength, but there’s no doubting he’s the most consistent power-play producer on the team and a high-end scorer overall. It’s stating the obvious, but the Leafs, if they’re still in a solid playoff position at the deadline, won’t have to think twice about the decision.
9. The game-winning goal was one hell of a play by Claude Giroux off of the wall in the neutral zone. After the game, Babcock pointed to Brown not being above Couturier on the play, and Brown was a few inches slow, but Giroux couldn’t have laid out an area pass any better than that. It was a no-looker through his legs and Zaitsev’s legs, and if it’s even slightly more direct, Brown probably intercepts it.
10. If you didn’t watch a ton of Leafs hockey this year, you might say it looked like the Leafs’ D made some bad decisions/got awfully aggressive late in a tie game in the build-up to the losing goal with both Gardiner (at the blue line) and Zaitsev (at the red line) pinching on the same side of the ice, but this is something that they are instructed to do. When the Leafs nearly got burned on a breakaway for Valtteri Filppula with 16 minutes left in the third, you could see (below) how the Leafs’ defencemen are looking to be very aggressive and force the issue before the opposition breaks the zone – here, Hainsey actually closes on Rielly’s side of the ice thinking he can get there first but makes the wrong read on this one and loses the gamble.
