Game 22 Scoring Chances: Penguins 4 vs. Maple Leafs 3 (OT)

Toronto finished its season series with Pittsburgh, ending up clearly second-best in chances in all three games.

In this one, though, they managed to earn a point after they scored three times in the second, as they responded well after falling behind 2-0. While the Leafs had the better of the scoring in the second, Pittsburgh still had more of the chances. The Leafs then played a tight third period, limiting Pittsburgh’s chances and holding on to earn a point.

The Leafs‘ ES Close numbers were really poor, as some of their better play came when they were down two in the second. The low overall number of chances is consistent with their last two games; since the Nashville game, they’ve definitely played a tighter style. In the 3 games with Pittsburgh, the Leafs had 32.5% of chances at ES overall, and 27.8% at ES Close, a pair of very low numbers.

The player-by-player data:

The top line had one of its quietest offensive games of the year; until the last 5 minutes, none of them was on for a single Leaf ES chance. They also weren’t able to keep the Penguins under control very well, and all ended up with substantial negatives. The Kadri-Santorelli-Komarov line was the line that drove play, but their ES Close numbers are quite bad, as the best of their offense came with the Leafs down by two in the second, including Komarov’s first goal, which got the game back to a ‘Close’ score state. The other lines both got around 10 minutes of ES ice time, and all had pretty uneventful nights, even or close to it at ES.

With Roman Polak out, Korbinian Holzer drew in for his first game of the season (actually, his first game in two seasons), paired with Stephane Robidas. The pairing actually had a decent game in terms of chances, as while they both ended up in the negative at ES close, this is partly down to their tough zone starts, the hardest on the team. In addition, they were on for some offensive chances when the Leafs were down by two, which pulls their ES overall numbers up. In fact, the defenceman who struggled most was Gardiner; while he was regularly paired with Rielly, and that pairing had a reasonable game, he was on for a lot of chances against when with someone else. The top pairing of Phaneuf and Franson also had negative numbers, though they tended to get the tougher match-ups with the Penguins’ top forwards.

Cumulative numbers this season:

Booth and Holzer don’t appear above, but Lupul does stay on top after his return. Komarov sees his ES Close number drop below 50%, but is still one of three forwards above 50% at ES Overall.