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The Toronto Maple Leafs fell 7-3 to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday night in another demonstration of the team’s defensive and goaltending issues early in the 2016-17 season.

The night ended with a few significant positives to draw on as well: William Nylander and Auston Matthews are now one-two in NHL points scoring six games into the season.

This is a difficult game to analyze by the numbers. Overall, the Leafs had a massive edge in shots (43-24) and shot attempts (79-40), but the score-close sample is only seven minutes long and the Leafs carried a 10-7 edge in shot attempts in that time.

The 2-0 goal was a bit of a backbreaker for the Leafs; they had played a strong four or five minutes after conceding the opening goal, with a good series of successive shifts from Matthews/Nylander, Marner and Kadri lines. The Lightning scored their second goal after four consecutive minutes without a shot attempt, and it was one Frederik Andersen absolutely needed to hang onto:

After conceding a third goal on a lethal one-timer by Steven Stamkos late in the first, the Leafs played a pretty awful second period. You could’ve placed a blanket over the entire Leafs’ five-man defensive unit on one of Andersen’s better saves in a one-on-zero situation in the second period. Lost board battles in the defensive zone, missed assignments and crossed signals, and an overall lack of structure defensively made for some long Lightning cycles in the Leaf zone.

The Victor Hedman 4-0 goal was a display of the systems confusion and lack of communication that was plaguing the Leafs defensively. Hedman managed to sneak out of the zone and around to the back post without the attention of JVR, who was focused on the puck and didn’t keep his head on a swivel for the back door play. But, prior to, Rielly pursued Kucherov in a man-to-man situation while partner Nikita Zaitsev seemed to be tracking Stamkos. Zaitsev then left Stamkos and returned to the net front, where he doubled up on Namestnikov with Bozak. That makes for confusion between Bozak and Zaitsev as to who should be looking after Stamkos, who is now wide open as the down-low cycle option. Stamkos had all day to pick the Leafs apart. Points should be awarded to some excellent cycle play by the Lightning here, but the defensive mix-ups are obvious on the Leafs’ part.

Before the second period ended, William Nylander gave the Leafs a little life with a powerplay goal, his fourth of the season (T-7th in the NHL) and ninth point (T-2nd in the NHL). A beautiful no-look feed from Kadri found Nylander in his right circle spot where he’s now buried three goals in six games.

Early in the third, the Lightning restored their four-goal advantage through Nikita Kucherov, whose perfect shot beat Andersen bar-down after a bad bounce on the initial centering pass by Stamkos fell perfectly for the Lightning sniper.

The Leafs brought the game back to within three after a great read by Morgan Rielly to strip Jonathan Drouin at the offensive blueline, followed by a patient line walk by Nikita Zaitsev at the point, led to the 5-2 goal off a JVR tip in front.

Just over a minute later, William Nylander’s strip of Brian Boyle set up Auston Matthews for a now-familiar quick wrister through the goalie’s legs, briefly making a game of it. With that goal, Matthews took over both the NHL points and goal-scoring lead.

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Just as the momentum seemed to be pointing to a late Leaf push, however, hopes were extinguished after a high-sticking penalty taken by Mitch Marner. The Lightning scored on both halves of their double-minor powerplay to complete the football scoreline.

The positive angle on it is that — after 22 goals against over six games, matching a franchise record set by Allan Bester (1989-90) for goals allowed by a goalie in the first six games of his Leaf career — this is surely rock bottom for Frederik Andersen and it can go nowhere but up from here. Surely.

But he’s going to need better support from the team in front of him if he’s going to get back on track.


Toronto Maple Leafs vs Tampa Bay Lightning Possession Statistics

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Mike Babcock Post Game


Game in Six