Frederik Andersen posted his second shutout as a Toronto Maple Leaf and Nazem Kadri scored his 19th and 20th goals of the season as the Maple Leafs downed the Calgary Flames 4-0 on Monday night.
Your game in ten:
1) A 26-save shutout with four goals of run support isn’t the type of game where one would declare the goalie stole the win – and Andersen didn’t – but it should be recognized that the Flames had several good looks early in the game and could’ve built themselves a multi-goal lead if not for Andersen. The Flames had just eight shots on goal in the first period, but Natural Stat Trick credited them with four ‘high-danger scoring chances’ (compared to the Leafs’ two in the first) at even strength. Andersen set the stage for this win.
2) After playing a solid game – utilizing his reach well on the penalty kill in particular, where he played a team-high 6:34 and picked up an assist on Hyman’s shorthanded marker – Marincin sustained an ugly-looking injury right as the buzzer sounded:
https://twitter.com/kerdy19/status/823733142523617281
That certainly looks every bit like an intentional slew foot; Tkachuk didn’t get him on the first attempt but sure did on the second. It wouldn’t be anything new from the Flames’ rookie forward, who should be getting a bit of a reputation for this just 46 games into his career.
@Lowetide Davidson was sleefooted pic.twitter.com/cp6VRphz2W
— Trentent Tye (@TrententTye) October 13, 2016
Davidson missed two months with that injury. The league is reportedly looking into tonight’s incident.
Babcock’s report after the game is that Marincin is going to be okay, which of course is good news for the Leafs. Marincin’s presence seems to have settled the pairings down a bit in the last couple of games after the debacle against New York — Zaitsev and Marincin finished in the 52-53 CF% range tonight, with about half of their even strength minutes coming against Monahan and Gaudreau’s line.
Exclude the Bruins game in early December that he left injured from on his fourth shift, and Marincin has five points in his last seven after picking up the assist on Hyman’s shortie.
3) A great night for the Leafs PK (five for five), which now sits top five in the league at 84.7%. Hyman and Brown’s industry shorthanded was well documented on the broadcast, while Marincin brought a nice element, using his massive wingspan to disrupt plays and entries along the blue line. Jack Han put together a good breakdown of how the Leafs’ units defend in-zone, but one other thing you’ll notice about the Leafs PK is their use of a “trailer” against the universally-deployed drop pass in order to combat clean zone entries:
When Calgary did get set up, DJ Smith’s units were again highly aggressive and organized while pressuring the halfwalls and anticipating passes to the points.
4) This is a statistic Mike Babcock has mentioned he likes to look at – combined special teams total. And he’ll definitely like the league rankings at the moment:
One for four on the powerplay and five for five — along with a shorthanded goal — on the penalty kill tonight.
5) A two-point night for Mitch Marner vaults him into the lead in rookie points scoring, and his three shots on goal were more than his previous five games combined. He should’ve shot coming out of the box shorthanded after his first-period penalty, though; he had a great look at goal but we saw that “extra move” Babcock was talking about before the game, and Dougie Hamilton read it all the way. Just nitpicking at this point.
Tonight’s multi-point game was Marner’s 12th of the season — that ties him for seventh in the entire league, behind only Connor McDavid, Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Brent Burns, Phil Kessel and Jeff Carter. This kid can take over games.
6) Nazem Kadri: 17 goals after 76 games on 270 shots last season, 20 goals after 45 games on 141 shots this season. 10 powerplay goals after 45 games this season versus four powerplay goals after 76 games last season. How good of a bet was that contract last April?
7) Maybe this isn’t a relevant point on a night when his powerplay goal came from the halfwall position, but here was Kadri’s shot map on the powerplay from last season:
Sporting Charts doesn’t have updated data for this season yet, but you can bet that would tell a much different story this year. Playing on a powerplay unit as dynamic as the Leafs’ top group no doubt produces a rising tide effect, but credit goes to Kadri’s stick-to-it-iveness and to Jim Hiller for identifying the right spot for him in the middle on the man advantage.
8) Kadri is the second Leaf to hit 20 goals this season by game 45, with five others on pace for 17 or more. If Marner and Nylander pick up their goals pace even slightly, six or seven 20-goal scorers isn’t out of the question this season for the Leafs. That’s after 2015-16 season featuring one 20-goal scorer (and 20 exactly in PA Parenteau).
The last time the Leafs had six 20-goal scorers on their roster was back in 1999-2000 (Mats Sundin, Jonas Hoglund, Steve Thomas, Sergei Berezin, Darcy Tucker, Igor Korolev). The Leafs finished with 100 points and won the Northeast Division that season.
9) Frederik Gauthier went four for six in the defensive zone tonight, which takes him up to 59 out of 100 in d-zone draws since his callup (it’s a pretty small sample size, but 59% leads all Leafs centers; Ben Smith is at 45.5% in the d-zone).
“For him to be real effective he’s got to be an elite penalty killer and dominant face-off guy. With his size there’s no reason he shouldn’t be a dominant face-off guy so he’s got to work at that.”
– Mike Babcock in September, 2016
Currently hovering around 53% overall and bearing down on his defensive zone assignments, it looks like The Goat has put in the work.
10) Happy 30th birthday to Leo Komarov. No points for his cake day, but something tells me agitating Calgary’s entire team after a big, clean hit on Johnny Gaudreau, and drawing a bad penalty off of Alex Chaisson leading to the put-away 3-0 goal by Nazem Kadri, is just as good in his books.
All Situations Shot Attempts
