Maple Leafs Hot Stove’s Anthony Petrielli joined Sportsnet Tonight to discuss the return of William Nylander to the lineup, the forward lines with him back, Garret Sparks’ play and the Leafs’ performance level at 5-on-5 this season.
On William Nylander’s return:
I think we have a rough idea of how, at least on the low end, good William Nylander is now. The question, and it comes with the contract, is how much better can he be than we’ve already seen? Back-to-back 61 point seasons, we know he is productive. He has been around that 20-goal mark. Can he push to that 30-goal mark? We know he has the ability to.
In terms of his first game, I was surprised they played him altogether on Thursday. I thought they would wait for Saturday. He didn’t even practice with the team. He clearly didn’t have his legs. Babcock pulled the chute on him pretty quick all things considered. The road game would’ve probably been better to start off with in that kind of environment where the expectations… Let’s be honest, they looked like a team that had read the newspaper about themselves at the start of that game against Detroit.
In terms of Nylander, we can clearly see how skilled he is. He has a great shot. The question for me in terms of his production for the rest of this season will be whether he can do anything on that second power play unit. It is a little early to tell, but it’s probably not the most comfortable fit for him I’d imagine.
On whether he would’ve kept Nylander further down the lineup to start:
I thought there was potential for if Babcock starts him lower in the lineup, maybe he kind of hears it like, “Nylander has a contract dispute and he starts him on the lower lines burying him when he’s making $7 million.” Just the optics of it. Not that I think Babcock cedes to the media by and large, but with the whole optics of the situation, I thought he was probably going to start him with Matthews just for one less headache in his life.
On whether Patrick Marleau is the right fit on the Matthews and Nylander line:
I mean, he’s savvy. Provided he stays healthy, which he has for eight seasons in a row now, I’m sure he is going to be around the 20-goal mark as he usually is. But his game is unspectacular to be playing with Matthews and Nylander and what they need. We’ve seen that Marleau can finish if guys create chances for him and he can still skate. He was actually quite good in the playoffs last year for the Leafs, which sometimes I think gets forgotten. I thought he was quite effective and he had that big two-goal game.
In terms of playing with Matthews and Nylander — two guys who dominate the puck but probably need a guy to go get it for them aka Zach Hyman — it is a bit of a strange fit for him, I think. Matthews and Nylander, if one of them has the puck and another one is trying to get open in the high slot — which is kind of where Marleau is basically located when he was playing with Kadri and Marner — he is not going to do that with Matthews and Nylander. His role is to go to the net — basically the Zach Hyman role, but he’s not as effective as a forechecker.
On where the team stands defensively with their goals against in the top ten:
I think Frederik Andersen masks a lot of issues. Andersen is in the Vezina conversation right now. He’s right there. Who is ahead of him? Maybe Rinne? Interestingly, the Leafs and Nashville are the two teams who ice the puck the most and then here we go.
Their defense has kind of hung in there within reason, but the forwards clearly drive the team. Other than Rielly and Dermott when he is going — he’s a young guy, so he is a little bit more inconsistent night in and night out — he does the same thing. Those two guys push the play and get involved and all of these other things, but a lot of the other guys, they are successful in spite of them.
Zaitsev we saw ice the puck for no reason with two minutes left against Detroit. Picks up the puck on a neutral zone dump in at the top of the circle of his own zone, skates over to Gardiner’s side, Gardiner stands there like, “I don’t even know what’s happening right now,” and Zaitsev misses an outlet pass by like three feet and it goes for an icing and a d-zone draw.
On the level of trust in Garret Sparks at this point:
I think his numbers are a little bit deceiving. He’s like 4-1-1, but this team is a top-five team in the league. You should have a winning record just based on the roster alone. His numbers are middling for a backup goalie, but let’s be honest, the confidence in him is not great if they are in any sort of tough game.
I still can’t see them going out and acquiring another backup goalie. They had a good, proven backup goalie and they put him on waivers to accommodate Sparks. I would be quite surprised if they went out and got someone unless, God forbid, Frederik Andersen gets hurt. They seem to have made their bed and they seem generally okay with the decision so far.
It’s going to be really interesting what they do when they are in February and March and everyone is looking at the standings every single night. It’s going to be tougher and tougher to justify putting him in if there is no confidence in him in net. I would still be fairly surprised if they went out and acquired a backup at this point just on principle alone with what they’ve done so far.
On whether the team’s shooting talent and special teams make up for 5-on-5 play that has not been as good as it could be:
They’re only a middling possession team. You can sit there and say you are an amazing five-on-five team, I think, when you are dominating the puck. The Leafs don’t dominate the puck. It goes back and forth and their shooting talent beats pretty much every other team in the league. If you are splitting chances and power play opportunities, you generally feel pretty good about the Leafs coming out on top of a game like that.
It’s not like they’re controlling 55-60% of the shot attempts that are happening at 5-on-5. If that was happening, I think you could sit there and say they’re a dominant 5-on-5 team. The other point is that they have offensive lines who score but they don’t have that they put out that just takes over shift after shift. Marner will take over shifts with Tavares and we see when they get chances, they do some magical stuff, but sometimes we see games where other teams are taking it to them and the Leafs don’t really have a stopper line that can go out there and tilt the ice back the other way.
Now, the Hyman-Matthews-Nylander line has been doing that in previous years. I still think at some point we see that line reunited because they have been unbelievable. The numbers are a little bit rougher but they were somewhere like a little over 50 goals for last year and only 25 against. That’s dominating. And they controlled 55% of the shot attempts. That’s a dominant line and I think everything could kind of flow out from there and have a trickle-down effect.
We’ve talked about Kadri maybe not looking as comfortable in the third line role, but their fourth line is just a complete work in progress at this point, which is expected when you see all of these bodies shuffling in and out. I think at some point they will firm that up and we’ve seen them do that the last two deadlines. We’ve talked about Marleau playing the top line and maybe that not being a fit, so I think they need to just sort out where guys are going and what their roles are going to be.
They have the ability to be much better than they are. If we are talking about encouraging things, in the third period against Detroit, Babcock completely shuffled his lines, which is something we really haven’t seen him do since he’s become the Toronto coach. He’s basically been set it and forget it. They have a little bit more flexibility, which I think has been a byproduct of players coming in and out of the lineup and Matthews missing time and Nylander not being there.
That mixing and matching is going to come in handy, but at some point, they need to get a bit more of a game flow going with their lines and their roles. They should be better at 5-on-5 than they have been.
