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The Maple Leafs escaped the trap vs. Chicago, winning with their C+ game thanks to a strong enough start, excellent goaltending, a couple of nice bounces around the net, and a four-for-four penalty-killing performance.

Your game in 10:

1.  There was an odd development with the starting lineup for the Leafs in this game as Craig Berube sent out Auston Matthews for the first shift alongside the third-line wingers before Matthews immediately switched off for Fraser Minten. I spent a few minutes wondering what I was missing here — it can’t be concerns about Minten’s 45% faceoff percentage when it’s a center-ice draw to start the game? — before the explanation came after the game:

The start to the game was positive for the Leafs, as they mostly owned the puck and titled the ice early, with all four lines getting touches and zone time. On L4, Nikita Grebenkin made a couple of nice drives to the net, one of which drew a penalty.

The early power play didn’t score, but I liked Matthews’ entry following the initial draw loss for a Chicago clearance; he just powered through the seal on the wall and set up the zone himself, and the five forwards created several looks from there. William Nylander walked around Alec Martinez off the half wall for a chance in tight, then set up John Tavares for a point-blank look from the slot.

2.   Arvid Soderblom, a good goalie in a bad situation, was looking sharp for the Blackhawks as the Leafs largely dictated play. However, you could also see a few worrying signs creeping into Toronto’s game as the first period wore on.

In previous seasons, we often saw the team own the puck early against bottom-feeding opposition, sometimes struggle to convert on it, and then, as the game settled in, some silliness would start to creep into the Leafs‘ play. It was almost like they would get lulled into an “easy game” mindset due to all their puck possession time and enjoyment of the open neutral zone early in the game. They started to get too cute through neutral ice — to pick on one player, Minten, at one point, tried to take on three Blackhawks instead of chipping it in deep — leading to some turnovers.

Still, after a soft call on John Tavares in the offensive zone threatened to flip the script early on, the Leafs‘ PK was very sharp and gave Chicago absolutely nothing before Toronto opened the scoring with six minutes left in the period.

3.   The Leafs’ 1-0 goal was easy money for players of William Nylander and Auston Matthews’ calibre. Ryan Donato completely lost Matthews tracking back, and Nylander sent him in alone with a nice saucer pass for a tidy finish by Matthews.

If you were told before the year that the Leafs would move to 15-7-2 (through 24 games) thanks to a win that featured Matthews’ sixth goal of the season, you’d have been pretty shocked in a good way. Such has been the Leafs’ resilience since Matthews’ injury and Nylander’s (+Marner’s) offensive consistency through the first quarter. Nylander has at least a point in 10 of the last 12 games (seven goals, 15 points total).

4.   You half wondered if a weak Blackhawks team would go silently into the night in a tired back-to-back situation, but Chicago’s opening shift to start the second period was a clear message sent that they weren’t packing it up in this game, as they came out and titled the ice against the Toronto third line. It set the tone for the period to come.

Two penalties — which overlapped for 23 seconds of a 5-on-3 — did not help matters; one was a soft cross-checking call on Matthews, and the other was a puck-over-glass penalty by OEL. The penalty kill remained really sharp — requiring only one big save from Anthony Stolarz on Foligno on the 5-on-3 from the middle of the slot — but the Leafs did not establish their game for the rest of the period back at five-on-five.

The shot attempts finished at a stunning 28-7 in favour of the Blackhawks at even strength, and it took a freak bounce for a John Tavares goal, plus a bunch of good saves from Stolarz, for the Leafs to somehow emerge further ahead on the scoreboard.

Outside of the PK, the Leafs were outworked for most of the period, unable to win enough battles to break cycles quickly, move the puck out cleanly, and tilt the ice back the other way. When they possessed the puck, there were a few too many individual efforts where they were isolated and took on defenders 1v1 instead of settling the game down properly by playing the right way.

5.   Anthony Stolarz‘s performances after losses have almost always been stellar this season; we’re 14 starts into his individual season, and he has yet to lose two in a row. He again showed the ability to bounce back in this game after an off night in Florida.

There were several big saves in the second period, in particular; Ilya Mikheyev broke in on him alone, as did Craig Smith, and Natural Stat Trick recorded 22 shot attempts from the home plate area for Chicago, eight of which were recorded as high-danger scoring chances.

Stolarz stopped nearly a goal and a half above expected, and the PK gave up one shot on goal in over seven minutes of kill time. Those two factors were the biggest difference in the game.

The Leafs currently lead the conference in five-on-five save percentage and all-situations save percentage, a massive leap forward from last season so far.

6.  The Blackhawks continued to own the majority of the puck to start the third period before the overdue Chicago goal arrived.

On the shift right before, Matthew Knies made a cute drop pass at his own blue line for a broken play. It didn’t lead to any direct danger, but it should’ve been a situation where he gained the line and put it in deep at the end of a shift; the state you leave the game in for the shift after you is important, especially in the third period with the lead, but the usual sharpness in the details wasn’t there from the Leafs for sizable periods in this game.

On the following shift, Philippe Myers turned a puck over under full control on the breakout, and Grebenkin’s clearance attempt hit A. Nylander’s skate and stayed in the zone. In the ensuing scramble, the seemingly inevitable finally arrived as Lukas Reichel banged in a goal at the back post that bounced off Stolarz and barely made it over the goal line.

7.   In the context of how the previous 23.5 minutes had gone for the Leafs, scoring the 3-1 goal 20 seconds after conceding was pivotal in this game.

On a low-to-high cycle play by the Minten line, Conor Timmins made a sharp play to identify there was no shooting lane available and simply rip a bank pass off the end boards (nice to see the Leafs generate a goal off of point shots in consecutive games). It took a friendly bounce off the side of the net and out front of the net, where Fraser Minten was in the right spot to bury it.

Minten is up to two goals and four points in five NHL games this season; both goals were from a similar position on the ice where he was in the right spot and got it off his stick quickly with some zip (his shot has some power to it). It’s very early, and he’s by no means driving play at a high level out there yet, but on a team starving for credible bottom-six C options and secondary scoring, the production can’t be ignored. He’s handling himself well defensively and in the physical areas of the game. The Leafs have won Minten’s minutes 3-1 at 5v5, albeit they’ve been significantly outshot. At the very least, he’s making a real case for wanting to see more of him with proper top-nine wingers.

8.   The Leafs had a chance to put the game completely to bed on the power play with 7.5 minutes remaining, but they created nothing besides some sloppy turnovers. Even for players as skilled as the Leafs’ stars, it is tough in the NHL to just flip a switch and start executing quickly and sharply with the puck when they haven’t possessed it all that much or created much of anything for the better part of two periods.

On the flip side, after a bad A. Nylander neutral-zone turnover led to a hooking penalty, the Leafs’ PK came up with another big kill to put this win on ice late in the third. The Leafs’ PKers did a good job of forcing dump-ins on the entries, won puck battle after puck battle on the walls, and were really solid with their clearances.

Giving up one shot in over seven minutes of kill time is as clean of a night as you’re going to get in the NHL, and while it’s only the Blackhawks, the PP is the one area of their team that is clicking (top 10 in the league). After conceding three on eight kills vs. Florida and Tampa, this was a nice bounce-back effort from the shorthanded units.

9.   Up 3-1 with 2.5 minutes to go, Mitch Marner brought out the breakaway drop-pass play we’ve seen from him a handful of times over the years, and it did not come together — and to be fair to the Blackhawks, it also probably should’ve led to a tripping penalty on Knies. It was late in a 3-1 game in November against the Chicago Blackhawks, so I am not going to sit here and huff and puff/fun police it, but it also sort of encapsulated the Leafs’ night; great that they won, but it was not an overly serious performance from them tonight.

10.  A few notes to close out:

–  18:27 for Philippe Myers, given it was his first NHL game since late October, is a notable TOI figure. There was the one turnover prior to the lone Hawks goal, but otherwise, he was solid/physical defensively and noticeably involved offensively with four shots on goal plus the second assist on the Knies empty netter.

I remember checking out some Rouyn-Noranda games back in their championship 2015-16 season in order to catch a glimpse of Leafs prospect Martins Dzierkals (don’t judge — it was a dark period in Leafs fandom) and later to watch the Huskies face off against one Mitch Marner in the Memorial Cup Final. Myers was a big storyline then because he went from non-existent offensively (passed over in his draft year) to a serious scoring threat off the blue line with his booming shot, having gained much more strength within his 6’5-6’6 frame over the previous summer.

That’s only junior, but it’s easy to overlook that Myers once scored four goals and 16 points in 50 games in the NHL before adding three more goals in the playoffs for the Flyers back in 2019-20, including this OT winner:

Myers played over 20 minutes a game during the Flyers’ 16-game playoff run. Consistency and injuries have been problems, but there is a serviceable, big-bodied NHL RD here.

– On the flip side, a team-low 8:32 is notable for Connor Dewar in that it seems unfair. Dewar was effective on the PK and threw a big hit on Nick Foligno, but I think he’s in a tough spot thrust into the center position in between a brand-new rookie and a non-NHL player on a line that doesn’t make much sense. When bodies return, I’m confident he can be a part of any effective fourth-line solution the team can come up with (on the wing), and he is an underrated strong piece on the kill who has noticeably helped out the shorthanded units since returning.

– Nikita Grebenkin throwing another hit at the buzzer and causing a scrum, this time at the very end of a 4-1 game vs. Chicago, is genuinely funny. He started the game with a bang as well, nearly scoring and drawing a penalty, but he faded afterward; he is still learning the league/will need time and reps, and he’s currently on a strange makeshift L4, as mentioned. But looking to the not-too-distant future, the glimpses of no-effs-given agitation in his game — the spark he can provide that can switch up the energy in a game — are especially intriguing because the Leafs don’t have a real pest in their lineup anymore outside of maybe Domi on the occasion when the mood strikes him.

– Through two games since his return, Auston Matthews is a plus-two with a goal and two assists, but he has been doubled up in scoring chances at 5v5, and shot attempts are 32-22 in favor of the opposition in those 5v5 minutes. It’s great that he’s producing already and the Leafs have won both games, but clearly, as he gets back up to speed, there is another level to be reached in terms of controlling play at his usual level.

–  I love the organization’s next-gen initiative, but I couldn’t get on board with the black third jerseys vs. the classic Blackhawks threads tonight. Call me a purist, but it is normally the best jersey matchup in the league between the two Original Six teams.

Game Flow: 5v5 Shot Attempts

Heat Map: 5v5 Shot Attempts

Game Highlights w/ Joe Bowen & Jim Ralph

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