After a terrible bounce put the Leafs behind 1-0, a quiet opening 40 minutes offensively gave way to a Knies-Matthews-Marner reunion party in this 3-2 win over the Nashville Predators. 

After taking four of four points off of two bottom feeders this week, the Leafs currently lead the Atlantic Division by two points with a game in hand on Florida thanks to a 10-2-1 run since the start of November. They’ve allowed just 63 goals through 25 games, which easily leads both the division and conference (and is second in the NHL behind only Minnesota).

Your game in 10:

1.  The Predators played the first few minutes like the more desperate team, skating their bags off, cycling, and firing pucks at the net. The Leafs were conceding some zone time but held their structure and kept everything to the outside, as they’ve done a really good job of all season long under Craig Berube for the most part. Joseph Woll started the game as calm in the net as usual and made the saves required.

The Leafs created the first true high-danger chance of the game when Oliver Ekman-Larsson made a nice play in the neutral zone, faking a dump-in that ROR bit on before slipping a pass into Mitch Marner for a 2v1 with Pontus Holmberg. Holmberg, never confused with a gifted finisher, was also on his backhand, but he did manage to slide it back over, and only a last-gasp stick check prevented Marner from opening the scoring.

2.  The Predators then opened the scoring 5.5 minutes in on what will hopefully be the flukiest goal against the Leafs all season. A wild bounce off the dasher from a Jonathan Marchessault dump-in looped up over the net and landed in the crease, where Marchessault was tracking it the whole time to bang it in.

That bad break was followed up by a soft hooking penalty on Tavares, but the Leafs‘ PK continues to roll. They’re doing a good job of suffocating opposing PPs on the entries at the moment, with one particularly nice entry breakup on this kill by Connor Dewar and another one at the tail-end by Marner. The battle level is high, there is a sacrifice to get in lanes (blocks on this kill by Philippe Myers and Chris Tanev, who took a painful one to the instep), and everything looks in sync, as Lane Lambert has his units dialed in right now. The return of Auston Matthews helps in the faceoff circle, where he won two of three shorthanded tonight, including a really nice one late in this kill where he won it forward and cleared the zone immediately.

3.   After the kill, Nylander and Matthews connected nicely on a play from below the goal line, but Matthews rang the cross-bar, and the Leafs strung together back-to-back dominant shifts from there. Holmberg appeared to have an empty net at his mercy at one point on the second of those dominant shifts, as Marner nearly picked him out with a slap pass, but the pass appeared to take a deflection, so it was a little behind him.

When Holmberg drew a penalty on his next shift after some persistent forechecking work, the Leafs were starting to grab hold of the game. The PP didn’t generate anything, though, outside of Fraser Minten getting a few whacks at a loose puck in front on the second unit. On the post-power-play shift, the Leafs’ fourth line turned it over three times trying to get out of their own zone (including Ryan Reaves on the half wall, and Nikita Grebenkin was turned back at his own blue line).

The Leafs got back on the front foot to end the period, but despite owning the shot attempts 20-12, they were still without a tying goal.

4.   Early in the second period, Matthews ripped a shot from the high slot that was turned aside by a flash of Juuse Saros’ glove before Matthews turned one over high in the zone for a rare odd-man rush against (4v2-ish). Simon Benoit made a nice play to get a stick on the pass across and deflect it out of play.

There wasn’t much happening from a quality scoring chance perspective in this period, which was played entirely at five-on-five, as the Leafs generated just seven shots on goal and only one was credited as a high-danger chance by Natural Stat Trick.

There was one notable shift from Connor Dewar around the midway point when he was all over the ice, lugging the puck through three zones, taking a hit, and finishing it off with a big hit on Nick Blankenburg by the bench. Dewar’s minutes were (deservedly) at a more appreciable 12:08 tonight (he played a team-low eight minutes and change on Monday), but he is on an island on this fourth line right now. Nikita Grebenkin flashes jam and moxy, but he is still quite raw (just 7:31 TOI tonight), and Ryan Reaves was mostly a dead-end in his return.

5.   A lot of the attention will be placed on Matthews re-uniting with Marner — and for good reason, as we will see in the third period — but with around 4.5 minutes to go in the second period, I had a, “that’s enough — it’s time for Pontus Holmberg to leave the top six tonight” thought when Tavares and Nylander were cycling the puck. Holmberg fanned on a simple pass down low for a turnover and zone exit for the Predators.

You don’t want to pile on a player who works as hard as Holmberg works to get pucks back, but there are not enough completed/finished plays when it comes to the puck play and the end product. Earlier in the period, Marner created another good look for Holmberg in front, but he lost it in his feet.

Sure enough, Berube made the adjustment, moving Fraser Minten up to the left wing with Nylander and Tavares while Knies-Matthews-Marner were reunited.

6.   Before the period was through, Ryan Reaves turned a puck over for what was nearly a 2-0 Nashville goal in the final minute of the period. When it came up his wall, he had his stick at his hip, and it bounced off his skate to the other team. Colton Sissons nearly banged one in at the side of the net off a point shot and scrambled play right afterward. From there, Tanev toiled to figure out how he could get the puck up Reaves’ side of the ice for a dump-in and a line change as Reaves continued to struggle.

Reaves was coming off a long layoff with the five-game suspension over a spaced-out schedule, but it’s abundantly clear to almost everyone watching this should not be an everyday player. That’s a longer story for another day.

7.   On the most recent MLHS Podcast, Anthony Petrielli, an ardent critic of Sheldon Keefe’s rigidity around stapling the two at the hip at times over his tenure, made a compelling argument for keeping Matthews-Marner together after Matthews’ return from injury based on the current roster. His logic is that Matthew Knies of today, compared to Rookie Knies or Michael Bunting as the LWer on the line in previous seasons, has taken a step as a true difference-maker to the point where this line could be the best line in hockey. And that would be a huge competitive advantage if it comes to pass.

This was a regular-season game against the second-worst team in the league, but it was one more small data point in favour of his argument. Marner and Matthews instantly connected on their own for a beauty of a goal 30 seconds into the third period to tie the game at 1-1. On the 2-1 go-ahead goal just two minutes later, Knies ran Alex Carrier off the puck to turn it over for the other two to make more magic from there:

After his ankle-breaking dangle around Nyquist for the 2-1 goal, Matthews slightly lost the handle on it and decided to just let the puck go between the goalie’s legs, which worked out beautifully. Matthews described the finish well after the game: “It came off [my stick] a bit hot, but he guessed wrong, and I guessed right.”

8.   Knies then made a beauty of a between-the-legs pass on an abbreviated 5-on-3 power play to make it 3-1 courtesy of William Nylander.

The Leafs’ stars essentially called “game” inside five minutes of the third period. Despite the win on Monday, the Chicago game was a bit of an aberration for the team, but they got back to the formula of staying patient in games offensively, sticking to their structure defensively and their discipline within their puck management, and trusting the offense to come as it comes. Berube made a successful adjustment to spark something offensively, but the players also handled the bad bounce and a scoreless first 40 minutes with a good deal of maturity.

9.   Both of those penalties leading to the brief 5-on-3 opportunity were drawn by Mitch Marner, who had an absolutely outstanding third period. He set up both Matthews goals, drew the penalties with good checking (one of which negated a Predators power play with a chance to tie the game), and danced all over the ice. He even went after L’Heureux after the whistle when L’Heureux knifed Woll following a shorthanded rush opportunity for the Predators.

Marner should’ve had an empty-netter as well to cap it off, but the linesman decided to play goalie for Nashville. He had to settle for three assists in his 22:34 of all-situations ice time.

Marner’s gone on some mighty regular-season tears over the years, but this recent run is right up there as possibly the best hockey he’s ever played in the league, considering his production and his play at both ends/in all situations. He has 29 points in his last 17 games and has at least a point in 16 of those 17 games. He also now leads the league in multi-point games (14).

10.  A few final thoughts:

–  I should mention that the Predators did make it a little interesting late on with the 3-2 goal. It feels relevant to point out that in the two recent games that got a bit hairy late in the third despite multi-goal leads—Tampa Bay and Nashville—Jake McCabe was not playing a part. The Leafs had to lean harder on other defensemen in the shutdown effort, including OEL, who played too much at 23:14 tonight.

That said, I think OEL looked noticeably better on the left side in tonight’s game. There were a few turnovers, but he also got some nice breakouts started, got up in the play for a shot on goal, and sent Marner in on a 2v1 with Holmberg. He was leaned on a lot to close out the game.

–  I liked the move of shifting Fraser Minten up onto the wing of the Tavares-Nylander line as the other line adjustment in search of offense tonight outside of Matthews-Marner. He isn’t going to be the fastest or most skilled on the line, clearly, but his processing speed is high, he’s almost always in good spots on the ice, he is willing to battle for pucks (and has some size), he can keep plays moving with the puck, and he has a decent shot. He threw seven hits and put five shots on goal in 13:23 of ice time — a couple were nothing shots for easy saves/freezes, but he was right in the mix tonight. He has beaten an NHL goalie twice in six games, something Holmberg hasn’t done yet this season through 23 appearances (his one goal was an empty-netter).

– The Leafs are now an impressive 12-3-0 on home ice, a year after they won just 22 of 41 home games. They’ve won every game they’ve scored first in one home ice (8-0), and they’ve also won four of seven when conceding first after tonight’s win. Their power play is clicking at 24.2% at home compared to a paltry 11.2% on the road (which is probably the single biggest key to improving the 4-4-2 away record).

Game Flow: 5v5 Shot Attempts

Heat Map: 5v5 Shot Attempts

Game Highlights w/ Joe Bowen & Jim Ralph

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