Advertisement

Never in doubt!

Your game in 10:

1.   What is there to say about the first period that isn’t glaringly obvious? Shot counts don’t end up 15-1 in a 20-minute period if you aren’t losing most of the puck races and most of the puck battles. There was some shot-column padding with outside shots from the Devils, and the grade-As weren’t hugely plentiful as the Leafs protected the house, but it was well short of good enough from the Leafs, 0-0 scoreline aside. The Devils just did everything faster, better, harder.

The ice tilting for the Devils started right from puck drop, when the Tavares line plus the OEL-Tanev pairing took the ice. We’ve talked about this in Game in 10s and notebooks before; the slow starts have been frequent enough recently that it’s almost to the point where Craig Berube needs to form a shift-one energy unit of some kind in hopes of at least getting a puck in deep and starting a forecheck to begin the game.

The late-first-period power play provided an opportunity to turn the momentum, but the top unit turned it over quickly three times in the zone for clearances (in fairness, a Knies pass out front to Tavares might’ve connected for a dangerous look if Tavares hadn’t fallen over). It’s hard for even the most skilled players in the league to be sharp with the puck when they’ve hardly touched it all period. The Leafs were outshot 2-0 on their own power play.

2.   Bigger picture, the Leafs are now hovering below 46% in shot attempts, expected goals, and scoring chances since the Matthews injury in early November. It’s nearly a month and a half of lottery-level control over the five-on-five play, and it’s actually worse in the six games since Matthews’ return: 39.4% xGF is worst in the league since Nov. 30.

I think the issue is two-pronged during this recent stretch of mediocre (or worse) five-on-five play.

One, their puck play coming out of their zone is making them play too slowly/is stalling them out; they aren’t breaking out cleanly with proper puck support frequently enough.

Two, they look a little bit like a team that is set up to grind — they’re playing a system that demands it under Craig Berube — but isn’t successfully grinding to win pucks back on the forecheck with enough frequency.

The two facets feed into each other. If they were grinding better to win more battles and earn more pucks back on the forecheck, they’d sustain more zone time, and they would be forcing the other team to dump and change/play on their heels more, leading to cleaner zone exits. Cleaner breakouts with better puck support would allow them to gather more speed through the neutral zone with possession to either gain the zone with control or retrieve pucks/arrive in time with the numbers to apply greater forechecking pressure to turn pucks over.

3.   A reason for optimism: Jake McCabe is not far off returning (if you believe them this time). That helps with the breaking-cycles and breaking-out-the-puck pieces. Bobby McMann will eventually return, which helps the forechecking piece (he is also strong on the d-zone half-wall).

Max Domi was back tonight, and he looked like the first proper, fully established top-nine NHL forward the team has fielded in its bottom six in quite a while. Six individual shot attempts in nearly 15 minutes of ice time—he was one of few threatening the Devils’ net outside of Matthews—in Domi’s first appearance since Nov. 16 is a promising first game back.

More than anything, though, the Leafs need to get their structure and grinding ethos in place now that the team is getting healthy. It’s a big open question as to whether Berube can get this personnel group to play his brand of hockey at a high enough level in terms of five-on-five possession and offense; notably, this was the seventh game of the season in which the Leafs did not score a five-on-five goal, which ties last season’s 82-game total.

4.    In the meantime, the goaltending is driving the Leafs to a plus-three goal differential at five-on-five since the Matthews injury, with a league-leading .948 save percentage at five-on-five.

Anthony Stolarz saved 4.5 goals (!) above expected in this game. He was excellent in all areas, facing/conquering all manner of challenges: fighting to find plenty of long-range pucks through traffic, battling hard in his crease on in-tight scrambles, and standing tall against breakaways/chances off the rush against high-end players like Jack Hughes and Nico Hischier. A massive hometown game from a massive goaltender (38 saves in all).

5.   Partly the result of spending too much time on the back foot, the Maple Leafs took three defensive-zone penalties in a 15-minute span between the end of the first period and five minutes left in the second period. Stolarz and the PK continued to keep the team in the game.

After their second kill stemming from a Rielly slashing penalty, shots were 18-1 New Jersey, but it didn’t tell the whole story from a grade-A-scoring-chance perspective; Matthews and Marner went on two 2v1s near the end of the kill against an aggressive Devils PP (one saw Marner’s pass cut out, the other saw a tired Matthews fire it wide).

Technically, the Leafs’ second shot of the game was another Matthews point-blank chance five minutes into the second period after Matthew Knies sent him in alone not long after the kill. Knies was now up with Matthews and Marner, and Pacioretty with Tavares and Nylander, which appears to be the optimal top-six configuration at this juncture for the Leafs.

The Leafs weren’t nearly good enough at five-on-five over the 60 minutes, to be clear, but the eye-catching shot count looked overly lopsided relative to the true grade-A scoring chances.

6.   The sheer volume of shots/shot attempts off of in-zone possessions by New Jersey in the first half of the game was a big storyline, but the Devils’ 1-0 goal/only goal actually came off of a transition play seven minutes into the second period. A broken play inside the Leafs’ line was swatted just outside the zone by Tavares, who couldn’t make a solid play on a bouncing puck. From there, Philippe Myers played the rush against a little strangely.

As the weak-side D, Myers was puck-focused and maneuvered to face the net while shading toward his partner’s side, almost as if he was anticipating he might have to scramble back and cover for Rielly if Bratt’s speed beat him wide as Bratt quickly transitioned into the zone. Hughes was lingering high behind the play, and Palat was taking a wider route into the zone across the left circle. When Bratt’s pass made it to Palat on Myers’ side of the ice, he had a bit of extra time to get his head up and measure a nice shot past Stolarz.

A mid-period Leaf power play led to more frustration for the top unit — a Matthews offside, a Hischier breakaway — but after surviving their own power play, the Leafs continued to stay in the game at 1-0 and nearly tied it thanks to another big kill following a Tanev high-sticking call. Matthews jumped on a Hughes turnover for his third break in alone, but he fired it wide for the second time in the period while trying to go back against the grain on Markstrom.

Before the period was through, Pacioretty absolutely leveled Jack Hughes, which didn’t draw much of a reaction out of the Devils. The Leafs weren’t exactly firing on all cylinders — we saw Berube try Nylander with Marner and Matthews for an o-zone shift in search of a spark — but they were showing signs they at least weren’t going down without a fight.

7.   With the Knies-Matthews-Marner/Pacioretty-Tavares-Nylander lines back together, the Leafs’ top six finally stacked a couple of positive five-on-five shifts on top of one another early in the third period, culminating in a penalty drawn by Nylander. They finally managed to get on top of the Devils on the forecheck, forcing multiple turnovers, and Matthews threw a big hit on Jonas Siegenthaler.

The top PP unit committed a litany of turnovers just inside the line on the entries, leading to less than nothing on their shift. The second unit — which kept Knies and Nylander on the ice but swapped out Matthews, Marner, and Tavares for Timmins, Domi, and Pacioretty — flashed some positive signs, all starting with Conor Timmins simply chipping a puck in behind the Devils’ D and skating onto it versus forcing more plays at the line. Knies jammed at a puck in tight, and Max Domi ripped a shot just wide from a good shooting look.

8.   The Leafs’ top six continued to make a credible push before Knies’ boarding penalty on Jonathan Kovacevic threatened to derail the comeback effort. The Leafs’ PK continued to win the day, though.

Especially after the shorthanded rush opportunities and breakaways for Matthews, who would’ve thought Pontus Holmberg, of all people, would score the all-important shorthanded goal? It was an ugly finish befitting a player yet to beat an NHL goalie with his shot this season before tonight, but credit to Holmberg for following up on the play and getting it off his stick quickly.

With fresh legs, Connor Dewar made a clever and composed play after locating the loose puck following a mad scramble in front of the Leafs’ crease as the Devils’ PP closed down on the net. He could’ve just ripped it down the ice in the circumstances, but he was heads-up enough to recognize the open ice available. He made a smart little flip to create a foot race and then showed his speed and jam to win the battle up the ice.

That’s Dewar’s first point in his 12th game of the season, but it was an impressive play and a huge assist in the context of the game. He’s done many of the little things well since returning from the shoulder injury, so it was good to see him finally rewarded on the scoresheet with a big moment/contribution.

9.   Immediately after the Leafs tied it up, Luke Hughes went end-to-end through the Leafs’ PK, torching Timmins and breaking in alone on goal, but Stolarz continued to make big save after big save.

The coaching staff was largely running Benoit-Tanev/Rielly-Myers/OEL-Timmins by this point, with a little bit of mixing and matching for offensive or defensive-zone faceoffs. We also saw them mix in Matthews with Domi and Holmberg for an offensive-zone shift ending in a decent look for Matthews from the high slot (gloved by Markstrom).

With around five minutes left in the third period, TSN flashed an offensive-zone possession time clock that showed the Leafs with nearly a 30-second lead. We talked about criticisms of the five-on-five play earlier in the piece, but the wildly lopsided final shot count was not a wholly accurate depiction of the run of play, either, especially as the Leafs found their footing with some of the line adjustments in the third (and the Devils possibly ran out of some steam after pushing hard for the better part of 40 minutes).

10.   Auston Matthews proved the fourth time was the charm in terms of chances in alone in the overtime period, finishing beautifully despite a slight disruption from the trailing checker on the play. Matthews managed to adjust and lift the puck into the top corner to grab a second point that felt a bit like stealing after the first two periods, but at the same time, Matthews was also in alone four times in the game.

It was hard to ignore how “Sheldon Keefe’s Leafs” this was from the Devils, who owned all the underlying stats, got goalie’d, turned the puck over in bad areas for several breakaways against, and showed no physical response to Pacioretty burying Hughes or Knies leveling Kovacevic from behind, ultimately losing the game despite a near-70% xGF.

Before Leafs fans celebrate their former coach’s misfortune too gleefully, though, this performance continued to reveal that there is much to sort out with the team’s five-on-five play, as this was far too much to ask of their first, second, and third-star-worthy goaltender tonight.

Game Flow: 5v5 Shot Attempts

Heat Map: 5v5 Shot Attempts

Game Highlights w/ Joe Bowen & Jim Ralph

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR