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It wasn’t pretty, but the play of Joseph Woll and some lesser lights breaking through offensively powered the Maple Leafs to a 3-1 win over the Islanders to close out 2024 on a victorious note.

Your game in 10:

1.   Perhaps it was the afternoon start or the flu bug going around the Leafs‘ room (or both), but the opening frame was largely as ugly of a period of NHL hockey as you’ll watch, with very few completed plays in either direction and very few scoring chances of note.

It briefly looked like the Leafs were settling into the game — a couple of first-line shifts, as well as one third-line shift, spent in the offensive zone — but they repeatedly banged their heads against the wall on the breakout, missing the mark on basic passes and stalling out frequently.

The difference between this first period and the loss to the Islanders before Christmas is that they didn’t shoot themselves in the foot by forcing anything up the ice for rush offense against, and they didn’t give up much on the inside of the defensive zone, even if they didn’t possess the puck enough overall due to their persistent breakout problems (9-5 NYI in 5v5 shots, 17-12 NYI in 5v5 shot attempts).

2.   The Leafs wasted an opportunity to get themselves going on the power play halfway through the opening frame, but they found the opening goal before the end of the period.

Chris Tanev, who battled some uncharacteristically rough moments earlier in the period trying to break the puck out, snapped into action on this goal. After customarily blocking a pair of shots in the defensive zone, he activated to lead the breakout up ice and then handed it off to William Nylander. When Ilya Sorokin kicked out Nylander’s shot, Tanev made a smart play to rim the puck around the back wall rather than throw a hopeless puck at the net without traffic in front for either a stoppage (best case) or a break the other way late in the shift (worst case).

In a 2v1 situation down-low with Brock Nelson and Noah Dobson, Nylander slipped around a check behind the net and found Kampf, who snuck down to the net front unmarked to bury his second of the season and second in his last three games.

3.   David Kampf is often F3 in the offensive zone, typically plays without much offensive skill alongside him on L4, and obviously doesn’t create much offensive opportunity for himself. Still, he bears down reasonably well on those types of (rare) opportunities in tight to the net — certainly better than a Pontus Holmberg does. It’s still far from ideal, but Kampf at least has multiple 8-10 goal, 25+ point seasons to his name over his career.

During Matthews’ absence, if the Leafs are going to take the approach of place-holding a top-six line with a fourth-line calibre centerman in order to keep their other three lines intact (a debatable approach, depending on Matthews’ timeline for a return), Kampf is really the only half-way credible option.

4.   The Leafs, specifically William Nylander, got away with one on the first shift of the second period with a successful offside challenge reversing an Islanders goal. Back-to-back awful defensive-zone turnovers from Nylander led to a Dobson goal, but the initial entry was clearly offside — the video team alerted assistant Marc Savard before the puck even went in.

On the bench, assistant coach Lane Lambert was right in Nylander’s ear afterward. It’s worth noting Lambert has the title of associate coach on the staff, not assistant coach; it’s a small difference in title (insert “assistant to the regional manager” jokes here), but he does seem to be empowered more than the typical AC would be, as it’s not like the play took place on the PK (Lambert’s responsibility).

Nylander walked away with two assists in 21:47 tonight, but it was certainly an up-and-down performance from him (to be generous), both at five-on-five and on the power play.

5.  There was also a worrying moment early in the second period involving Joseph Woll, who gingerly returned to his feet after stretching out to make a reactionary save. He looked like he was still feeling the effects of it, to some extent, for the rest of the game based on how he recovered to his feet and moved around the crease.

It’s highly commendable that Woll stayed in the fight despite not feeling his best and was clearly the Leafs’ best player in the game in the process. On the other hand, with his history, it’s natural to worry another shoe will drop with a possible injury after further evaluation, especially since Anthony Stolarz is still a few weeks away. Presumably, the medical staff got some time with Woll during TV timeouts and the second intermission to verify nothing significant was happening (or that’s the hope).

6.  The Leafs largely continued to struggle at five-on-five early in the second period, spending most of the first few minutes inside their own zone. Between the final six minutes of the first and the first five minutes of the second period, there were six icings in this game, and five of them were committed by the Leafs.

Toronto simply couldn’t break out cleanly; in addition to the lack of clean tape-to-tape passes, there was too much standing around where the Leafs weren’t even presenting options to one other on the breakout. It was frustrating to watch.

7.   When the Leafs finally did get out of their own zone and into the Islanders’ end with possession, courtesy of a nice stretch pass up the middle of the ice by Jake McCabe to Nylander, Matthew Knies scored a nice “goal.” He took a drop pass from Nylander off the rush, ripped one on net, and followed it up twice to finish it off.

This was a better game from Knies, as the recent call-out from Berube seemed to inject some urgency in him to attack the net with more vigor.

Unfortunately, the Knies goal was called back for a debatable goaltender interference call after a challenge by Patrick Roy. It was debatable if Nylander went into the crease fully of his own volition, as his momentum was helped to some degree by the defenseman on his backside. He also made minimal contact with the goalie, but theoretically, his positioning in the crease was impeding Ilya Sorokin from possibly getting across to make a miracle save he never would’ve made anyway.

8.   After a Tavares offensive-zone holding penalty around the midway point of the game, Philippe Myers was bailed out after Bo Horvat beat him on a rush off the wing. It was a big save from Joseph Woll, who was the Leafs’ best player on both special teams; later, with a one-goal lead late in the third, the Leafs’ power-play gave up a shorthanded breakaway — Woll turned aside Brock Nelson 1v1 — as the PP was generally out-chanced by the worst PK in the league.

The Leafs eventually did concede at five-on-five after surviving the PK, and it was nothing they didn’t deserve on the balance of the play in the period to that point. It was the kind of breakdown that eventually happens when you spend too much time in your own zone defending the cycle, as Pageau got lost in coverage for a backdoor play to make it 1-1.

9.   16 seconds after conceding, the Leafs’ game-winning goal was one of the nicest individual efforts of the season, courtesy of an unlikely source: Steven Lorentz, who absolutely roasted Scott Mayfield and then ripped a shot top corner past Ilya Sorokin.

The prettiness of the goal is only further magnified by its significance in the game; the Leafs were snowed under for a good portion of the second period and had seconds earlier conceded the 1-1 goal before Lorentz went into hero mode.

The fourth line has been trending in a quietly encouraging direction of late in terms of generating energy shifts with Lorentz and Dewar. Even with Dewar at center and Reaves on the line instead of Holmberg or Kampf, it had its moments tonight and broke through with a huge goal.

The Leafs also finally picked it up in the final five minutes of the second period with some positive offensive zone shifts and ended up slightly edging the shot attempts and shots on goal at five-on-five despite a woeful first 10 minutes of the period. Lorentz’s goal allowed the Leafs to enter the third period with the lead, which has been a sure-bet win for them so far this season.

10.   The Leafs’ close-out effort in the third wasn’t dreadful in terms of quality chances conceded, but they did not spend enough time in the offensive zone, which has generally been a nice feature of their game in these situations under Berube this season (maintaining reasonable possession time when defending leads).

A good effort from Max Pacioretty earned a penalty that should’ve, at a minimum, burned some clock stress-free, but the Leafs’ worst third-period offense was Rielly and Marner miscommunicating and giving up a shorthanded breakaway against with a one-goal lead and under five minutes left in the game. Woll did yeoman’s work to ensure the Leafs celebrated a happy New Year’s tonight.

The decision by Patrick Roy to pull the goalie for a defensive-zone faceoff on the PK with 45 seconds left was confounding, to say the least, even for someone who once pulled his goalie during a 5-on-3 with 13 minutes left in the game.

Roy’s logic likely was if his team lost the draw, they might not get the puck again anyway. But it can’t possibly be the percentage call over leaving the goalie in to make sure the draw was won or the puck was recovered, knowing there is the freedom to dump it without an icing call while on the PK, then pull the goalie. During the timeout, the Leafs were hoping to win the draw and possess the puck, but if not, likely game-planning to make sure they handled the five-man press that was going to come if the Isles dumped it and yanked their goalie as expected.

The pull had to surprise them, but the Leafs will take it, as it iced the game without any further stress and allowed John Tavares to continue his individual point streak — eight games in a row now — against his former squad. It was another strong night on the dot for Tavares (61%).

All in all, the Leafs got the job done — never a bad thing with their best player missing — and Woll has now strung together back-to-back strong starts after his pre-Christmas blip against the Islanders and Jets. That’s as big of a development as any, assuming Woll is okay health-wise, as the January schedule — outside of one back-to-back — will allow them to hand Woll as many starts as they think he can handle. Still, their five-on-five game needs to be better in terms of their breakouts and control over the play.

Game Flow: 5v5 Shot Attempts

Heat Map: 5v5 Shot Attempts

Game Highlights w/ Joe Bowen & Jim Ralph

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