The Maple Leafs picked up a well-earned 4-3 overtime victory over the Devils on Thursday night, sweeping their former head coach in the three-game season series thanks to a strong and resilient team effort.

Your game in 10:

1.   Perhaps it was the desperation of a three-game losing slide plus another key injury — Jake McCabe‘s return also certainly helped —  but this was a blueprint performance for the Maple Leafs at five-on-five. It’s a template they’ll want to refer back to regarding how the team can look when it grinds for pucks back, tilts the ice, shoots the puck, attacks the net, and plays to the identity set out by its head coach.

It was their most dominant 60-minute performance in terms of shot attempt share at five-on-five since the season-opener against Montreal, as they owned 69% of the shot attempts in the game and 67+% in each individual period. Given the strength of the competition — NJ is a top-10 possession team — it’s fair to call it one of their best games of the season.

Add in the fact that they needed to show the resilience to fight back from down in the game twice in the third, which has not been a strength of theirs whatsoever this season (especially compared to previous years), and they were also without a key contributor against a largely healthy Devils team. It’s a great night for the Leafs, penalty kill issues/Oliver Ekman-Larsson penalties aside.


2.   Throughout the game, the Leafs generated a lot of shot volume from their D and got bodies to the front of the net more as the game wore on. Their defense put 39 shot attempts at the net at five-on-five, which laps their average game in this regard — 13 shot attempts by Morgan Rielly, seven by Conor Timmins, seven by Oliver Ekman-Larsson, seven by McCabe, four by Philippe Myers, and one by Chris Tanev, who facilitated some offense in his own right with some nice plays to kickstart breakouts and keep pucks alive in the offensive zone.

They eagerly looked to funnel pucks to the net from the points after their puck recoveries, and while they struggled early on to penetrate the Devils’ defense (and wasted some opportunities along the way), they kept pushing and pushing until the dam broke courtesy of a world-class finish by Auston Matthews, who sniped the same short-side top corner as he did against Jake Oettinger vs. Dallas. It was the kind of third-period push — there was actually an air of inevitability to them tying it — that has been largely absent this season but has been a really familiar feature/asset of the team’s game in recent years.


3.   The Leafs fell behind early in the game and trailed most of the night, which has been a problem during their losing streak. Including tonight’s game, they’ve trailed for 43 minutes of the 60 on average over the last four games.

Craig Berube showed faith in his fourth line to send them out for a defensive-zone faceoff against the Jack Hughes line, along with the Rielly – Myers pairing. It didn’t end well, as despite controlling the puck off the draw, Rielly tried an awkward pass for Steven Lorentz to receive at the blue line — not enough zip on it if he’s going to look for Lorentz’s tape with pressure coming, versus just putting it off/up the wall — and Lorentz didn’t win the puck battle against Jonathan Kovacevic. It squirted out to Jack Hughes all alone in front for a nightmare start for the Leafs just 2:21 into the game.

Connor Dewar later failed to get a puck in deep prior to the first of two OEL penalties leading to a Devils goal in the second period, and the fourth line finished between 4:55 (Lorentz) and 5:37 (Kampf) in time on ice.


4.   The Leafs created just a few good looks and did not bear down on them in the first period, including a great chance for Matthew Knies in tight in the final moments — he’s indecisive and fumbling a lot of those right now — as well as a point-blank look for OEL that he fired wide. Those were Toronto’s two high-danger chances at five-on-five in the period despite the Leafs nearly doubling the Devils in shot attempts at 21-11.

They also got off to another inauspicious start on the power play. Pontus Holmberg, who played a solid first game back in the lineup (first since Dec. 29), earned his team-leading 11th drawn penalty of the season (despite playing just 34 games) by chipping a puck by the defenseman and keeping his feet moving in the neutral zone. William Nylander immediately handed the puck over to Nico Hischier for a breakaway, leading to a penalty and a negated power play.

Nylander stayed on for the first shift of the subsequent four-on-four action, as Berube has opted not to send a message to Nylander with reduced ice time after those moments when his puck management has been lacking during his (now over) slump.


5.   The Leafs opened the second period with a great shift from their top line that led to a great look, but Knies passed up another good shooting opportunity. The Devils went over 10 minutes without a shot between the end of the first period and the opening stages of the second period.

Finally, six minutes into the middle frame, the Leafs broke through on a nice play by Max Domi. It was a rare breakout pass from Tanev that was a bit of a grenade, but a bobbling/rolling-on-edge puck was difficult for Kovacevic to settle. Domi was dogged in his pursuit and won the puck battle before getting his head up and finding Nylander as the trailer. Nylander’s quick-release one-timer was off his stick and in the net in a flash.


6.   The Leafs gave it right back two minutes later on the PK — one of two sloppy stick penalties by OEL immediately following Leafs goals that proved costly.

Conor Timmins couldn’t come up with the puck behind the net, and when the Devils worked it to Hischier at the top of the circle, the +1 to the PK wedge, David Kampf, took a strange route as though he assumed the puck was headed across the top. It was not, leaving a bunch of space with Timmins in no-man’s land. Hischier had time to get his head up, step in, and measure one into the far corner past Joseph Woll.

Woll was trying to locate the puck through Timmins’ partial screen, but he was caught quite deep in his net on this one, especially given there was no passing threat on the play. It’s a puck he likely kicks out if he’s challenging the shooter and cutting down the angle more aggressively.


7.   With the game stuck at 2-1 nearing the midway point of the third, the Leafs drew an overdue penalty call by delivering a puck to the net off the wall (courtesy of Knies) with a strong middle-lane drive by Auston Matthews.

The Leafs’ power play came up with a big goal at a crucial time in the game to even it up 2-2. It was very similar to the team’s last PP goal, which came against Carolina — Knies and Matthews stationed in front, with a puck fired from up top (this time from Nyladner, not Marner), creating a second opportunity for Matthews to finish off.

Bobby McMann was on the top unit over Morgan Rielly in John Tavares‘ absence, so this appears to be the only coherent plan of attack at this time on the power play — pucks to the net from up top with two big bodies in front among Knies, Matthews, and McMann (in place of Tavares).


8.   The Leafs again gave it right back on the PK after a sloppy OEL penalty — this one much worse than the first, as he was in the offensive zone reaching in with the stick unnecessarily after the team had just tied the game up in the third period.

After a great run of 16-for-16, the PK has now given up four goals in its last two games. One was a tough double-deflection vs. Dallas, one was loose net-front coverage by Benoit vs. Dallas, the other was the earlier Hischier goal, and this 3-2 goal by the Devils was the worst of the four unsuccessful kills. The unit was pulled apart, carved through the seams, and lost its shape several times before the eventual goal by Hischier on the doorstep. The Devils own a top-three power play, and the Leafs’ PK didn’t look up to the task tonight.

Dips happen throughout the season for even the strongest of PKs, and the Leafs will need to refocus with Tampa just around the corner.


9.   Among regular NHL forwards last season, no one came close to Auston Matthews’ 2.68 goals per 60 minutes when trailing in a game. Before tonight, he was at 1.68/60 this season with the team trailing.

He was all over it in the third period, drawing a penalty call with a middle-lane drive, scoring on the subsequent power play, nearly burying another goal at the back post if not for a tough bounce off a skate, and then ripping a vintage #34 snipe when the team fell behind again.

The way the team titled the ice, attacked the net, recovered pucks, and sustained pressure until they tied the game was highly refreshing. Before tonight, the Leafs had scored just 2.32 goals per 60 over all situations when trailing this season — dead-last in the league. They were fifth in the league at 3.49 per 60 when trailing last season (and the best in the league with the goalie pulled). Let’s hope this is a springboard because the team is too offensively talented to sit anywhere near the basement in this category.

In overtime, the Leafs didn’t touch the puck — and survived a Luke Hughes post — until Marner sent Nylander in for a game-winning breakaway goal. 3-on-3 has been quite rare for the Leafs in the first half of the season, but they are now 5-2 in OT after finishing 13-10 and 8-11 in their previous two seasons — valuable points to pick up in a tight division race.


10.   The return of Jake McCabe, and the McCabe-Tanev pairing, was a big part of the Leafs’ five-on-five success in this game. They were on for two goals for/zero against and owned over 60% of the shot attempt share against both of the Devils’ top-six lines led by Hughes and Hischier, respectively. They consistently killed plays and got the puck moving north cleanly.

McCabe picked up two assists, fired five shots on goal, was a plus-three, blocked five shots, threw a couple of nice hits — including dropping Jesper Bratt when defending him off the rush — and broke up a 2v1 nicely in a monstrous 24:16 of ice time. It was a hell of a return. He probably shouldn’t be this important to the blue line’s survival, but his return provided a massive upgrade.

The Leafs’ top three lines gave the team good minutes across the board. The combined pace of McMann-Domi-Nylander caused the Devils problems, and the top line owned its minutes 28-8 in five-on-five shot attempts (they should’ve scored more than one). Even the awkward-looking third line of Pacioretty-Holmberg-Robertson held its own with a 7-2 shots advantage at five-on-five.

This was a refreshing victory for a Leafs team that hasn’t controlled the flow of play at five-on-five at a high enough level, particularly against top teams. The Leafs were at a 2-1 deficit on special teams, somehow only received two power plays, and didn’t get Woll’s best in net, but they still won on the back of a superior five-on-five showing against a top-10 Devils team, one that dominated the previous matchup at even strength.


Game Flow: 5v5 Shot Attempts


Heat Map: 5v5 Shot Attempts


Game Highlights w/ Joe Bowen & Jim Ralph