This was a big game for a Maple Leafs team that finally ended its losing streak earlier in the week. To really show signs of a turnaround, they needed a good performance against an elite opponent.

It wasn’t always pretty, and they did give up nearly 40 shots on net, but the Leafs‘ top players were excellent in this game. The team generated a ton of good looks, the power play stayed hot, and they received a huge shorthanded (game-winning) goal from a role player.

The Leafs held one of the highest-scoring teams in the league to just one goal on the night, and they (finally) won a special teams battle against a top team.

Your game in 10:

1.   Let’s not bury the lede here: Joseph Woll was unbelievable in this game. This was the first time he played two games in a row since Anthony Stolarz returned from injury at the beginning of February, and it was also the first time he played against the Avalanche in general. Colorado fired 39 shots on net and 78 shot attempts in all situations throughout the game.

It should also be noted that the Leafs actually eclipsed the Avalanche in expected goals, which checked out because they did create a ton of really good looks. By and large, they looked more dangerous than the Avs in this game. Colorado threw a ton of junk at the net, but the Leafs battled hard in front and gave them very few easy looks. The team defense packed the house and cleared the net, Woll stood tall whenever he was tested, and a Leafs team that gave up six goals (plus an empty netter) to the Avalanche just a week and a half ago held them to just one on home ice.

2.   The second-most important story behind Woll’s excellent performance was Auston Matthews. We have said this a million times, and everyone knows it: The Leafs aren’t going anywhere if Matthews can’t find another level. I can’t remember when he last went up against a superstar head-to-head and was truly excellent. Well, tonight, he was excellent.

It hit a point with Matthews where every time he hopped the boards, he tilted the ice and created. He put eight shots on net, hit a crossbar, and scored the opening goal.

The expectations are so high because this is how good he is. It’s one thing to be really good against Calgary — which he was — but this was an elite opponent, and he was an absolute force. This is a performance to point to as the gold standard for Matthews.

MacKinnon has probably been the best player in the league this season, and while the shot attempts were even when they were on the ice against each other, I thought Matthews got the better of MacKinnon in this one.

3.   The first period, though, was not a good one for the Leafs. The Avs fired the first six shots on net in the game, and roughly seven minutes into the period, shots were 9-1 for Colorado. It’s not as if the Leafs created zero offensive-zone time in the first seven minutes; they just generated nothing to the net when they did, whereas the Avs put tons of pucks to the net and went to work.

Other than when the Matthews line was on the ice, the Leafs, by and large, looked overmatched. As the game wore on, Craig Berube changed every single line except his top one.

Despite all that, it’s worth noting that the Leafs created the two best looks of the period. The first was a great solo effort by Jake McCabe to hesitate and fake out Devon Toews, going wide and cutting to the net to slip through him and Makar before getting a good backhander off. The second was a Nylander 2v1, but he didn’t get a shot off because he tried to toe-drag the puck in (he should have shot it, especially against Blackwood).

The best thing about the period for the Leafs was drawing a penalty right at the end to start the second period on the power play.

4.    The Leafs’ power play has been excellent since January 1, and over halfway through March, they have kept it up and found another level. Entering the night, they owned the NHL’s best power play in March, clicking at 40.9 percent, and they scored in this game on their only opportunity.

John Tavares won an offensive-zone faceoff halfway through the power play cleanly to Mitch Marner on the point, where Marner made a heads-up play to not mess around with the puck and instead rip a pass to a wide-open Matthews down low, where he had time and space. Matthews instantly tried a hard centering pass to Matthew Knies in front. Toews read it and tried to deflect it away, but Matthews put enough heat on it that it deflected up in the air and found its way in.

Throw hard pucks to the net with a strong player like Knies in front, and good things tend to happen. Matthews scored his 27th goal, is on a multi-game streak, and the Leafs are four for their last four on the power play. A few important elements appear to be heating up here.

5.   Barely two minutes later, the Avalanche got it back on a power play of their own. The penalty itself was nonsense, as Brandon Carlo was clearly tripped, and then after he was tripped down to the ice, he tripped an Avs player, gifting Colorado a power play that they made no mistake on.

Nathan MacKinnon executed a brilliant zone entry, slicing through a static Marner and taking advantage of Chris Tanev‘s loose gap because the puck cleared the zone but didn’t go deep. MacKinnon quickly wheeled up ice to catch the Leafs off guard.

Once they gained the zone, MacKinnon drew in coverage on the half-wall as Marner pulled over, opening some space for a flip pass to Val Nichushkin in the slot, where he one-timed it home. Scott Laughton was in the vicinity, but he had no chance of closing off a mammoth like Nichushkin in the slot, where he one-timed the puck on the other side of where Laughton was standing.

Partly, you have to give Avs credit. They have elite players who connected for a good play. At the same time, it’s another power-play goal against the Leafs, who are struggling to get kills right now. 

6.    After the teams traded goals, I thought the Leafs were generally the better of the two teams for most of the second period.

Matthews hit the crossbar after he made a really good play to catch the puck and drive the net, generating a clean look and making a quick backhand-forehand move. Right afterward, McCabe received the puck on the point and took a good shot through traffic, but it rang off the bar. The Leafs also went on another clean 2v1, but Knies tried passing to Tanev (!?) instead of shooting. That was the Leafs’ second 2v1 with zero shots to show for it by this point in the game.

Shot attempts were 29-14 in favour of the Avs, though, and a large part of it came down the stretch as the Avs switched up their lines as the period progressed and moved MacKinnon and Nichushkin together; the Leafs were otherwise having their way with them (MacKinnon started the game with Lehkonen and Necas). The Avs dominated the final shift of the period as Marner lost his stick and it was accidentally knocked out of the zone, so they played 5v4 for roughly the final 40 seconds of the period. The Avs had five looks by my count, including a great toe save by Woll on MacKinnon off a pass from the faceoff dot into the slot.

7.   The Leafs generated a good first-line shift to start the third period, followed by a weak second-line shift. At this point, Pontus Holmberg was flipped down the lineup with Calle Jarnkrok moving up, and strangely, the Leafs keep using Jarnkrok on the right wing and Nylander on the left wing when they do this; both are far more comfortable/better when they are flipped the other way.

The line had a tough shift but survived it, and as the Leafs changed, they were called for a too-many-men call that was, truthfully, another bad call. Berube went out of his way to point out after the game that he disagreed with it. But all’s well that ends well; the Leafs bounced right back and scored the game-winner on the penalty kill.

The sequence started with Simon Benoit aggressively defending the blue line. Earlier in the week, I wrote about the Leafs’ need to stand up at their line and force teams to dump it in. Benoit broke up the entry twice before the Avs finally just dumped it in, which led to a Benoit clear that hit a falling ref at the far blue line.

Steven Lorentz swooped in to collect the puck, and on the Leafs’ third 2v1 of the night, they finally got a shot off. Lorentz sniped it to the far corner for his sixth of the year on a similar goal to Lorentz’s against the Islanders earlier this season.

The bounce was fortunate, but the Leafs earned some good luck on the play. Lorentz, in particular, has battled some bad breaks of late, so it was nice to see one go his way.

8.   The Leafs did shake up their lines as the third period progressed. Most notably, they finally moved Bobby McMann back up to the second line, which had by far their two best shifts of the game in the final five minutes.

The first was a dominant shift off an offensive-zone faceoff where McMann recovered a couple of loose pucks, and Tavares drove pucks to the net while Nylander controlled possession on the wall. On the second, coming a change off the fly, Nylander gained the zone, flipped a pass to Tavares that he one-timed, and recovered his own rebound with the help of McMann. They hemmed the Avs in their zone ahead of both top lines coming on to decide the game.

Before then, Matthews also generated a dominant shift, setting up Knies all alone in front and then getting a look of his own in some space in front. The Avs’ best chance leading up to the end of the game was off a play where McCabe fanned on a puck that landed right on Brock Nelson’s tape, leading to a clean look right in the slot, but Woll stood tall.

9.   No team in the league has given up more goals while the other team has their goalie pulled than the Leafs, so it was critical to monitor whether they would close it out successfully against an elite opponent.

The Tavares line with McMann had the aforementioned excellent shift to set the table for the Matthews line to come out with McCabe and Tanev and seal the deal, and they were excellent. It was, all things considered, the best 6v5 defending the Leafs have done this season. The Avalanche created essentially nothing of significance other than a late desperation attempt by Cale Makar to sift a shot through traffic.

The Leafs generated three pretty good looks to clear the puck down and shoot it into the empty net. All three were ultimately icing, but only the Knies attempt was questionable. He had time and space and missed the net, but at that point, you can argue he should have tried skating it out or putting it off the boards without icing it. Matthews and Marner both shot it as well, but both were under duress, so the options were either going for it or turning it over.

The Leafs gave up nothing through the seams. They pressured the Avalanche hard, and when Colorado did try to hit the backdoor play, Tanev made an excellent play to deflect it out (earlier in the sequence, McCabe and Tanev had a really strong battle to kill some clock).

On an Avalanche faceoff opportunity with roughly seven seconds left, Tavares came on to clean out the draw, and that was curtains. This was excellent in-zone 6v5 defending against a dangerous team.

10.    As mentioned, the Leafs shook their lines up as the game progressed. The top line was a constant and rightfully logged huge minutes. Matthews played 22:02, and Marner played 23:22, but what else is Berube really going to do when MacKinnon played 23:26 and Val Nichushkin played 22:12?

Also notable was Pontus Holmberg starting the game on the second line, ending it on the fourth line, and logging just 8:39 overall. He is a nice story and player, but he looked out of his depth in a top-six role against an elite team, which isn’t unexpected. We will continue to shout this until we’re blue in the face, but if the Leafs are going to load up the top six instead of spreading it out, they should do it properly and put Bobby McMann on 2LW.

As good as the Leafs’ third line was against the Flames, they weren’t dangerous in this one and mustered just two shot attempts in six minutes (while giving up seven). Again, they have been good against mediocre teams but continue struggling against stronger opposition.

Jake McCabe led the team with a massive 25:42 while his partner Chris Tanev logged 23:41. Playing the Avs with Tanev in the lineup was night and day compared to the matchup in Colorado earlier this month.

It’s also noteworthy that Oliver Ekman-Larsson was third among Leafs defensemen in ice time with 20:26. Brandon Carlo played just 16:08, although he took a penalty, and there were two separate two-minute 4v4 situations. This was a top-heavy game, but the Avs demand one based on how they deploy their top dogs. The Leafs’ own top dogs rose to the occasion.

Game Flow: 5v5 Shot Attempts

Heat Map: 5v5 Shot Attempts

Game Highlights w/ Joe Bowen & Jim Ralph

 

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