By Stan Smith

I had an uneasy feeling going into this game. As a Toronto Maple Leafs fan, it had all the usual red flags. The Maple Leafs were coming off a stretch where they hadn’t played in five days and had only played two games in 12 days. In addition, two transatlantic flights were added. The Blackhawks were short two key players and had lost five games in a row.

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The Good

The Maple Leafs showed no signs of sluggishness caused by inactivity to start the game. They played one of their best periods in the first period. The John Tavares, William Nylander, and Tyler Bertuzzi line owned the puck on their first two shifts as the Maple Leafs outshot the Blackhawks 7-1 in the first four minutes.   

John Tavares & William Nylander, Maple Leafs

They killed a tripping penalty taken by Mark Giordano before once again peppering the Chicago net with shots and scoring chances.  

The Third Line Got the Maple Leafs on the Board

It was the Max Domi, Calle Jarnkrok, and Nick Robertson line that got the Maple Leafs on the board. A floating cross-crease pass from Domi to Robertson with a swing and miss along the way from Jarnkrok kind of jammed Robertson. Still, he managed to get his stick on it to launch it over Chicago goalie Arvid Soderblom into the net.

Despite not getting an assist on the goal, Jarnkrok played a big role in it. His position in front of the net and his attempt to bat the puck out of midair forced Soderblom to play the attempted Jarnkrok shot. As a result, he was slow to get over to stop Robertson’s shot. 

The Maple Leafs Continued Their Onslaught in the Second Period

With the score 1-1 after one period, the Maple Leafs continued their onslaught on the Blackhawks in the second period. They scored two goals in the first three and a half minutes to go up 3-1.

The first goal was a one-foot tap-in by Jarnkrok on a fake-shot-pass from TJ Brodie. The second goal was a redirection of a Jake McCabe pass into the Chicago net by Ryan Reaves. It was not only Reaves first goal as a Maple Leaf but his first in 29 games going back to March 25th of this year. Coincidentally, the last goal Reaves scored was against the Blackhawks. 

The first half of this game was as lopsided as it gets. According to Naturalstattrick.com, in the first period, the Maple Leafs had 12 High-Danger Scoring Chances in all situations to just two for Chicago.  The Maple Leafs also had 86.4% of the Expected Goals. Just before the Blackhawks scored their second goal with 7:33 left in the second period the shots on net were 22-10 Toronto. 

The Ugly

All three of the goals scored by Chicago in regulation were off of ugly giveaways by Toronto players.

On the first goal, Morgan Rielly has control of the puck in the Maple Leafs’ zone. It is difficult to say if he was attempting to backhand the puck out of the zone or if he was trying to send a waist-high pass up to Mitch Marner at the blue line. As it was, Marner tried to knock the puck down but was never able to gain control of it. Jason Dickinson picked up the puck just inside the blue line and fired it past Ilya Samsonov, who was too far back in his net on his knees. The puck beat him short side. That is one that Samsonov has to stop. 

The second goal Samsonov had no chance on. The puck gets dumped behind his net to his left. Conor Timmins and ex-Leaf Joey Anderson battle for it behind the net. William Lagesson comes in and attempts to bat the puck past Anderson into the right-hand corner. He accidentally knocks the puck right to Dickinson, who is standing to the right of Samsonov. The play happened so fast, by the time Samsonov moved from the left side of the net to the right it was too late.

The third Chicago goal was reminiscent of the first one. This time it was Jake Mccabe with the puck behind the Maple Leafs goal line to the right of Samsonov. Rather than make the safe play and pass the puck around behind the net to the open Giordano, McCabe attempts a short pass to a covered Auston Matthews standing still in front of the goal. Nick Foligno ties up Matthews allowing Dickinson to pick up the puck and fire it past Samsonov for the hat trick. 

This was also a tough one on Samsonov. Despite the turnover happening quickly, Samsonov does appear to get set and appears in a strong position to stop the puck. It just beat him over his right shoulder. 

The Bad

No matter how bad a team is in the NHL if you let them hang around in a game and give them life it is going to hurt you. If you do not capitalize on your scoring chances it is going to hurt you. If you gift a team goals it is going to hurt you. The Maple Leafs did all three of those things in this game.

After completely controlling the game for the first 32 minutes, the second Chicago goal at 7:33 of the second period went right to their legs. From that point on to the end of the game, the Blackhawks outshot Toronto 24-15. 

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The Overtime Was Exciting

The overtime was as exciting as it gets with both teams having multiple chances to win it. Nylander appeared to have the game won when he broke in all alone on Soderblom. He had Soderblom down and out but his backhand went post, crossbar, post, and out. That ended Nylander’s scoring streak to start the season at 17 games. 

The winning goal by the Blackhawks with 30 seconds left in the overtime was just bad luck. The puck bounced off the glass behind the net and came down behind Samsonov in the crease. Kevin Korchinski was the first player to find it and knocked it behind Samsonov into the net. 

The core five players on the Maple Leafs were held pointless in the game. Marner, Matthews, and Rielly were all -2 in plus-minus. 

The Maple Leafs First Line Struggles

Marner had one of his worst games of the season and struggled to make the simplest of plays. Matthews made some decent plays with the puck but he seemed to want to overhandle it when he had it. Rather than playing his game, Knies seems to be trying to emulate Matthews and Marner. He’s attempting to make plays with the puck he is incapable of. The whole line seems intent on trying to make the perfect play instead of just getting the puck on the net.

In the past six games, Matthews and Marner have just three points each. Both Nylander (11 points) and Tavares (7 points) have outscored them in that stretch. But so have Domi (6 points), Bertuzzi (5 points), Rielly (5 points), and Robertson (4 points).  

A Bit More Good for the Maple Leafs

Despite the Maple Leafs’ struggles and inconsistencies, they have only lost one game in regular in their past seven games. They have gone 5-1-1 in that stretch. In fact, after going 2-2 in their first four games their record in their last 14 games is 8-3-3. That is a 0.678% winning percentage.

Their winning percentage last season was 0.677%. This team is not playing as well as it could and they are not as defensively sound as they were last season. But, they are still finding a way to win games, or at the very least playing well enough to get a point. 

What’s Next?

The Maple Leafs don’t have time to ponder their misfortune in Chicago as they go right back at it tonight in Pittsburgh. After everything that happened in the offseason, with Kyle Dubas’ departure and now being at the helm of the Penguins, this is a big game. It could be the beginning of a rivalry. 

After a mediocre start to the season, the Penguins went on a five-game winning streak but have cooled off since. They have lost four of their last five games including a 3-2 loss to the Sabres in Buffalo Friday night. With Pittsburgh playing in Buffalo last night neither team has the advantage in the back-to-back games. Both teams played the night before and had to travel to Pittsburgh. 

As I stated off the top, I had a bad feeling going into last night’s game. I have a good feeling about this one. Matthews and Marner are due for a good game. I think they do so in this one. 

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