The Good, Bad, & Ugly In Maple Leafs 4-3 Win Over the Kraken

By Stan Smith

Unlike the Florida Panthers game, I went to bed last night after Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner scored in the shootout pretty confident that when I woke up this morning the Toronto Maple Leafs would still have a 4-3 victory over the Seattle Kraken.

The Good

Mitch Marner

Sporting a new Bubble facemask to protect whatever damage was done when Mitch Marner took a puck to the face in the Florida game, Marner broke out of his scoring slump in a major way. He scored all three Toronto goals in the game and then put the game away in the shootout by scoring another one along with Auston Matthews to seal the deal.

Marner’s first goal was a gift from William Nylander. On a power play with Seattle’s Tye Kartye in the box for hooking, Matthews, Marner, and John Tavares won a battle for the puck behind the Kraken net. Tavares backhanded the puck out front to Matthews who relayed it to Nylander. Nylander, who already had three shots on goal in the first six minutes of the game, drew Seattle goalie Philipp Grubauer to the top of the crease before passing over the Marner standing to Grubauer’s left. Marner deposited the puck into the wide-open net.

Marner’s second goal, while not technically a power play goal because it was scored the same second the power play expired, was a one-timer that ramped up off of Kraken defender Adam Larsson’s stick over Grubauer’s shoulder.

Marner’s third goal was a beauty. Tyler Bertuzzi deflected an attempted pass from Larsson to Jared McCann in the Toronto zone right to Jake McCabe. At the same time, Marner broke up the ice. Marner got behind everyone and McCabe hit him with a perfect stretch pass sending him alone on Grubauer. Marner fired the puck over Grubauer’s glove hand to complete the hat-trick.

Joseph Woll

While Marner might have been the best Maple Leafs player in the game, Woll was the hero. According to Naturalstattrick.com, Seattle had 20 High-Danger Scoring Chances and 4.37 Expected Goals in the game. They fired 40 shots at Woll, and Woll stopped 37 of them. That gave him a 0.925 save percentage in the game. Woll raised his record to 8-5-0 with a Goals-Against-Average of 2.74 GAA and a Save Percentage of 0.917.

An even more interesting stat is that all five of Woll’s losses have come in regulation. Six of his eight wins have come in overtime and the shootout. Woll is a perfect 6-0 in extra time, with three wins in OT and three in the shootout.

Conor Timmins

I wanted to mention Conor Timmins in the Good. Timmins had an amazing preseason, scoring six points in two games including four points (2 goals, 2 assists) against the Buffalo Sabres. Then he got hurt and missed the remainder of the preseason and the first 17 games of the regular season. In the four games since he came back from his injury Timmins has struggled, especially with the puck. It was easy to tell that he was uncomfortable and squeezing his stick. He had issues making the simplest of plays with the puck. He was having the same problems early in this game.

Timmins placed the pass on Marner’s stick when Marner one-timed his second goal. That one play seemed to go to Timmins’ legs and hands. He seemed like a completely different player after that. Suddenly, he was carrying the puck out of danger and making crisp clean passes. Timmins still only played 14:48 in the game, but if he keeps playing like he did in the last two periods of the game he should earn more ice time.

With the Maple Leafs down three defensemen due to injuries, Timmins finding his game could be crucial to the team’s short-term success.

The Bad

After dominating the last six and a half minutes of the first period and outshooting the Kraken 10-2, the Maple Leafs took two early penalties in the second period. That allowed Seattle to take control of the game. The Kraken outshot the Maple Leafs 10-1 in the first ten minutes of the second period. Luckily for Toronto, they scored on the one shot they did have.

With William Lagesson in the box for tripping Andrew Poturalski, Jared McCann fired a shot that Morgan Rielly tried to block but failed. The shot got past both Rielly and Woll, as it appeared Woll was screened by Rielly.

The Ugly

I can picture what Sheldon Keefe’s game plan would have been coming out of the locker room with a 3-1 lead and the Maple Leafs having three borderline NHL defensemen in the lineup. Play a full-team defence with the forwards coming back, supporting the defence, and playing on the right side of the puck. Aka, keep yourself between the puck and your goal.

If that was the plan, the Maple Leafs sure didn’t follow it. They gave up three solid scoring chances to the Kraken in the first 1:15 of the third period.

At 6:15, Eeli Tolvanen entered the Toronto zone with the puck, walked around David Kampf, used Rielly as a screen, and fired the puck short-side past Woll.

At 13:24 of the third, Alex Wennberg entered the Maple Leafs zone with the puck. He was forced into the corner to the left of Woll by Simon Benoit. Then, for whatever reason Benoit stepped back and gave Wennberg some space. Wennberg found McCann breaking in toward Woll and hit him with a cross-ice pass. McCann beat Woll glove-side to tie the game.

The Ugliness carried over to the overtime as Seattle owned the puck and outshot the Maple Leafs 4-0 in the extra stanza. Woll saved the day and got the game to a shootout.

What’s Next?

The Maple Leafs face the visiting Boston Bruins on Saturday night. After another hot start to the season, the Bruins have cooled off of late. They have a 4-3-2 record in their last nine games. Boston had lost three in a row before shutting out the last-place San Jose Sharks 3-0 Thursday night.

The Bruins won the first meeting with the Maple Leafs in Boston 3-2 in a shootout. This is a big game for Toronto if they want to overtake the Bruins for first place in the standings. The Maple Leafs are six points behind Boston with a game in hand. A regulation win would move them to within four points while a loss would drop them eight points behind them.

After that game, Toronto has four days off before travelling to Ottawa to take on the Senators on Thursday night. They then return home for a game versus the Nashville Predators on Saturday.

Stan’s Question

I had a little rant about the media accenting the negative and ignoring the positive in my last report. In this post, I have a question. Why don’t shootout goals count in the game score and the player’s statistics? In every other situation where a player scores a goal, it counts, be it regular time, overtime, or penalty shots. But they don’t count in the shootout.

Shootout goals are as important as goals scored at any other point in a game. They can be the deciding factor and the difference in a team winning or losing a game. Should they not receive the same recognition?

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