The Good, Bad, & Ugly in Maple Leafs 4-1 Win In San Jose

By Stan Smith

The Toronto Maple Leafs closed out their West Coast Road Trip with a 4-1 win against the Sharks in San Jose. They won all three games in California and outscored the opposition 9-2 in the process.

I have to admit some apprehension going into this game. The Maple Leafs had just had two days off in California to relax and soak up some sun; and, the Sharks had lost their previous ten games. Additionally, they had lost them in regulation and failed to gain a single point in those games. This looked like a situation where the Sharks would come out with something to prove and the Maple Leafs could come out flat.

The Good

That wasn’t the case. In the first period, the Maple Leafs picked right up where they left off from their 57-shot performance in Anaheim. They spent the whole period buzzing the San Jose zone and outshot the Sharks 17-3. According to Naturalstattrick.com, Toronto had 90% of the Expected Goals. They also had seven High-Danger Scoring Attempts to none for the Sharks.

This was not a physical game by any stretch of the imagination. There was absolutely no animosity prevalent between these two teams. There were only 13 hits in the game, nine of them by San Jose and four by Toronto.

Only two penalties were called in the whole game. It just happened they were both called against the Sharks and they were called 32 seconds apart in the first period. That gave the Maple Leafs a rare (for them anyway) 5-on-3 for 1:28.

Toronto would capitalize on the two-man advantage. After Mitch Marner, William Nylander, and Morgan Rielly played catch with the puck, Marner one-timed a shot that beat Sharks’ goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood on the short side to open the scoring at 15:22 of the first period.

There was no other scoring until the 19:17 mark of the second period when Calle Jarnkrok spun and fired a shot from the faceoff dot to the right of Blackwood that would trickle through Blackwood’s five-hole into the net.

William Nylander

Nylander would finish off the scoring with two goals in the third period to go with his earlier assist. That gave him a three-point game.

Nylander seems to be unstoppable this season. With his three points in this game, Nylander tied Connor McDavid for fifth in the league scoring with 54 points in 37 games. He’s just one point behind Artemi Panarin and David Pastrnak with a game in hand over both of them.

According to multiple sources, Nylander is closing in on an eight-year deal worth a total of $92 million with the Maple Leafs ($11.5 million per season). According to the reports, a deal is imminent and could be announced any day.

Tyler Bertuzzi

Tyler Bertuzzi assisted on both of Nylander’s third-period goals. That gave him nine points in his last ten games. Bertuzzi has been a solid presence on a line with Nylander and John Tavares ever since Head Coach Sheldon Keefe swapped Nylander and Marner. That swap also reunited the Auston Matthews-Marner and Nylander-Tavares pairings.

Morgan Rielly

Rielly’s assists give him three points on the road trip and 30 points on the season. Rielly passed Wendel Clark on the Maple Leafs’ all-time scoring list on this trip and is closing in on another Toronto great in Doug Gilmour. He now has 444 points in his career and sits in 19th place on the all-time Maple Leafs scoring list.

Rielly is in fourth place in all-time scoring by a Maple Leafs’ defenseman and needs just 14 points to catch Maple Leafs legend Tim Horton for third place.

Martin Jones

What more can we say about Martin Jones? Once again he was stellar. He stopped 23 of the 24 shots he faced posting a 0.958 Save Percentage in the game. The goal San Jose scored was the first five-on-five goal that Jones and the Maple Leafs gave up in five games.

Jones raised his Save Percentage to 0.932 and lowered his Goals-Against-Average to 2.08 GAA in eleven starts this season. He is second in NHL Save Percentage for goalies with ten or more appearances just 0.001% behind Las Vegas’ Adin Hill at 0.933%. Jones is also third in the NHL for Goals-Against-Average for goalies with ten or more appearances behind Hill (1.93 GAA) and Florida’s Anthony Stolarz (2.05).

Team Defense

The biggest weakness the Maple Leafs are purported to have this season is defence. Following their second 6-5 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets on December 29th, the Maple Leafs were 20th in the league for Goals Against. Since that game, the Maple Leafs have given up just five goals in four games. The only team that has given up fewer goals in that period is the Seattle Kraken who have played just two games and given up just one goal. In just over a week, Toronto moved up five spots in Goals-Against to 15th place. They also have games in hand over the teams just ahead of them.

Looking at it another way, according to Naturalstattrick.com the Maple Leafs have an average Expected Goals Against per game in all situations of 3.19 this season. In their last five games, their Expected Goals Against has been 2.52.

I realize this is just five games. But it is a start. The team seems to be finally buying into the coach’s defensive strategy.

The Bad

There is usually always some bad, even in the best of games. Just past the midpoint of the second period, the Max Domi, Calle Jarmkrok, and Pontus Holmberg line along with Rielly and Simon Benoit got hemmed in their zone for an extended shift. They got their sticks on the puck a few times but were never able to gain full control of it and get it out of the zone.

Ty Emberson took a shot from the point that hit Jarnkrok in the back. Fabian Zetterlund picked up the puck and found Mikael Granlund who had circled behind the Toronto goal and came out front to the right of Jones. Jones failed to make it over on time to prevent the goal. It made the score 3-1 Toronto at the time with just over eight minutes left in the third period.

The Ugly

The Maple Leafs gave up just five shots and one dangerous scoring chance in the first 37 minutes of the game. They then gave up five shots and three dangerous scoring chances in the last three minutes of the second period. Then they followed that up by giving up the first three shots and another dangerous scoring chance to start the third period.

They remained on their heels and were starting to look like they were going back to old habits until San Jose scored their goal. They responded well after the goal, settled down, and put the game out of reach with their fourth goal with 3 ½ minutes left in the game.

What’s Next?

Both the Maple Leafs and the Sharks make the trip to Toronto and play each other again on Tuesday night at the Scotiabank Arena. The Maple Leafs then play three games in four nights. The first one is on Thursday in New York against the Islanders. They then return home for back-to-back games against the Colorado Avalanche and the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday and Sunday night.

I expect we will see the rookie Dennis Hlideby in one of those games. If I were to hazard a guess, I would say he gets the Red Wings on Sunday.

Useless But Interesting Note

If the goal of the game were to hit the post or crossbar rather than put the puck in the net, the score of this game would have been 7-1. I don’t recall seeing a game where the Maple Leafs hit iron seven times.

Old Prof Hockey

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