Game 1: Leafs vs. Habs

 Takeaways from Game 1: Leafs vs Habs

Simon B

January 14th, 2021

This season is going to be fun!! Coming into game one, there’s all this talk about “oh this Canadian division is going to be amazing” and “this will be the best season in forever”. But people need to remember that 1. There was a shortened training camp 2. There were no preseason 3. Some of these players have not played an NHL game in over 10 months. So I was sure that there was going to be some sort of feeling out process at the start. 

Once the puck dropped there was a sense of normalcy returning amongst this weird time. Hockey’s back...It’s on. The first couple of shifts were sloppy and it looked a lot like a game of shinny on the pond. Coaches Sheldon Keefe and Claude Julien rolled out all 4 of their lines and as predicted, both teams are trying to get into the rhythm of the game. I was trying to assess the new guys first. My first thought was that Alex Barabanov looked really small during his first shift but he only had under 6 minutes of ice time so it wasn’t that big of a factor. In the first 4 minutes or so, both teams were exchanging chances and Matthews and Marner had a huge opportunity to open the scoring but Carey Price made a big pad save. Price was excellent for the first 2 and a half periods, he finished the game with 29 saves on 34 shots. Although Montreal was the better team for much of the first period, Toronto’s defense looked pretty solid. I really like the way their centers were backchecking hard. Bogosian took a tripping penalty so we were going to have the chance to see this new-look penalty kill equipped with an Auston Matthews. I really don’t think having Matthew’s on the PK is a good idea. Using up his minutes when your team is stuck defending is not why he’s making 11 million per season. If they really want him out there, they should probably put him on near the end of the PK so that when they’re done killing, they can jump right back into offensive pressure. The leafs killed off this first penalty but soon after a combination of wrong place wrong time for Zach Hyman, early line change by Jimmy Vesey, and the puck ending up at the leaf bench resulted in too many men on the ice penalty.  An excellent Power Play by the Canadians where it just felt like they were going to score. Nick Suzuki from a tight angle puts the Habs up by one. The leafs deserved to be losing at this point.  Keefe then mixed up his lines a bit taking Thornton off the Matthews line and putting Simmonds on the Tavares line. That same Tavares line looked incredible for most of the game and off of a faceoff, Nylander rifles a slapshot top shelf on a screened Carey Price. With 22 seconds to go in the period, Josh Anderson (who was brilliant and was very much deserving of the 3d star) scores his first as a Hab to give Montreal their lead back. 

Early in the second period, the leafs had a terrible line change allowing Tomas Tatar to score 5-hole on Frederik Andersen. They mentioned something on the broadcast that I found interesting too: players have so much information about goalies (notably the percentage of where to shoot) and will be facing them so often that shooters will know exactly where to shoot on which goalie. The Wayne Simmonds fight can be viewed in 2 ways I think. 1. Simmonds doing his job and trying to spark a fire on the leafs bench or 2. Ben Chariot accepting a fight that he shouldn't have resulting in his team losing momentum. That said if this is the Simmonds we are going to see this season, sign me up! Nylander shows off the wrist shot that I thought he used a lot less last year (or at least it was less effective than his rookie and sophomore years) to put the Leafs back to within one on the powerplay.  Montreal took two quick penalties and the Leafs had a 5 on 3 power play. They had Tavares, Matthews, Nylander, Marner, and Reilly on the ice against 3 Habs. That line alone makes over 43 million dollars per year! They should score every time they are on the ice together within 40 seconds of their shift. Score they did. JT tips it in to tie the game. There was something interesting I saw Sheldon Keefe do more than once though, Simmonds and Thornton together on the Power Play. I’m not sure this is something they will stick with but I can’t see why they would do that when they have much better offensive options. 

After the second Anderson goal, I noticed how ineffective the Matthews line had been to that point. Members of the Tavares line scored every regulation goal. Vesey tied the game off a lucky bounce that hit the ref. John Tavares had almost a perfect game, he seemed to be leading by example and he was physical, fast, and aggressive. Other than letting Anderson by him on the 4-3 goal, that is the ideal performance by a Captain. In the third, once the game was tied, Keefe was able to roll out 4 lines (well mostly 3 but the fourth line was sprinkled in there once in a while) consistently which was something that this team had been missing over the past few seasons. Matthews and Marner came alive and looked pretty good near the end of the 3d. 

This was awesome overtime! I found that the more sloppy and slow the play got 3 on 3, the better it was to watch. Price and Andersen made solid saves but a 2 on 1 with Tavares assisting Rielly on the game-winner ended it. 

This game lived up to the hype that’s for sure. Going into Friday, there is one thing the Leafs need to make sure they need to do: keep the pressure on. Ottawa won’t be a gimme win. If the Leafs can be consistent defensively and keep offensive pressure they should win. Tim Stuzle will have his first NHL game on Friday so that’s a guy to keep an eye on for sure.