Into the Deep End

 Simon B

    Coming into the second of four meetings between the Leafs and Oilers this month, Toronto would be without top-scoring threat Auston Matthews, due to upper body soreness suffered at practice. They also just lost the honorary team "dad" Joe Thornton, for 24 days with a rib fracture. 

Lineup Mixup

    This is going to finally test the depth in the Leafs' forward group. Head coach Sheldon Keefe had to make a bunch of decisions prior to Friday's game. The Leafs went with 11 forwards and 7 defencemen the last two games but Keefe went back to 12 forwards and 6 defencemen for this one. Mikko Lehtonen was taken out of the lineup along with Matthews and Thronton. Which left 3 vacant spots. So Adam Brooks got his first start of the season. The other two spots were filled by Pierre Engvall, a regular with the team last year, and Alex Barabanov. The Lines also got jumbled. They looked like this: 

- Hyman - Tavares - Marner

- Nylander - Kerfoot - Vesey

- Mikheyev - Simmonds - Engvall

- Brooks - Spezza - Barabanov

Puck Drop

    The game started much more open than the previous one. Andersen had to make a few big saves The shorthanded Leafs were struggling to implement their game style. The Oilers were really pressuring Toronto into making some mistakes trying to get out of their own zone. All the lines were struggling equally. But it's the first period these lines are together so we can't be expecting too much. Freddy bailed out the team a couple times and kept things scoreless. Things started to pick up offensively for the Leafs and the third line was excellent. But no goals were on the board after one for the second time in as many nights. 

    Early in the second, Pierre Engvall took a hooking penalty. The Leafs had troubles on the Penalty Kill earlier on in the season but it's looked much better of late. Ilya Mikheyev had another great performance when they were down a man. Seconds after the penalty to Engvall was over, Kyle Turris went to the box for a hook of his own. On the Power Play, Morgan Reilly curled across Andersen and a bit of miscommunication forces Rielly to lose it in the corner. Leon Draisaitl picked it up and moved in front of the net. A really poor defensive effort by Nylander and Draisaitl was able to tuck it past Andersen to put Edmonton up 1-0. Still on the power play, Toronto's makeshift second unit was circling in Edmonton's zone and Adam Brooks deflected a Jason Spezza pass to tie the game with his first NHL goal. Later on, the Leafs were swarming the Oilers, and an amazing play by Nylander where he sold a shot to Oiler goalie Mikko Koskinen. Koskinen came way out of his net and Nylander slid it to Jimmy Vesey who had a 4X6 to shoot at and he made no mistake. Another perfect penalty kill late in the period kept the game at 2-1.

    Around a minute into the third, Oiler defenceman Ethan Bear wrists one on the net and a streaking Connor McDavid makes a perfect tip through the pads of Andersen, and the game is once again tied up. Edmonton was slowly finding the pace they had in the early going but Freddy made big saves to slow the Oilers' momentum. The Leafs were speeding up and that work put them on the Power Play again. "Anything you can do I can do better," says Tavares to McDavid. JT tipped in one of his own to give the Leafs their lead back. Even with a bunch of pressure by Edmonton, Andersen seemed like his mind was meditating and he was making save after save. The Oilers pulled their goalie with 1:20 to go but never sustained much pressure. Marner beat the buzzer and scored an empty netter with 0.4 seconds to go to seal the deal.

The Wrap

   With the win, Freddy Andersen passed Curtis Joseph for 4th all-time for wins by a Toronto netminder  A good effort overall by the Leafs. Showing they can compete without Matthews and Thornton. Matthews is day-to-day so he could be back for Sunday's game against the Flames in Calgary. If they do get Matthews back, Keefe will have to send someone down and mix his lines a bit but if he doesn't return, we've seen them be able to play a good sound game (for the most part) without him.

Thanks for reading! I'd love your comments and questions.

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