Penalty Factory

Game 9: Leafs vs. Oilers 

Simon B

There may be one inconvenience to the Canadian division. More games on the west coast. This means a lot more late games. Thursday's game against the Oilers started at 10 so there was no way I was staying up for all of it. So It was hockey with breakfast again.

Travis Dermott was put back into the lineup in replacement of Mikko Lehtonen and Jason Spezza took Joey Anderson's spot on the fourth line. On the Oilers side of things, there have been changes to the lineup almost every game because they haven't been able to find any consistency. The only constant for them (other than McDavid and Draisaitl) has been their goalie Mikko Koskinen who's played every minute of the season so far.

Puck Drop

    The game started off with some really good early pace. The Leafs had the better-looking hances but weren't capitalizing. Multiple times throughout the game, the Leafs defencemen would jump into the rush or play the puck deep into the Edmonton zone to outnumber the OIlers down low. After an excellent shift by the Matthews line (with Marner and Hyman), Coach Keefe sent out the fourth line. Their job in this situation is usually to have a good "follow-up" shift. This is when your team had an excellent shift so the next line needs to keep the pressure on. They did just that with Jason Spezza banking in his 1st of the season to put the Leafs up one. Freddy Andersen was alert in this one making more big saves than he probably would've wanted to. Near the end of the period, the Leafs had a delayed penalty (which is when the other teams commit a penalty but they don't blow the whistle until they touch the puck) last forever as they were playing "keep-away" with Edmonton. When they finally made it to the Power Play, they had lots of chances but Koskinen looked great. With one second remaining on the man advantage, Tavares slid it to Nylander who put in his first since opening night to double the Leafs lead.

    The beginning of the second period was a bit of what I call a "dead spot." Each game usually has one. It's when nothing much is happening and teams aren't generating much offense. At this point, coaches will roll out all their lines to give the top guys some rest for crunch-time in the third period. This dead spot ended with a bunch of penalty calls against the Leafs. At one point the Oilers had a 2-man advantage and they did what any group of professional hockey players should do when they have 2 more people on the ice than their opponent. Leon Draisatil put in another power-play goal to bring Edmonton back to within one. Draistaitl had been a bit of a Leaf killer in the past week. He's scored in 4 straight against Toronto and the Leafs have trouble containing him. The Leafs went to break up by one.

    More penalties to start the third (I'll talk about the referees a bit later). Larsson had a delay of game call against him but the Oilers took care of business down a man. Then Kerfoot took his third penalty of the game to give Edmonton another crack on the power play. Of course, Draisaitl scores again to tie up the game on a brilliant feed for Connor McDavid. Well, would you look at that, another penalty. This one putting the Leafs back on the power play. It didn't take long for Marner to rip one on the net and they all got on the Wayne Train as Wayne Simmonds gave the Leafs their lead back. There was a quick Edmonton response, however. The Leafs left Zach Kassian all alone in front of Andersen and on a rebond Kassian made it 3-3. If there is one thing the Leafs could do better, it would be to not leave guys alone in front of the net like that. They're giving penalties out like free brochures now. Ethan Bear went to the box for two. On the power play, Toronto was cycling the puck nicely down low, and that lead to Auston Matthews firing a bullet past Koskinen to give Toronto a lead that they would not surrender for the remainder of the night.

The Wrap

    There were a lot of weak calls in this one. The second Kerfoot penalty was just a terrible call. I'm not just saying that because I'm a Leafs fan. I'm sure Oilers fans would agree with me on that one. It was good to see Matthews use that lethal shot that is famous league-wide. He's been scoring but they haven't been those goals where he uses that pin-point accuracy to put in under a netminder's glove. On Saturday night, I'm sure we'll see a much better Oiler team but so far this season they haven't been so good so a Leaf win is expected.

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

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