JUMBO

 Game 48: Leafs vs. Jets

Simon B

Toronto broke their mini-slump with a pretty good-looking win on Thursday, but if they were to this game they'd be 8 points up on the Jets with 8 games remaining. In short, if they can get two of three wins in this three-game set against Winnipeg, the North Division will be theirs.

A big blow to the defense pairings was the loss of Zach Bogosian to a shoulder injury for 4 weeks. With luck and good care, he’ll be back healthy and strong just in time for round one of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Ilya Mikheyev was back into the lineup after missing the last two games with injury, replacing Pierre Engvall. Adam Brooks centered the fourth line with Thornton and Spezza on his wings. Campbell was back in the net. 

The Game

Last game against the Jets the Leafs scored 27 seconds into the game. The Jets returned the favor by scoring a goal in the first minute of this one. 39 seconds in, Winnipeg was breaking into the Leaf's zone and Paul Stasny flipped a nice saucer pass to the net, and it was redirected in beautifully by Nikolaj Ehlers to make it 1-0 Jets. Ehlers has been a Leaf-killer so far this season, and it seems like he scores every time that these two teams meet. 

Toronto showed no signs of letting this early goal slow them down. Their newest line combination (the fourth line of Spezza - Brooks - Thornton) went right to work. This line is one to watch: Spezza and Thornton are seasoned vets but Brooks is a rookie still finding his role on this team, and that fourth-line center role really suits the newcomer.

Brooks was at the point and passed it down low to Joe Thornton, who faked a pass to the slot and then wrapped it around the net and tucked it past Hellebuyck to tie it up at one. The Leafs looked a lot better after that, and they were the better team for the majority of the period. Good teams make their own luck, and this one did just that.

Jake Muzzin dumped it down from just past the center line and Hellebuyck went behind his net to play it but hit a station on the glass and bounced right in front of the wide-open net. Mitch Marner jumped on the loose puck and just tapped it into the empty cage to score his 100th career goal and give the Leafs the lead. Just pure luck, but  Toronto often has a shortage of that, so it felt good to have a bounce of good karma go their way for once. Toronto played really well the rest of the frame but finished the frame one goal behind as they went to the dressing room  2-1.

Early in the second period, Jake Muzzin took an interference penalty on Winnipeg's Dylan DeMelo. DeMelo dove onto the ice to prove to the ref that a penalty was truly in order (which it was) but the dive was overkill, and DeMelo picked up an ironic embellishment penalty instead.
In this four-on-four setup, the Leafs thrived. One of the flurries of ensuing rushes, Willy Nylander dashed in and laid a beauty of a pass straight to Tavares' stick, and Tavares shot it past Hellebuyck to double the Leafs’ lead. 

The Leafs did get another power play and they did look pretty dangerous on it but weren’t able to bring it home...again. It's been frustrating this season to watch the Leafs' energetic power-play push show so little consistent success. Watching them spring into action in these two-minute sprints stretch is promising but  Leaf fans like me won't be content until we see results.
One surprise was a physical play by Rasmus Sandin (who is replacing the injured Bogosian). Sandin is not a really big guy but when he saw Blake Wheeler coming in on him in the corner and braced for contact  I think he braced a lot tighter than he intended when he actually knocked down the Jets’ captain. Moves like that show other teams that Toronto’s a threat for physical play as well as their tactics.

Much like the previous game, the Jets pressed a lot during the third period but the Leafs were really composed and I never really doubted that their two-goal lead would really vanish. 
The story of the period was the fights and bickering going on between Joe Thornton and Nikolaj Ehlers. These two were going at it like it was game 7 of the Stanley Cup final. Constant cheap shots and verbal altercations all throughout the late stages of the period made for some really entertaining hockey. And around the 18-minute mark, Wayne Simmonds and Pierre-Luc Dubois exchanged a stream of insults from their respective benches that earned them both game misconducts that were fairly meaningless with only two minutes left on the clock. 

After that, the Jets pulled Hellebuyck and had started to put a fair amount of pressure on Jack Campbell (who looks like he's back to the form he had in his first 11 starts of the season) but a fast break by Ilya Mikheyev followed by a nice pass in front to Alex Kerfoot allowed the Leafs to seal the game with an empty-netter. 

The Wrap

I would absolutely LOVE to see a playoff series between these two teams. They've got one more regular-season meeting and then I hope we see this rivalry fired up again during the second round of the postseason. That will be some entertaining hockey for sure! Next up, Leafs meet the Habs in Montreal on Wednesday night. If they can rack up just more wins over the next games 8 end the season, the first place is theirs, and the Leafs would start the postseason facing off against that team once again (as Montreal is currently the fourth-place team in the division).

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