Vancouver Is Back

Game 45: Leafs vs. Canucks

Simon B

This was always going to be an interesting game. Originally the Leafs and Canucks were supposed to square off Saturday night, but the major Covid-19 outbreak that Vancouver suffered had the game pushed back to Sunday night. 

This was a must-win for the Leafs. Vancouver hasn't played a single game in three weeks and pretty much all their players contracted the virus and a lot of them had symptoms (some worse than others). I gotta say that I really had to feel for the Canucks. They don't have their full lineup back and they've only had 3 or 4 practices since they passed the NHL's protocol and were cleared to play again. That said, the Leafs really needed to take advantage of a tired, weak, and undermanned Canucks team and come away with the 2 points.
 
The only significant lineup changes were that Auston Matthews was put back into the lineup on the first line with Mitch Marner, and William Nylander returned from his 7-day Covid protocol absence. Jack Campbell was in the crease to start this one.

The Game 

As expected, the Canucks’ game started out really slow, and they were having a lot of trouble keeping pace with the Leafs. After a few shifts, the Leafs had set the pace they wanted, but Vancouver was understandably still trying to settle into the game. The one man who didn't take too long to get back into the groove was William Nylander. He was on a new-look second line with John Tavares and Nick Robertson (that's gotta be a nightmare to defend). A fast breakout had the Leafs coming into the Canucks zone with more bodies. Willy had lots of time and space to walk into the faceoff dot to the right of Holtby and fire it home to give Toronto the lead.

The power play continued to struggle and didn't score on the one opportunity that they had in the first. However, the second power-play unit did generate some really good scoring options which were a rare positive on the man advantage. 

Toronto kept the pressure on for the rest of the period but Vancouver's goaltender Brayden Holtby was really good (considering he had Covid just a while ago). He made some huge saves to keep the score where it was until intermission. Not great, but definitely a good period that the Leafs can build on.

One thing I noticed in the first, but even more in the second, was how the Leafs’ fourth line played. Simmonds, Spezza, and Thornton: a different fourth line than I'm used to seeing: On paper, you wouldn't think that this line could do much damage, but when they were on five on five they had some really long stretches where they had the Canucks pinned in their own zone. They were a major part of why the Leafs dominated the second period.

Zach Hyman gave us a scary moment when he had a knee-on-knee collision with Alex Edler. Edler clearly stuck out his leg and hit Hyman. Zach was down on the ice for a while, definitely worrisome because he's had knee injuries before. As for Edler, he got a 5 minute major and a game misconduct. That put the Leafs on a power play for five full minutes. 

Toronto's power play has been abysmal over the last month and a half or so. They were 1 for 47 going into this 5-minute major. And for the first 4 minutes, they had some chances here and there but they couldn't solve Holtby at all. With 19 seconds to go, Auston Matthews had the puck in tight and it was rolling on its edge so Matthews was able to flick it up and over Holtby quickly and give the Leafs their second power-play marker in their last 48 attempts.

As the period was winding down, the Leafs got caught flat-footed and only had one man back (in this case it was Travis Dermott) and he was alone chasing Bo Horvat who was charging in on goal. Similar to the Nylander goal, the Canucks captain ripped it by Campbell and brought the Canucks back to within 1. That would be all for the second frame. 

Toronto had possession for most of the first half of the period but the momentum switched sides really fast when Nils Hoglander slammed home a slap-pass and put in past Campbell to tie up the game. After that goal, it was mostly Vancouver who were getting the offensive chances. Campbell did have to make a few good saves to keep it tied. With 19 seconds left in the game, Auston Matthews put one off the post, Mitch Marner gave a few hacks at the rebound, and it looked like the puck snuck through Holtby's pads. The ref called no goal on the initial play but on the replay, it was pretty obvious that the puck went in. I'm saying this from a biased Leafs-fan perspective but I'm pretty sure that it did get through. But the refs confirmed that it wasn't a goal and they would head to overtime.

As usual in today's game, it didn't take long at all for the game-winner to happen. Unfortunately, it wasn't in the Leafs' favor. Bo Horvat was flying in on the wing (the same wing he scored the goal that made it 2-1) and took a shot low-glove side on Campbell. Jack got a piece of it but it trickled past him and into the net to give the Canucks the 3-2 victory.

The Wrap

That's a really disappointing result for 2 reasons. First, they really need the points here down the stretch with the Jets less than 5 points behind them in the standings. Second, once again, they played with such force for the first two periods before blowing a couple of late-game leads. Hopefully, this is just a rough patch and they aren't going back to the ways of teams from the previous years. At least they'll have a shot at revenge tonight when they face Vancouver again before heading to Winnipeg for three with the Jets.

Another issue that the Leafs will have to deal with is that Zach Hyman did not return to the game and we're still waiting for an injury report.
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