40 in 49
Game 53: Habs vs. Leafs
Simon B
So last game I mentioned how other than first place in the division, the only thing the Leafs have to play for at this point in the regular season is to get Auston Matthews to 40 goals. Well, I might've been a bit off on that take. There is another thing that the Leafs can do in these last couple of games: get everyone some playing time and rest the team’s powerhouse players as they gear up for what will hopefully be a deep playoff run. For a team with a fair number of veterans in the lineup, it's important that the Leafs "load-manage" with great care.
This term is all too familiar to Toronto sports fans: remember the Raptors’ 2019 season when Kawhi Leonard came back from a knee injury that kept him out the next before. The Raptors sat Leonard out every once in a while so that he wouldn't be as tired. Once the playoffs rolled around, Kawhi was a different beast and all that regular season rest paid off.
The Leafs would do well to borrow a page from the Raptors’ playbook in these last few games before the postseason.
Head coach Sheldon Keefe didn't rest many of his regulars in this latest game against the Habs. The only changes were: Adam Brooks got the night off on the fourth line so Pierre Engvall was back in the lineup, and Stefan Noesen made his Leaf debut in place of the injured Nick Foligno. Funnily enough, Noesen and Foligno both came to the Leafs in the same trade (three-team deal with the Sharks and the Blue Jackets), Noesen from San Jose, and Foligno from Columbus.
The Good
The Leafs played well throughout but one of the best things I saw all game long was the two-way play among all the defensive groups. The Leafs’ defense has been weak on the offense for much of the season. I think that that's okay, because they simply have much offensive talent that their defense can generally afford to let the forwards do their thing.
But last night, they showed how much more dynamic the offense can really be when the defense gets involved. On the first four goals of the game, the play started in the defensive end and went forward from there.
My experience as a defenseman has taught me that it's important to defend(duh!) but defensemen often overlook the offensive aspect of their job. Getting the puck to your wingers, pinching in at the blue line to keep the play onside, or sneaking in behind the other team's centerman to create a passing lane,make the difference between a pure journeyman and a truly outstanding offensive defenseman. Among the Leafs, Morgan Rielly and Rasmus Sandin are the two d-men who provide that sort of play every night but last night, we saw it from everyone.
Most notably, Jake Muzzin had a huge number of scoring chances but unfortunately wasn't able to capitalize. The closest he came to scoring was the first goal of the game.
Turning Point
It's hard to call a play that happened late in the game a "turning point" but this goal really gave momentum back to the Leafs for good. After putting up four goals in the first period, the Leafs went quiet in the second while Montreal scored their first of the game. When Cole Caufield scored his first NHL regulation goal to make it 4-2, I started to envision a scenario where the Leafs would give up what seemed to be an insurmountable lead.
But then we all saw a recently-familiar sight as things came back under control: Mitch Marner dropped it to Auston Matthews, who whipped it past Habs’ goaltender Jake Allen. Allen replaced Montreal's starter Caden Primeau, who had allowed 4 goals on 14 shots in the first. This was Matthews’ 40th of the campaign and he's only played 49 of the Leafs’ 53 games this season. Which brings me to the next segment of this post...
Player of the Game
My first star candidate in the game was Captain John Tavares for his goal and assist. , along with an honorable mention to rock solid goaltender Jack Campbell. But my hands-down pick is Matthews for his 40th goal of the season.
To put this into perspective, Matthews is averaging 0.81 goals a game. That matches Mario Lemieux and is only surpassed by Alex Ovechkin who had a 0.79 average around a decade ago. So what Matthews is doing here is pretty astonishing. If this were a regular season, he'd be on pace for a goal total north of 60! That's closing in on Lemieux or Teemu Selanne territory from the '90s.
It's pretty incredible to see this, especially for a Maple Leaf. The Last time a Leaf won the NHL scoring title was in the '30s so this is a long time coming for sure.
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