Maple Leafs Lose Twice In Ten Minutes, Start Preseason 0-2

Well, it’s a good thing the games don’t matter for the standings just yet. It was a tough night at the office for the Toronto Maple Leafs, who dropped both of their split squad games to the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday night – their “A Game” in regulation, and their “B Game” in overtime.

Highlights

The “A” game came with much reason for excitement – the first chance to see a lot of Toronto’s higher profile additions, and the return of a couple key players from injury. At first, things looked pretty good – the early dangerous chances were in Toronto’s favour, and the overall shots and chances were traded fairly evenly in the first period.

The second period wasn’t as kind, though – it took Montreal under a minute to get on the board. With Darren Raddysh caught at centre ice and Emil Andrae committed to taking away the pass, Phil Danault had plenty of time to corral and lift a puck from an odd angle past Sergei Bobrovsky. The Maple Leafs were given a few chances to respond through their powerplay throughout the period, though they managed to go four straight man advantages across the first half hour without even landing a shot on goal. Eventually, Auston Matthews got a Grade A chance in the slot to tie the game, but met the glove of Kappo Kakhonen. Before that powerplay could close, however, Darren Raddysh took his first trademark one timer and saw it break one stick, bounce off another, and roll in to give Toronto their equalizer.

Montreal took the lead back in the third period after Maksymilian Szuber had a circumstance similar to Raddysh’s – one timer from the point, a bounce of Jakob Quillan, and into the net past Anthony Stolarz, who replaced Bobrovsky midway through. The Canadiens added an empty netter with a little over a minute left, and then with 23 seconds to go, Samuel Poulin added one more for insult to injury.

Over in the “B” game in Montreal, where the Habs played more of their core, Juraj Slafkovsky got the scoring started much sooner with a deflection in the slot past Artur Akhtyamov just four and a half minutes in. After the Leafs found themselves down two men midway through the period, a fantastic look off and pass from Lane Hutson put Ivan Demidov in prime position to give Montreal some insurance.

To the B-Leafs’ credit, despite being outshot 13-2 in the first period, they rallied hard in the second, taking advantage of two early powerplays. A wraparound pass from Ryan Tverberg found Henrik Rybinski with two seconds left in the first man advantage to cut the lead to one, and Colton Sissons deflected an Oliver Ekman-Larsson point shot to tie the game. With four minutes left in the period, Rybinski returned the favour made for him, wrapping a pass around the net to Marc Johnstone to give the Leafs the lead.

Unfortunately, that lead was short-lived. What looked like the Leafs breaking up a play in the defensive zone turned into a chaotic series of bounces, culminating in Hutson being left wide open to tie the game. Regulation saw no more action on the scoreboard, and when the Leafs put out Sissons, Ekman-Larsson, and Nick Blankenburg as a 3-on-3 trio against Hutson, Cole Caufield, and Nick Suzuki, it was safe to assume the game would be over soon.

Interestingly, it wasn’t right away, as the Leafs got caved in for a bit before drawing a penalty out of Slafkovsky. After failing to convert on the 4-on-3 powerplay, however, it was only a matter of time before that top Montreal group would find its way out there, and with the play still 4-on-4 without a whistle, Caufield and Hutson streaked in on an uncontested rush, leaving Samuel Hlavaj with little to no chance as Caufield won the game for Montreal.

Numbers Game

Come regular season, this area will feature the fine work at Hockey Stat Cards, and maybe some of my own stuff if it’s a night where I’ve been tracking along. For the preseason, we’ll use the heatmaps from the also fantastic Natural Stat Trick.

Toronto seemed to have a little more flash and flow when it had the puck in this one, but they lacked in both shot volume and quality tonight, getting out-attempted 42-28 at 5v5 and only generating about 1.2 expected goals to Montreal’s 2.4 (2.3 to 3.9 in all situations).

The B squad fared even worse by shot attempts / Corsi, getting out-attempted 54 to 23 at 5v5, and also only generating about a third of the expected goals. Toronto B’s special teams did fare better, and 3v3, well, we probably should just burn that tape.

Notes

• Most of my focus was on the “A” game until it finished, so I don’t have a ton to say about the “B” game yet beyond “man, there really wasn’t a better unit to start overtime with?”. But I digress, and head back to Game A, which is where most of the city’s eyes were at anyway.
• Gavin McKenna didn’t have a super productive game, and his line got demolished in the possession battle (38% of the attempts, 29% of the expected goals at 5v5). With that said, you could see flashes of the player he’s going to be. He dictated the pace of play whenever he had the puck, didn’t try to force too much, and noticeably played with his head up looking for options, a trademark of his at lower levels. He set up a couple of scoring chances that ultimately didn’t convert. It’s not instant stardom, but you can see the star within. He drew two penalties as well, which is something that would be nice to get used to, but with this team, who knows if it’ll last once the games matter.
• Someone who very much looked like a star right away was Auston Matthews, who looked as quick and focused as we’ve seen him in a couple of years. Yes, it’s game one of the preseason, but so much of what happens with the Leafs this year will be determined by whether or not he can rebound back from being just great to being a megastar. Today looked more like the guy capable of being a megastar.
• Jack Roslovic looks like he could be a useful add in the top six. Maybe not a high-impact player, but someone who gives the top guys an option to carry the puck between zones and connect some plays.
• Darryn Raddysh’s game was a lot of different things tonight. On one hand, he scored basically the exact type of goal people were waiting for from him, even if he got a little help from the pinball machine. On the other hand, you probably want a little more than 22% of the attempts (17-5) and 12% of the expected goals (0.7-0.1) at 5-on-5 from his pairing, which featured him and Emil Andrae. Andrae was another odd case too, where you could see some of his comfort with carrying the puck out of the zone, but none of either of their offensive toolboxes led to much even-strength offence.
• I’d also probably like it if Raddysh wasn’t diving around for shot blocks in Game 1 of the preseason, but maybe a lot of tonight can be amounted to first-game jitters and wanting to leave a good impression. Hopefully he builds off the positives and settles in.
• I barely noticed Chris Tanev tonight, which given his role and position, is probably a good thing, especially on a first night back from a long-term injury.
• I wouldn’t go so far to say that Zack MacEwen was great or making himself some noise for a roster spot, but he was faster with the puck than I expected him to be, with a zippy shot to match. That might be of use if he heads to the Marlies.
• There were plenty of fisticuffs across these two games. Marshall Rifai fought Florian Xhekaj in the A game after having enough of seeing Matthews and William Nylander in skirmishes, while Michael Pezzetta and Teddy Blueger dropped the gloves over in the B game.
• The Leafs return on Wednesday for one more split-pair of games against the Ottawa Senators.