Leafs Bounce Back, Hold On Against Islanders

After a decent, but ultimately unsuccessful and slightly underwhelming season opener against the Montreal Canadiens, the Toronto Maple Leafs had zero time to dwell on their mistakes. A second game just 24 and a half hours after the first could’ve been a curse to tired bodies, but it also provided an opportunity to gain comfort and chemistry with each other. Both were at play on Wednesday night as the team pulled out a 2-1 win against a New York Islanders team that has been a thorn in their side in recent years.

The Rundown

Toronto started off this game pretty sluglishly, taking a little over seven minutes to generate anything to speak of. But an offensive zone sequence by the third line would change that in a hurry, with Easton Cowan, Nick Paul, and Colton Sissons working together to get the latter his first goal as a Leaf via a netfront deflection. About five mintues later, Cowan was back, this time jamming a rebound in the slot for a poweprlay goal to give the Leafs a 2-0 lead.

The blue and white carried this momentum across the rest of the first period, keeping Ilya Sorokin on his toes to prevent the game from getting out of hand. Come the start of the second, though, they lost control for quite a while, with a couple of curious penalty calls doing them little favour to restore their momentum. Thankfully for their sake, that loss of pressure didn’t lead to goals on the other side before they could regain composure.

Beginning in the late second and bleeding into the early third, the Leafs had regained control of the flow of play, coming close to finding their dagger goal on a couple of occasions. It seemed like Toronto would be in a prime spot to find one when Nick Paul drew a holding penalty off of former Leaf Mattias Maccelli with six and a half minutes to go, but thanks to a poor read by Wiliam Nylander, the Islanders were able to pull off a quick counter and snag a shorthanded goal to halve the lead. This led to a tense final few minutes, particularly once the Islanders pulled Ilya Sorokin in the closing minutes. To Toronto’s credit, their skaters were determined to not let much come Anthony Stolarz’s way, blocking several shots in the final minute to seal the win.

Notes

• Easton Cowan graded out as the game’s top player by Game Score and that’s well deserved. Maybe it’s a bit of early fortune or energy, but it really feels like he took the Calder Cup playoff run from last spring and made the most of it. No one’s ever questioned the work ethic, but going down to the AHL allowed him to figure out his offensive game in a professional setting in a way that his NHL rookie year didn’t afford him. So far, he looks like he’s ready to be the offensive instigator on the third line, which is exactly what they need of him.
• Anthony Stolarz was fantastic tonight, stopping 26 of 27. You can’t really blame him for a shorthanded odd-man rush with a man crashing the net, either. He’s got to be coming into this offseason in a bit of an odd spot, having escaped Sergei Bobrovsky’s shadow only to land in the same spot two years later, so you hope for his sake he can keep a good mind on him and be ready to go in the games he gets – he very well might end up getting more of them than expected if he can play like this.
• This is a “burn the tape” kind of night for the vets on the second line. John Tavares looked a step behind after looking fantastic in preseason, and William Nylander was a hot mess after being Toronto’s only goal scorer yesterday. I’m more sympathetic to Gavin McKenna, both because he’s playing his first week of professional hockey and because he set up several scoring chances, including a sitter for Nylander that the latter whiffed on. I do wish McKenna would shoot just a bit more, but that’ll come.
• Brandon Duhaime came into this game shot out of a cannon, at one point leading the team in controlled zone entries despite playing on the fourth line and doing so while causing commotion. It didn’t really last, but I can see why they like that about him.
• Kirill Marchenko wasn’t as effective as yesterday, but the top line was still strong at controlling plays. I thought just from the eye test and my own notes that Jack Roslovic was excellent throughout, and sure enough, no one had a better share of the shots and shot quality on either team tonight. Auston Matthews also had a few chances both of his own and provided to others, but we’re all waiting for him to have another game like the preseason finale.
• Back to Marchenko, I imagine the travel and whirlwind of it all probably had an impact tonight, but he’s also about to veer in the worst spot to be in as a new player – slightly accustomed. Brand new players who have had no time to get used to their environment usually play at their most free. Players who are around a while build chemistry with their teammates and understand the systems they’re playing within. Being slightly accustomed usually comes with starting to try to fit into systems and plays and that you don’t have the rhythm of yet. A lot of new Leafs are slightly accustomed right now, which makes it difficult to read what impacts they’ll have in the long run. Just be warned that this will happen here too, if we see a dip in the next week or two and wonder where the star player of the season opener went.

Up Next

The Leafs get a little bit of rest here, though not not too much. Thursday and Friday are off before they take on the Ottawa Senators on Saturday night. The Sens, incredibly, have not played yet and won’t play until then, so that game will be their season debut, creating a pretty interesting mismatch. We’ll see you then!

Numbers Game

Top Performers	Bottom Performers	Top Opponents
1. Easton Cowan (2.22) 1G, 1A, 3 SOG, +1, 62% xG	1. William Nylander (-0.93) 0G, 0A, 1 SOG, -1, 9% xG	1. Adam Pelech (1.04) 0G, 0A, 0 SOG, 72% xG
2. Jack Roslovic (2.08) 0G, 1A, 2 SOG, 89% xG	2. Chris Tanev (-0.84) 0G, 0A, 0 SOG, 27% xG	2. Matthew Schaefer (0.82) 0G, 0A, 3 SOG, 61% xG
3. Troy Stecher (2.05) 0G, 0A, 0 SOG, +1, 76% xG	3. John Tavares (-1.09) 0G, 0A, 1 SOG, -1, 13% xG	3. Ilya Sorokin (0.82) 24 Saves, 2 GA on 2.82 xGA

Shots On Goal	27-26 NYI	Faceoffs	30 for 50
5v5 Shot Attempts	46-33 NYI	Hits	24-19 NYI
5v5 Expected Goals	1.68 – 1.74 NYI	Blocked Shots	21-11 TOR
Best Period (xG)	5v5: 2nd (51%) All: 1st (67%)	Powerplay	1 for 4 (6 shots)
Worst Period (xG)	5v5: 3rd (47%) All: 3rd (41%)	Penalty Kill	4 for 4 (2 shots)

Table 1: Game Score via Dom, HockeyStatCards reccomended for full-game results
Table 2: Derived from NHL.com and Natural Stat Trick
Heatmap: via Natural Stat Trick