The Colorado Avalanche (1-2-0) come into town tonight on the 2nd half of a back-to-back and look to improve upon their poor start to the season—much the same as the Toronto Maple Leafs (1-2-0).
The last time that these two teams met, the Maple Leafs blew them out 5-2 and it was a wide-open affair. It was a game of turnovers and end-to-end action, and more of the same should probably be expected.
Colorado has gotten off to a slow start; Minnesota dominated them in two back-to-back games and outshot them heavily. There are a number of parallels between these two teams in that they both play loosely, have plenty of skill in the top six, both would be in the conversation for fastest team the league, and both rely on goaltending heavily in order to win games.
Where Toronto was the millstone for the advanced statistics movement in the NHL last season, Colorado were also heavily outshot, had a huge season of 112 points — outpacing the elite teams in the West — and relied on out-of-worldly goaltending. Their playoff run was short and a lot of the proponents of advanced statistics pointed to statistical regression as the reason for their early exit. The counterpoints were that they lost their #1 centerman (Matt Duchene) for much of the playoffs, their best offensive defenceman (Tyson Barrie) for much of the playoffs, and their 3c (John Mitchell) for the entire playoffs, who is an important part of their team and put up good numbers offensively given his role.
Colorado’s going to be a team that will be closely scrutinized statistically this year; while the fan base is not going to like what they hear (sound familiar?), will they be able to outscore their problems and cover up other areas of the game causing them to regularly lose the possession battle? Again, very much like Toronto, they score a huge amount goals off the rush and with little zone time. Plays take mere seconds to develop and end up in the back of the net with players such as Duchene, MacKinnon, Landeskog, O’Reilly up front, while Barrie and Johnson on the backend provide more skating ability and offensive contributions. Both teams thrive on the rush, feed off the transition game, and score pretty goals.
While Colorado wouldn’t seem to have much incentive to change the way they played last year — their 2013-14 season was the second best in franchise history — the Maple Leafs fired all of the assistant coaches and brought in a tenured, experienced assistant coach in Peter Horachek, who came from a club that has a reputation of being one of the better defensive teams in the league for an extended period of time, effective at shot suppression year after year.
It will be tempting for Toronto to get into a track meet with Colorado, but if the team is going to do anything this year they need to stick to new defensive systems brought in by Peter Horacek this summer and learn to play the right way. If Toronto can stick to a more conservative forecheck, be detailed and check closely in the neutral zone, cover the points and breakout with efficiency—this is a game for the taking. This could be a nice breakout game for the first line, as well as Toronto’s mobile defenseman, as they’re able to use their speed unimpeded through the neutral zone and either generate chances off the rush or get clean setups in the offensive zone off of zone entries.
James Reimer gets the start in goal for Toronto. Jonathan Bernier’s off to a slow start this season and Reimer’s game against New York was a solid season debut.
As for Jake Gardiner, if he remains in the pressbox, if he steps in for another defenceman, or if the Leafs run 7D is something we’ll know closer to game time.
Maple Leafs vs. Avalanche
| Leafs | Avalanche | |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 1-2-0 | 1-2-0 |
| Goals/Game | 3.67 | 0.67 |
| Goals Against/Game | 4.0 | 3.0 |
| Shots/Game | 29.3 | 25.3 |
| Shots Against/Game | 37.0 | 36.7 |
| Even Strength CF% | 42.96% | 43.66% |
| EV Team SV% | 90.22% | 91.11 |
| EV Team SH% | 7.69% | 2.99% |
| PDO | .979 | .941 |
| PK% | 66.7% | 90.9% |
| PP% | 41.7% | 0.0% |
