In what is sure to be the feel-good game of the regular season for the Toronto Maple Leafs, Travis Dermott, Justin Holl and Kasperi Kapanen all scored en route to a blowout win over the New York Islanders on Wednesday night.
Your game in ten:
1. Caveat: This was a struggling, leaky Islanders team that was tired and on the road against a Leafs team fresh as a daisy coming out of the break. The Islanders are fast and talented up front, but their structure was non-existent – a mess in their own end and a wide-open neutral zone, with big gaps between the forwards and D.
But taken in combination with their effort in a much tougher situation in Dallas, this was certainly among the best two-game sequences the Leafs have played this year. There were a bunch of fun high-scoring wins in early October, but it was early October and the Leafs were giving up a ton, too. They’ve looked fast, deep, and more organized (William Nylander being last man back on a 2v1 in the first period notwithstanding) in these last two games — despite some key absences on the blue line, too.
2. As frustrated as many fans have been with him this season (and likely will be again), the reason I’ll support Mike Babcock at the end of the day is that he’s a great coach and — or because of — he’s not blind to his own flaws. He’s said numerous times since arriving in Toronto that sometimes coaches are slower to make changes than they should be because they’re stubborn about what’s worked in the past (Doesn’t excuse poor lineup decisions, but vastly superior to digging in and refusing to budge, Randy Carlyle-style). He acknowledged back in training camp in the fall that, “We don’t always get it right short term, but the best players will play.” It was disappointing how long it took to sort out the fourth line when there was no excuse for it with the assets at his disposal; the Kadri-Komarov combination also went on several weeks too long. There’s an element here of doing right by certain people in your room who have been good soldiers for you and who set the bar as far as work rate and commitment, too.
With all of that said, this Leafs team looks like it’s back to being fun again – the last two games, they’ve dictated the pace over 60 minutes with a relentless four-line attack. That has to be this team’s identity going forward.
3. Is there a better moment in hockey than watching a proud parent react to their kid’s first NHL goal? A lot of sacrifice and many freezing-cold early mornings in horrible rinks go into making this dream a reality.
There’s scoring your first goal, then there’s leading a rush from your own end, weaving through three in the neutral zone, one-arm stick lifting a guy, and burying your first NHL goal — while playing a fantastic game start to finish, in a blowout win for your team in front of the roaring ACC crowd that gives you a standing ovation, with your teary-eyed father in attendance. What a dream night for Dermott.
4. It’s hard to figure where Andreas Borgman fits in when the Leafs have their full complement of defencemen available with Morgan Rielly returning on the left. Besides Borgman’s ability to deliver the odd bone-crunching hit, Travis Dermott does just about everything better. Dermott also doesn’t back down physically; while he’s not big per se, he’s got a bit of a fire-hydrant build, he can throw a good hip check (he landed a partial one on Brock Nelson in the first period, and this was a feature in his game with the Marlies), and he’s no pushover along the walls. When it comes to handling and moving the puck and transitioning up ice, Dermott’s skill set is certainly ahead of Borgman’s. Defensively, his gaps are better, his stick is better and he recovers better when he’s caught. He can also play the power play if need be. The competition isn’t fully over, but it looks to me that he’s taken Borgman’s job when Morgan Rielly’s back, assuming full health.
5. This was a perfect game for Nikita Zaitsev to get his legs back underneath him: A struggling, tired opponent that played firewagon hockey without manufacturing much in the way of a forecheck. Zaitsev was second on the Leafs defense core in time-on-ice, finished a plus-one, was credited with one shot on goal, and ended the night with a 56% share of possession playing up against the first line of Lee – Tavares – Bailey line.
The Gardiner-Zaitsev pairing wasn’t without its faults versus the Tavares line; there were some sure goals robbed by brilliant saves from Frederik Andersen on John Tavares as well as on Casey Cizikas, but coming back from a lower body injury usually means skating in quicksand for a lot of the night — and he was thrown into the deep end immediately. He was a bit rigid handling passes and some simple plays out of the zone turned into chances the other way, but you can expect some of that coming back into the lineup cold.
Jake Gardiner continues to roll along, picking up 10 points in six games after his remarkable saucer pass to Zach Hyman prior to the Matthews goal, and is holding down the fort until Rielly’s imminent return. He played most of his shifts with Zaitsev, and while this is not a top pair defence pairing, they acquitted themselves well enough on a fairly easy night overall. Perhaps it was getting reps alongside the ever-steady and consistent Ron Hainsey, or maybe it was simply loading him up with minutes that helped him rediscover his rhythm, but this is a major positive development for the team after Gardiner struggled mightily with confidence issues through stretches of the year.
6. It’ll be really interesting to see what Rielly – Hainsey / Gardiner – Zaitsev / Dermott – Carrick – Polak looks like when everyone is back in the lineup. Gardiner turning it around (to say the least) at just the right time, plus Rielly and Hainsey’s fantastic seasons and the emergence of Dermott, suddenly makes that look quite respectable/competitive. Depending on how it plays out between now and the deadline, Polak, Carrick, Borgman and Marincin kicking around as 6/7 depth would seem to put Lou Lamoriello in a spot where he’s only making a move on defense if it moves the needle in a significant way versus expending picks just to shore up the depth with a veteran add.
7. A blowout win that was pretty well over after 40 minutes also sets the Leafs up nicely for their back-to-back situation in New York on Thursday night. Babcock really didn’t have a ton of choice when it came to rolling his pairs to some degree – there was no Ron Hainsey, and Nikita Zaitsev was playing his first game in six weeks. Jake Gardiner led the way at 23 minutes followed by Zaitsev at 22, while Dermott played nearly 20 minutes, Holl played 16:30 in his NHL debut, and Borgman played nearly 18 minutes. Looking at the state of the blue line before the game and the matchup challenges against the Tavares and Barzal lines, you easily could have foreseen Gardiner up in the 28 minute range with Zaitsev not far behind. Up front, outside of Dominic Moore (who played just under 12 minutes), every Leafs forward fell in between 13:40 and 17:08.
8. Speaking of Dominic Moore: Just based on how his ice time/ healthy scratches have played out this year and the experimentation at 4C with Frederik Gauthier, when Babcock talks about wanting the players to force Lamoriello’s hand on buying between now and the deadline, it feels like he’s got center help for the 4C spot in mind. There isn’t a ton out there on the market that strikes me as a clear upgrade and I actually think Moore has been pretty good when he’s played for the most part, but it doesn’t seem like Babcock is as big of a fan.
9. Kasperi Kapanen’s transformation has been impressive to watch the past couple of years. Without losing anything in the way of speed, he’s gone from a light teenager who sometimes shied away from driving inside the dots to a 21-year-old who can still fly but has some heft to him, is strong on the puck, and is fully willing to go to the hard areas of the ice. It was impressive how ugly his 1-0 goal was. He’s become a real handful to defend and a highly effective forechecker. Opposite Komarov, the fourth line is a nuisance for any defense pair, and the unit can be trusted out there against just about anybody (it hemmed in JT’s line + the Pulock pair at one point in this game; they couldn’t touch the puck). Kapanen now has three goals in his last six NHL games.
In Kapanen and Dermott, the Leafs are now getting a bit of a “second wave” infusion from their youth movement/rebuild that has given them a shot in the arm at a time when they needed it.
Four of the five goals in last night's 5-0 win were scored by players age 21 or younger. There are only three other times in @MapleLeafs history where four different players 21 or younger scored in the same game, all of which occurred during 1943-44 season (per @PR_NHL). #TMLTalk
— Leafs PR (@LeafsPR) February 1, 2018
10. Frederik Andersen is now second in league in save percentage since Nov. 1, .01 behind Tampa Bay’s Andrei Vasilevskiy among goalies with 20 or more starts in that time. Andersen has now publicly called the team out in the media each season he’s been here (after the California road trip last year, after the Philly loss in mid January this season) and then delivered — to say the least — on his end. All the power to you when you stop more pucks than any goalie in the NHL. With the injuries to Matthews, Zaitsev and Rielly, how poorly the team played at times in December/January yet still managed to grind out points (in large part thanks to him), and how big his workload has been as far as games played and shots faced — he’s the team’s MVP through 51 games. The October performances have hurt the perception, but this is Vezina nom-calibre stuff from Andersen. Numbers since Nov. 1:
| Saves | Shots Against | Save Percentage | Shutouts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Andersen | 1,007 (1st in NHL) | 1,082 (1st in NHL) | .931 (2nd in NHL) | 3 (t-4th in NHL) |
