Leafs Fall to Jets

 

Last night the Toronto Maple Leafs were looking to find their way back into the win column after losing both games in Vancouver. The goaltending matchup saw Freddie Andersen in goal for the hometown Leafs and Cal Hellebyuck in goal for Winnipeg, He was looking for redemption after being pulled the other night in a 7-1 loss to Montreal.

 

The first period started with the teams trading chances and both goalies making key saves but at the 8-minute mark of the opening period as the always reliable Zach Hyman would dance around Nate Thompson and then surprisingly defender Nathan Beaulieu skated away from Hyman allowing him to send a backhand into the Jets goal to put Toronto up 1-0. Winnipeg would find themselves on the power play as Jake Muzzin would be in the penalty box for hooking. The Jets would even the score when Andrew Copp would deflect a point shot by Freddie Andersen. Toronto would go back to work looking for the go-ahead goal and the work would pay off as John Tavares would streak in on goal drawing a hooking penalty from Nick Pionk. With Toronto on the man advantage birthday boy Morgan Reilly would send a wrist shot into traffic and the Auston Matthews would deflect the shot into the net ending his five-game scoring drought and giving the home team a 2-1 lead, a lead Toronto would carry into the first intermission.

 

Period number two and the Leafs with the lead they would continue to apply pressure but with every shot on goal the Jets Hellebyuck would make big save after big save. Toronto would even see themselves on their second power play but still could not solve the Winnipeg goalie. However, it would be the visitors lighting the lamp as a Josh Morrissey point shot would be deflected off the skate of Auston Mathews and into the net to lever the score at 2-2 for Morrissey’s first goal of the season. Winnipeg would take the lead after a combination of a terrible line change at the Leaf bench and Justin Holl focusing on the puck carrier Ehlers and leaving Winnipeg’s Kyle Connor wide open for the go-ahead goal and it would be the Jets with the lead after 40 minutes played.

 

This season when trailing after two periods the first place Maple Leafs are winless this season so obviously this was a trend they were hoping to break. As we saw most of the evening Toronto would be controlling the play. Unfortunately, Winnipeg would double their lead after Winnipeg’s Copp would intercept a Reilly stretch pass that would eventually end up on the stick of Mason Appleton and into the Leafs net. Toronto would continue to search for offense and would have a glimpse of hope as with the goalie on the bench and the extra attacker on the ice Toronto would pull to within a goal as Captain John Tavares while behind the goal would set up Auston Mathews for his 2^nd goal of the contest and his 20^th of the campaign. Sadly, this was a close as Toronto would come as time would run out and they would lose game 1 to the Jets by a score of 4-3.

For the first time since Sheldon Keefe has stepped behind Toronto’s bench his team has lost three games in regulation and falling to 4-3 in this current ten game stretch. In his post game interview Mathews said despite the loss there were some positives to take away from last night’s game. He is right Toronto last night got again a strong performance in goal by Andersen and aside from a few early games in January he has played consistently well. Secondly Toronto once again collected a goal from the Hyman line meaning more production from their bottom six forwards. Lastly the amount of high-quality scoring chances the Leafs generated was a huge positive and it showed a few things. Obviously Hellebyuck showed us why he was last season’s Vezina trophy winner, but it also shows the Leafs and Leaf fans that Toronto can and will end this losing skid. Of course, as fans watching your team drop three games where they probably deserved a better result but focusing on just the high-quality chances it’s clear that those chances will go in for Toronto because majority of the goalies in this league will not be able to sustain their play facing that many scoring chances and a perfect example of this would be Carey Price in Montreal. When this were going well for the Habs prior to the coaching change Price had stop 96% of the high-quality chances he had faced. Then his play came back to earth and more and more of those chances Price was facing were going in. So the point I am trying to make is fans lets continue to be patient and enjoy how well this Leafs team is playing and trust that they can end this 3 game skid.

 

Game 2 of the series takes place Thursday night so tune in and enjoy.