Leafs Rally to Beat Devils

 

Photo From The Star

 

Yesterday afternoon the Leafs announced that one time coach Mike Nykoluk had passed away. Mike was behind the bench from 1981-1984 and during his time as Leafs bench boss in 280 games he managed a total of 89 wins, Mike was 87 years old and will be missed.

Last night the Maple Leafs returned home to Scotiabank Arena for a meeting with the New Jersey Devils and for this first time in quite a while there were fans in the building with provincial Covid restrictions beginning to lift the Leafs played tonight’s game in front of 500 fans. Jack Campbell would get the start for Toronto after getting the other night in Detroit off. For the visiting Devils their starting goalie would be Akira Schmid who was making his fifth NHL appearance but in the American League in 11 appearances he had a record of 9-0-2.

The Leafs would get off to a terrible start in this game, literally from the opening faceoff Toronto was not ready to play at all and just forty-seven seconds into the game the Devils would open the scoring. New Jersey would enter the Leaf zone and Jack Hughes while along the boards would send a pass to Pavel Zacha whose wrist shot would slide under the arm of Jack Campbell and into the net for his 11^th goal of the season. With the Devils leading they would continue to control the play as the Devils would keep the Leafs from even registering a shot for the first five minutes of the opening period. New Jersey would double their lead as Colton White would send a point shot on goal that Campbell would stop but the rebound would be collected by Jesper Boqvist who would slide the puck passed Jack Campbell for his 2^nd goal of the season. With the Leafs trailing 2-0 they would find their way onto the board just seconds later as Timothy Liljegren would pinch down low winning the puck and sending it to Mitch Marner who would send a pass to Auston Matthews who would fire a wrist shot beating Schmid blocker side cutting the Devils lead too 2-1 with his 26^th goal of the season. You would think cutting the Devils lead in half the Leafs would be energized and back into this game, but they were still sluggish and just before the midway point of this first a familiar face would score against his former club. Andreas Johnsson would score his 11^th goal of the season as he and Dawson Mercer would come in on a two on one rush and Johnsson’s wrist shot would beat Jack Campbell on his blocker side. On this goal we saw Timothy Liljegren would get beaten by the puck carrier far to easily and lately I have seen many fans criticize Liljegren for his play and have been asking for him to be dealt. If Toronto was to deal Liljegren they would obviously need a better replacement because their depth on the blue line has taken a hit with Jake Muzzin still suffering from his concussion, he suffered a few weeks ago in St Louis. Fans seem to forget that Liljegren has been in the minors for quite a while now and coming up to the NHL isn’t as easy of a transition for every player. Liljegren’s defensive game has some kinks that need to be worked out, but I really think fans need to be patient because Timothy’s game has plenty of upside and in my opinion, I think the smart thing to do would be holding onto Liljegren because as he develops, and his confidence grows at this level Timothy Liljegren will be a key part of the Leafs blueline.

After the Devils lead grew to 3-1 Sheldon Keefe decided that after letting three goals in on nine shots Campbell would get the rest of the night off and Petr Mrazek would come in, in relief, Keefe would also use this goalie change as a time out and try to rally his troops. The coaches talk seemed to work as the Leafs would begin to play with purpose and would try and gain momentum. Toronto would begin to collect more and more chances but too his credit the young Devils netminder was doing his part coming up with important saves to keep his teams lead intact. With five minutes left in the opening period Toronto would pull within one goal once again as Mitch Marner would have the puck in the offensive zone. He would send a cross ice pass to Morgan Rielly who would send a wrist towards goal that would be deflected into the New Jersey goal for Auston’s second of the night and 27^th goal of the season. I would also like to point out that since Rielly has signed his new contract to remain in Toronto earlier this season Rielly has averaged at least one point per game. With Rielly’s consistent production since getting his new deal it’s great seeing how quiet all the experts have gotten after they insisted the Leafs couldn’t keep Morgan under the salary cap. The first period would end with the Leafs trailing 3-2 after what was easily the team’s worst period of the season.

Period two would see the Leafs continuing to work their way back into this contest and shift by shift they were doing that as Schmid was facing more and more scoring chances as the Leafs managed to keep the Devils on their heels in their end. Seven minutes into the period the Devils would double their lead once again as Ryan Graves would fire a shot from the point that would get blocked by the traffic in front. TJ Brodie was unable to find the lose puck and New Jersey’s Nathan Bastian would capitalize on the opportunity sending the puck passed Mrazek for his 9^th goal of the season. The Leafs would be trailing now 4-2 but they would have a chance to shrink the deficit as the Devils would get called for holding putting Toronto’s dangerous powerplay to work. Sadly, for the Leafs and their fans the Devils were able to kill off this opportunity thanks to their aggressive penalty killing. The two clubs would trade powerplays as the second period went on with TJ Brodie getting a holding minor, one the Leafs were able to kill of and then later in period two Pavel Zacha would serve a minor for slashing. This penalty would carry over to the final frame as the Leafs would trail by a score of 4-2, the same situation as the other night in Detroit.

Toronto’s late second period powerplay would carry over to the third but despite getting a few chances the Leafs were unable to cash in on the man advantage. In the third period Toronto would come out flying playing the way we are used to seeing them play as they would heavily outshoot their opponents and early on the Leafs would score their third goal of the evening as Alex Kerfoot would cycle to puck down to Ilya Mikheyev who from behind the Devils goal would centre the puck to Jason Spezza whose quick wrist shot would beat Schmid upstairs for Jason’s 8^th goal of the season and his first goal in eleven games. Also, with this goal Spezza’s magic number is now sixteen. New Jersey’s lead is now 4-3 and the Leafs would be pressing for the equalizer. With half of the final period remaining fans at home watching had reason to cheer as the duo of Matthews and Marner would team up, after winning a draw on the blocker side of Schmid Matthews would send a quick pass over to Marner who would score his 12^th goal of the season and extend his goal streak to six games. With the score now tied 4-4 and momentum with the Leafs it looked as if things were going to end positively for Toronto. However, as we Leaf fans know this team never lets anything be easy for them, they always seem to make decisions that give the entire fanbase anxiety. Last night would be no different as Ondrej Kase would take a tripping penalty sending the Devils too the powerplay once again. Thankfully for Toronto and their fans the Devils powerplay has been struggling and couldn’t establish much pressure and the powerplay struggles would hurt the Devils as Alex Kerfoot would cause a Devils turnover and Ilya Mikheyev would join Alex on an odd man rush, Kerfoot would carry the puck in and show great patience as he would hold onto the puck untill the last second forcing the Devils goalie to play the shot but instead Kerfoot would slide the puck over to Mikheyev who would tap the puck into the net and Ilya would score his 7^th of the season as this goal came short handed and the Leafs would for the first time lead the game by a score of 5-4. With Toronto leading and New Jersey in shock and trailing their frustration would boil over as in the final minute Ryan Graves would be penalized for cross checking sending Toronto to the powerplay. With the Devils net empty Auston Matthews would finish this game off with an empty net goal for his 28^th of the season completing his fifth career hat trick and with this goal and his fourth point of the night Auston Matthews would reach the 400-point milestone becoming the fastest Leaf to do so. The final horn would sound, and the Leafs would complete the comeback winning this game 6-4.

There is a few things I would like to mention after this result, first off its great Toronto was able to complete another comeback but at the same time the Leafs can’t let this become a habit because although the Leafs managed to comeback Monday night against New Jersey and the other night against a tired Detroit games like this won’t happen against legitimate contenders like Florida, Tampa, or any other Stanley Cup threat. The Leafs need to find their game again and return to the team that we saw dominate opponents in November.

Secondly although Jack Campbell was pulled from this game, I wouldn’t completely fault him for how his night went. Simply put the Leafs were terrible in front of him so I think Keefe switching to Mrazek was done mainly to wake up the team. With that said though in this stretch that Jack Campbell is on although he has won games this month his play has taken a dip. By no means do I think we should be concerned. Jack has played extremely well for this team all season and has earned the honour of All Star representing the Atlantic Division in Vegas this coming weekend and hopefully the upcoming break will be beneficial for him because the month of February is going to be a busy one for this team and they will need both Mrazek and Campbell at their best with games coming frequently.

The Leafs have a quick turn around as they are back in action Tuesday, later tonight seeing as it’s almost two in the morning now, these two teams will square off once again but this time it will be in Newark at the Prudential Center the only question is who starts in goal Mrazek or Campbell. That’s it for this one thanks as always for reading.