Irish Eyes Are Smiling As The Leafs Beat Hurricanes

 

Photo From SFGate

Last night the Leafs honored their Irish roots dawning their vintage green and white St Pats jersey’s which has been a longstanding St Patrick’s Day tradition. Their opponents for the evening would be former teammate Freddie Andersen and the Metro Division leading Carolina Hurricanes. Toronto would go with the exact same lineup that beat Dallas the other night so that meant that Travis Dermott wasn’t dressed, Wayne Simmonds was sitting out but we found out after last nights game that Simmonds has been listed as a Non-Roster player and Brett Seney has been called up in his place, and lastly Leafs rookie goalie Erik Kallgren would once again get the start in goal, and of course last was also the final game of Auston Matthews’s suspension.

 

The narrative going into this game was how Carolina was going to be a much stiffer test for the Leafs and their young goalie and early in the first period the Hurricanes proved they were going to be a challenge because they heavily outshot the Leafs but thanks to Kallgren Carolina was unable to open the scoring. There were too many times in the opening twenty minutes where the Leafs would get caught in their end of the rink and I know I wasn’t alone in thinking this but as Carolina kept attacking in waves all I was hoping for was Toronto to hold on and hopefully head into the first intermission with the game scoreless. Midway through the first Toronto would find themselves a man down as Ilya Lyubushkin would be called for holding after getting wrestled to the ice by Jesperi Kotkaniemi but somehow the official watching the play only felt Lyubushkin was they guilty party. This Hurricanes powerplay would see the Canes send a total of seven shots on goal but the Leafs penalty kill would rise to the occasion and survive this powerplay. With 15 minutes of the first period gone and play heavily in the favor of the visiting team it would be the Leafs who would open the scoring. Toronto would begin a breakout in their zone and Ilya Mikheyev and Justin Holl would go onto the attack. Mikheyev would send the puck to Holl as they entered the zone, Ilya would continue towards the Carolina goal as Justin Holl sent a pass that Mikheyev would chip into the net beating Andersen on his blocker side and Ilya Mikheyev who is quietly having a strong season now has 12 goals on the season and Toronto would grab the 1-0 lead. A few minutes later we would see some more questionable officiating as Michael Bunting would be given a two-minute minor for roughing when literally all he did was finish his check. So, in the opening twenty minutes we saw the Leafs get a penalty for their player getting thrown to the ice followed by Bunting getting a penalty for the boards being too loud, welcome to the National Hockey League fans home of the worst officiating in North America. Thankfully the Leafs would kill off the Bunting penalty and despite being heavily outplayed Toronto would lead this game heading into the intermission.

 

The second period saw Toronto make an adjustment in their game plan; The Leafs saw that Carolina liked to have their defense play aggressively in their opponent’s zone meaning that players could sneak behind them leaving them open for a possible stretch pass. This is exactly what Toronto would do when just four minutes into the second the Leafs would double their lead. Timothy Liljegren would wait behind his net for the top line to step on and then he’d send a stretch pass that would be directed passed the Carolina defender and onto the stick of Mitch Marner. Now if you watched this play, you would see Andersen knows Bunting is on the opposite side so Freddie cheats over towards Bunting because Marner has always been known as a pass first player, however this guess by Freddie would backfire as Marner would decide to shoot and beat Andersen on his blocker side and Marner gives Toronto a 2-0 lead thanks to his 23^rd goal of the season, Tavares would pick up an assist giving him six points in his last five games and 58 points in 60 games played this season. I want to mention to all the so-called fans that have been criticizing John Tavares for his lack of production do me a favor. Go study and learn the game of hockey and then go back and look at the year-by-year stats of John Tavares and I don’t just mean in the NHL I mean in all of hockey. If you take the time and research this, you will see that for the majority of John’s career most of his points are from assists. You can literally count on one hand how many times he finished a season with more goals than assists. I have found the Tavares criticism honestly embarrassing, and I needed to say something about it because honestly if goals were the only thing that mattered regarding someone’s play, then Dubas should get rid of 90% of this roster. I have said it before, and I will say it untill there is no air left in my lungs John Tavares is worth every single dollar given to him and this Leafs team is better with him then they are without. With that off my chest the Marner goal would be the only one scored and Toronto would carry a 2-0 advantage with just twenty minutes remaining.

 

Period three would see Carolina throw all kinds of pressure on the Leafs which was to be expected. The arena was buzzing with anticipation wondering if Kallgren’s shutout streak would last a second game, unfortunately his streak would end within the first five minutes of the final frame as Carolina would cause a turnover in the neutral zone and quickly enter the Leafs zone. Jesper Fast would see his shot blocked by Lyubushkin which was a great play, but Carolina would get a favorable bounce as the puck would land on the stick of Ethan Bear who quickly sends the puck into the Leaf goal and with his 4^th goal of the season Carolina would finally get on the board trailing the game 2-1. The fans would give Toronto’s young netminder a well-deserved ovation but now we would see how the team and Kallgren would respond. Toronto’s response would be a positive one and it would come just three minutes later. Ondrej Kase would force a Carolina turnover and Alex Kerfoot would lead the counterattack he would send William Nylander on a quick two on one break with Kase, Nylander would chip a pass to Kase who would one time a shot passed Andersen for his 14^th goal of the season, his third goal in as many games restoring the Leafs advantage to 3-1. On the broadcast it was mentioned that since Sheldon Keefe called out Nylander he has built up a mini point streak because thanks to this assist Nylander now has seven points in his previous five games. A fun stat was mentioned by Chris Cuthbert when talking about the recent play of Ondrej Kase. In his last three games he has managed to score three goals but all three have come representing all three eras of the Leafs. He scored in the Heritage Classic wearing an Arena’s sweater, then the other night against Dallas in a Leafs sweater, and then last night as a member of the St Pats. Now some people may not agree but for me it’s the little facts like this that make Chris Cuthbert one of the most entertaining call men in the business.  With the Leafs leading this game by two Carolina would continue to apply pressure but Kallgren would continue to shut the door. As the clock became the enemy of the Hurricanes, they would call Andersen to the bench for an extra attacker. The Leafs would do a great job defending their lead but in the dying seconds of the third Carolina would net their second goal as Vincent Trocheck would score his 16^th goal of the season. Now in the grand scheme of things this second Carolina goal didn’t matter at all, but I have an issue with it. The play simply should have been blown dead because watching the replay you see that the puck is under Kallgren as he is on his back with the puck under him, but Carolina Forward Andrei Svechnikov is poking at the Leafs goalie which causes the puck to come lose leading to their second goal. We have seen this exact play blown dead on more than one occasion, but like I said in the end the goal didn’t matter and the remaining seconds would expire, and the Leafs would skate away with the hard fought but well deserved 3-2 victory the 2^nd of Kallgren’s bright career.

 

Now there’s a little update regarding the status of Wayne Simmonds, with the trade deadline just a few days away now and especially in a market like Toronto any transaction can cause loads of speculation. Earlier in this article I mentioned that Wayne had been listed as a non-Roster player last night, it turns out that this was done early yesterday because Wayne stayed home to assist in looking after he and his partners newest child, so let’s end the trade speculation for now because Wayne will return to the Leaf lineup. Also, Sheldon Keefe announced that Erik Kallgren will not only be making the trip to Nashville he will be making his third start consecutively for the Leafs, and honestly, it’s the right decision.

 

Last night after the game I had a conversation with friend Jimmy Sarjeant, who last summer I interviewed for this blog and if you haven’t checked it out, please do. With the cheap plug out of the way I mentioned that I am quickly becoming a fan of Kallgren. I like how he is quiet in goal for his team meaning that he doesn’t move a lot in the crease, he’s usually square to the shot and has no problem slowing the play down and freezing the puck for a faceoff when there is no option to move the play ahead. Most Importantly Erik Kallgren seems to be very aware of where he is always in the net, if a goalie doesn’t know where his goal posts are than he becomes a real liability for his team. In the 2.5 games Kallgren has played for the Leafs you have seen a person who doesn’t seem to be overwhelmed by the situation and I really believe this is due to his time playing in Sweden. Now obviously the Swedish League is not the NHL but the environment that you play in, in Europe is completely different, there is noise all the time literally from warmup untill the final horn. For those who don’t know Kallgren is a goalie who started as the backup for his Swedish club he then got the opportunity to start later in the season ended up taking over in goal and would go on to lead his team to a Swedish League Championship. So, Kallgren is someone that could possibly block out the noise and focus on the task at hand and there is no doubt with Kallgren coming in and performing as well as he has it has let the front office take a deep breath regarding addressing their goalie issue.

So, Toronto’s next game comes Saturday night when they visit Nashville, the Leafs last game untill the Monday trade deadline and with so many rumors and speculation surrounding the Leafs it is undoubtably going to be very busy these next few days.

 

Thanks as always for reading.