A Sweden Sweep

 

Photo From Associated Press

The Leafs completed their week-long stay in Stockholm and Toronto was able to put on a show for the fans in attendance. Toronto had games against the Red Wings and the Wild, they were able to pick up four valuable points but in typical Leafs fashion, they made things interesting and stressful. The Friday afternoon game saw the Leafs play slow and sluggish for the first two periods against Detroit. Now, fans and analysts can sit there and say their usual line of “Toronto wasn’t ready” but the slow start for me was expected. These players flew 10 hours to Stockholm and had to adjust to the time change because Sweden is 6 hours ahead of Toronto. I have never flown but it's obvious jet lag would come into play. Not to mention Toronto hadn’t played since their 5-2 win over Vancouver on the 11^th. You can skate and practice all you want but there is a massive difference between practice and playing a game. So, for Toronto to be sluggish for forty minutes against Detroit it was expected in my opinion. In the 3^rd period, however, we saw Toronto take the game over and it was thanks to the second line.  Tyler Bertuzzi would get the Leafs on the board with his 4^th goal of the season, and he seems to have found a home on a line with Tavares and Nylander. Toronto’s powerplay would bring the Leafs within one goal to level the game and then minutes later John Tavares would put the Leafs ahead and they would win 3-2.

Toronto would return to action Sunday at 8 am (for Ontario viewers) for their game against Minnesota. We would see the Leafs fall 1-0 but it wouldn’t take long for the Leafs to take over. Before the game, Nick Kypreos and the panel talked about how the top line hasn’t been scoring. They must have heard Nick because Auston Matthews would tie the game with a powerplay goal then he would assist Matthew Knies with his 5^th of the season and Toronto would take a 2-1 advantage into the first intermission. We would have to wait until the third period before Morgan Reilly who has been having a great season gives Toronto the 3-1 lead. After that goal we would see a familiar habit of the Leafs, they stopped skating. The Wild are having issues scoring and before flying to Sweden lost 8-3 to Dallas so they were a desperate team. They were able to climb their way back into the contest forcing overtime. With the game tied 3-3 and bonus hockey needed Toronto would not have the greatest of starts because the Wild would have the puck in the corner with all three Leaf players focused on the carrier leaving his two teammates wide open but thankfully Joe Woll would bail the Leafs out. After another Wild rush was stopped by a sprawling Rielly he would send the puck to William Nylander who would cap off the trip with the overtime winner.

Toronto would leave with 4 important points moving them into 3^rd in the Atlantic, was their play perfect? No, there are still things to improve but there were plenty of positives to take away from this trip. I think the goaltending is starting to come together. Ilya Samsonov who played a solid game in the win against Vancouver followed it up with another good performance. Hopefully, his confidence continues to grow because as I have said many times with this blog if the Leafs want to go anywhere this postseason, they will need Samsonov to play close to the level he was last year. As for Woll, I thought aside from the first goal for the Wild he was good, for a young goalie with little NHL experience he has a real calmness to his game and doesn’t seem to get overwhelmed by the situation.

The Leafs who flew home Sunday night aren’t playing a game until Friday afternoon when they visit Conor Bedard and the Chicago Black Hawks. So, during the few days off fans will continue to speculate about what is going to happen with John Klingberg, and they will wait to see if a trade is made to boost the blueline because there are all kinds of rumours and speculation that there is an agreement in place to bring Zadorov and Tanev over from the Calgary Flames. We shall see what happens.

Thanks as always for reading.