When I watch the Leafs I can’t help but think of Rube Goldberg machines, which are essentially overcomplicated contraptions that complete basic tasks with a million moving parts. If you’ve ever seen the old cartoon Wallace and Gromit, you might be familiar with these, starting with how Wallace gets dressed in the morning. His dog, Gromit, pulls a lever that drops a hammer, which tips his bed, which opens the floor, which drops him into his pants, which are suspended in the air above his breakfast seat a floor below.
The problem with Rube Goldberg machines, is that if one little thing is off in the complicated sequence, there’s a failure to complete the desired task.
I thought the Leafs were generally good on Thursday night, but as they’ve proven time and again, they seem good when the pressure is on and they’re disciplined in their structure. That was demonstrated by a number of bounce-back performances after awful regular season showings. When they feel like they can relax — like say, up a few goals — they seem content to play with less attention to detail and simply let the chips fall where they may. Sheldon Keefe said he didn’t like their game after they got up 3-0, but also after 2-0, and even 1-0.
“Let the chips fall where they may” didn’t pan out in Game 3. So, let’s get to some individual performances and address the big picture.
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1. Toronto’s showing seems best defined through the play that happened just inside Columbus’ blue line before the tying goal. On that play Pierre-Luc Dubois took the puck down the ice from his own end, stayed just a step ahead of Kasperi Kapanen, and beat Frederik Andersen to tie the game. What happened there?
Start with your eyes on Kapanen (No. 24) in the middle of the ice, then you can check out Dermott (No. 23) and even Nick Robertson (No. 89).
Robertson and Alex Kerfoot are in a 2-on-2 battle in the corner. Kapanen is high as F3, above Blue Jackets forward Alexandre Texier in the middle of the ice. Travis Dermott sticks to the Leafs’ plan of “shrinking the zone” on opposing wingers, sneaking down the wall and staying tight to Cam Atkinson, so if the puck comes to the Columbus winger, Dermott can put out any sparks before they become a fire.
The problem, of course, is that when Dermott comes down, Kapanen is supposed to fill-in behind him, which he’s on his way to doing. It doesn’t happen super-fast, though, in part because I think he sees the Columbus forward that’s farthest up the ice (and so, the biggest threat) as Texier, who he’s already above, and that Dubois comes out of that low pile with zero resistance after a weak battle where neither Leafs forward is on the defensive side.
So the interesting debate that was had at intermission with Ron MacLean and Kevin Bieksa (which spilled over on to Twitter) was: should Dermott have pinched down there, and should Kapanen have filled in for him?
The Kapanen one is a definitive yes, he should have filled in faster. But again, that play unfolds quickly — Dubois gets his speed up early — so it’s hard to blame a lapse in judgement or a lazy fill-in. Even in this late frame Kapanen has yet to hit the panic button.
Still, he should be getting back above where Dermott was.
The debate is this, though: the Leafs are up 3-2 in the third period, so should Dermott even shrink the zone there, or just read the state of the game, and stay back, stay safe?
When players make those sort of decisions (to not pinch down), teams end up defending against the metaphorical Hail Mary and give up short passes underneath in hockey’s version of football’s “prevent” defence. They spend a lot of time in their zone and try to bend but not break. Then we say they “took their foot off the pedal” and “stopped playing their game” when it goes awry.
Dermott is executing the Leafs’ system here, and I think you’d argue rightfully so. There’s a good case they aren’t built to pure-defend and are in turn better off trying to play at the other end of the rink where no team in the league held on to the puck more per game.
Should the Leafs have dialled back their system and packed it in, trying to hold on to their one-goal lead for 10 minutes? Maybe. But that’s the debate: should the team have changed its plan, not should Dermott have made a different choice. He’s just sticking to the plan.
2. Ilya Mikheyev is an interesting piece of the Leafs’ puzzle. This is a team that feels super capable, but still has a lot to unlock. I looked at Mitch Marner and “finishing plays” after Game 2, and he was much better in Game 3, leading to offence for the Leafs. The young Robertson obviously has a lot to unlock, and it feels like Kerfoot does too, but Mikheyev in particular feels like a guy who will get “it,” but just doesn’t seem to have those final pieces to the puzzle just yet.
He’s effective in many ways thanks to his size, work ethic, and brain. Look at these clips; how he’s strong on his stick and gets the puck back so the Leafs can have O-zone possessions:
Those plays are valuable. You want to have him out there all the time and you want to play him with great players. You’ve seen him score in intrasquad games, he’s put up numbers in Russia, you know it’s there. They have to be eagerly waiting for it to play out in one of these games.
He’s really good at popping into soft spots and finding areas to shoot from, but he’s often fading away from the net and is just unable to finish these plays into something dangerous.
(Love the play to the middle on the breakout in the first clip. Hate that he didn’t stop on the puck in the second after it was blocked.)
With Marner you knew it would come, and soon. With Mikheyev, though, you aren’t sure. He’s clearly got another gear. There’s just no telling when, or even if, he’ll find it in the NHL.
3. Morgan Rielly’s minutes are the most important to this Maple Leafs team outside of Andersen’s, and I said as much leading into the series. They’re even more important now with Muzzin gone.
What’s not great for the Leafs is that Rielly is most effective when he’s jumping, leaning offence, contributing all over the rink and not just playing defence. And I think you can see he’s healthy right now, because he’s doing just that, or at least trying to. He’s got that sled dog go-go to him right now and you can see him hedging, looking for chances to jump.
That lean hurt the Leafs on the OT winner, where he’s sniffing offence just a quarter-step. He’s thinking about jumping down the backside here.
(By the way, I haven’t heard this said much, but that’s a dicey-at-best decision by Tavares. As the high guy in OT he can take better care of this puck than trying to shoot it through a guy right on top of him.)
Usually you say you can live with that Rielly-lean, and you take those unfortunate plays the other way because you love what he can do up the ice. But without Muzzin, man, somebody really good has to commit to playing just defence. Martin Marincin and Cody Ceci do it because they have to. Holl mostly does it for similar reasons. Rielly can do more, but maybe he shouldn’t until the Leafs can get their defensive leader back?
4. Has anyone said the Leafs oh-so-badly missed Muzzin in the second half of the game last night? Yes? OK good, it should be said.
5. Auston Matthews is on another level right now. I know the offence hasn’t been statistically eye-popping or anything, but he’s also ripped a couple off the iron past Columbus goalies. And with that, through the slog of one of the best defensive teams and one of the best D-pairs in the league, he’s created a ton. But he’s also won battles, played physically, defended, and just been really engaged. This version of Matthews is one of the five best players in the league.
Quick turnaround for Game 4, just the way the Leafs should like it.
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2020-08-07 17:10:00Z
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