Morning after-recap: Trending downward?

Last night, the Leafs lost, which they do sometimes.

The Leafs lost for the third time in four games, which they don’t do quite as often (anymore).

And for the first time this season, the Leafs lost back-to-back games.

Definitely, the Leafs started off with the lead and were within one goal for more than half of it. As our own Evan Presement says in his game report… the Leafs played decent last night.

Honestly, probably not. It hasn’t been the best season for Andersen, and that’s been widely documented, but you can’t win a lot of hockey games with just two goals. Kadri had a great night, the Leafs top line was flying, the Leafs additions looked okay… but they just didn’t convert their chances or get anything from the power play.

Things started out okay….

See that little play from Josh Leivo at the start? That’s why he’s here! Coming just after the end of the Leafs power play, Leivo banks the puck off the boards, Auston Matthews finds Nazem Kadri open in front of the net and the Leafs take a 1-0 lead.

Take a look at this photo.

At this point, it’s as good as over. Auston Matthews , who’s already past everyone on the Flyers, just has to slide the puck over to Nazem Kadri for the open shot.

Bingo bango bongo, and it’s 1-0 Leafs.

It’s a little tough to see in this .gif, but Roman Polak, man. Polak kind of runs around all over the ice, Brandon Manning – a defensive d-man, if you can call him that, gets an open shot off a rush, and well, the Leafs are tied again.

Another Flyers rush, and another Flyers goal.

If you played hockey growing up, you remember that kid on your team when you were like, eight years old who would simply take the puck to the net and put it in? That’s pretty much what Voracek does here. Both Hainsey and Rielly are like, “thought you had him” and it’s 2-1 Flyers.

There’s not a ton of net open, but, well, Andersen left it open. He puts his glove up a split second too late, and that’s your third Flyers goal on a rush in a row. It may have looked relatively harmless but, well, nice shot, pal.

Super Naz comes flying in!

Watching this live… could you tell it went in? A LOT happens before the play, but at the end of it, all that matters is the puck was lying by the side of the net, Nazem stabbed at it while falling to the ground, it hit the goal cam in the back of the net and bounced the heck out pretty quickly. Leafs back within one, midway through the second.

The Flyers really like scoring on the rush, it seems.

Our own Ryan Fancey put it best:

And then… a whole lot of  nothing. There were a few notable moments here and there, like when Zach Hyman *pinged* one off the crossbar, but the Leafs played a little defeated and it looked as such. They put up a few chances that showed up in the corsis, had a few high quality shots, but at the end of the day they were still two goals away from a victory and weren’t really that close to turning things around.

In short, decent effort, no finish, meh night from Andersen and they left with no points.