The Morning-After Analysis: Breaking Down the Leafs 7-2 Win

After a long and boring offseason, hockey is finally back, and last night, we got a taste of what’s to come in the 2017-18 Leafs season, with a seven goal explosion from the Leafs against the Jets. It was a rough start to the game, with all the penalties, but the Leafs showed us what they’re all about right after, and they never stopped. It was an exciting start to the season, so let’s tale a deep dive into the game.

 

Say what you want about the defense, but the Leafs biggest strength going into the season was their depth at forward. They have the ability to run three lines which some teams would probably take as their first or second lines, and depth in the minors to even give them the ability to potentially run four competitive lines. Whether it be the young guns in Matthews, Marner, Nylander, Brown, and Hyman, or the veterans in van Riemsdyk, Bozak, Kadri, Marleau, and Komarov, the Leafs created a depth up front which will make it nearly impossible to stop. It’s almost comparable to the Penguins in their 2016 Cup run.

And the Leafs showed they can talk the talk and walk the walk, scoring seven goals in their first game of the season. This wasn’t like last year either, where they put up four goals, but all of them were from Matthews. This time, the Leafs used their depth to their advantage. No one had an amazing offensive night, but everyone contributed. The Matthews line had four points, the Bozak line had seven points, and the Kadri line had five. In fact, only four forwards didn’t get a point in the game: the fourth line, and Zach Hyman.

Obviously, we have to be cautious with sample size, but at least the small sample size is “they scored a lot” instead of “we got shut out”. At the very least, the team hasn’t missed a beat. Everyone still has the chemistry from last year, except for the new guy, Patrick Marleau. Speaking of Marleau…

 

He wasn’t a polarizing signing by any means, but Marleau’s contract has certainly provided some division, mostly due to the final year on the contract. There were a lot of questions surrounding the deal. Will he continue to put up points, or at least in the first year or two? How will he do away from Thornton? When will age finally catch up with him? What about the third year on the contract? Will they be able to trade it, or will they be stuck with it when we have to re-sign Matthews and Marner? What if he has a slow start? Will he recover, or will the signing be a bust in year one?

While most of the questions will remain unanswered for now, the last two questions won’t be much of a concern. Part of the deep offense that helped the Leafs destroy the Jets was Marleau, who scored two goals in the game. Not just that, but he had a 50% 5v5 Corsi in the game. Not amazing, but not terrible considering he was playing on the Kadri line, which will (presumably) be tasked with shutting down the league’s best again this season.

This certainly doesn’t mean the signing was a win, but at the very least, it’s off to a good start. It was a memorable night for his debut, especially considering his parents made a 10 hour drive just to watch him play his first Leafs game!

 

Last year, the Leafs and Frederik Andersen had a rough introduction. It’s not ideal coming into your first games on a new team injured, but that was the case on opening day last year for Andersen, and it made for a tough first month. In his first five games, he allowed 5, 1, 5, 4, & 7 goals, and had .833, .960, .853, .886, and .708 save percentages in those games. Once his injury healed, and he started to adjust to the new system, he picked up his game, and was much better for the rest of the season.

This season, there was a bit of a higher expectation for him. He had no excuses, except any possible lingering effects from the injuries he suffered late last season, so he had to be ready to play on game one. And, well, he did.

Not only was Andersen spectacular in that game, he was probably the reason it wasn’t a blowout in the Jets favour early on in the game. Andersen saw 17 shots in the first period, with 11 of them coming on the power play. He looked unbeatable for most of the game, and the only time the Jets beat him was when the Leafs were up 6-0 and 7-1, and probably didn’t really care too much at that point, since he didn’t get much help on either goal. However, he kept the Leafs in when they needed him, and they rewarded him with a lot of goal support.

Heck, Andersen was so good, he broke Sportsnet.

 

An underrated story line going into last night’s game was the NHL debut of Andreas Borgman. One of the three Swede’s that the Leafs signed in the offseason, and one of the two defensemen, both him and Rosen were going to get long hard looks in camp, considering the hole left by the departure of Matt Hunwick. It seemed to be Dermott in the beginning of the offseason, then maybe Liljegren after the draft, then in training camp it was either Rosen or Marincin who everyone thought would get the spot (or Polak, but that seemed unlikely).

No matter what, Borgman never seemed to get true consideration. Sure, everyone would say “I could see him making the team” when he was mentioned, but he was never the first guy that came to mind. Despite that, he impressed Babcock in camp, and got the last spot, surprising everyone, but at the same time, not *really* surprising them.

While his first game may not have gotten the hype that other young players on both teams had gotten, he didn’t disappoint. He had a 58.33% 5v5 CF% in the game, although it was in a slightly sheltered role, considering he was on the third pair. He even got his first career point, with the secondary assist on Matthew’s goal. He even got a little bit physical, which probably played a role into him making the team.

It was a solid night for Borgman. Obviously it’s just one game, but Borgman has the potential to be a solid NHL defenseman. We’ll have to see how he looks a couple weeks or months down the road before we get a real grasp of him. Even if he only made the team because of his size, I’d rather him than Polak.

 

If the Leafs weren’t sure what to expect out of their special teams, they got a good look at both of them tonight. The Leafs power play showed us that it hasn’t missed a step from last year. I mean, the only difference is that they took Komarov off the PP, and replaced him with Patrick Marleau. The units managed two goals on four attempts, and had another goal on a delayed penalty. Even on the ones they didn’t score on, they had no issues passing the puck around and generating offense, which is a good sign for the productivity of your power play.

The penalty kill was a bit of a different story though. While the results weren’t bad, as they killed all eight power plays, but they could have made a little bit harder for the Jets to get chances. They seemed to give them easy zone entries, and a lot of open lanes, it’s almost as if Freddy said something that offended them, so they were giving him a hard time. Obviously, I’m not expecting the Leafs to play like four Patrice Bergerons on the penalty kill, but maybe don’t allow 18 shots on the penalty kill. It improved as the game went on (11 of the 18 came in the first three penalties), but it could use some work.

Side note: Mitch Marner got 1:30 of PK time this game. Maybe it was to rest the penalty killers during the 16 minutes of penalty killing they had to do, or maybe it’s Babs giving him a look. Please, please be the latter.

If it was the former, I have a better way to rest the penalty killers: stop taking penalties. Obviously it was the team’s first regular season game with the new rules, and they had a couple weird calls (*cough*equipment violation), but they should probably learn them quick, because Andersen isn’t going to stop 18 shots on the penalty kill every game for them. We’ll give them this game, but if this becomes a regular thing, the fallout won’t be pretty.

But hey, the Leafs won 7-2 in game one. Let’s stop being negative about their discipline and enjoy it. I’ll leave you all with this: