TLN Roundtable: Are you still worried about Andersen?

Just  win, baby.

After a rough start to the season, Frederik Andersen seems to have found himself over

It’s a small sample size, admittedly, but here are Fred’s stats over the last four games.

So we asked our staff: have we calmed down about his rough play earlier in the year?

Nah. Andersen is a fine goalie and has been over a long enough sample size that it wasn’t just same kind of fluke. If he had been injured or something and came back and struggled, then yeah, there would be some concern, but he didn’t just randomly forget how to play in net. The issue still is the blueline. If the Leafs are going to go far in the playoffs the defencemen have to make Andersen’s life easier and I think that’s more of a player personnel issue than a coaching issue.

(Editor’s note: Megan barely avoided a car crash last night… which involved a deer. All humans were okay, however.)

I was never nearly as worried about Freddie as I was about the deer that got obliterated in front of me yesterday. Pour one out for the deer, who died probably simultaneously with Willy’s OT goal last night. And cheers to Freddie for a sparkling performance.

Wait, were we supposed to be worried about Freddy? Worrying about goalie performance at the beginning of the season is the easiest way to unnecessarily stress yourself out as a hockey fan. Andersen has looked awesome lately, and we have proof (last season) that he can remain pretty solid even with a rough game here and there. I don’t love his workload, but it’s nice to see him playing well whether the guys in front of him are helping or hurting (that Wild game was….wild). Nope, not worried.

Definitely, although to be fair I was never in total panic mode either. Freddie has had plenty of ups and downs, even in his year and change in Toronto, so I knew he would find his groove again. I think the best thing moving forward to prevent another substantial dip is the D core in front of him beginning to stabilize, which they seem to have done over this recent stretch. So I guess it’s a joint relief with both Freddie and the guys in front of him enjoying an uptick in performance.

Like Scott, I never really worried about Andersen to begin with. I figured he’d eventually bounce back to at least average as the season went on. The thing that did and does worry me, though, is that McElhinney is the backup, so there doesn’t appear to be anyone to pick up the reigns and potentially steal a game if Andersen does go really cold. That said, Mac had a nice game this past weekend, so the panic is definitely subsiding, but I’d still give him the shortest of leashes if he puts together a couple more bad starts.

I never started worrying about Freddy to begin with. While he started very poorly this year, it was very similar to last season, which ended about the time November started to roll around. Once November came and Freddy was still playing like this, I started to get a bit concern, but that quickly changed, especially since the recent home stand, where he’s been playing excellent. My only concern is the possibility that this is just a hot streak, but I highly doubt it. Besides, even when Freddy is bad, the Leafs have enough firepower to solve that problem most nights.

What, me worry?

Have you never watched a full season of hockey before? If you really thought Freddy was broken, you don’t know JACK!