The storylines fixated on Mitch Marner, but lost amid all that drama was the fact that the Maple Leafs needed to keep pace with the rest of the East tonight.
All of Buffalo, Pittsburgh, the Islanders, Boston, and Columbus won, while the Leafs pissed away a point in several heartbreaking ways, blowing 2-0, 3-1, 4-2, and 5-3 leads.
The Leafs got off to a great start in this game. With Adin Hill starting for Vegas for the first time in nearly three months, the Leafs did what the opposing team should do to a goalie in that situation: jumped all over him.
Just over two minutes into the game, William Nylander made a great play on the wall, beating Keegan Kolesar to the puck and showing his strength to cut in. As Nylander brought it to the middle, Tomas Hertl pulled over, thinking he could snatch the puck. Nylander pulled it away from Hertl, and that meant Morgan Rielly was wide open coming in from the point. As Rielly took the pass rolling downhill, Hill was not even remotely square to the shooter, making it a pretty easy shot for Rielly to fire into the corner. It’s Rielly’s sixth goal of the season through 46 games after scoring seven in total last season.
Just three minutes later, the Leafs doubled their lead with a pretty goal. Brandon Carlo did well to step up in the neutral zone on an errant pass and head man it up the ice, where Matias Maccelli made a crafty play to gain the zone with possession. Maccelli pulled the puck from his forehand to his backhand before finding Nylander in the middle of the ice, where Nylander kicked the puck to his backhand for a nice finish in tight.
Up 2-0 and rolling along at five-on-five, the Leafs felt very much in control of the game, but things started to take a wrong turn. First, Nylander got hurt celebrating his goal and didn’t return. Then, Jake McCabe continued his ugly road trip by taking a needless tomahawk slashing penalty.
McCabe has struggled since the Leafs left Toronto; he was torched by Martin Necas and beaten by Nathan MacKinnon in Colorado, and he gave a puck away in Utah for a goal against. The struggles continued in this game, starting with a bad, costly penalty.
Vegas kept their top unit on the ice for the whole power play, and while the Leafs’ top unit killed pretty well, the Roy-Matthews-Rielly-Myers unit predictably got worked over. Myers retreated and simply watched Jack Eichel on the half-wall, applying zero pressure whatsoever. Eichel took his time and passed it up top, where Vegas went around the horn to tee up a one-timer that Pavel Dorofyev leaned into, beating Joseph Woll.
To the Leafs’ credit, they got the goal right back via Auston Matthews, not even two minutes later. The shift included some really good work from Max Domi to hold the puck and win some battles on the wall before he passed it to the point. Troy Stecher moved it over to McCabe, who threw it in front, where Matthews applied a deft tip.
One of the game’s many turning points came after the Leafs made it 3-1. Bobby McMann got robbed on a tic-tac-toe sequence backdoor; the puck looked to be rolling, and he took a second to coral it rather than one-time it, giving Hill enough time to sprawl over to make a highlight-reel save. If converted, it would have capped off an excellent period in which the Leafs launched 15 shots on net and created a bunch of chances. Even without Nylander, the Leafs looked like the better team.
The Leafs registered just 13 shots on net for the rest of the game.
McCabe continued his shaky play with another penalty to start the second (his giveaway also led to a Rielly Smith breakaway), but the Leafs killed this one off. Once McCabe was back on the ice, he got caught out on a long shift that was his own doing; with time and space, he threw a puck off the wall, allowing Vegas to regain possession and dominate the shift. The Golden Knights eventually scored against a tired Leafs unit after throwing a puck on net and banging in a rebound.
To the Leafs’ credit, they got back up and rolling again — particularly their top line, which hemmed Vegas in for a great offensive-zone shift.
In the second period, the Leafs went to their only power play of the game and scored on a really nice sequence. On the half-wall, Matthews sucked in defenders before finding Knies in the slot, where Knies made a nice play in tight to backhand a pass to Maccelli for a one-timer. The puck deflected off Tavares technically — he gets credit for the goal — but Maccelli’s shot was going in anyway.
Through two periods, the Leafs outscored Vegas 4-2, outshot them 22-19, and out-attempted them 38-32 at five-on-five. They were facing a Vegas team that played the night before on the road, although some of the advantage was lost when William Nylander left hurt, and Toronto played essentially the whole game with 11 forwards.
To start the third period, Easton Cowan took a terrible penalty in the offensive zone. After electing not to skate to a loose puck he easily could have gotten to first, Cowan took a sloppy high-sticking penalty. Berube was notably irate on the bench — dropping a big F bomb — and Vegas took six seconds to score off the faceoff. Scott Laughton was held up after losing the faceoff, so he couldn’t race out to the point, and Steven Lorentz was caught watching as Dorofyev got inside of him to finish off a rebound.
Just like that, it was game on again after two good periods by the Leafs. Again, though, the Leafs managed to settle the game down and score. Steven Lorentz chipped a puck up to Knies on a bad play by Ben Hutton, springing a 2v1. Knies made a nice play to fake a shot and slide it over to Laughton, who one-timed the puck in.
At this stage, the Leafs really needed to close the game out. However, not even a minute and a half later, Stecher stepped up in the neutral zone to break up a pass; he succeeded, but he got caught up ice on the play, and Matthews didn’t cover for him. Vegas recovered the puck and immediately moved it up ice for a 2v1. Woll made a great initial save, but Vegas jammed the puck through traffic and into the net.
Giving up a 2v1 in the neutral zone was a gift by the Leafs. At 5-3 up, on the road, with a veteran team, it’s an excusable freebie. Self-inflicted wounds were really the story of the game — brutal, needless penalties by McCabe and Cowan, as well as a free 2v1.
It looked like Dorofyev scored a third goal to tie the game with just over four minutes left, but the Leafs challenged for offside and got it right. On the overturned goal, somehow, Philippe Myers was on the ice at this stage of the game and was burned on the play. He didn’t see the ice again afterward, but it’s unclear why he took a shift down the stretch in the first place with five other veteran defenseman at the team’s disposal.
That said, it felt like a ticking time bomb anyway. The Leafs were caught in constant icing cycles. In one sequence, Matthews won three in a row, and the Leafs’ defensemen iced it each time. They didn’t even consider making a play. The Matthews line generated the team’s one good shift in the final five minutes, hemming Vegas in their zone, but that was about it.
Ultimately, Vegas scored with seven seconds left on a bumper deflection by Hertl off an Eichel pass. The play was caused in part by Knies’ stick breaking, but honestly, the forward line the Leafs deployed to close the game was questionable, beyond Matthews. They put Tavares on as insurance for the defensive-zone faceoff, but he’s not better defensively than Laughton, and Laughton is a more-than-adequate backup faceoff man. While Knies was unlucky that his stick broke, there are a number of players who are preferable options: McMann with his speed, Roy, or even Lorentz.
In overtime, without Nylander, it didn’t feel like the Leafs had much going on outside of Matthews. They possessed the puck some, but they didn’t register a shot on net. Morgan Rielly missed the net and rimmed it wide, sending Vegas the other way on a 2v1. The initial rush was stopped, but Eichel took the pass as the trailer on the play for essentially a clean breakaway and made no mistake.
Point gained, but point wasted.
Post-Game Notes
– Morgan Rielly has now been outscored 5-1 in overtime. Tonight’s goal, like a few others, was directly his fault. You cannot shoot it high and wide at three-on-three. You can barely get away with it at five-on-five in the NHL. At what point do the Leafs stop playing Rielly in overtime? How many times do we have to watch it this season?
– Matias Maccelli picked up two points in this game in 16:29 and was once again really effective. Nylander’s goal was all Maccelli and was a good example of why the pair has been a fit to this point. We’re used to Nylander as the puck carrier who holds onto possession, but with Maccelli, Nylander can work off the puck — as he did to cut into the middle — and he doesn’t always have to be the guy making all the plays. Unfortunately, Nylander got hurt, but the line was really clicking, as was the Leafs’ top line. The coaching staff moved Matthew Knies onto the Maccelli-Tavares line with Nylander out, and while it obviously wasn’t as good, they did continue to play pretty well.
– This road trip started with Easton Cowan scoring a lucky goal, but he has otherwise struggled. He’s played 11:10-10:43-11:29, and two of those games have effectively been played with 11 forwards. His offensive-zone penalty was an unnecessary killer. It simply can’t happen. Cowan has his flashes, and the future is bright with him, but more often than not, he is exposed for the rookie he is, especially against the better teams. If Nylander is out, Cowan will keep a spot in the lineup, but I am not sure they can continually justify sitting a key penalty killer in Calle Jarnkrok to dress Cowan otherwise.
– Cowan also saw a shift in overtime, while Bobby McMann, who played nearly 10 more minutes than him overall, didn’t. How do you square that? I didn’t understand several coaching decisions down the stretch of this game.
– One thing that worked: The Leafs went down to nine forwards and put together a Steven Lorentz–Scott Laughton–Nic Roy line. They were a good checking unit. I would have preferred to see the entire line on the ice to close the game late, rather than Tavares-Matthews-Knies.
– Vegas entered this game leading the league with seven comeback wins in the third period, but none of them had come when down more than one goal. The Leafs continue to own the league’s worst winning percentage when leading after two periods, at .632. Only one other team is under .700 (Columbus at .684). They are far and away the worst team at holding a lead, and it’s no wonder this is the case when they repeatedly retreat into a shell and stop playing hockey. It has been a problem all season, and this game was probably the worst example of it so far.
– This is killing the Leafs: 12-3-4 when leading after the second period. The only other team with three regulation losses when leading after two is Winnipeg. There are four teams with a perfect record when leading after 40 minutes. The Leafs, meanwhile, have whittled away 10 points. I don’t think it’s fair to expect perfection, but they can’t be the worst in the league. Right now, it’s the difference between a playoff spot and not. It will likely be the difference if they miss by the end of the season.
The end result is a shame after the first two periods, where the Leafs were genuinely good. The third period and overtime are a real black mark, though. They can’t close games correctly. They stop playing, and they don’t put the right players on the ice.
– It’s hard to blame Joseph Woll for any of the goals in this one, but you can’t help but think you’d like him to close the door with one more save somewhere, knowing Vegas scored six. The Leafs gave up too much, and too much of it was cheap, but six goals on 33 shots is six goals on 33 shots.
– It will sound like sour grapes, but it’s brutal that the Leafs only went to one power play in this game (which they scored on). Adin Hill decked Laughton behind the net late in the game, and even Mike Johnson bemoaned it as a clear missed penalty. It would have effectively ended the game. There were several other hooks or blatant interference plays (one on Knies late in the third period as well). The Leafs went 1/1, but Vegas went 2/3. The Leafs’ penalty kill wasn’t good enough against an elite Vegas power play, but they were also probably due for a few.
– In terms of the Mitch Marner angle, I don’t have a ton to say about it. He picked up two points on the power play, but he was hardly noticeable most of the night while playing over 22 minutes. The Leafs, rather predictably, did not go out of their way to get physical with him or really do much to make his life miserable. The most emotion shown towards him was courtesy of the away Leafs fans, who booed him in his own arena.
Game Flow: 5v5 Shot Attempts
Heat Map: 5v5 Shot Attempts
Game Highlights: Golden Knights 6 vs. Maple Leafs 5 (OT)