MLHS’ Anthony Petrielli joined Sam McKee on Sportsnet’s Leafs Talk to digest the Maple Leafs’ 3-2 shootout win over the Vancouver Canucks.

On the Leafs‘ performance:

The Leafs barely beat them on the scoreboard, but they dominated the Canucks tonight. It was only the second time this season the Leafs recorded 40 shots on net, and the first time was in early October against the Red Wings in the third game of the year when Detroit scored in the last minute after not touching the puck all period.

The Leafs get 60/40’d all the time in terms of possession. It was 63+% for the Leafs tonight, with 80 shot attempts at five-on-five over the 60 minutes of regulation (12 more than their next highest total this season). They dominated; they just couldn’t score.

On the takeaways from the game on defense, specifically after Morgan Rielly’s injury exit:

There are a few angles to the game itself. They outplayed the Canucks pretty thoroughly for most of the game, but in the third period, in particular, it was the one period they didn’t have Morgan Rielly. We’ve seen it from the team in general before when he has missed time.

I am not here to slag Morgan Rielly any more than what he already gets. Outside of Rielly specifically, the defense pairings haven’t made sense for weeks. Removing the Rielly part out of the equation, we have been looking at OEL on his offside in a shutdown matchup role with Jake McCabe when McCabe and Troy Stecher are up 13-6 in goals.  Over the six-game losing streak, in every game, they’ve run out the same pairings. I don’t know how they haven’t changed it, just to see, at any point.

Marshall Rifai was inserted today, and it was a tough showing. But it made me think back to when Matt Benning played one game against the Islanders and was completely serviceable. He has almost 500 games of NHL experience, but we haven’t seen him since. Philippe Myers got a bunch of games, and he hasn’t been NHL-calibre all season. We saw what Rifai did tonight.

Are we taking the right lessons here? They completely went away from a McCabe-Stecher pairing, which — while you can debate how sustainable it would be — was working. Until they stop working, I don’t know why you would change it.

Now, Rielly comes out, and OEL was back on the left; we saw OEL with Carlo, and we saw OEL with Stecher tonight. Either way, I liked it.

Brandon Carlo ended with five shots on net for a new career-high as a Leaf (congrats to him!), but the larger point is that once Carlo came back, the team’s four best defensemen — in no specific order — are McCabe, OEL, Stecher, and Carlo. Yet we’ve been watching this Rielly-Carlo pairing that’s been terrible, and OEL on his off-side.

Rielly didn’t play in the third but was on for both Canucks goals, plus one that didn’t count, and the 2-1 Vancouver goal was explicitly his fault. After Rielly’s bad play in the offensive zone, Tavares dug in on the backcheck, and all Rielly had to do was cover a defenseman on Willander’s goal.

On Nick Robertson’s assist/performance: 

I was kind of laughing going into this game thinking, “How are these forward lines the same?” We didn’t see Matthews and Nylander play together until the final minute of the third period because of an icing. Yes, they did come back and tie it with a lot of time to spare, but I was thinking, “Are you going to load it up at any point against this terrible hockey team, tell your two best players to dominate together for a couple of minutes, and probably win this game in regulation?”

Nothing changes. It doesn’t matter how players are playing. In the Seattle game, we saw it with Nick Robertson. The second line at the time — Maccelli-Tavares-Knies — went minus-three, and Maccelli gives it away for the 4-2 goal, effectively icing it. Berube was losing it on the bench, but they were terrible all night! We were all watching it. The coach should get mad at himself. It wasn’t like it came out of nowhere. They were playing that way all game, and he did nothing about it. Meanwhile, Robertson was on one in the Seattle game, and he was not moving up while Maccelli boots pucks around the ice.

In tonight’s game, it was another good one from Robertson. It was a legitimately great play on the Nic Roy goal.

On Joseph Woll’s 28-save performance: 

On top of the overtime saves, Woll also had a really good save toward the end of the third period, which happened in the context of Vancouver not touching the puck all period. You are watching the Leafs dominate, and the Canucks come down the ice for one good chance off the rush. It just felt like the game was going to end that way, given how it has gone for the Leafs over the past week and a half. Woll was really good in that sequence of plays, and that got them the point. He was then really good in overtime.

Further to the talk about blowing it up or rebuilding, those are really hard things to do when you have some of these players who are really, really good, Woll included. I think Woll is better than Stolarz, but Stolarz is also good, and at some point, Stolarz is not going to be terrible for the remaining 25-30 games. He’ll figure it out.

These are difficult conditions to tank under, with some of the talents on the Leafs. When you think about it, for the team to be in this position, almost nothing has gone right. Almost every single thing has gone wrong, but the positives are that Robertson has learned how to pass, McMann has been a little bit better, and Ekman-Larsson has had a really good year. That is about it.

On the Friedman report about Matthews and Maple Leafs reaffirming their commitment to each other behind the scenes: 

Further, I would love to hear Matthews come out publicly and say, “I’m not going anywhere. This is my team, and we are going to turn it around.” That would be the kind of thing that would buy him some real grace in the market.

I want to see Matthews go down as the best Maple Leaf of all-time. People will argue that he will never be as good as Dougie or Wendel, and I get it. I can hear the comments attacking me as I say it out loud. But no one can question — although I am sure some will try — that he is the most talented Leaf I’ve ever seen.

Scoring 69 goals was insane, and he’s been playing near that level for the past month with Bobby McMann and Max Domi. They tell Matthews to go play against top players all night while playing with those linemates. None of what they do from a coaching standpoint makes any sense, between the deployment (in this case), the combinations, or the systems. A new coach alone changes things drastically.

Looking at Matthews, you would like him to stay. He is also a selling point. Players will come to play with him.

Game Flow: 5v5 Shot Attempts

Heat Map: 5v5 Shot Attempts

Game Highlights w/ Joe Bowen: Maple Leafs 3 vs. Canucks 2 (SO)