Toronto Maple Leafs

Try New And Improved Leafs - Now With More Burke!

The Leafs have played two solid games in a row.  The credit in the media seems to be going to the right place - Vesa Toskala.  For the second consecutive night, Toskala earned first star honours by playing a great game behind some adequate defense.

Shutting down the not so high flying Ottawa Senators in regulation isn’t all that noteworthy, despite the presence of Heatley, Spezza, and Alfredsson.  Holding the Philadelphia Flyers to 2 goals is far more impressive.  Philadelphia has the 5th most productive offense in the NHL, scoring 3.30 goals per game.  They also boast the NHL’s 3rd leading scorer in Simon Gagne, and the league’s second most dangerous shooter in Jeff Carter.  They have offensive weapons the Leafs were certainly wary of.

Toskala has allowed 3 goals in 125 minutes of regular play over the past two games, and none of those goals has come with the Leafs down a player.  Obviously that helps the penalty kill a lot, though the Leafs did allow a short handed goal by Mike Richards, it proved inconsequential last night.  Toskala has made 62 saves on 65 shots, which registers him a .953 save percentage over the past two games.

Just to drive this point home further to Leafs fans - Toskala doesn’t really have to be GREAT for the Leafs to win.  In fact, in every game where he has had a .900 save percentage, the Leafs have picked up at least a point, registering a 6-0-3 record overall.  So let’s just say, for Toskala, .900 really is a line of import.

As far as the player ranks go, the Leafs were more pugilistic, as advertised, with Andre Deveaux registering his first fighting major of his NHL career, in a spirited bout with Josh Gratton.  He didn’t win the fight, and in fact, on HockeyFights.com Josh Gratton has been given the nod by 80.3% of the voting public.  Personally I don’t quite see it as that one sided, as Deveaux clearly held his own during the first half of the fight until he was knocked off balance and went to one knee before getting back up.  He landed a number of solid shots, and jabs throughout it.  I’d say as far as fights goes, Deveaux did a respectable job in taking on an NHL heavyweight for the first time.

Offensively, Lee Stempniak registered his first goal as a Leaf, from a carom off his skate in the crease as he was driving to the net.  No kicking motion gives him the goal, and frankly he has played well enough thus far to make me happy with the deal in the short term.  He has 2 points in 3 games, and he’s skated well and looked dangerous on most shifts for the Leafs so far.  He seems to be meshing well with Dominic Moore who had a goal and an assist last night to go along with 4 minutes in penalties.

Nik Antropov continued to do his best to carry the team posting 5 shots on goal, along with a goal and an assist. While he’s been a huge asset so far this season, I’m fairly sure that Brian Burke will consider moving him as the trade deadline approaches.  I personally am a huge fan of Antropov’s game, as I think he does a lot defensively with his reach, and he’s blossomed into a pretty solid top 6 winger in the NHL.  He’s on pace for a 60+ point, 30+ goal season, and considering his 56 point campaign last year, I’m pretty happy with that sort of production.  His contract expires after this season, but I do think he’s a good leader on the team and he has the skill level to be around througout the rebuild.  In his case it’s a matter of deciding whether he’s worth more if you move him than he is going forward as a player… and I suppose that is a question for Burke to answer.  Don’t be shocked if he’s moved for high draft picks or good prospects.

Alexei Ponikarovsky gained an assist last night, and is on pace for a 57 point season himself, which would be the first time he has gained over 50 points in his NHL career.  He is still only on pace for 21 goals though, which is a bit below where he should be considering his size and the quality of his heavy shot.  He too is a candidate for a trade depending on how Burke feels about his game.

On the back end, I’m glad to see Wilson settling on some defensive pairings.  Interestingly, Luke Schenn and Tomas Kaberle led the team in even strength ice time last night, but Finger and Kubina played over 6 minutes each on the Penalty Kill, doing a solid job of shutting down the Flyers offensively.  Kaberle, White, and Stralman all played over 2 minutes on the power play, with Kubina adding a minute and a half of his own.

Kubina seems to be getting a lot of time on special teams, but his even strength ice time is dropping as he was down around 12 minutes last night.  He still ended up with 20 minutes of ice time overall though, so I doubt he’s upset with the role he was given.

In a nod to my prognostications before the Steen trade last week, it appears that Wilson has mixed things up on the PK.  Niklas Hagman, Matt Stajan, Jamal Mayers, and John Mitchell were the top 4 forwards on the PK in minutes played last night.  Dominic Moore, Nik Antropov, and Alexei Ponikarovsky all also played about a minute and a half on the PK.  A more balanced approach from what should be a reasonably responsible defensive forward group seems to have worked out better on the PK.  Hopefully Wilson continues to rotate through a larger selection of penalty killing forwards.  They’ll likely be fresher, and suffer less from being over tired.

Hopefully this game is a step in the right direction for the Leafs continuing development defensively.  Offensively though, the Hagman, Grabovski, Kulemin line has taken a bit of a backseat again, with the trio only garnering 4 shots in total.

Overall this team still hasn’t quite found it’s stride, and if Burke starts moving some pieces after Christmas it might not matter either way, but I do think they’re capable of playing reasonably high quality hockey.  Their biggest opponent is really consistency.  If Toskala, the offense, and the defense can all sync up with any sort of regularity, the Leafs will be a frustrating and fast team that puts a bit of a scare into the opposition.  Let’s see how long the solid run of play can continue.