Toronto Maple Leafs

Finger vs. Exelby

Jeff Finger is going to play against the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday night, taking the place of the Leafs 6th D man in their most recent games, Garnet Exelby.  Exelby has played passably in his recent run of 6 games, skating in every game of the Leafs recent road trip, and their first game back at home against the Lightning on Tuesday night.

Over the course of those 6 games, Exelby has averaged 11:19 in ice time, with a high of 14:19 in the third game of the trip against Dallas, and his minutes decreasing steadily since, to a low of 9:46 in the Leafs last game.  He has 16 hits through his 9 games played, as well as 10 blocked shots.  By way of comparison, Jeff Finger in only 4 games played, has 17 hits, and 10 blocked shots.

Finger is averaging 16:34 of ice time in the 4 games he has played, and he takes about 7 more shifts per game than Exelby does.  Obviously when he’s in the game, the Leafs rely on him a bit more than they rely on Exelby in a similar role.  In fact, on the Leafs depth chart, Exelby is easily their 7th D man in terms of minutes and statistical impact.  Finger, on a per game basis, is actually ahead of Luke Schenn, and would thus appear to be closer to the Leafs 5th D man, despite the fact that he has only played in 4 games.

What most likely alarmed the Leafs coaching staff was the fact that Finger was on the ice for 9 goals against in only 4 games played, and registered a -6 rating in a very short span of play.  That being said, he was an even player in the 6-4 loss to Washington earlier this year.  He was actually -5 in his last two games, both of which came against the Rangers.  His worst game was the 4-1 loss the Leafs suffered at the hands of the NY Rangers on October 17th, with Joey MacDonald in the net.  The other game was the 7-2 loss the Leafs suffered, and frankly everyone played poorly in that game.

On the first goal by Brandon Dubinsky, Finger was victimized on a 4-on-4 situation where he rushed deep into the Rangers zone, slid the puck to Matt Stajan who had a decent chance on Henrik Lundqvist, before the Rangers headed back up ice on a 3-on-1, and scored.  Finger was the first player to carry the puck into the Rangers zone, and in essence was so deep that he had no real chance to retreat on the play.

On the 2nd goal by defenseman Marc Staal, Finger rubbed him out on the boards, and Staal just out-muscled him behind the net before scoring on a soft wrap around.  Luke Schenn did nothing when Staal walked out front, and Joey MacDonald should have stopped the shot frankly.  Finger did his job for all intents and purposes, but the play looked bad no matter how you slice it.

On the 4th goal of the game for the Rangers by Enver Lisin, Luke Schenn completely missed his coverage, and after Finger sacrificed his body to block a shot, Lisin swooped through the slot and snapped it past MacDonald.

Basically a bad game by Luke Schenn and a poor game by the Leafs in general reflected poorly on Jeff Finger.  Finger’s exasperation was obvious on the last two goals, and it’s interesting that he was the one benched following the game.  Finger could only really be blamed for not stopping his man on the second goal, and for being out of position on the first goal.  None of his plays were particularly bad though.

He was playing well enough to earn 17+ minutes of ice time, and yet Schenn only skated for 13 minutes or so in that game.  Somehow Finger ends up in the press box, and Exelby is out on the ice.  Now rather than Schenn being the Leaf most likely to screw up, Exelby has become the player most likely to throw a grenade into the slot without thinking.

In the 7-2 loss, Finger managed to throw 7 hits against the Rangers, and block 2 shots.  He was victimized on the Rangers final 3 goals of the game.  He tipped a Redden shot from the blue line with his glove in attempting to block it in front of Toskala, and it eventually ended up in the back of the net.  Then on the 6th goal Hagman made a brutal giveaway when the Leafs were trying to clear the zone.  Finger was caught running around in his own end, and seemed quite tired.  He didn’t look good in chasing players behind the Leaf net, but in the end, his play isn’t what resulted in the goal.

Overall, his play has not been amazingly bad, and he’s been one of the few Leafs obviously attempting to block shots for the Leafs goaltenders, and sacrificing his body physically.  Jeff Finger deserves better, and he’ll get his chance to impress on Friday night in Carolina against the Hurricanes.