Monday, the fifteenth day of March in the year of our Lord 2021 and I am sitting in a small, cluttered home office, two-thousand miles from Toronto, trying to concoct a method of infecting Freddy Andersen with Covid-19.
If I reflect for just a moment I’ll feel grateful that we actually get to watch hockey again—a giant improvement over this time last year, when, well, we couldn’t.
That was bleak.
Then the playoff bubble happened.
Also bleak. But for different reasons. See: sentence #1.
NONETHELESS. Something has to give between the pipes for the Toronto Maple Leafs and that something has to be covid and the person its given to has to be Andersen. Or, I guess, they could just trade him.
It’s hard to imagine a scenario in which Keefe plays Campbell over Andersen every night (once Soup is healthy). Even if they intend to let Freddy walk this summer—which I hope they do—coaches tend to favour experience over, well, logic, at times.
As of Sunday morning Andersen had a .899 save percentage.
Before another terrible effort against the Senators, Hutchinson and Campbell had combined for .940 save percentage.
That’s, like, WAY better. Even without a chart to go along with it.
Numbers aside, the problem, as I see it, with Freddy, isn’t his numbers (which stink), but the timing of his goals against.
I’ve been frustrated with the guy a lot lately, and I know I’m searching for something to complain about regarding this team this season—it’s habitual, I literally don’t know how to cheer for a team without complaining—so when goals go in there’s a tendency to blame Fred. I don’t want to hear about the bad pinch, or that the shot was tipped, even if they are legit points. I wanna be mad. NONETHELESS. We have seen time and time again, goals going through Andersen at moments in the game when all the momentum is with the Leafs, when they are generating chance after chance but unable to beat the goalie at the other end. Then, one (albiet maybe difficult) chance against, and the momentum swings the other way. It’s become thematic. It’s becoming Freddy’s Toronto legacy.
You guys remember Joakim Nordstrom?
BECAUSE YOU SHOULDN’T! He’s the shits!
Yet you remember him scoring on Freddy in game 7, don’t ya?
Anyway, I’m angry now. I’ll leave you with that imagery.
Someone in the GTA get at me if they know a guy who knows a guy who can infect a guy.
Go Leafs go. Go trade for a better friggin’ goalie.
Reg Guy, St. John’s