The Leafs are off to a 3-1 start to their season, which is fine. They sit 3rd in the Atlantic at the moment and 2nd in points percentage behind the undefeated Tampa Bay Lightning. After a terrible showing in their season opener, they have won 3 straight and have secured those wins in different ways.
In game #2 versus the New Jersey Devils, the teams depth scoring was on full display. With goals from Max Pacioretty, Steven Lorentz and Bobby McMann, they fought their way to a 4-2 win. John Tavares was the only highly paid forward to score a goal and/or register a point. They followed that up by beating the Pittsburgh Penguins 4-2 on a pair of goals from William Nylander, a goal and assist from Mitch Marner, a pair of helps from Max Domi and a point each from Matthew Knies and Morgan Rielly. The top 6 came to play on this night, while the bag was carried by a select few players around the roster, while special teams weren’t a factor. Lastly, they dominated most of the game against the Kings, especially early, while coming away with a 6-2 win on the back of multipoint games from Auston Matthews, Marner, Nylander, Domi, Jake McCabe, Oliver Ekman-Larsson and a pair of goals from Bobby McMann. The powerplay finally made an appearance, with a pair of tallies and the penalty kill rounded into form as they killed off all 4 of the Kings’ opportunities while up a man.
In short, the bottom 6 grinded out a win, the top 6 pulled through in a close game and special teams earned them two points, all on separate nights. Great teams can win in different ways, so I’m not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
All along the way there has been one constant and that’s been their goaltending. Anthony Stolarz has had an excellent start to his Leafs’ tenure. With a 2-1 record, a 1.70GAA and 0.940SV%, he’s top 10 in the NHL on the stat sheet. He looks poised every night and, simply put, he’s a monstrous goaltender that is listed at 6’6″ 243lb. Meanwhile, Dennis Hildeby looked solid in his start against the Devils as he stopped 21 of 23 shots against. As far as NHL debut’s go, you can’t ask for much better than 2 goals against and a “W” if you’re a goaltender.
Anybody who actually believed that I wasn’t going to look this proverbial gift horse in the mouth hasn’t been paying attention to the puckinleafs brand.
I’ll fully admit that the Leafs have looked better defensively so far this season. It’s tough to argue that point. Through 4 games this year they’ve allowed 7 goals against, with no more than 2 being scored against them in a game. They’re 4th in the NHL with a 1.75GA/GP tally and while that number should rise, their position among the best defensive teams needs to hold steady. Compare that to last season’s first 4 games, where they allowed 19 goals against, went 2-2-0 and had to score 6 and 7 goals in order to earn the two wins that they did and you start to realize just how poor defensively they were.
I think I’ve gotten the point across already, but I’d like to add that through 9 games in October, 2023, they allowed 2 goals or less on just two occasions. They’ve already doubled that total in October of 2024 and they’ve only played 4 games. Small sample size? Absolutely. Incredibly encouraging for anybody that was tired of the Kyle Dubas/Sheldon Keefe philosophy? Absofuckinglutely.
The days of playing pond hockey have to be in the past if they truly want to compete for a Stanley Cup, because it’s those low scoring/grind it out games that will earn them wins come spring time. With that in mind, the least encouraging thing so far this season, for me, was seeing them drop their season opener to Montreal by way of a 1-0 score. Since that time the Habs have gone 1-3, the goalie that shut them out has allowed 9 goals on 85 shots and they’ve returned to being the team that will likely end their season in the bottom 1/3rd in the standings. The Toronto Maple Leafs haven’t been able to muster up the required passion when they play a rival team for years, which begs the question, is that something that can be coached out of them, or are the skates on the ice just incapable of rising to the occasion?
Timothy Liljegren has been a part of plenty of those occasions over the years, some bigger than others and he was involved in a personal one once again this week. Scratched for the first 3 games of the season, Liljegren finally got a chance to lace up his skates and show the coaching staff what he can bring against the L.A. Kings. He ended the night by playing just under 14 minutes of game time, registering 2 blocked shots and taking an unnecessary penalty. He didn’t register a point, shot or hit on the night and appeared to be slow in terms of his decision making. That indecisiveness resulted in a couple of instances where he was unable to clear the zone and the team spent extra time on defense, rather than offense. While that didn’t result in a goal against, over a season it’s a guarantee that teams will start turning zone time into goals, that’s just the nature of the game. I’m sure his reactions would come a little quicker if he were to play in a run of games, but at the moment he isn’t anywhere close to earning top 4 minutes ahead of Rielly, Tanev, Ekman-Larsson and McCabe and the Leafs can’t afford to pay a 3rd pair defender $3M/season. He doesn’t appear happy with his situation and the coaching staff isn’t satisfied with the players game, so a parting of ways appears inevitable.
The Utah Yeti added Mikhail Sergachev, John Marino, Ian Cole and Robert Bortuzzo to their blueline this summer in an effort to be a more competitive club. They inherited a good group of forwards and an underrated goalie in Connor Ingram. They won their first 3 games of the season, despite starting the year without John Marino, who will be out “weeks” due to injury. They followed that up by losing their next two contests, but, more devastating for them, they lost top pair defender, Sean Durzi, for 3-4 months due to injury. It makes me wonder if they’d take a look at Liljegren. They’re one of the few teams that possess the capspace to take Liljegren without sending salary back and obviously want to make a good first impression on their new fans. They have a very well stocked cupboard of picks and prospects as well, but wouldn’t have to give up any top end assets to acquire him.
To begin the season there were still questions about the Leafs defense, but Oliver Ekman-Larsson, who leads the entire team in TOI/GP and not Chris Tanev, who was labeled the big acquisition of the summer, has really helped to pull the blueline together. With 3 assists, 15 shots, 5 hits and 5 blocked shots through 4 games, he’s filling the stat categories and has gelled extremely well with Jake McCabe. The pair have been physical, have been sound in their own end and have quieted the noise around the top 2 pairings. Rielly and Tanev have also done well together, as the aforementioned goals against this season can attest.
There are just 5 players on the roster that haven’t registered a point yet this season. Some are more typical than others, such as Ryan Reaves, Chris Tanev and Simon Benoit. Timothy Liljegren is part of that list, but has only played a single game. The final player is preseason phenom, Nicholas Robertson. Through 4 games Robertson has registered 5 shots on goal, 5 hits and a single blocked shot, but no points yet. He’s averaging almost 13 minutes per game and 1:25 TOI/GP on the powerplay. That’s 8th among forwards in both categories, so it’s not as if he’s being gifted big minutes, but if he thinks he’s not being afforded an opportunity under his new head coach then he’s simply wrong. The problem is that he isn’t taking advantage of the minutes he’s getting. He’s being matched with forwards that are more than capable of producing offense, but he’s just not creating off of them. I will say that his effort hasn’t gone unnoticed. He’s trying hard every shift and if that effort keeps up he’ll start to produce. The question is how much can be produce, how long will it take him to get going and will Craig Berube have the patience to wait it out?
One thing that I wouldn’t have a lot of patience with is the success of the powerplay. Yes, they broke out last game, but their previous games were atrocious, so it makes me wonder if the unit simply clicked for a game and will revert back to what looked bad. Their entries were especially bad. While the drop pass is a common theme in today’s NHL due to the initial puck carrier backing up the opposition to their blueline, subsequently allowing the next attacker who has just had the puck dropped to him to gain speed and enter the zone more easily, Marc Savard appears to have tweaked it to make it less effective. The drop passes are scattered and unorganized, the team isn’t entering the zone with speed and they aren’t doing the typical entry that has historically allowed them to gain the zone with possession (skate to the blueline -> pass to the guy standing still at the blueline -> continue with speed down the wall to complete the give-and-go and set up you powerplay). Savard isn’t ripe with success as a powerplay coach, so it’s worth keeping an eye on. The hope here is that his system is simply taking a little bit of getting used to and things have already begun to turn around.