Toronto Maple Leafs After 4 Pre-Season Games
By James Tanner
The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Buffalo Sabres 3-1 last night.
It was the second straight victory for the Toronto Maple Leafs over the Sabres. After opening the preseason with two losses to the Ottawa Senators, the Leafs now have an even record at 2-2.
But preseason results are meaningless. A win is nice, but it doesn’t matter and since neither team has anything resembling their real roster on the ice, it’s not indicative of much – just ask last year’s 6-0 Pre-Season Champion Colorado Avalanche.
That said, there are still valuable insights to take from the game. I’m just saying don’t read too much into results.
Toronto Maple Leafs vs Sabres
One thing that stood out in last nights win was the play of a potential fourth line combo featuring Andreas Johnson, Kirby Rychel being centred by Dominic Moore.
This line saw almost nine minutes of 5v5 ice-time and had a nearly 70% possession rating. They didn’t score or anything, but they kept the ice tilted towards the Sabres net and didn’t allow a goal – a perfect night for a fourth line.
The goals were scored by Soshnikov, JVR and Kapanen. It’s hard to make judgements of just one game, but I thought that Kapanen and Grundstrom looked like a good pairing as well. They were centred by Eric Fehr, who no one really talks about, but he is a great depth player to have. He probably won’t make the team as an every day player, but he might make it as an extra forward.
So Far…
So far the most impressive thing about the Toronto Maple Leafs for me this preseason is that, even though they’re 2-2, they could easily be 4-0. Again, results don’t matter, but the process does. The Leafs process seems to be to skate the other team into the ground and use their aggressiveness and speed to dominate possession.
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The Leafs might have lost to the Senators twice, but they were clearly the best team in each game. In game one vs the Senators, the Leafs made 65% of the shot-attempts, which is total domination.
In the second game they were 55%, as they were against last night against the Sabres. There were no stats for the game at the Ricoh on Friday, but the Leafs dominated that game as well.
The Toronto Maple Leafs play the Canadiens Monday and Wednesday, then close out the preseason next weekend with a Friday/Saturday back-to-back vs the Red Wings.
Stats from naturalstattrick.com