Toronto Maple Leafs: Andersen Steals Game Leafs Deserved to Lose

The Toronto Maple Leafs won their fifth straight game last night against the New Jersey Devils.

For the Toronto Maple Leafs, the win also marks their fourth straight victory without their franchise player, Auston Matthews.  I’ve been doing this long enough to know that people only really care about results, but I’ll say it anyways: The Leafs are getting crazy-lucky.

The Devils out-shot the Leafs 46 to 25, and if not for the stellar play of Frederik Andersen, they would not have won last night.  And the same goes for every game on their current win streak.

Still, a win is a win, and the Leafs are now second in the east and third in the NHL.  It’s hard to get a handle on this team though.  First, they were losing games they deserved to win due to bad goaltending.  Then the goaltending got good, but the team started to play lousy.

It’s a regular brain-bender.  Personally, I’ll take the optimistic route here. The Leafs roster – even without Matthews – is just too deep to keep playing this poorly.  And, when Matthews comes back, he’ll cover a lot of the team’s weaknesses just by being (at worst) the fifth best player in the NHL.   (1. McDavid, 2. Crosby 3. Kucherov 4. Tarasenko 5. Matthews in my opinion).

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Mike Babcock

Mike Babock is a great coach, but he’s not above criticism.  He also rarely gives straight or non-cliched answers to the media, so it’s hard to get a read on what he really thinks.  However, putting out the same group of centres that has been dominated over the past four games, after four days off in which the team failed to improve their roster like many thought/hoped they would, shows extreme stubbornness.

Why will he not move William Nylander to the middle where he belongs?  Clearly Babcock knows what 3 x #1 centres would do for this team, and clearly Bozak/Moore/Marleau aren’t cutting it.

Maybe he’s doesn’t see Nylander as a centre – but if that’s the case, then why hasn’t the team made a play for someone better than Bozak?  It just doesn’t make sense to me to have Connor Brown on the fourth line (when Matthews is healthy) when all it would take to fix it is to move a winger to the middle.

Furthermore, Nylander is an elite player.  He’s having a hell of a season (a bit unlucky in the shooting percentage, but his stats are amazing).  It makes no sense to pair two elite players when splitting them up will make four wingers that much better.  Yes Nylander and Matthews have great chemistry.  But they’re such good players they’ll likely  have great chemistry with everyone.

Plus, if you move Nylander, then Marner can get a chance at the top of the lineup where he so clearly belongs.

Next: Editor in Leaf Weekly Prospect Update

I like Mike Babcock.  But I don’t understand him, and I’m not really liking his roster decisions so far this season.  I don’t want to fire him or anything, I just with I knew what he was thinking.