The Toronto Maple Leafs have not had the best start to their regular season.
After the Tampa Bay Lightning dismantled the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday, there were a lot of questions to be asked.
What’s wrong with the John Tavares line? What’s going on with Morgan Rielly? Is Frederik Andersen okay?
All of these answers have a solution, you just need to be able to find it.
The Tavares line
In the game against the Lightning, Tavares scored his first goal of the season. After the year he had last year, he was expected to score sooner.
Mitch Marner has six points in five games, which is a great start. But, Kasperi Kapanen looks to be out of place.
He has one point so far and he doesn’t look like he can play the role that Zach Hyman could; dump the puck in, and go get it.
There’s two ways you can fix this:
Put a different player on the line and see how they fair, or keep Kapanen on the line until it gets better, or until Hyman returns.
Frederik Andersen
It’s no surprise that Andersen has been bad to start the season. Allowing seven goals against Tampa Bay was the worst I’ve witnessed from Andersen, probably ever.
Auston Matthews is called “Mr. October” for one reason; dominance.
The opposite can be said about Andersen in net during the month of October:
To solve this puzzle – let Andersen find his game because it won’t be long until he’s back to normal.
#FindMorganRielly
That’s the hashtag I’ve started on Twitter ever since Rielly’s play has taken a massive dip.
I don’t know what it’s from, whether that be because of a new partner or just cold feet to start the season, but it needs to stop.
He has five assists in five games, but he’s lacking the defensive to his aspect. He’s never been the best defender, but right now he’s not playing similar to last season.
That’s why I say “Find Morgan Rielly”, his defensive play is missing and he needs to find it as quick as possible. If not, there could be potential to have a very big problem on the blue line.
Solutions for Mike Babcock:
Leave everything as is.
If Kapanen can’t find his game within a few more outings, take him off the line. But as of right now, I believe he’ll find his game.
The same goes with Rielly – leave him be and if anything really bad happens or, if his play dips even more, think about changing the pairings around.
And for Andersen, he’ll be fine. It’s October hockey, it’s messy and it’s not fun to watch or play in, especially for a goaltender. This is how he plays in October and it will get better.
All of these problems will be solved in due time, it will work out for the players and for the team. Nothing happens overnight, but hopefully in a few weeks I’ll be writing the opposite of this article when the team’s doing great, instead of how they’re doing now.