Toronto Maple Leafs Look Like Entirely Different Team Under Keefe

The Toronto Maple Leafs played their best game of the year last night.

In the debut game of new Toronto Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe, the Toronto Maple Leafs were loose, relaxed, and so, so much better than they have been.

Good-bye six game losing streak. 

Good-bye grinding out wins with an allstar team.

Good-bye Mike Babcock, and good riddance.

Say hello to rushing defenseman, lines that make sense, players that are having fun and a style of game designed for the roster the general manager has put in place.

It was the Leafs best game of the year.  They won 3-1 and it was the first game of the season where they didn’t were dominant for the full 60 minutes.

The New Toronto Maple Leafs

Last night, the Toronto Maple Leafs attempted 72 shot-attempts.   They controlled over 60% of the game 56% of the shots, and 71% of the scoring chances.

It was – far and away – the Leafs best game of the year.  Only Darcy Kuemper and a bizarre lack of power-plays (zero) kept the score from double digits and the game respectable.

Instead of a heat-map that showed a concentration of shots from the point, the Leafs were getting tons of great chances in prime scoring areas.

And that wasn’t the only change.

Keefe’s team activates their defense and the Leafs mobile puck-moving blue line looked great, jumping up into almost every play.

Tyson Barrie looked reborn.

Jason Spezza was the third line centre and he looked like a vintage version of his old superstar self.

The Leafs didn’t dump the puck in for line chances, they circled back and kept possession.

In the offensive zone, they didn’t settle for long shots, but rather worked the puck down  low for higher percentage chances.

They appeared to be playing a man coverage system in the dzone, and they were collapsing with all five guys down low when necessary.

Additionally, they were swarming the puck aggressively to force turnovers.

Defenseman were pinching at will, knowing the winger would rotate back in their place.

In short, the Leafs played the aggressive, high octane style we’ve been been begging them to for months.

One game under Sheldon Keefe justified months of writing Fire Babock articles.  No longer will the team built to run four scoring lines and six puck moving defenseman play a safe, sheltered game that focuses on defense at the expense of what makes them good.

John Tavares looked like John Tavares for the first time all season.  The Coyotes put their best defenders on Matthews and Tavares made them pay with an 80% possession night.

The Leafs took 15 shots to 5 against when Tavares was on the ice.

Matthews and Nylander were unbelievable, and if not for a bad night from Andreas “Maybe Not a 1st Liner” Johnson, might have had five or six points each.

The crazy thing about this game is that the team didn’t even get in a practice yet under their new coach, they didn’t have Mitch Marner (or Rasmus Sandin who will be back soon, bet on it) and they didn’t even get a power-play.  (stats naturalstattrick.com).

This team, having been written off by short-sighted people who want Dubas to fail, is going to be the best team in the NHL in short order.

Holy crap was it fun to watch them unleash their talent.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are back.  Regular readers of this column will know I’m too classy of a guy to say I told you so, but I did tell you so.  Thousands and thousands of times.