Toronto Maple Leafs: Tyson Barrie and Morgan Rielly Show Their Massive Potential
The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Buffalo Sabres last night to move to 8-4 under Sheldon Keefe.
The best part of the Toronto Maple Leafs current surge is that they are doing it while while they’re still transitioning to the type of team Keefe wants them to be, which means they’re only now scratching the surface of their potential.
And that potential is to be the best team in the NHL.
Last night the Leafs rode a two goal performance from Auston Matthews (one which is one of the nicest goals you’ll ever see) to victory over their division rival.
Toronto Maple Leafs vs Sabres
The Leafs were about to make a blowout of this game when Travis Dermott was elbowed on a late hit.
Instead of a match penalty, the Sabres scored. Then inexplicably they were given another power play and they made the game closer than it had any right to be.
Only their goalie prevented it from being a laugher in a first period dominated by the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Tyson Barrie was maybe the Leafs best player last night, rushing into the play and creating a ton of chances. Nice to see after he left for x-rays in Saturday’s game.
Trevor Moore was supposed to return, but he was re-injured and did not.
Overall, with 57% of the expected goals, this was a dominant performance by the Leafs. Virtually anything the Sabres did good in this game came after the score was 3-0.
Their will be narratives about how the Leafs played poorly with the lead and how they had to hang on blah blah blah, but the fact is, John Tavares had about 100 clear-cut grade A scoring chances and didn’t score. If he buries even one of those, and he almost always will, the Sabres are blown out.
The Leafs played a very strong game, and the best part is the glimpse of potential we got from the Rielly / Barrie pairing. (All stats naturalstattrick.com).
They showed how they can absolutely take over games because teams just aren’t prepared to face two players like this on the ice at once, and when they dominate, they open the entire us up likes it’s the 1987 Canada Cup team playing an exhibition game against Belarus.
Together they were a 53% pairing with +five more scoring chances then they allowed.
Leafs Can Have Enough Cap Space to Add Any Player They Want. dark. Next
Since being paired, they’ve played almost 130 minutes and they have a 55% expected goals percentage, vs both of them coming in below 50% with anyone else.
This pairing – like the Toronto Maple Leafs – has massive potential that we are just getting a taste of now.
As for Morgan Rielly, this is the first stretch of games in his career where he’s actually had a good partner, and it shows.