Toronto Maple Leafs Play the Craziest Game of the Season

The Toronto Maple Leafs played the craziest game of the season yesterday.

Like most Toronto Maple Leafs fans, I simply can’t believe what I just watched. If you missed the rare afternoon game, then here’s the Cliff’s notes version.

Leafs go up 3-0. Canes score five unanswered goals including three in 64 seconds. Leafs fire back with five goals of their own, including three in 59 seconds. Leafs take the game by a score of 8-6.

I’m not going to recap the game play-by-play. But I’ll hook you up with a few takeaways from the gongshow at Scotiabank Arena yesterday afternoon.

Mitch Marner is a Special Player

One guy who was all over, and I mean ALL OVER the board tonight was Mitch Marner. This guy looks more and more like the second coming of Dougie Gilmour every time he plays.

The finish on that sweet feed from Matthews, a sweet feed of his own on the Tyson Barrie goal, and then the resilience and hustle on his second of the game all helped show why Marner is such an incredible player.

He would end up finishing the game with five points, two goals and three assists to be specific. This ties a career high for Marner and ultimately showcased what fans can be treated to when he’s at his best.

Matthews/Marner Finally a Duo?

This kind of ties into the last point. It took four years (besides the rare shift) to see the Leafs pair the most dynamic centre along with the most dynamic winger. But it finally happened, and it’s a thing of beauty.

It’s funny, because Matthews was arguably one of the most invisible players on the ice leading up to his goal tonight (which, surprise, Marner assisted on).

But it seems as though once Matthews scored that goal, he gained some confidence back and looked like his old self again, complete with an absolutely filthy assist of his own on Marner’s first goal.

It seems as though you hear less about lines these days and more about duos. McDavid and Draisitl, Pastrnak and Marchand, Mackinnon and Rantanen to name a few examples. If the Leafs keep Matthews and Marner together, there’s serious potential for them to become one of the most dangerous duos in the league.

Ice Time For the Stars

Keeping the theme of each point relating to the last, Matthews and Marner saw the ice a LOT tonight.

Marner was out there for 24:36, while Matthews was out there for 23:28. This is more than what any Leaf defenseman played tonight, which is seemingly unheard of. And if you watched the game, you would know that there were several occasions where their line was double shifted.

And why wouldn’t you? In a game when you’re down by two in the third and your opponent isn’t letting up, why wouldn’t you give your stars extra ice time? Regardless, they did and it paid off.

Leafs Save Andersen (For a Change)

There have been too many games this season where Frederik Andersen has bailed out the Leafs and been the sole reason for wins. Today’s game was not one of those games.

It certainly doesn’t help that the team’s whole battery essentially died for 64 seconds in the second period, but Andersen certainly wasn’t stellar tonight, as six goals usually indicates.

But in the end, the Leafs’ offense bailed out Frederik Andersen for once and they came away with the win. I don’t know what Sheldon Keefe said to the boys at second intermission, but it worked.

Blown Leads/Poor Efforts Need to Stop

Now that I’ve gotten all of my happy thoughts out of the way, I’ll clarify that as exciting as today’s win was, these spurts of effortless hockey need to stop. It happened against the Sabres. It happened against the Flyers. And it happened today against the Hurricanes.

Make no mistake, I thought the game was more-or-less over when Carolina made it 6-4. As talented as the Toronto Maple Leafs can be at the top of their game, the Hurricanes are a great team and they seemed like they weren’t going to take their foot off the gas. But alas, the Leafs capitalized when they needed to.

Having said that, you aren’t going to score eight goals every game. The Leafs got out of it today, but it doesn’t take a genius to know that’s not going to happen every time. That second period as a whole was completely abysmal, and it needs to be tightened up from now on.

In the end, the Toronto Maple Leafs are a good team. And good teams find a way to win games. You can argue all you want that they didn’t deserve the win today, but Carolina sure as hell didn’t deserve it either. Three straight goals at the start and then four unanswered at the end. Did anyone really deserve this one?

They are now 11-4-0 since Sheldon Keefe took over. 5-0 against non-playoff teams, and 6-4 against playoff teams.

Things aren’t perfect yet, but when you consider that at the start of the season they could barely put together a complete effort, this team is miles ahead of what they once were. And they get to carry a five game winning streak into the break.