Toronto Maple Leafs Bail Out Freddie Andersen For Once

The Toronto Maple Leafs played a good game, and lost a coin flip.

Freddie Andersen wasn’t very good, and the Toronto Maple Leafs lost a game they should definitely have won, but at least they got a point.

The points makes it 10 of the last 11 games with a point and moves the Leafs into 9th place overall in the league standings.

This would be more positive news if the only two teams ahead of the Leafs who were actually their equals were not in the same division.  Unfortunately, while the team continues to rocket up the standings, they seem destined for another ridiculous first round matchup that features two of the NHL’s best three teams.

Toronto Maple Leafs vs Winnipeg Jets

The Leafs outplayed the Jets for the second time in a week, but they lost the coin-flip shootout despite tying the game in the last seconds of the third.

Auston Matthews scored his 30th and 31st goals of the season.

The Toronto Maple Leafs should have won that game in regulation.  The first goal was an embarrassment where Andersen misplayed the puck.

The second was the result of the worst and laziest play I’ve ever seen John Tavares make.  If Nylander made that, Brian Burke would still be blabbing about it now.

Regardless, the Jets had two goals on four shots.

The Leafs absolutely dominated puck-possession, and they out-chanced the Jets 22-13 for the game, but when it came to high-danger chances, it was 13-3.

Usually I ignore the high-danger chances because, like goals, they take so long to build a useful sample size – but 13 to 3 is just a beat-down.

The Leafs finished the game with a 70% expected goals rating. (All stats naturalstattrick.com).  Despite the fact they didn’t win, they actually played better in this game than they have for most, if not all, of their games during this incredible streak.

But Freddie Andersen…..not his best game.

Any time you allow two goals on four shots…….Andersen did make some awesome saves in overtime, but since the Leafs already had a point, and since they lost in the shoot-out, those saves were irrelevant and might as well not even happened.

This will probably get overlooked because of the loss, but it was actually a really good defensive effort for the Leafs.  They limited the Jets to (mostly) outside chances, and if not for a flukey bounce in the first, and a completely out-of-character screw up by John Tavares that led to a short-handed goal, the Leafs would have won easily.

Anytime you limited your opponent to one legitimate 5v5 goal, you’ve had a good game. Freddie Andersen didn’t have his best game, but the Leafs bailed him out for once and managed to secure at least one point.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are off now until Sunday when they’ll play the Florida Panthers.