Let’s Recap The Last Game the Toronto Maple Leafs Played

The Toronto Maple Leafs last played on March 10th.

It’s been 124 days since the Toronto Maple Leafs last played in a regular season game.

On Tuesday, March 10th, the Tampa Bay Lightning came to town, two days later the season was suspended, and here we are now. Time really flew eh? Definitely didn’t feel like it’s been 84 years or anything like that.

Sarcasm aside, it’s been a really long time since any of us has seen a live game of hockey, so if you need a refresher of how that last game went, say no more.

This game came on the heels of a disastrous week in Leafs Nation, as the boys in blue completely flunked their annual California road trip, losing to all three of the very bad Pacific teams in very bad, mostly boring games that were broadcast extremely late at night (though Mitch Marner recorded an amazing, highlight-reel goal against San Jose… that was cool).

There was some good news for both the Toronto Maple Leafs team and the fans on the morning of this game: Morgan Rielly was activated off the Injury Reserve and he would be playing that night, his first game since January.

Play-By-Play

The Leafs came out of the gate flying in this game.

They completely dominated the opening frame, outshooting the Lightning 17-5. At one point the shot attempts were 18-0, including a pair of shorthanded breakaway efforts from Pierre Engvall and Frederik Gauthier.

At 12:42 of the first period, six seconds into the Leafs’s second of five power plays noted gritty net-front presence god William Nylander shoveled in the second effort of a John Tavares tipped shot for his 31st goal of the season.

The second period saw the Lightning roar back and outshoot the Leafs 15-5, but Frederik Andersen put one of his better performances of the season, stopping back-to-back breakaways from Carter Verhaeghe and Tyler Johnson that were the result of miscues at the offensive blue line.

The Lightning’s lone goal came from a defensive miscue by the third pairing of Rasmus Sandin and Tyson Barrie and some lax coverage by the forwards on this play, the defense both pinched in to cover a streaking Brayden Point, leaving Nikita Kucherov and eventual goal scorer Ondrej Palat wide open.

The final period was more evenly contested, the shots were 14-13 in favor of Toronto. Matthews drew a tripping penalty from Cedric Paquette and scored the game-winning goal during the power play, one-timing a beautiful cross-crease pass from Mitch Marner 36 seconds into the two-minute minor.

Andersen stood tall and the team played well defensively in front of him, there were some scrambles, as is to be expected with the Leafs, but they outlasted the storm and topped the Lightning 2-1.

Three Stars

The top Toronto Maple Leafs players in this game were Frederik Andersen, Auston Matthews and Travis Dermott.

Andersen was fantastic in this game, stopping 32 of 33 shots, including 9 that were directed his way on the power play and one shorthanded breakaway. It was a great bounce-back game after a couple of shaky performances in a row in the weeks prior.

Matthews led all Leafs forwards in ice-time with 22:39, he put 7 shots on goal, including the game-winning goal, the most of any skater on either side of this game.

Together with the rest of the forward core, it was a mostly dominant performance, neutralizing and surpassing one of the scariest offences in the league (albeit one that did not have Steven Stamkos or Victor Hedman in the lineup on this night).

Travis Dermott is the undercover star of this game, he led all Toronto Maple Leafs in ice-time with 25:06, a mere 21 seconds of that were on the power play, but a massive 6:42 on the penalty kill.

He really stepped up in this game, showing a spark of the player that he can develop into, he got some hits in, a couple of blocks, he even recorded a shot on goal.

It was growing apparent throughout both Rielly and Muzzin’s absence that Keefe was growing more and more confident with Dermott’s game, trusting him with big minutes in important games such as this one.

The future is bright for this young man, and if the Leafs play like this when they face off against the Columbus Blue Jackets in a couple of weeks, it will be an easy path into the preliminary round of the playoffs.