The Toronto Maple Leafs had their season on the line yesterday afternoon.
With their backs against the wall, trying to prevent going down 2-0 in a best of five series, the Toronto Maple Leafs showed they are made of much sterner stuff than their critics would have you believe.
They showed this by thoroughly dismantling the Columbus Blue Jackets in a near perfect game that only be described as “the ideal way to play a hockey game.”
The Leafs destroyed the Blue Jackets in a 3-0 game in which a 12-0 score would have credited the Blue Jackets.
The Leafs appeared to be large panther toying with a mouse for much of the afternoon.
It was a perfect display of their team strengths: speed, passing, shooting and more speed.
When all three Leafs lines are on, they are virtually unstoppable.
The Blue Jackets tried to keep their best defenseman out against Matthews, who responded by posting a 93% possession rating with Seth Jones on the ice against him (14 shot attempts to 1 against). (All stats naturalstattrick.com).
This left John Tavares free to run rampant against the lesser Columbus blue-liners. Tavares finished the game with one awesome breakaway goal, seven shots and a 66% possession rating.
Toronto Maple Leafs vs Blue Jackets
The only downside to this game was the unfortunate injury to Jake Muzzin. It was a scary incident and hopefully he’s OK.
The Leafs will be in tough without Muzzin, but they could have had six Cody Ceci’s yesterday and it wouldn’t have mattered.
Incidentally, with the coach preventing Ceci from matching up against Atkinson and Bjorkstrand, he was much better in game two after a brutal game one.
But pretty much ever Leafs player was good yesterday.
It was such a beatdown that I haven’t even mentioned Andersen yet despite the fact that he got a shutout, has allowed only 1 goal in two games, and has been amazing.
But Korpisalo! Wow.
I want what he’s having. Just a dynamite performance from the Blue Jackets goalie, who was the games star. It’s not an exaggeration to say that he stopped ten should-be goals.
Even accounting for the fact that teams tend to usually coast to victory and turn down the aggression once they get a lead, the Leafs still finished the game with 61% possession, 65% of the scoring chances, and 75% of the dangerous chances.
And that doesn’t even include their power-play, which was absolutely lethal.
Nick Robertson – as predicted – is an absolute weapon out there on the second unit, and at one point he took three shots in a row demonstrating why he definitely should be playing.
All in all, there isn’t a team in the league that could have withstood the game the Leafs played yesterday. If they play like that most of the time, this is going to be a deep playoff run.
As for that vaunted Columbus Defense and Physical play? I didn’t see it anywhere. I just saw a 60 minute advertisement for Kyle Dubas’ vision of how to build a hockey team.