Toronto Maple Leafs Hang On to Defeat Winnipeg Jets

The Toronto Maple Leafs played a near perfect game against the Winnipeg Jets on Monday night, winning 3-1 at home.

This game reminded me a lot of Game 2 of the Qualifying Series against Columbus. From start to finish, it felt like the Toronto Maple Leafs dominated possession and the game never seemed in jeopardy. Although Winnipeg had a few scoring chances, Andersen was flawless and the Leafs could’ve won this game by a lot more than two.

That was the one problem though about this game. Although they continued to play great, Hellebuyck kept making saves. The Winnipeg netminder showed everyone the reason why he was awarded the Vezina Trophy last year.

Typically when the Toronto Maple Leafs and Winnipeg Jets play, it’s a high-scoring affair. In the last few seasons, we’ve seen the Leafs defeat Winnipeg 7-2 and 6-3, but this contest was different. The score could have easily been much higher, but when it was all set and done, Toronto secured a 3-1 victory.

The Good, Bad and The Ugly

Good:

• The Core-Four:
  • The Toronto Maple Leafs best players continued to be their most impactful against Winnipeg. Mitch Marner (two goals) and John Tavares scored, while William Nylander and Auston Matthews both registered an assist. Also, although he didn’t score, Matthews was probably the team’s best forward.
• Freddie Andersen:
  • After a shaky two games, Andersen had his best game of the season so far. Steady Freddie stopped 27 of 28 shots for the win. Let’s hope this play can continue throughout the rest of the year.

Bad:

• Keeping the Game Close:
  • In my opinion, this was best overall game we’ve seen this season. From start to finish, they controlled the pace and looked great. Despite outshooting Winnipeg 38-28, they were never able to put this game away until Marner scored an empty-netter with only seconds remaining. Kudos to Connor Hellebuyck for standing on his head, but when the Leafs play this strong, they need to capitalize on their scoring chances, instead of making it a nail-biter.

Ugly:

• Bad Penalties
  • The Leafs had a chance to go on a power-play early into the game after Kyle Connor ran over Freddie Andersen, but Justin Holl took a dumb coincidental minor to stop that opportunity. Not only that, but Morgan Rielly shot the puck over the glass with five minutes remaining that could have changed the result of the game. Toronto may have went 4-for-4 on the penalty kill, but they costly penalties could have came back to haunt them.

If you’re a Leafs fan, you should be very excited about what you saw against the Jets. The core-four is playing at an extremely high level and if the team can get that type of performance out of Andersen more often than not, they’re going to have a long playoff run.

Although the first four games have been a blast, we’re all in for a treat when the Leafs finally face-off against the Edmonton Oilers at home. After training with Connor McDavid over the summer, let’s hope Matthews has the last laugh over him on Wednesday night.