Toronto Maple Leafs: Jack Campbell Saves the Day

The Toronto Maple Leafs went out west and defeated the red-hot Calgary Flames 3-2 on Sunday afternoon, thanks in large part to Jack Campbell.

In their first of four consecutive Western Canadian match-ups, the Toronto Maple Leafs secured a hard-fought win. It wasn’t the best game they’ve played, but one of the halmarks of a great team is that they win when things don’t go perfectly, so this is a step in the right direction.

The game was eventful, as there was a couple dirty plays (one for each team), an intense finish, and even Matthews improving his shooting percentage by scoring without taking a shot.

Let’s get right into it with the good, bad and the ugly from this game.

The Good, Bad and Ugly

Good:

• Wayne Simmonds:
  • This was the best game we’ve seen from the Wayne Train all season. Not only did Simmonds score his first goal as a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs, but his skating and awareness was improved. Although this play never translated into a goal, Simmonds made a great stretch pass to Ilya Mikheyev, who ended up hitting the post on a breakaway early in the first period.
• Jack Campbell:
  • Campbell played tremendous today and his gutsy performance was the reason why the Leafs won. Calgary was the better team on the night but Campbell stopped 31 of 33 shots and even gutted through an injury with seconds left. It’s been a few years since Toronto has had a reliable back-up goaltender, so Campbell’s play could be the difference from the Leafs being a fourth-seed or a one-seed heading into the playoffs.
• Mitch Marner:
  •  Even though Marner didn’t play amazing, he still managed to rack up two assists. Through seven games, Marner is tied for the NHL lead in points.
• Morgan Rielly:
  • Similar to Marner, Rielly didn’t have the greatest game of his life but he managed to get three assists. In terms of points, Rielly’s had a slow start to the season so this three-assist performance makes up for his slow offensive start.

Bad:

• Alexander Barabanov: 
  • In 5:46 TOI, Barabanov was once again non-existent. Keefe was clearly protecting him because 100 percent of his starts were in the offensive zone. I want to see him play well but I’m not sold yet. At this point, I think I’d rather have Adam Brooks in that role. To be fair, it’s hard to do anything in five minute, and he did have one solid scoring chance where he rushed in alone on the goalie.
• Start Time:
  • 4:00PM on a Sunday is a fun time to watch a hockey game, but did the NHL not realize it was NFL’s Championship Weekend? If you’re going to play an afternoon game, start this game at 2:00PM EST so viewers don’t have to choose between the NFL and NHL. Either that, or start this at 9:00PM ESET, once everything is over.

Ugly: 

• Jimmy Vesey:
  • I hate to go super analytics with this one, but it really proves my point how bad Vesey was compared to his teammates last night. When Vesey was paired with Matthews and Marner, they had a Corsi For percentage (CF%) of 27.27 and when Vesey played with John Tavares and William Nylander they had a 25.00 CF%. Comparatively, when Zach Hyman replaced Vesey, Hyman’s line had a 80.00 CF% with Tavares and Nylander and a 90.00 CF% with Matthews and Marner (stats via: naturalhattrick.com).

The Leafs will try to go 2-0 against the Calgary Flames during this road-trip when these two teams face each other once again on Tuesday night. With Freddie Andersen most likely getting the start, hopefully he can provide a similar performance to how Campbell played last night.