How the Toronto Maple Leafs Got from Game 5 to Game 6

The Toronto Maple Leafs had a chance to close out their first series win in 17 years against the Montreal Canadians on Thursday night.

The Toronto Maple Leafs came up short as the Canadians capitalized a terrible play by Zach Bogosian and Alex Galchenyuk at the beginning of overtime.

The Habs capitalizing on mistakes turned out to be a common theme in the game.

As Montreal has struggled plenty to consistently generate goals, especially in this series with the way the Leafs have defended and Jack Campbell has played the way they were able to score three of their goals in game 5 was from giveaways.

Of course, most notably is the giveaway from Galchenyuk in overtime that lead to the overtime winning goal and there were further mistakes from Sandin that lead to him getting benched for the rest of the game excluding one shift.

The Sandin Situation

For Sandin, he was outmuscled by Corey Perry leading to a Joel Armia goal to open the game up and later on he coughed up the puck behind the net to Kotkaniemi leading to the third goal against.

For an offensive player such as Sandin to be benched when trying to catch a lead I find it too heavy of a reaction for Sheldon Keefe. After all, Keefe made the risk of playing Sandin over a fully capable Travis Dermott who would not have made those mistakes but also doesn’t bring the same offensive ability that Sandin can bring.

The reason Sandin is in the lineup is his ability to make gifted offensive plays which comes more in handy when the team is losing the game and needs to comeback from a deficit. If Sandin is not being used in offensive situations, Dermott is easily the more effective player because of his ability to defend the rush and break the puck out of the zone cleanly.

Many underestimate Dermott’s strength physically, he is a player that loses very few puck battles and he is not going to gift the Canadians any of what happened in the previous game if he suits up for game 6 which is the expectation with the way Keefe utilized Sandin after his mistake on the third goal.

Galchenyuk’s Situation

Back to the obvious giveaway that resulted in the overtime winner for Suzuki, Galchenyuk is receiving a lot of heat for his big mistake, which is warranted. But it’s important that we don’t forget that the coach told the team to play aggressively, and their least offensively capable defenseman pinched, leaving their worst defensive forward to cover the point.  Let’s not forget that without Galchenyuk’s assist on Muzzin’s second goal, the Leafs would have never even made it to overtime in the first place.

There is a lot that goes into blaming a player for a big mistake and I totally get it from a human perspective. As terrible as that giveaway was, there are still thousands of things that aren’t accounted for in a game so we need to be wary with how we evaluate a player after a big mistake.

If Caufield missed the net or Campbell made the save, I wouldn’t be writing about Galchenyuk’s mistake. I think all we can do now is know that Galchenyuk won’t be making that same mistake again and focus on what he has brought to the team otherwise.

It is clear that if the Leafs avoid making costly mistakes again, the Habs won’t have a chance at winning. The game 5 win was a gift from the Toronto Maple Leafs, that can’t happen again.

I expect Jack Campbell to be better tonight after an uneasy performance on Thursday. The Leafs are going to have to close it out in 6 or the mood won’t be too good for game 7.