The Toronto Maple Leafs Officially Have a New Top Prospect
The Toronto Maple Leafs might have played their worst game of the season so far, and yet they came out with a victory Thursday night vs Dallas.
The Toronto Maple Leafs definitely played their worst period to open the game, giving lots of ammo to those who preach the Start On Time cliché.
The Leafs then recovered, and though it wasn’t pretty, they ended up with a hard fought victory.
Results often cloud the way the game actually went, and this was the first time all season that the Leafs were drastically outplayed.
Against Montreal and Phoenix, the Leafs were a juggernaut facing weak losers and were the better team just by showing up, the problem was they weren’t the better team by as significant of a margin as they should have been.
The coach wasn’t happy with either game because those are teams who the Leafs should dominate and beat easily.
Dallas is the best team the Leafs have played so far, and they are the only team to outplay them so far, but at least the result was good this time.
Toronto Maple Leafs vs Dallas Stars
Ilya Samsonov and Nick Robertson had great games, but weirdly, the Leafs were catching all the breaks for once. (all stat naturalstattrick.com).
The Leafs were given an extremely generous amount of power-play time, getting eight minors in their favor compared to only four for Dallas. In the even-up NHL, this game was an anomaly.
For the second game in a row, the Leafs were victimized by a non-sensical video review call, but this time it did not matter.
With all the extra power-play time, the Toronto Maple Leafs ended up outshooting Dallas 43-28, with 37 of those shots coming in the final two periods.
At 5v5, however, the Stars had 28 scoring chances to the Leafs 19.
Other than Ilya Samsonov, the Leafs best line was the Nylander line, and their best player was the newest member of that line, Nick Robertson.
The only line the Leafs had that finished above 50% puck possession, The Leafs outshot Dallas 10-3 when Robertson was on the ice 5v5, and were outshot 16-10 when he wasn’t.
As for Robertson, it took all of five minutes for him to make it look ridiculous that he hasn’t played yet. The addition of another star level player to the Leafs lineup makes them much more dangerous. If Robertson is even close to level he showed last night on a regular basis, this team basically just acquired a huge upgrade.
Of course, there is no guarantee he’ll keep this up, but why wouldn’t he? The guy’s feet never stop moving, and he’s like a lightning bug out there.
Tavares and Nylander are a killer combo, but they are almost too professional about it. They are a good, solid #2 line that might be the best second line in the NHL, but Robertson adds a dimension to their game that makes them more dynamic, tougher to play against, and more unpredictable.
Next. Leafs Top 9 Prospects (And 1 Graduate). dark
He’ll never play another AHL game, nor sit out an NHL game while healthy. Nick Robertson has arrived, and I’d like to officially congratulate Matthew Knies on becoming the Toronto Maple Leafs new top prospect.