Toronto Maple Leafs Finally Beat a Bad Team

The Toronto Maple Leafs went to Winnipeg and took care of business.

The Toronto Maple Leafs, for the first time this season, went up against a weak team and defeated them.

Sure, the Leafs will almost always win the games they played against Arizona and Montreal earlier this month, but they still didn’t play good enough in those games.  The Leafs can sleepwalk into games against bad teams and still have a coin-flip’s chance to win.

But, as they showed last night, if they bring it against bad teams, those teams have no chance.

Toronto Maple Leafs vs Winnipeg Jets

Two things, really, that need discussion about this game: the coolest, and the most important.

The coolest thing was that with five minutes left in the second (roughly) we saw two goals and a line-brawl.  Morgan Rielly sticking up for Nick Robertson was great, and even better was Wayne Simmonds picking up the nicest assist of his career *(one assumes). (stats from naturalstattrick.com).

The most important thing was the way the Leafs shut the Jets down in the third period.

I thought they did a really good job of moving the puck into Winnipeg’s zone and wasting time.   Teams who are down two goals tend to get more shots-attempts and shots, as the winning team stops taking risks to create offense.

A lot of times this can leads to sustained pressure, momentum swings and a Leafs team that is barely hanging on for the victory. I saw none of that last night, which I think is an important development.  They calmly defended  their  lead and didn’t look like they were going to blow it at any point.

Here are a few other things worth noting:

• Samsonov has been unreal.
• Tavares, with two goals,  has three goals and seven points in six games.
• The Leafs fourth line, with Simmonds and Clifford making their debuts, alongside David Kampf, was a positive for the first time this season (statistically).
• The fourth line actually got more ice time than the Aston-Reece-Jarnkrok-Kerfoot line.
• Victor Mete was noticeably good.

Of course, the fact that the Toronto Maple Leafs best player and reining Hart Trophy winner Auston Matthews did not, and has not scored on a shot on net this season will be the biggest topic.

But it shouldn’t be.

Matthews has four shots, 3 assists, and has a ridiculous 62% CF this season so far. The Leafs have only won his minutes by a score of 4-3, and yet have 20 more shots than their opponents.  Matthews could easily have six or eight goals so far by doing nothing different.  Eventually the pucks will go in for him.

The fact that the Toronto Maple Leafs are off to a 4-2 start even though Auston Matthews has just one goal is a very good sign for them, and a very bad one for any team hoping to finish ahead of them in the standings.