Toronto Maple Leafs Lose; Can No Longer Afford to Play Justin Holl

The Toronto Maple Leafs failed to advance last night against Tampa, but did put up a solid showing, nearly clawing their way back, but falling just short.

Though the effort was excellent, it’s frustrating to see the Toronto Maple Leafs continually fail to dress their best lineup.

Enough is enough.  Barring an injury to the blue line, the Toronto Maple Leafs cannot have Justin Holl play another minute for the team.

Every coach has their special toys and for coach Sheldon Keefe he has had both Alex Kerfoort and Holl.

Toronto Maple Leafs and Justin Holl

Since the start of the playoffs The Toronto Maple Leafs have been outscored 9-2 (worst on the team) when Justin Holl is on the ice, and he has a team-worst 37% Expected Goals, meaning that he isn’t just a victim of bad-luck results.

Fans and media alike have been saying that Holl should not be in the line-up and should be up in the press box, however former first round pick Timothy Liljegren is left to watch every playoff game. (stats naturalstattrick.com).

In arguably the most important game in the Matthews/Marner era and possibly the last 20 years, Holl who had been on the ice for 11 of the 15 (73%) goals against in the Tampa Bay series found himself on the line-up card once again.  Believe it or not the percentage went even higher after the team dropped Game 5 on home ice.

Holl was on for three of the four goals, and he was on the ice for every goal against when the Leafs had a goalie between the pipes.

The first goal against came when he attempted to throw a body check and not only missed but lost his stick.  He then struggled to regain his stick and when he did, like always had zero urgency to get back to help out in front of the net.

Holl then followed the play up with a careless tripping penalty leading to the Lightning’s first powerplay, which the team was able to kill off (without him).

On the second goal, Holl turned a 1 on 4 against into a half breakaway from the wall.  With Michael Eyssimont coming down boards and picking up speed; instead of taking the body, Holl turned away from the player which allowed Eyssimont to drive to the net that led to the goal. Albeit, Ilya Samsonov should have had the shot, but the opportunity should not have arrived.

The third goal, was a defensive breakdown where Holl followed a non puck carrying player (Eyssimont) behind the net.  This goal is not all on Holl, but shows his lack of judgement during the play.

These are just what ended up in goals, as Holl was caught in the offensive zone which led to 2 on 1 rushes for the Tampa Bay Lightning.

I do feel that Keefe has finally seen how detrimental Holl is to the team as the lanky and awkward defenseman finished the game with 12:33 of ice-time, which was the lowest of any defender on the team.  The ice-time was the second lowest that Keefe has ever used Holl in a game since he took over the job back in 2019 and the lowest since November 29, 2019, which happened to be just the third game for Keefe.

Holl has now been on for 14 of the 19 goals against in the series and some may argue that he plays the penalty kill which is a cause for some of the goas; and yes he does, but do you think that is a reason it has struggled in the series?

There is no way that Holl is in the line-up for Game 6, is there?