The Toronto Maple Leafs finally made a comeback when down in the third period, and they turned what was nearly another dud-game into a victory, beating the Washington Capitals in overtime.
The game winning goal was scored by ex Toronto Maple Leafs captain John Tavares after an incredible save on Alex Ovechkin by Joseph Woll.
The rest of the game wasn't nearly as exciting, and the Leafs probably deserved to lose, just based on the first period alone, but they didn't, and so here we are. Auston Matthews missed his fifth straight game, while Alex Steeves and Jani Hakanpaa made their season debuts, and the Leafs coach dressed so, so many fourth liners, while also altering the defensive pairs.
It mostly didn't work, but there were encouraging sings in the victory. Let's dig into it.
Toronto Maple Leafs vs Washington Capitals
The Leafs scored twice at 5v5, which is a very good sign considering that they scored just once at 5v5 during their previous five goals. The Berube lead Leafs are very good at limiting offensive chances against, but the cost is that they have neutered a collection of the NHL's best scorers.
The new coach needs to find balance within his system or move back to a more interesting, effective and progressive puck-possession system - like the much better one employed by Sheldon Keefe for the last five years.
A North/South game based around defensive responsibility and not taking risks is good for teams with limited offensive upside, but why anyone would ask Mitch Marner and William Nylander to play this way is beyond me. The Leafs were one of the best rushing teams under Keefe, and they were great at holding the puck while chances developed. This led to Keefe being the most effective regular season coach in NHL history, and while the playoff results were not ideal, I don't think it was ever the Leafs high-risk offensive approach that cost them a single game in a playoff series, let alone the entire series.
Not rushing when you have a team like the Leafs have just seems counterproductive.
As for last night's game, I liked the new lines on defense because 1) Benoit / Hakanpaa is a disaster waiting to happen and so scratching Benoit and putting that atrocity off for now felt ideal 2) OEL can't play in the top-four as has been apparent since the first two weeks of the season (the OEL / Rielly pairing has terrible numbers).
Rielly / Hakanpaa was mostly fine, I guess, but Hakanpaa isn't a top-four NHL player either. The numbers weren't good, but it was his first game so I won't blast him too much. The Leafs desperately need another top-four defender, ideally a number-one, who is preferably name "Zach Werenski."
I liked Steeves getting a shot, but scratching Nick Robertson was dumb - he clearly isn't worse than at least six of the Leafs forwards, but Berube will sacrifice offense for boring guys who do nothing whenever he gets a chance, that much is clear.
With Lorentz, Dewar and Reaves on the fourth line, the Leafs used David Kampf, Pontus Holmberg and Alex Steeves on the third line, essentially creating 2 x fourth lines. Predictably, this did not go well, however, the Leafs learned one thing:
If you could get rid of Holmberg, Kampf and Reaves entirely, you could have a pretty rock-solid fourth line of Dewar, Lorentz and Steeves.
In the end, the Leafs won this game thanks to a great third period and the play of Mitch Marner and John Tavares.