In last night’s game won by Toronto by a score of 2-1, a few sticks came into play.
Actually, they weren’t in the play that led to Toronto tying the game on a power-play goal with both Cody Eakin and Brayden McNabb not having their sticks in their hands, while they were attempting to kill off the Toronto power play. The VGK have the #1 penalty-killing unit in the league, but you can play with fire only for so long before you get burned. Toronto started the season with 5 power-play goals in their first 5 games, but lately have been less than stellar with the man advantage. Still, the Leafs have way too much talent to give them 6 power-play chances in one game.
Austin Matthews scored on the power play to tie the game at 1-1 when McNabb’s stick was knocked out of his hand, creating 2 VGK players without a stick as Cody Eakin had also been playing without one. Eakin wisely never attempted to take himself out of the passing lanes to pick up his stick. Unfortunately, McNabb didn’t follow suit and when he left the front of the net to retrieve his stick, he gave Matthews an unobstructed lane to rip a shot past Malcolm Subban. With Vegas already short one player on the ice, the 5-on-4 theoretically became a 5 on 2.
Vegas came up on the short side of the stick on this play and the game, which they lost in overtime. John Tavares took a pass from Mitch Marner, who entered the zone with Tavares with only forward William Karlsson playing defense. Shea Theodore had decided to skate deep in the VGK offensive zone, leaving Karlsson along the boards just inside the blue line with a bouncing puck. Both Marner and Tavares pressured Karlsson who lost the bouncing puck. Marner and Tavares were off on a 2-on-1 back toward Subban who once again had an outstanding game and once again came away without a win.
The correct play when defending on a 2-on-1 is to position yourself opposite the player with the puck to prevent the cross-ice pass, leaving the goaltender to take the shooter, while Karlsson takes the other player. But in defense of Karlsson he is a forward and this is not something that he is confronted with often. Theodore’s decision to leave the blue line when Karlsson didn’t have absolute possession of the puck was the downfall that led to Vegas losing last night, thus wasting an impressive performance by Subban.
So far this season Vegas has had 3 games go into the 5-minute overtime session and they have lost all 3 of those games before the 5-minute OT period ended. They were also leading all 3 of these games in the 3rd period. Hopefully, these 3 points that were left on the ice won’t be the deciding factor come playoff time in determining home-ice advantage. We all know how that came into play in game 7 vs. the San Jose Sharks last April.
There is a silver lining to last night loss besides picking up 3 of the 4 points that were up for grabs. That is Malcolm Subban, who has yet to win a game this season, but if you watched his last 2 games, you can feel comfortable in knowing that there seems to be a solution to giving Fleury the time off and rest that he will need to be fresh come playoff time and not have him playing way too many games due to a lack of confidence in Subban.
Subban is looking very confident and the players in front of Subban see this. You could see a number of them come up to him as he skated off the ice last night tapping his pads in acknowledging and recognizing his performance.
Unfortunately, the Toronto goaltender Frederik Anderson played as well if not better than Subban, Anderson made at least 3 huge saves to preserve the win. He robbed Marchessault with 2 huge saves with 5 seconds left in the game on the VGK power play and robbed Karlsson in overtime while Vegas was still on the power play that carried over into OT. Stone sent the puck out to the blue line to Max Pacioretty who in one swift motion sent it over to Karlsson who was alone to the left of Anderson. Karlsson one-timed it, only to find Anderson, who with cat-like reflexes slid right to left to deny Karlsson the game-winner that would have been a nice ending to Malcolm Subban playing for the first time in the city he grew up in.
Max Pacioretty, who seems to hit more crossbars and posts not only on the team but maybe in the entire NHL, scored the only goal that got behind Anderson. It was Patches’ 4th goal of the season to go along with his 10 assists. Patches has scored 2 PPG and has 7 PPP.
Last night the better team came up short, but when you take 6 penalties, you’re playing with fire, and when you attempt to kill penalties with 2 players out of the 4 on the ice not having their sticks, it most likely won’t end well.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have the top 3 players in the league salary wise: Marner $16 million, Tavares $15.9 million, Matthews $15.9 Million. All 3 contributed to the heart-wrenching defeat, with 2 goals and 2 assists, among them.
My 3 Stars of the Game: Frederik Anderson (37 saves on 38 shots), Malcolm Subban (36 saves on 37 shots), John Tavares (1G, the game winner, and 1A)
Next game is Saturday vs. Washington at 4 p.m. Around 2 minutes after the opening faceoff or somewhere close to that, look for Tom Wilson to challenge Ryan Reaves. “The Lion in the Jungle” statement by Revo last season did not sit well with Wilson and he’s not disciplined enough to suppress the need to challenge Reaves before thinking about the game first. If Revo is smart, he’ll wait to accept the challenge until the situation is right. The 2 points are more important.
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