Tough return for Freddie
Leafs happy to have steadying presence of Andersen again, but give a gift to Avalanche
Andersen back in the net for Toronto after 22-day layoff, but Avalanche roll over Leafs in 6-3 win,
So Freddie’s back, and that’s probably for the best. The Toronto Maple Leafs are stacked, loaded, full of stars, and none of it matters nearly as much unless Frederik Andersen is looming behind them, solid and Danish and reliable. He missed eight games over the holidays. The Leafs won four.
Andersen was on the ice every day during his 22-day layoff. And Monday night against a drowning Colorado Avalanche team he was finally back. The Leafs stunk, but he was back.
“Yeah, I mean, I don’t want to get into specifics, but I’ve been working hard on making sure it feels well and feels good to play on, and obviously something that won’t linger,” said Andersen before stopping 33 of 36 shots in a 6-3 loss to the Colorado Avalanche.
“That’s the main issue, that’s why we took a little bit of extra time to make sure it was feeling great. I’m sure I probably, if I really had to play, I could have pushed it a little bit sooner. But we tested our patience a little bit to try to get it fixed.”
It surely tested head coach Mike Babcock’s patience, too. Babcock doesn’t push injured players to come back soon, but he does prod.
Andersen said a groin injury, the first of his goaltending life, had been bothering him through the month of December.
His save percentage in October, operating under the same workload that saw Andersen start 66 games each of the past two seasons, was .919 in a league with an average number of .908. In November, Andersen was at .942.
And then Dec. 8 in Boston he was blown out on Saturday night — Andersen later said he had let Boston’s grimy work around the crease get to him, “getting into battles in the crease a little too much, and that probably took me off my game a little bit” — and he was at .910 the rest of December, and seemed to be trending towards those kind of up-anddown months that have characterized his time as the fulltime goaltender in Toronto.
“(The groin injury) kind of slowly started nagging me, and got worse,” said Andersen. “But yeah, I felt I had a strong start to the year, and except some games in December where it wasn’t feeling as well.”
So then came the break, which stretched beyond what appeared to be its reasonable limits. Andersen’s last game was Dec. 22 against the New York Rangers; he went through his first full practice Jan. 4. But it took another 10 days, including some flu-like symptoms that kept him out Saturday night, until he was back in net.
Now, the fact that it was Andersen’s first groin injury probably was part of that. The responsibility he carries — which he has tried to prepare for with ever-increasing summer workouts, a quieter mental approach to his phone, and a list of goals he writes at the beginning of every day — had to be another part of it.
“I’ve never gone through anything like this, with this particular injury, so I didn’t really have any expectations: just kind of going by what they’re saying in the trainers’ room,” said Andersen. “Yeah, I mean that’s the tough part. You want to be in there, you want to be in there winning every night, and that’s really hard to do, especially when you feel like you’re playing well.”
But safer is better. Andersen is only the single most essential part of this organization’s hope to play for a Stanley Cup. Going into Monday night, the Leafs had three players in the league’s top five in points per minute at 5-on-5: Auston Matthews, John Tavares, Mitch Marner. Morgan Rielly is third among defencemen in points.
But without Freddie, the bottom falls out. Toronto is improving its puck-possession game with a fuller lineup, but backup Garret Sparks is still figuring out how to find his place in the NHL on a consistent basis. Michael Hutchinson wasn’t a disaster as a fill-in, but that’s not a plan to contend. Andersen carries a lot on those shoulders.
“Yeah, I mean, it’s a big workload, but I’ve been saying this the whole time: we need to get back to a place where we’re comfortable, and not making things worse,” said Andersen last week.
So now he’s back, and after William Nylander’s holdout, and injuries to Auston Matthews and Andersen, and injuries and a suspension to Zach Hyman, it was the fifth game all season that featured every significant Leaf in the lineup. Every game brings discussion of the future cap crunch, but the Leafs may never have more talent to chase a Cup.
So whether keeping Andersen out a little longer was bigpicture thinking or not, it’s to the good. Andersen will likely top out at 60 starts this year instead of 66; asked about adrenalin in his return he said, “I don’t know, I think you want to keep that at bay a little bit. Usually as a goalie you don’t want to fly out too far and almost work too hard. You’ve got to stay patient and try to be calm in there.”
That goes double for the season, because the aspirations are big. It’s a little disquieting, thinking how much rides on Andersen staying sound in body and mind. His staying away may have been for the best, too.