Deadline rendered moot
Club still has wants, but they don’t critically have capital-N needs
Bits, bungs and bobbins. Fill a hole, close a hole, darn a hole: Trade deadline fixes and flexes.
After nearly five months of assaying and assessing a hockey team’s personnel, it’s as if a tweak here and a twinge there will flesh out an optimum whole for that final sprint to the finish, and the playoffs beyond.
Deadline acquisitions can certainly make a quantifiable impact: Paul Stasny to the Jets last year, Evander Kane to the Sharks, J.T. Miller to the Bolts.
But mostly it’s much ado about nothing much, leaving TV analysts to parse pipsqueak deals six ways from Sunday on Monday.
The Maple Leafs, on the heels of an emotional slam-bang-rally 6-3 triumph over Montreal at Scotiabank Arena Saturday — Zach Hyman with the winner, set up by Mitch Marner, 200th career point, followed shortly thereaf- ter by his 201st — might very well stand pat tomorrow, GM Kyle Dubas having already pulled the trigger last month to obtain defenceman Jake Muzzin. They still have wants — more lead in their pencil, for goodness sake — but they don’t critically have capital-N needs. At least needs that can’t be sufficiently addressed from within the organization, including two perfectly decent right-hand shot defencemen in Igor Ozhiganov and Justin Holl, who’ve spent most of the season idling in the press box.
Last night, Ozhiganov got as far as skating in the warm-up, a Plan B for the game-time decision on Jake Gardiner. (In.)
Still and all, a jolt of grit before the clock strikes 3 p.m. EST wouldn’t be amiss, ’round these parts. Maybe someone who would have dropped Andrew Shaw on his butt before he got a second-rebound poke in the middle of the first period to open the scoring 1-0.
Here’s the thing: Passivity aside, the Leafs aren’t severely defective in any part of their collective game. Which is why coach Mike Babcock is always banging on about working harder, being mindful of details and, geez Louise, just starting on time, which Toronto failed to do across three consecutive losses (0-2-1) last week, 40minute-wide goal blanks on each occasion.
There’s no urgency to a corrective for Toronto’s roster now that the ship has all but sailed over the horizon on home-ice advantage in the post-season. If, and forgive the cliché, the Leafs’ stars bear down and play like stars, get their glitter groove back. A la John Tavares, who’s put up 10 points in the past nine games and never takes a shift off. Which means Auston Matthews — belatedly gifted with a pair of fleet-feet wingers in Andreas Johnsson and Kasperi Kapanen — exerting even greater command on events with more dominant ferocity, of which he is well capable, though 10 points over the last six games is hardly slouch-y. Which means Mitch Marner shedding a mini-slump of just one goal in the last dozen games. Which means more shots actually on net and dangerous than the Leafs had been managing — even if there have been plenty of shots; lots of creative flair but poor finish. Until a rollicking finish last night, with a pair of goals from Hyman, the second awarded on the pulldown staring at an empty net.
Kind of a big deal, on a Saturday night, Toronto versus Montreal, from a hometown boy.
“What a win for us,” he grinned. “And to end a losing streak. Saturday night against Montreal, it’s a good feeling. “Just the way we won the game coming from behind.”
Matthews: “It got chippy there at the end. Obviously they competed, we competed. I think that’s what you expect from two teams that have a lot of history against each other.’’
Both hissing hot and cooled out, off this result, with that trade deadline looming. Hardly even fretting about it, not inside the Toronto dressing room anyway.
From the squinty perspective, the Leafs have rather rendered the trade deadline moot. They’ve all but received a shiny new asset in the resurrection of the old William Nylander, deployed as third line centre in the concussion absence of Nazem Kadri and clearly feasting on the play-making space opened up through quick transition in the neutral zone. He has had the puck on his stick a lot. Fourth of the season, last night, was a doozy and a gimme, off a fortuitous bounce off the backboards, Price out of the net, knotting the score 3-3 with 13:02 left in the third.
“I lost track of it,” Nylander admitted of the helter-skelter puck. “It just bounced out. Nobody knew where it was.”
Weird that Babcock, after shortening his bench, came right back from that charged moment by sending his fourth line over the boards. That line has had its energizing moments but remains a composition of often haphazard spare parts, though that appears smoothed out now with Tyler Ennis back from a broken ankle.
Bottom line is the Leafs have depth and talent in spades, so it’s puzzling why they’ve often been flummoxed by hugely inferior opposition.
Against the Habs on Saturday — a team Toronto had beaten in their last six engagements, most recently a fortnight ago, in OT — the Leafs had to prove their mettle, against a cocky squad crafted very much in their own rush and speed-conquers-all image, unexpectedly just three points behind the Leafs and in wild-card position, with nothing to lose because missing the playoffs wouldn’t be a catastrophe in a rebuild season
Both teams out of the chute with a frenzy, dramatic scoring chances at both ends, Carey Price and Freddie Andersen in save lockstep through an opening four minutes without a whistle. But Canadiens went up 3-0 lickety-split, way too free and easy with sling shots on Andersen, though none of the goals could be laid at his doorstep, Toronto doubled up on shots, 20-10.
That quickly took the edge off this dynastic showdown. Then the Leafs re-honed.
Matthews took a gouge out of that hefty lead, striking on a dead-eye wrister from the top of the circle on Toronto’s first power-play opportunity, through Price’s pins, and Ennis drawing Leafs within one, also on the PP, late in the second.
A barrel-housing up-anddown third, Kapanen drilling a shot off the post after Toronto had killed off a hooking infraction to Johnsson. Turned into a helluva game, actually, the Leafs grabbing it by the throat with four unanswered goals in the final period.
They boast depth and talent in spade. It’s that breathless frenzy — zeal and work mania — as displayed last night, where sometimes they have a case of the shorts.