Wins the stat that matters for Andersen
Freddie Andersen’s Achilles heel has been, historically, between his legs.
The ol’ five-hole.
Last year he allowed a leaguehigh 26 goals betwixt the stems, a Bermuda triangle for vulcanized rubber.
But lookie here: Just five through the five in 16 games this season. And it’s not like Andersen has been seeing fewer shots. The 454 he’s faced are second most in the NHL behind Edmonton’s Mikko Koskinen. The shooting gallery appears to be his lot in life as a Maple Leaf goaltender, despite the team’s professed overall defensive vigilance, although not so many high-danger strikes.
So, close that scouting book on Freddie. Instead, gander this skinny on goal locations:
20 high blocker — most in the league — eight high glove, four low blocker, six low glove. The Senators scored four of their half-dozen goals against Andersen in the high-blocker area in last Monday’s stunning collapse by Toronto, including the OT winner, blowing a 5-1 lead.
Is that Andersen’s identifiable weakness these days, high blocker? Too small a sample size to tell, really. And sometimes one can disappear up the metrics hoo-haw. Also, metrics don’t measure cool quotient, which is arguably the ginger Dane’s strongest asset. He’s rarely ruffled.
Took it in stride after allowing nine goals in their first two games last month and cue the hand-wringing about notorious slow-starter Andersen. “That’s the beauty of hockey and as a goalie,” he said at the time. “There are really small differences between playing really good and not so good.”
Versus Montreal, at least, pretty damn good with a 10-3-1 record since joining the Leafs, all but once this season prevailing over future Hall of Famer Carey Price, with six more encounters to come as the clubs see a whole lot of each other in this strictly come Canadian dancing season.
On Saturday, it was Andersen who battened down the hatches after the Leafs coughed up a two-goal lead in what was otherwise another marquee turn by Auston Matthews, he of the league-topping 18 goals — a brace of goals and four points on the night — extending his personal points streak to 16 games, as Toronto opened up a 10-point margin over the Habs in the North Division, 5-3 winners.
“Night in, night out, he’s making big saves for us,” said Matthews. “We really left him to dry on a couple of those. Just big, big letdowns. They’re walking in on him, 2-on-0s. But he came up with big saves to keep us in the game and keep our (restored) lead. Obviously he’s been solid for us.”
The soft-spoken Andersen, 31, didn’t have much to say for himself in the wake of his 11th W, also the league high-water mark for wins, along with most games played (16) and thus most minutes (958) — a heavy workload his signature stat, despite endless avowals from the team that they’d better manage the sheer volume. He’d made 10 straight starts before Michael Hutchinson took the net in Thursday’s 7-3 pasting of the Senators.
“They felt good probably about their last game they played, and had a lot of time to sit and rest and get ready for this one,” said Andersen of the Canadiens, who’d edged To
ronto 2-1 the previous Saturday and then had a week off. “It was a good test for us to come out and play very well and, obviously, win.”
Andersen had observed, following the black eye against Ottawa, that a goaltender has to flush the bad games immediately, not dwell. Goalies are wound tight enough as it is. He somewhat reluctantly returned to that theme postgame Saturday, under questioning. “It’s a long conversation we can have later,” he said, vaguely referencing his off-ice emotional stabilizing, the short-term memory discipline. “Like I said before, it’s not something you can ever perfect but it’s something you can be as good at as people.
“When you do make mistakes, you’ll come back quicker and recover for the next play. That’s something that is huge for goalies.”
Matthews was spot-on, though, when he said his teammates had done Andersen no favours on the first two goals surrendered — 33 seconds apart — both on breakaways: Jesperi Kotkaniemi driving in alone, wrister into the top left, then Paul Byron roofing a backhander. In that wild second period, however, Andersen quashed Montreal’s momentum with probably his best save of the night, on Jake Evans.
“The chaos that was the second period — once we got our lead, we’ve got to do a better job than that,” complained coach Sheldon Keefe. “But the third period we were really good in that regard. Kind of sucked the life out of the game, which is what you want to do when you have a lead against a team like this.”
Almost sounded like he was channelling his predecessor Mike Babcock there, lover of stifling hockey where nothing happens.
“We needed to slow the game down and the guys did a good job of that.”
Keefe, by the way, took a gentle swipe at seriously underperforming William Nylander — bench for the final eightplus minutes — albeit lured into it by a journo query. “In the third period, I think we really got it going the way we wanted to, and I didn’t think Willy matched that.”
Andersen made 30 saves on the evening, seven of them from inside the slot, and a clutch were humdingers: Josh Anderson from the slot, Tomas Tatar on a breakaway, Joel Armia robbed on a Montreal power play.
An interesting note about Andersen is that, while racking up all those wins, his personal stats have only been fair to middling: 2.69 goals-against average and .905 save percentage, 31st and 37th in the league, respectively.
Actually, at this juncture, his nadir save percentage across eight seasons.
Pays to have a high-octane offence in front of you, but not glittery numbers for a goalie in the final year of his contract, free agent this summer.
He hasn’t, however, been burned by as many godawful goals as in the past, those memorable lapses in either concentration or positioning that have driven Leafs fans to intermittent despair.
There will doubtless be ceaseless scrutiny on Andersen as the season grinds on and, most crucially, in the playoffs, where he’s yet to prove himself as a goalie with backbone under pressure.
Steady Freddie or Freddie the Unready?
Either way, you’re unlikely to see an existentially Sweaty Freddie.