In a word: ‘Amazing’
Maple Leafs welcome defenceman Sandin back to lineup
It is the kind of move that isn’t easily taught. A subtle slide, just a touch to the right. A subtle slide, just a touch to the left.
“Amazing,” said Tomas Kaberle, the former Maple Leaf, standing on the edge of the team’s dressing room. He was talking about 19-year-old Rasmus Sandin. “I thought he was amazing. Our best defenceman out there tonight.
“He’s not a big guy. He plays with no fear. He plays so smart. What a great game for him to come back with.”
He does it with a sense of ease and calmness with the puck, what some can take a lifetime to learn. Something Kaberle could certainly understand. Sandin does it often. He does it rather easily. He does what came so naturally to the great Nicklas Lidstrom, the greatest National Hockey League defenceman since Bobby Orr.
This isn’t to say that Sandin will ever be anywhere near his countryman Lidstrom — maybe no one ever will. And no one will ever do what Orr was able to do on so many different levels.
But Sandin returned to the NHL, rushed really after the injury to Morgan Rielly, brought up before he was totally ripe after a rather spectacular world junior tournament and he left little to the imagination on what is, for him, another return to the Maple Leafs.
How many times have you seen it in the past? A jumpy rookie on defence. A nervous teenager. Rushing pucks off their stick and from the blue line. Getting shots blocked. Putting their team in some kind of peril.
“He’s fun to watch,” said Auston Matthews. “He’s fun to be out there with.”
Sandin had a rather magical return to the NHL on what was a late struggle away from an overwhelming win by the Leafs. A big win, considering the circumstances, no matter who the opponent happened to be. After three consecutive losses, including that real stinker in Florida, they needed a semi-laugher and they needed it on the first game playing without their two best defencemen, Rielly and Jake Muzzin.
But, really, the alterations started with the youngest Leaf. He didn’t have a shot on goal in the first period and that’s one of those statistics that is open to interpretation. Kaberle understands. They used to yell “shoot” at him all the time. He preferred to pass. Instead of shots on goal for Sandin on Tuesday night, they should have counted shots at goal.
The first one he took, dragging the puck just slightly to the right, was tipped in by captain
John Tavares. The second one he took, again dragging the puck slightly, waiting, the kind of shot that could have been blocked but wasn’t — nothing hard, just accurate and clean — this one tipped by Zach Hyman. That made it 3-0 in the first period.
“His ability to walk the blue line is amazing,” said Hyman, who called Sandin’s night “awesome.”
It sounds easy. It isn’t. Voted best defenceman at the Christmas world junior tournament, Sandin was on the ice for all three of Toronto’s first-period goals. That, on a makeshift Maple Leafs defence. The injury to Rielly could be the kind that makes the club stronger in time.
We know what Rielly is capable of; we’ve seen him at his best. What we need to find out, not from one night but from many nights, is what Sandin will be when other teams start scouting him and game-planning against him and understand what it is he does well and not so well.
All that will come to fruition over the next two months. But Tuesday night couldn’t have gone better for the kid.
And it’s so easy to forget that he’s just 19 in a league where defencemen take time to develop. This was his seventh NHL game. He may not be Cale Makar and may never be explosive the way the young Colorado defenceman is. He may not be Quinn Hughes, Jack’s oldest brother, rushing the puck may not necessarily be his game. His game is thinking. His game is patience. His game is composure. His game is putting the puck in places that don’t get your team in trouble.
Most of those qualities aren’t necessarily coached. It’s like watching Ben Roethlisberger go back to pass under pressure. He isn’t the smoothest runner. He isn’t the quickest at getting the ball away. He sees things that aren’t naturally seen. He slides in the pocket. He avoids the sack.
The great ones find a way. It’s too early to say what Sandin will be, but the gifts are apparent. And the Sheldon Keefe system of uber-possession, empowering the defenceman to hold the puck longer rather than give it away, fits the skill-set of Sandin rather nicely.
He played five minutes and 14 seconds in the first period, fifth most among the Leafs six defencemen, but was in on all the important plays. He played 5:18 in the second period, wasn’t on for a goal against, made another of those slide-and-wait passes to the net — another play without a shot on goal — that almost resulted in another Hyman goal.
This was a clean, smart, efficient start for Sandin, an important win for the Maple Leafs, a re-start for a club in need of