Leaf offence dies by the Ward
Hot Hurricanes netminder puts end to house party
NHL head coaches generally aren’t given to public comment on the work of fellow members of their 30-man fraternity. Lately, mind you, members of Mike Babcock’s coaching tree seem to feel occasionally exempt from the rule.
Babcock, the Maple Leafs coach, certainly seemed to feel that way a few weeks back, when he made note of the overuse of Edmonton’s Connor McDavid by Oilers coach Todd McLellan, Babcock’s one-time assistant. So perhaps Bill Peters, the Carolina coach who has also worked at the right hand of Babcock, figured it was open season on coach-on-coach commentary.
Before Tuesday’s Leafs-Hurricanes game, after all, Peters made public mention of Babcock’s recent habit of tweaking the forward line centred by Auston Matthews. In home games, including Tuesday’s, Matthews has been flanked by William Nylander, the uber-skilled rookie scoring threat. In the past two road games, meanwhile, Nylander has been swapped out for Connor Brown, a more defensively responsible choice.
“It looks like they’ve got a line that plays at home, and a line that plays on the road,” Peters said.
Added the Carolina coach with a smile, speaking of his friend on the Toronto bench: “He’s got to earn his money somehow. That’s what Babs has figured out he’s going to do to justify his paycheque.”
Certainly you’ll understand the Toronto coach’s urge to tinker with his team’s approach to its away-from-home arsenal. The difference between their play at home and on the road has been startling on a lot of levels.
So Tuesday’s 2-1 loss to the Hurricanes counted as an aberration in more than one way. Like, where was the offence? In four of the Leafs’ previous five home games, they’d put up six-goal efforts. Six on Vancouver. Six on Philadelphia. Six on Nashville. Six on Florida.
Peters joked that the Leafs must be in search of a place-kicker given the recent bevy of unconverted touchdowns. Certainly they wouldn’t draft Auston Matthews for the job. The snake-bitten rookie, now 13 games and 29 days into a goalless drought, has been shanking gimmes regularly since he last split the posts Oct. 25.
“He had a wide-open net tonight there — banged it over,” Babcock said. “The way I look at it, you do good things in life, good things happen. Sometimes not as quick as you want.”
Before Tuesday, great things had been happening to the Leafs at the local rink. In nine previous games on Bay Street they’d scored 37 goals.
In nine games away, they’d managed 20. That’s a serious firepower downgrade given that, save for a trip to the Central time zone for games against Winnipeg, Minnesota and Chicago, their mileage has so far mostly consisted of in-and-out trips featuring flights of about an hour or less.
And think about this, too. Toronto’s road power play and penalty kill were running No. 2 and No. 6 in the league, respectively, heading into Tuesday’s games. At home, both special teams have been performing considerably worse. Tuesday, when Toronto went 0-for-3 on the power play while allowing the short-handed winner to ex-Leaf Viktor Stalberg, was no exception.
So what gives? Bad matchups on the road are a factor — and not simply the kind created by the home coach’s exploitation of the last line change.
More than anything, the Leafs have been the road-tripping victims of tough goaltending matchups. They’ve had to face Carey Price, he of the .950 save percentage, twice at the Bell Centre. They drew Devan Dubnyk, currently sporting a .949 mark, in Minnesota.
More than a few home games, meanwhile, have seen them get the benefit of an opponents’ backup. They got Anton Khudobin instead of Tuukka Rask in the home opener. They got Marek Mazanec instead of Pekka Rinne last week against Nashville.
They got a change of pace against the Hurricanes. Carolina netminder Cam Ward came into the game as probably the hottest goaltender in the league. In his four previous starts he’d allowed just four goals against and boasted a .962 save percentage. On Monday he was named the NHL’s second star of the week. On Tuesday he was every bit a standout, stopping 25 of 26 shots. Only Jake Gardiner’s first-period point shot — launched with the cover of net-front traffic provided by Brown and Nazem Kadri —— managed to elude Ward.
“It was a game we were in good position to win,” Babcock said, “and we didn’t get ’er done.”
Now Toronto’s much-talked-about home success — they’re 5-4 — doesn’t seem so impressive. Before Ward stoned them, the cumulative save percentage of Toronto’s homeice opposing goaltenders was .907. To put that in perspective, remember Jonathan Bernier’s abysmal performance as a Maple Leaf last year? That was a .908.
As for the combined save percentage of the goaltenders they’ve faced on the road, it’s a scary .932.
To put that in perspective, remember a couple of seasons ago, when Carey Price won the Hart Trophy and the Vezina as both MVP and top goaltender? His save percentage that year was .933.
“Yeah, we have run into a few good goalies (on the road), but I don’t think that’s an excuse,” Tyler Bozak said. “I think we’ve had more lapses in the games on the road. And haven’t played with the same intensity maybe some nights.”
The Leafs will ideally find a way to equally disperse that intensity.
“I expect us to find a way to win (Wednesday),” Babcock said. “The bottom line is we have to . . . You’ve got to keep yourself in the hunt or else you get in trouble fast in this league.”