Leafs catch Lightning in a bottle

The Maple Leafs had plenty of time to ponder their disastrous California road trip.
A long flight, a day away from the rink, meetings and a practice all came on the heels of Toronto — in the midst of a fight for its playoff life — grabbing a solitary point and scoring a measly trio of goals against the Western Conference’s three bottom-feeders.

The response early against one of the NHL’s top teams was impressive on Tuesday.
And after the Tampa Bay Lightning inevitably pushed back, the Leafs showed a level of commitment that’s been lacking far too often during this roller-coaster 2019-20 season.
Auston Matthews scored his 47th goal of the campaign early in the third period and Frederik Andersen made 32 saves as Toronto picked up a crucial 2-1 victory over Tampa to snap an ugly three-game slide.

William Nylander also scored for the Leafs (36-25-9), who lost to 5-2 to San Jose, 1-0 in a shootout to Los Angeles Kings and 2-1 at Anaheim in the space of four days last week.
Mitch Marner and John Tavares put up two assists each for Toronto, which had star defenceman Morgan Rielly back in the lineup for the first time since breaking his foot on Jan. 12.
Ondrej Palat replied for the Lightning (43-21-6), who got 34 stops from Andrei Vasilevskiy.
With the victory, the Leafs moved three points ahead of the Florida Panthers for the third and final playoff spot in the Atlantic Division. Florida has one game in hand.

"We’ve talked about being more consistent and now more than ever, just given the standings, the time of year and remaining games, it’s an opportunity for us to start to play well and build some momentum," said Rielly, who missed 23 games due to injury. "If you look back to this time last year our performances weren’t what we wanted them to be in time for playoffs … this year we’ve got a chance to fix that and change that.

"It’s important that we take that seriously."
With new/old line combinations in its top-6 forward group — Matthews was back with Nylander, while Marner and Tavares were reunited — Toronto was fired out of a cannon early, buzzing Vasilevskiy with 18 shot attempts compared to zero against through the game’s first 11 minutes.
The problem was, nothing was getting through.
"You have lots of time to reflect," Matthews, just one goal back of Alex Ovechkin and David Pastrnak for the NHL lead, said of the time between Friday’s loss in Anaheim and Tuesday’s response. "Our first period is a good starting point for us and how we want to play. We’ve got to make sure we do that more consistently and throughout the game."
Lightning head coach Jon Cooper had a different view of the opening period, stating bluntly the only thing missing was "effort" from his team.
"It was disappointing," he said. "During the course of a year … it’s 82 games, three periods a game, it’s a lot of periods of hockey. For the most part, we have a lot of good ones. There’s a small amount that we could have been better, and then there’s a couple that have been embarrassing.
"That would fall in the embarrassing (category)."
But after Tampa battled back to tie things 1-1 through 40 minutes, Matthews connected for Toronto’s second power-play goal of the night when he took a backdoor feed from Marner down low at 3:38 of the third period.

The Leafs entered Tuesday on a 0-for-14 run with the man advantage, but finished 2 for 5 after also connecting twice on four opportunities in a 4-3 victory at Tampa on Feb. 25. Toronto’s penalty kill was equally solid Tuesday, keeping the Lightning off the board on their four attempts.
The visitors pressed late in the final period, but Andersen was there to close the door, including a big stop on Kevin Shattenkirk from the slot, to secure a much-needed Leafs’ win.
"He was great," Rielly said of his netminder. "He really held us in there."
Tampa now sits eight points back of Boston for first in the NHL’s overall standings and the Atlantic after also getting stunned 5-4 in a shootout by last-place Detroit on Sunday.
With the NHL joining the NBA, MLB and MLS in restricting access to locker rooms in hopes of reducing the risk of spreading coronavirus, the Leafs and Lightning held their pre- and post-game availabilities with reporters in separate media centres at Scotiabank Arena.
Toronto also usually unfurls two massive flags during O Canada — the traditional Maple Leaf and one with the team’s logo — for the crowd to pass across the lower bowl, but that practice has been shelved.

There appeared to be more empty seats than usual for the game, especially one involving two of the league’s highest-scoring teams, and fans were advised before puck drop and at the end of every period on ways to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
Down 1-0 after a first that could have seen Toronto up by three or four, the Lightning got even with 4:37 left in the second.

Brayden Point blew past Leafs defencemen Tyson Barrie and Rasmus Sandin before the puck fell to Nikita Kucherov. His initial shot was stopped, but Palat was there to bag his 17th on the rebound.
Making just his second start in the last 10 days, Andersen was terrific earlier in the period with saves on Carter Verhaeghe and Tyler Johnson on breakaways before snagging a one-timer off the stick of Mikhail Sergachev.

The Leafs came out with one of their best starts in recent memory, peppering Vasilevskiy on chance after chance — including a post from Pierre Engvall on a short-handed break — before Nylander finally got the home side on the board at 12:42 on a power play when he potted a rebound for his 31st.
Andersen had little to do at the other end until late in the period when the Lightning finally started to find their legs, making a couple nice saves before Palat clanked the iron on a shot that stayed out.
"We’ve talked a lot about our starts and consistency in our play," said Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe, whose team hosts Nashville on Thursday. "We moved the puck extremely well. It was a game we just played with the puck on our stick a lot.

"That’s when we’re frustrating."
A stark contrast to last week, when all they did was frustrate their fans.

The next one

quick nick

Nobody called Chris McNamara with a hot tip, telling him that he absolutely had to get out to watch the little American kid play.

There was nothing circled on the calendar, no reason to get excited about seeing one of the weaker minor midget teams in the Greater Toronto Hockey League.
As director of scouting for the Peterborough Petes, McNamara tries to get out to see every team, and it just happened to be the day he locked off to watch the Toronto Red Wings.

The little American might only have been 5-foot-7 — a tiny broomstick on skates — but he would become impossible to ignore.

Nick Robertson was winning battles against much bigger players, stripping the puck from them on the back-check and firing shots with unusual velocity. He was born in Los Angeles, trained in Detroit and was quickly entrenched atop the OHL draft board in Peterborough.
“You go watch other good players, and they show you flashes of greatness and flashes of the high-end skill,” McNamara said. “But this kid was doing it every shift.”
Robertson is still waiting for that decisive growth spurt, but three years after the Petes took him in the first round, that high-end skill has placed him on the precipice of franchise history. The 18-year-old is on the verge of becoming the first Peterborough player to reach 50 goals in a season in 27 years.
According to the Peterborough Examiner, only 13 players have scored that many goals in a season for the Petes, who are the oldest continuously operating franchise in the league. Robertson has scored 47 goals this season, with 10 games still to play.

“It’s exciting, definitely a big accomplishment,” Robertson said. “Hopefully I can get it pretty soon.”
That success also reflects on the Maple Leafs, who picked Robertson with their first available selection in the NHL draft last spring. Toronto got Robertson, the OHL’s potential goal-scoring leader, in the second round (53rd overall). He signed his entry-level contract in September.
“He should have been a first-round draft pick,” said Craig Button, the former Calgary Flames general manager now working as an analyst with TSN.
Robertson has missed time due both to injury and for the world junior championship. His 47 goals have arrived through only 42 games. He is tied with Ottawa’s Jack Quinn for the league’s goal-scoring lead, and Quinn has appeared in 14 more games.

nick robertson has quick hands

“The largest number of mistakes in the NHL draft are on size: Overestimating the bigger player, and underestimating the smaller player,” Button said. “When you’re drafting players at 17 or 18 years of age, they have so much growth ahead of them in terms of physical maturity.”
Button added a point for emphasis: “I don’t scout with a tape measure.”
Robertson is still only listed as 5-foot-9 and 164 pounds. That would make him three inches shorter and 11 pounds lighter than Mitch Marner.
Button compared him to Jake Guentzel, another diminutive American forward, who is playing with the Penguins. He said Robertson is elusive, able to use his leverage to slip under checks from some of his larger opponents.
“He’s a Formula One driver,” Button said. “He can corner. He can speed up on the straightaway. He understands when to down-shift. If you’re a defenceman, you don’t know — you don’t know if he’s going to gear up and go by you, or if he’s going to quickly turn and gain some space for himself.”
Robertson had earned at least a point in 19 straight games heading into a game at home against the Oshawa Generals on Thursday night. The streak encompassed every game the Petes had played since the start of the New Year. He had five goals in three games heading into play against Oshawa.
“He’s an elite goal scorer,” said Petes coach Rob Wilson. “He can score them in all ways: He can score them from distance, he can score them in at the crease, he can score them from a one-timer, he can score them on a deke.”
The Petes deployed him whenever possible against the Generals, their ancient rival.
Robertson was on the point for the team’s first power-play unit. He was also on the first penalty-killing unit. He lined up on the wing at five-on-five, but seemed to be everywhere around the puck, slipping to the open spaces around the offensive zone.
Robertson was held without a point Thursday, snapping his streak.
“It’s an elite group of people who have scored 50 goals in the OHL,” said Petes general manager Mike Oke. “It’s not something that happens on a regular basis.”
Jason Dawe (58) and Mike Harding (54) were the last Peterborough players to reach the mark, hitting it during the 1992-93 season. The Petes own one of the most storied roll calls in Canadian junior hockey, from Wayne Gretzky to Steve Yzerman to Chris Pronger.
“It’s a real terrific accomplishment, and something that Nick should be proud of,” Oke said. “It’s a milestone that will be able to be recognized, and a feather in the cap of the entire Petes organization.”
Robertson’s older brother Jason, a Dallas Stars prospect, led the OHL in scoring last season with Niagara. Over the summer, they rented a condominium together in Aurora, north of Toronto, to be close to fitness guru Gary Roberts. They worked out with him during the week and, on some weekends, Nick Robertson would find another arena to do some more work.

He would shoot 1,000 pucks. Let that resonate, a 1,000 pucks.

“I don’t think there were too many other 18-year-olds up at eight o’clock on a Saturday morning to shoot 1,000 pucks,” McNamara said with a chuckle. “That takes a little bit of determination and will, you know what I mean?”
Robertson does not hesitate when asked about his goal for next fall: He plans to make the Leafs out of training camp.
“He can’t make himself 6-foot-2,” McNamara said. “But he’s going to make sure he’s getting stronger physically.”

An unlikely hero

Defenceman Martin Marincin picked the right time to hit the scoresheet.

After being the odd-man out on Toronto's blueline more often than not this season, Marincin scored the go-ahead goal early in the third period as the Maple Leafs hung on to beat the Vancouver Canucks 4-2 on Saturday.

Marincin entered the night with four career goals in 223 games before potting just his second since 2016-17 to help Toronto go up five points on the Florida Panthers for third in the Atlantic Division.
"I was so, so happy. First goal this season, so I was excited for that," said the 28-year-old playing in his 23rd game of the season. "It's not my role [to score] but I like it. I can do it. I have to be more active."

Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe, who also coached Marincin with the American Hockey League's Toronto Marlies, wasn't as surprised as many in the Scotiabank Arena to see him score.
"Got to love the initiative of Marty to finish it," said Keefe. "He takes a lot of heat around here, up and down [to the minors] but when you call upon him he gives you everything he has and it's all you can ask for."

The Maple Leafs (35-23-8) won four-of-five contests to close out February.
The Canucks (34-24-6) entered six points behind the first-place Vegas Golden Knights in the Pacific and failed to create any space ahead of the teams chasing them in a tight Western Conference.
"We're still good in standings but we got to win games, got to get points," said Canucks star Elias Pettersson, who was held scoreless with no shots on net in 21 minutes of ice time.
"I'm not playing my best hockey right now.

"I want to be better. ... We like to score goals. We just have to find a way to win."
Both goalies had rough starts by combining to allow four goals on seven shots in the first 11 minutes of the game before settling in to turn away the following 48-of-49.

Frederik Andersen made his seventh straight start for Toronto and stopped 25 shots. Vancouver's Thatcher Demko, in net for an injured Jacob Markstrom, finished with 26 saves

While the stars get a lot of the spotlight for the Toronto Maple Leafs, players like Zach Hyman and Kasperi Kapanen continue to draw praise for their play lately.

Despite missing well over a month in his recovery from off-season knee surgery, Hyman is one goal away from matching his career-high and has 36 points in 46 games. It also doesn’t hurt that Hyman has a career-high 20.4 shooting percentage.

 In past seasons, Hyman was given this reputation that he was benefitting from playing with either Auston Matthews and John Tavares but it’s hard to make that argument. Instead, everyone is wondering how the Leafs can find more players like Hyman.

This is where Kapanen comes in. Of course, both have different roles and styles but what Kapanen has shown lately is that he’s not afraid to provide the much-needed chippiness this team doesn’t always play with. He has also shown that he is willing to stand up for his teammates too.
It all started against the Pittsburgh Penguins when Kapanen fought Jared McCann after challenging Patric Hornqvist for hitting Rasmus Sandin then challenged MAcKenzie Weeegar after he hit Travis Dermott.

Kasperi Kapanen will need to score seven more goals to surpass the 20 tallies he had in his first full season but he has a similar shooting percentage and has seen a decrease in ice time as well. It doesn’t help that he was disciplined for showing up late to practice.

It appears the message was received loud and clear and maybe knowing that he wasn’t being moved at the trade deadline was an added relief. Now he can just focus on playing and producing in the way the team expected when he signed a three-year extension.

As long as Kapanen and Hyman can provide that secondary element that the team doesn’t have and play a pivotal role on the team’s penalty kill, it should help Toronto down the road.