Subscribe Us

5 Maple Leafs Takeaways: Campbell’s struggles continue, Kase takes scary hit

admin Disyembre 08, 2022

Darryl Sutter hockey is playoff hockey.

It’s forechecking and penalty killing. It’s north-south and nasty.

It scrums between whistles and dares you to take a breather.

It outhits you, blocks more shots than you, and bets on getting better goaltending than you.

It prefers to outwork than overthink.

The Toronto Maple Leafs were fed a heaping Darryl Sutter Special at Scotiabank Saddledome on Thursday, as the Flames made the best of their opportunities and rode a wave of five unanswered goals en route to a 5-2 comeback victory.

“I thought our guys played hard, I thought we made plays, I thought we controlled the game,” Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said. “But when you make those kind of mistakes, you can’t win.

“We just have to not let things snowball.”

Campbell outduelled as Leafs marksmen no match for Markstrom

Jacob Markstrom was phenomenal, making 46 saves.

Jack Campbell was less so, making 21.

Though Campbell is hardly the only one to blame for the loss, when the score of a tight, hard-fought match is knotted 1-1 midway through, you cannot surrender three goals on three shots and expect to win.

The Maple Leafs’ hardworking penalty kill was mostly excellent, so Oliver Kylington’s power-play shot seeping through from the point was tough to swallow.

“Couple tough bounces, couple errors I made. But I’ll fix those,” Campbell said. “Definitely could’ve won the hockey game.”

Campbell has now given up five goals in three of his past six starts.

Credit the Calgary offence, which builds momentum by flying north and not shying away from physicality.

“Their best players, the way that they’re playing, it just seems like they’ve got renewed confidence,” said Keefe, who’s always held Calgary’s defence in high regard. “Their best guys weren’t playing with the same confidence and swagger [last season] that they seem to be now.”

Will Keefe give his all-star a chance to redeem himself Saturday in Vancouver? Or does Petr Mrazek — winner of four straight — get some run?

‘Scary’ hit takes out Kase

When all six feet, six inches of nasty Nikita Zadorov steps in the way — feet planted, elbow tucked — of six-foot Ondrej Kase and catches the winger with his head down, you can’t help but think of the kamikaze’s concussion history.

Kase’s helmet went flying from the thunderous impact and beelined it to the dressing room once he got to his feet. He remained off the ice due to precautionary reasons and there was no update on his health postgame.

Toronto’s Morgan Rielly immediately went after Zadorov in retaliation, taking a cross-checking minor the team happily killed.

But with the Leafs only dressing 11 forwards to start, Kase’s absence threw the units out of rhythm even more.

“Anytime someone’s helmet falls off, it can be scary,” former Flame T.J. Brodie said on the broadcast. “Hopefully he’s all right.”

“Kaser means so much to our team, and he’s got a tough injury history,” Campbell added. “So, we’re praying for him.”

Keefe and John Tavares both took issue with the check.

“My opinion is it should be an automatic… it’s a violent hit. We’re trying to get those hits out of the game that injure players like that,” Keefe said. “I thought there should’ve been a call.”

Added Tavares: “I didn’t like it. I thought [Zadorov’s] hands finsihed up high.”

Tight salary cap takes toll on Leafs lineup

So nestled against the salary cap are the Maple Leafs that when Matthews took a rest from practice Tuesday, the club invited University of Toronto skaters Brendan Bornstein and Kyle Potts as fill-ins.

“I played with Pottsy,” Jason Spezza said of his temporary wingman. “We chatted all day. I tried to get some laughs out of him and just make him feel relaxed. A good opportunity for those guys to come and experience an NHL practice.

“You try to have fun with it. You try to help him out. When you come to a new team, you can get a little new-drill-itis going on, so we tried to help him out and make sure he knows the drill before we get going.”

Spezza can see the fun side of the scenario, but we doubt Nick Ritchie and Kyle Clifford are laughing.

Because the NHL ditched its taxi squads and because the American League is on all-star hiatus, Ritchie and Clifford are stuck in limbo, without games or practices. They are squeezing in sessions with Toronto’s development staff this week, but they cannot be on the roster sucking up valuable cap space.

GM Kyle Dubas shared his message to the veterans: “This is our group. It’s largely constrained by the salary cap. We need you to go down and continue to stay active. We know you’re probably not happy about it, but you’ve got a great group of people that can work with you there with the Marlies staff and our player development group. So, use that to try to keep yourself ready for when you’re needed here.”

Ritchie is a $2.5-million cap hit, but the Leafs can bury about half of that if he’s in the minors.

So even with Wayne Simmonds missing Thursday’s game due to the birth of his second child, the Leafs deployed seven defencemen instead of recalling Ritchie.

“Do I wish every player that we sign worked out perfectly? Of course,” Dubas said. “And I just don’t think the story is done at this point for any of those players that are in our system, or we’ve signed, that it hasn’t worked out yet for.”

Toronto is projecting to accrue $1.02 million is space by the March 21 trade deadline, per CapFriendly.com.

Muzzin returns, but so do the minuses

Until Kase left, the Maple Leafs had nearly made it through their first period of the season at full health.

Hardnosed defender Jake Muzzin returned to the lineup after missing seven games with a concussion.

A major focus for the coaching staff is getting its shutdown duo of Justin Holl and Muzzin rolling strong again.

“I think it’s some of his play with the puck,” coach Sheldon Keefe acknowledged of Muzzin’s uneven season. “He’s looking for some consistency there, to move it out clean out of our end and get going. This type of reset maybe may turn into a positive for him in that sense.”

After nearly a month away, Muzzin and Holl have some work to do.

The duo had issues with Calgary’s speed and determination at even-strength, but did an admirable job on the penalty kill, which saw a ton of work early.

Muzzin was a dash-2, Holl a dash-3.

“We’re really happy to have him back,” Keefe said. “He’s a very important player for us.”

Matthews is just fine, thank you

That sound you hear is a deep sigh of relief from Leafs Nation.

Auston Matthews needed assessment and a (planned) day off after suffering an inadvertent glancing blow to the head from the knee of Brett Pesce late in Monday’s win over the Hurricanes.

But the Hart Trophy candidate happily reported that it was “nothing serious” and that he wouldn’t miss this game.

“It just happened so quick. I just felt like I got hit in the side of the head pretty hard and wasn’t expecting it,” Matthews said. “So, I was just a bit shaken up.”

Everything looked back to normal in Calgary, as an engaged Matthews swiped 74 per cent of his faceoffs, pinged a crossbar, and he and Mitch Marner combined for a silly 18 shots, generating chances aplenty.

Matthews set up rookie Michael Bunting with a pretty drop-pass assist to extend his point streak to six games.

Marner’s career-high 10 shots on Markstrom suggest he was hoping to extend his goal streak to nine games. Alas, Calgary’s goalie was too dialled in.

One-Timers: The Leafs will hold a short practice Friday in Vancouver ahead of Saturday’s game…. Simmonds will miss practice but will be ready to play Saturday…. High-danger chances: 8-8.



5 Maple Leafs Takeaways: Campbell’s struggles continue, Kase takes scary hit
Source: Pinas Ko Mahal
Tags:

Mag-post ng isang Komento

0 Mga Komento