When it came to scoring, Mike Santorelli opened the scoring in the second on a nice give-and-go with James Van Riemsdyk - then it was all Winnipeg - T.J. Galiardi, Matt Halischuk, Dustin Byfuglien, Bryan Little, and Ben Chiarot. When it came to possession, it started with Winnipeg and ended with Winnipeg.
Some team stuff:
During the first intermission interview Wheeler, CBC mentioned "over 9 minutes of zone time for the Leafs." I'm not sure if he was talking about possession time, but the 6-10 shot split and though he talked about making the Leafs "play tough minutes," and shots were 6-10 WPG.
The Leafs were cycling to the d-man often while in the offensive zone, which lead to some decent chances early, but nothing that looked extremely threatening until later in the game. I mean, how could they look threatening when they're spending all their time in their own end? Through two periods, Winnipeg doubled the Leafs' shots on goal.
David Clarkson saw second unit power play time. At first I thought "oh hell no, not again" but then I realized that with injuries to Peter Holland, Nazem Kadri, and Joffrey Lupul (basically, the entire second power play unit), it's basically David Clarkson against Daniel Winnik or David Booth for that second unit winger spot. Given this tradeoff, it still shouldn't be Clarkson.
Some individual stuff:
On the second half of a back to back, there were a few people whose ice time I wanted to keep an eye on - Greg McKegg had a great move in the first, where he kicked the puck to his stick while at speed to gain the zone and keep everyone onside. His ice time nearly tripled, up to 11 minutes last night (Booth was around that point too). Phil Kessel and Tyler Bozak came down around the more reasonable 18 minute mark (around 43 minutes each for the two games),
Leo Komarov played with Kessel for a bit, which I thought was an interesting way of spreading out the offense given the injuries. JVR ended up on ice with Santorelli, JVR, and Trevor Smith possibly during a line change and it turned into the Leafs' only goal. With three injuries to skilled forwards, it's time to get creative, and it's nice to see that pan out in at least one way.
I don't think James Reimer looked bad in tonight's game, but it's another night where his stats will look poor. The fourth goal should've been credited to Ladd, as there's no doubt that James Reimer's glove hand was restricted when Ladd slashed at it. Unfortunately, the NHL couldn't review that play because they don't believe that "referee discretion" can be applied to video review, and that since it might be hard to decide . Who knew? Glove high goal after a player slashes the top of a goalie's glove. Feel free to re-read what I said last night about the NHL not doing a great job of fostering discussion on some of this stuff (because it doesn't want or need to).
The rest of it:
One of these teams is on the playoff bubble because they have good possession numbers and mediocre goaltending. The other has shit possession and great goaltending. Tonight's result is a good illustration of why teams should prefer the former to the latter, and why the Leafs' dependency on their goaltending is a huge issue. I shudder to think what might've happened if the Jets weren't missing Bogosian, Enstrom, Kane, Stuart, and Trouba.
Another night, another jersey tossed, another "wake up call" for a team that seems even more tired of this than the fans. The Leafs take on the Capitals this Wednesday at 7. At least the team will have a couple days off between this back to back and Ovechkin.
