Tampa Bay Lightning at Toronto Maple Leafs preview: Why so many goals?

Tampa Bay Lightning at Toronto Maple Leafs: Game 6

Time: 7:30 pm Eastern Time

Location: Air Canada Centre, Toronto, ON, Canada

Broadcast/Streaming: Lightning Radio, Fox Sun Sports, 970 WFLA, TVAS, SN1

Opponent SBNation Site: Raw Charge

When last we saw the Maple Leafs, they'd just lost a game to the Chicago Blackhawks in a shootout by the surprisingly hefty score of 5-4. A few days earlier they lost in overtime in Winnipeg by the same score, and a week before that, in Ottawa, starting the trend. Why have these games been so high scoring?

Uncle Bob compared last year's first 80 games across the league to this year's, and found a significant increase. "Comparing the first 80 games of this season to the first 80 of last season shows an increase of 66 goals, from 421 to 487. That's an average of 5.3 per game to 6.1 — not an insignificant bump." (TSN)

But why? McKenzie speculates that it's because the huge influx of talented youth is driving an increase in scoring: “A number of the coaches attribute the offensive bump to the obvious increase in the number of highly skilled rookies and young players who are populating NHL rosters this season. ‘It's the Team North America effect,’ one coach said. ‘You saw how those young guys played in the World Cup: trading chances, dangerous at both ends of the ice. That's carried over.’” (TSN)

Along with their scoring ability comes an equally loose emphasis on defensive play, something that can be fixed with experience. But until then, maybe the League's goal scoring drought has been solved? Here's how the current race for the Calder looks, with two fun names at the top of it:

Top two rookies by scoring are both maple leafs, as the prophecy foretold. pic.twitter.com/BUuxSqUXzf
— Micah Blake McCurdy (@IneffectiveMath) October 24, 2016

But here's the thing. I'd believe the whole "youth let teams be leaky but high scoring" narratives if Tampa wasn't involved in its own crazy high-scoring games. In the first game of the season, Tampa beat Detroit by a score of 6-4, which says good things about Tampa's "old" veterans, but not much about Ben Bishop.

Tampa has only one rookie in the lineup, and at age 20, he’s not actually that young: Brayden Point. Other Tampa game scores have been more moderate, 4-3 against the Cats, 4-1 against Ottawa (Vasy in net), but Bishop has not yet had a game as solid as last season. Is it his health, still in recovery from the 2nd-round playoff injury? Is it age? Is it the insecurity of a certain kitten-wielding young star breathing down his neck?

Or could it be a change to goalie equipment? As of October 9th, Elliotte Friedman speculated that the smaller goalie pants were being sent out to the league, but not the rest of the more streamlined kit. “The tighter, more form-fitting pants will be worn…once everyone gets them. The hope is that’s in time for Wednesday. But it’s possible that doesn’t occur since Reebok/CCM ships from China and Bauer from Thailand. But goalies recognize this is going to happen early in the season.” (Sportsnet)

If these new pants have been distributed, it might account for some of the strangely uncertain play in goal, both for Bishop and Freddy Andersen. (The whole 30 Thoughts about the equipment change is pretty fascinating.)

What's upcoming midseason or at the end of next season will definitely change the game: "Reductions will be made to the pants and upper body of the equipment, thus cutting down on unnecessary 'fat' which didn’t serve to protect goaltenders, only help some gain an unfair advantage." (Sportsnet)

Vasilevskiy started for Tampa last Saturday, so Toronto gets Bishop. Will he continue to be leaky, feeding Uncle Bob's narratives forever, when Toronto beats Tampa by the ridiculous score (this is my speculation) of 6-5 in OT?

We’ll see how this goes...

Here are yesterday’s practice lines for both teams:

Toronto Maple Leafs

Forward Lines

Zach Hyman - Auston Matthews - William Nylander

James van Riemsdyk - Tyler Bozak - Mitch Marner

Leo Komarov - Nazem Kadri - Connor Brown

Matt Martin - Peter Holland - Seth Griffith/Josh Leivo

Defence Pairings

Morgan Rielly - Connor Carrick

Jake Gardiner - Roman Polak

Matt Hunwick - Nikita Zaitsev

Goaltenders

Frederik Andersen

Jhonas Enroth