The Maple Leafs traveled to face the Senators for their first ever NHL match-up in Saskatoon. While the weather outside was literally freezing - there was a light snowfall during the game - the crowd inside were warm and friendly with the Leafs, going as far as booing the now Senator Dion Phaneuf whenever he touched the puck.

Unlike the game last Monday for which the Habs iced their ‘C’ team, this was a heavily defensive ‘A’ team from the Senators. The game had a lot more doldrums of dump and chase and repeated neutral zone turnovers, as the Senators focused on shutting down the Leafs offence and preventing the rookies from flashing their magic.

Lines and my “Eye Test”

No official stats for this game were recorded since it wasn’t at an actual NHL arena. With this being only a preseason game, I will focus this recap on my eye test view, and my notes about the lines and players from the game.

The Leafs top line was JvR-Matthews-Marner. They were an effective group bogged down by the Senators dedication to stopping any player from carrying the puck into the attacking zone. However, they were the group most consistently able to break through. Anderson really kept the Senators alive when the Leafs made it in for an attack. Hyman was strong, and JvR did what he does best, getting some scoring chances at the net like this one.

Watching this game I saw nothing like the show Matthews put on in the last game against the Habs. He couldn’t simply plow over the defence, and go where he wanted with ease to set up a play. Most passes on an attack wound up having to go back to Connor Carrick or Morgan Rielly at the blue line, and they would try to shoot it in from there.

Hyman and Nylander played with Greening. They were really stifled by the Senators defence too, but when they broke through they had some great plays. I saw multiple times Nylander make a pass, beyond the two closest teammates, and over to Hyman on the far opposite side of the ice, even though you would expect it impossible for him to know Hyman was there. Nylander magically pulls that stuff off most of the time he tries it (just stop trying the drop pass thing you do, William!).

The third line was Laich-Holland-Kapanen. Kapanen made waves early by attempting his signature gold medal winning wrap-around move on Anderson.

It didn’t work. At all.

Katya remarked “Kappy should be slapped with a wet herring every time he tries that wraparound move.”

However Kapanen also has some other tactics and he put the Leafs in the lead in the third period with this great shot.

Kapanen even got a bit physical, getting in Phaneuf’s face a few times and ultimately starting up a shoving match with the ex-captain.

And then there was the fourth line: Moore-Froese-Prust.

This was the first time I have seen Trevor Moore. He had low ice time, and wasn’t very noticeable, but I mean that in a good way. He did his job. That’s sometimes what a rookie on the fourth line needs; not to be noticed. If you’re noticed by fans watching on TV, it’s probably because you made a big mistake.

Prust had the obligatory pre-arranged fight with Chris Neil. I get they want to put on a show and have limited on ice ability to contribute now but you can even see Prust say “OK. I’m done now” at the end.

There was a real fight later when Andrew Nielsen went beast mode after deciding he had had enough of Pageau. Kid has got A+ helmet removal ability.

Fourth line hero was Byron Froese, He had a goal in the first period, and an assist later in the game. You just know Babs will love that and will probably keep him around.

On defence, Rielly was great, as you can see him with the assist in the above goal. Connor Carrick looked fantastic. Carrick had a great takedown of Bobby Ryan and set up more plays than I could count. Both were good on the (many) penalty kills.

Frederik Andersen made his debut in net and looked good. He stopped a lot of shots (again, we don’t know exactly how many because there are no stats) and didn’t ever look panicked in net.

As in the last game, Babcock made a goalie change because he wanted to take a look at the other guy. In this case it was Antoine Bibeau who came in for the third period. This is a part where I would really like some numbers because Bibeau looked bad, but, that could be the ‘eye test’ going wonky on a small sample size. He came in cold to a game at a point where there was a long sequence of dump and chase, turnover, dump and chase, attacks and didn’t face much offensive pressure.

I was excited for OT, thinking of that last game where we saw the younglings make creative plays with all that open ice, but Bobby Ryan ended it really fast.

The Leafs next game is Thursday against the Habs in Montreal at 7:30 ET.

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