Leafs Week In Review: Week 3

Record at start of this week: 2-3-1

Record at the end of this week: 4-4-1

Well, that week was a little bit better for the Leafs. Toronto took two wins out of three games starting the week off with a terrible performance losing 4-1 to Frederik Andersen and the Carolina Hurricanes they followed that up with a comeback, overtime 3-2 win against the Chicago Blackhawks and to close out the week, a 5-4 win against the Detroit Red Wings.

Matthews grabbed the lone goal for the Leafs in the game against the Hurricanes in a game that looked just like every other game the Leafs played before this match-up. The Leafs showed some fight against Chicago coming back from down 2-0 to win 3-2 in overtime and then in a game with little defence, the Leafs won 5-4 against Detroit.

Everybody has been looking at Matthews, Marner and Tavares because of this awful start and through three games Matthews had one goal and one assist, Marner had one goal and one assist and Tavares had two goals and two assists. In the final two games, Tavares and Marner looked pretty good and Marner finally got the monkey off his back, scoring a goal in the Detroit game. Tavares had a three-point night against Detroit and while Matthews doesn’t have much to show for it this season I don’t think he has looked that bad and it is just a matter of time until the puck starts to find the back of the net. One guy that I thought has been really good even throughout the tough start is Michael Bunting. Through the first nine games, he has scored three goals and two assists for five points. Those numbers are pretty good but his production is not what has stood out for me, what stood out is how good he is at getting under the opposing team’s skin and also going to the dirty areas. I love his game and he reminds me of Zach Hyman. If he can keep this up, it would be a fantastic bargain-bin deal for Dubas.

The defence is really interesting right now especially after Keefe made Justin Holl a healthy scratch in the last game against Detroit and shaking up the pairings. Holl, like much of the team, has had a rough start to the season which is what led to Keefe making the change. The new pairings he used were Rielly-Dermott, Muzzin-Brodie and Sandin-Liljegren. The pairing I’m the most concerned about is the Rielly-Dermott pairing, If Dermott can perform well playing first pairing minutes and if he can become a little bit better defensively I don’t mind this pairing but we’ll have to wait and see. The Muzzin-Brodie pairing is great, this is a true shutdown pairing and can be used when they need to lock down a lead. On the third pairing, I love that Sandin and Liljegren are finally getting a chance and in the Red Wings game Liljegren looked good. The Leafs need to continue playing these guys if they want to develop them and have them ready for the future, this time they’re getting is extremely valuable. The team defence in the Red Wings game wasn’t great as they allowed four goals so hopefully, they can tighten up and keep the goals against down.

Jack Campbell played well this week, he made a few big stops to keep the Leafs in the game against Chicago and in Carolina the team was horrific in front of him and he still wasn’t bad. Campbell has had a pretty good start, a lot of these close games were only close because of Jack and the Leafs need to get going and start racking up some wins for him. Mrazek is back with the team and got the start against the Red Wings. Mrazek allowed four goals on 31 shots but I can’t really pin any of the goals just solely on him. Maybe you want him to get to that back door pass and poke it away on the third goal but the coverage by the Leafs was terrible and on the fourth goal you might want him to save that but it looked like when Marner tried to block the shot, he screened Mrazek a little bit. The Leafs needed to clean up their game defensively and Mrazek also gets a but of a pass from me as it was his first game back from his groin injury.

The Leafs took two out of three last week which is nice to see but now looking ahead to next week it is going to be tough. The next three games are going to be against a struggling Vegas team but then the Leafs have Tampa Bay and Boston. This will be a huge test for the Leafs so let’s see how they do.

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