(Toronto) Is it allowed to begin analyzing the first game of a season without mentioning that it is only the first game of a season? And that we should not draw hasty conclusions? Probably not.
It was only a first match, then. Far from perfect for the Canadian, who lost 6 to 5 in the shootout after blowing two two-goal leads. Let us be wary, then, of hasty conclusions. That’s it for the formalities.
This meeting still made it possible to verify a hypothesis that had been formulated for a long time: if, finally, Nick Suzuki’s trio could receive help, the offensive dynamic of this team could change drastically and quickly.
The unit of Alex Newhook, Kirby Dach and Juraj Slafkovsky had only spent one game in training during the preseason schedule. The last of the team, last Saturday in Ottawa. With a fairly anecdotal result.
This combination, however, survived and formed the CH’s second trio in Toronto on Wednesday. And the magic happened.
Not only did the trio score two goals, but they were the result of a concerted effort that highlighted the strengths of each of its members.
At the start of the second period, Slafkovsky and Newhook took flight when Dach took possession of the puck in the neutral zone. The exchange between the Slovak and the Newfoundlander was sublime, and John Tavares never understood what was happening to him.
In the third period, Slafkovsky’s physical play allowed him to steal the puck from Max Domi along the boards. Moments later, Dach left the puck to Arber Xhekaj near the blue line. Newhook was well placed to deflect the defender’s shot.
The big number 20 didn’t get a point down the stretch, but without him there would have been no goal.
“Maybe we won’t see his name on the scoresheet every night, but he does the right things,” Kirby Dach said of his young teammate.
In the preseason, the two were paired together five times. The center therefore spoke with knowledge when he said that Slafkovsky was improving “from match to match”. “He has more and more confidence, you can see him smiling on the ice,” Dach said. He competes, he works hard, especially away from the puck, and that generates chances. Not just for him: for Newhook and for me too. »
This trio, Dach further noted, has “a little bit of everything.” Speed in all three positions, especially on the wings. Two strong players. And at least two members with strong instincts—the third is still working on that.
Alex Newhook “is so fast,” Slafkovsky impressed. “It flies on the ice. It makes other players skate more, and I skate more. It keeps the game moving. Our chemistry is improving. »
These two goals come at the right time for Newhook. Including the playoffs, his last two successes, while wearing a Colorado Avalanche uniform, came in a 33-game window.
“It feels good,” he admitted at the end of the evening. It can be frustrating to go through such long periods of lethargy. I want to build on that by continuing to go into the difficult areas. »
He also felt that things were going pretty well for his trio. “We created a lot of rhythm. »
Martin St-Louis made the same observation. “Especially in the third period, they were dominant,” he analyzed. In his eyes, Slafkovksy played “one of his best matches” to date. “He’s learning how to play with these guys and how you play as a team. »
The success of this unit, we said in the opening, is likely to finally give Nick Suzuki some breathing room. The latter, with Cole Caufield and Josh Anderson, also had a mixed evening. Some confrontations with Auston Matthews’ trio were painful.
The emergence of Kirby Dach at center and his association with players capable of playing at his level could well give the Canadian the greatest diversification of his top 6 since the departure of Phillip Danault.
“I like our depth,” said Martin St-Louis. I think it’s going to be a year where it won’t always be the same guys doing the job. It will be a group that will work hard together. »
The coach also mentioned the good work of his fourth line, led by Jake Evans, who was responsible for two goals at five on five.
However, it was very different for the third line, which did not look good at all. Sean Monahan looked good alone in the center of Tanner Pearson and Brendan Gallagher.
However, we will have plenty of time to talk about it again. It was, after all, only the first match.
Did he play the best match of his young career? We would like to answer yes.
Each of his trio’s confrontations resembled an adventure in which he was not the hero. Everything seemed difficult for him. A very bad start.
This is the time that elapsed between the Habs’ 13th and 14th shots on target. The split sequence, between the second and third periods, ended with two goals on two shots.
Arber Xhekaj had indicated during training camp that he would choose his fights better this season. In the literal sense of the word. This promise will have kept… 10 minutes. In the middle of the first period, after the colossus Ryan Reaves had dealt checks against Jesse Ylönen and Kaiden Guhle on the same presence, Xhekaj gave his gloves a break. Reaves was not going to refuse such a great invitation. The fight lasted a few seconds and ended when the Leafs forward fell on the net. This duel won’t go down in history, but Xhekaj certainly had time to think about it: he was given a minor instigator penalty with 10 minutes for misconduct. This for a total, adding the major punishment for fighting, of 17 minutes of penance. The sequence, ultimately, was to the total advantage of the Torontonians, who saw an opposing defender miss almost an entire period of action.
A goalie who receives 42 shots from the Toronto Maple Leafs is not having a quiet evening right off the bat. And certainly not easy either. Jake Allen, to whom Martin St-Louis had entrusted the net for this meeting, seemed very solid at the start of the match… until that was no longer the case. The men in blue looked completely disorganized in the second half. Then Noah Gregor beat Allen with a shot from the left wing, a play that immediately went down in the goals-the-goalie-would-like-to-see-again file. We certainly couldn’t blame the veteran on the next two goals, scored while the Leafs were playing five against four. However, the one who reduced the gap at the end of the course was… embarrassing? We would like to believe that the low shot came from the stick of Auston Matthews, but the goalkeeper completely missed the cover of the post to his left. While the issue of sharing tasks among goalkeepers promises to be a hot topic this season, these two gifts from the outset are not very exciting for Allen.
Despite a first period during which his trio did absolutely nothing good, Auston Matthews found his bearings in the second period and became the offensive player of the match. He first tied the game at 2-2 on the power play in the second period, then he scored twice which allowed his team to erase a 5-3 deficit at the end of the third period. This is far from being the first great start for Matthews, who, remember, scored four goals in his very first game in the NHL, in 2016. In fact, in his eighth season in the NHL, he has now scored a total of 12 goals in his first outing of the fall. The American finished Wednesday’s match with eight shots on target, and his line partner Tyler Bertuzzi, five.
