Game in 10: Jack Campbell comes up huge as Maple Leafs survive late Lightning push to take back home-ice advantage - Maple Leafs Hot Stove | Canada News Media
Before the game, Jon Cooper noted, “Usually, these odd-numbered games — Games 3 and 5 — in series are pretty pivotal games. This one is not as pivotal as a Game 5, but it’s pretty darn close.”
Without question, this was the best hockey game of this series. The Leafs came out of it on top and now lead the series 2-1.
Let’s break it all down in the game in 10:
1. I’ve always been fascinated by how teams start games — specifically, who the coaches send out for shift one to set the tone. The Leafs have been starting the John Tavares line through the first two games in response to the Lightning declaring a starting lineup featuring the Brayden Point – Anthony Cirelli line. In this game, Sheldon Keefe switched the opening shift to the Auston Matthews line.
On the first shift, the Lightning got it in deep, and Cirelli laid a big hit on Ilya Lyubushkin, creating a turnover in the slot for Brayden Point, who nearly scored. It was a tough start, particularly for Lyubushkin.
The decision to dress Justin Holl and consequently sit Timothy Liljegren generated a ton of discussion. I am assuming a big part of the coaching staff’s decision-making logic was based on wanting Holl in for the penalty kill. He is a legitimately good penalty killer, and the Lightning power play lit the Leafs up in Game 2.
Jason Spezza was also back in, so he was replacing Liljegren on the power play. If you decide Holl is in fact playing and you’ve completely taken out Liljegren in the process, the question is whether to keep the Rielly – Lyubushkin pairing together or the Giordano – Liljegren pairing together at 5v5.
I am not necessarily saying I agree with it, but that’s really the context of the decision. And Lyubushkin was all over the place in this game, in both a good and bad way.
2. The power play had yet to score on a 5v4 heading into this game, but that changed rather quickly in this one as the Leafs scored on their first PP of the game.
There were some subtle adjustments made on the man advantage by the Leafs. The main one: William Nylander started on the half-wall to begin the power play. The Leafs have been switching Nylander and Mitch Marner on the half-wall — and even moving Auston Matthews to his one-timer side — but Nylander has not generally started on it. He did in this one.
3. The Leafs power play was a little static at the start — specifically, Auston Matthews was taking passes standing still. They are at their best when Matthews catches the puck when skating downhill, and lo and behold, when did the power play break open? AFter Matthews skated in the middle of the ice from the top of the blue line and shot in stride. They just started firing pucks on net from there.
The goal came off of a Matthews one-timer, a Mitch Marner shot off the rebound, and Morgan Rielly potting Marner’s rebound.
The other thing of note: Sheldon Keefe kept the top unit on for the full two minutes. It’s early in the game, and he’s trying to get them going knowing the importance of the first goal of the game. It worked out in this case.
4. In Game 2, the Lightning had their way with the Leafs on the power play. On the first test in this one, the Leafs’ PK got back to what made them successful in Game 1: preventing Tampa Bay from setting up the zone.
We talked about how the Leafs heavily used TJ Brodie and Justin Holl on the PK throughout the season — particularly during the month of April — but even with Holl back in, it was Muzzin – Brodie opening on the penalty kill.
Right when the Leafs killed it off, Muzzin had the puck on his stick under some pressure in a somewhat similar scenario to how the first period ended in Game 2 (where he couldn’t get it out, and Tampa Bay scored shortly after). This time, Muzzin got the puck out, the Leafs went the other way on a 3-on-1, and the Leafs buried it.
A big problem I’ve had with Leafs teams of years past is that it wasn’t always about making the right play; it was about who was the most skilled and getting those players the puck/ice time at all costs. This was a case of simply making the right play.
Pierre Engvall knew it was Ilya Lyubushkin to his right, who is not exactly a playmaker or goal scorer, and you could tell Engvall thought about it for a second. Lyubushkin was simply too open and in too much space, so Engvall dished it and drove the net. Lyubushkin had a special moment and made a special play, setting up Colin Blackwell for the 2-0 goal. That’s good hockey.
5. Alex Killorn ran Justin Holl at the buzzer, a scrum ensued, and the Leafs went to a power play to start the second. It even turned into a 5v3 for 25 seconds (that was a big faceoff loss, essentially negating any opportunity available there).
You have to be careful with this stuff with Tampa Bay; it’s almost like they seek out the antics at times to get themselves fired up and into the game. The Leafs didn’t score on their power plays, and the Lightning seemed to be gaining some momentum, but enter David Kampf.
Kampf is having a series right now. We mentioned Ilya Lyubushkin being everywhere in this one – he picked up an unofficial assist on the goal. With Branden Hagel coming down the wing, he stepped up and laid a pretty good hit. The puck came out of the zone, Hagel picked up the puck in a similar spot with Lyubushkin again coming for him, and Hagel made a bad pass that resulted in a turnover. Kampf skated down the ice and straight-up beat Andrei Vasilevskiy with a wrister.
That’s two goals now for Kampf in this series, and both have them been him legitimately beating Vasilevskiy clean. There were no rebounds or strange deflections. He has straight up skated down the ice and beat him outright.
Kampf scored one goal in 56 games last season. He’s now up to 11 in 82 this season (one was an empty-net goal). Big-time contributions from role players like this are what make the playoffs so fun.
6. With the score at 3-0, the game seemed to be reasonably under control for the Leafs. Justin Holl played a good first period and contributed to the penalty kill in the first period, as expected. At 3-0, though, he has to back off on the play leading to the 3-1 goal. It simply can’t happen.
It was a bad bounce, and there wasn’t great forward support. You’re up three goals. You’re on the road. You have to skate back and play it safe at that point. He took a penalty on the rush, and the Lightning made them pay this time.
The Leafs also got too carried away on the penalty kill itself. After a turnover in the middle of the ice at the Lightning blueline, instead of getting it back in deep, Alex Kerfoot stopped up with the puck and tried to make a play. He was knocked down, the Lightning went down on an odd-man rush, and the Leafs never recovered the puck before Russ Colton ripped a one-timer.
Those were two really poor instances of situational awareness (or lack thereof) that made it a game again.
7. The Leafs were fortunate to get out of the second period up 3-1. TJ Brodie made a goal-saving dive to deflect the puck on a Colton look at a clean empty net, but even beyond that, Tampa Bay carried play for the final five or so minutes of the period.
I think Keefe and the coaching staff were hyper-aware of it. They came out in the third period and bumped Kerfoot up to the top line. The Ilya Mikheyev – David Kampf – Pierre Engvall line was reunited as well.
It almost paid off with a goal, too. Auston Mathews went on a breakaway (and got his own rebound to no avail). Right after, Mitch Marner fired a shot that glanced off Vasilevskiy and hit the bar.
8. Andrei Vasilevskiy made a few big saves before Tampa Bay went down the ice and made it a one-goal game. It’s not a bad goal on Jack Campbell, but it was saveable.
It was a wrist shot from the top of the circle with minimal traffic in front. If anything, it looked like a bit of a broken play (Campbell had swatted the puck out of mid-air to get it there in the first place), and he was maybe not able to reset himself properly. The puck clipped off his shoulder a bit, but he didn’t get enough of it.
A 3-0 game is now 3-2, and it was fully game on.
9. Even if you didn’t love that goal, Jack Campbell more than stood tall the rest of the way.
Nick Paul walked TJ Brodie and went in all alone; Campbell came up huge with a toe save. On the power play that followed, Steven Stamkos fired a one-timer off of a seam pass, and Campbell shut the door. Brandon Hagel had a good chance in tight shortly after; again, Campbell stood in there.
There has been so much talk about goaltending going into this series — and rightfully so for many reasons — but for me, Campbell outplayed Vasilevskiy in this one, and that was the story. He came up huge with the game on the line.
10. On the penalty kill in the final half of the third and the shifts that followed, the Leafs used a lot of Jake Muzzin – TJ Brodie and Mark Giordano – Justin Holl to close out most of this game. The Pierre Engvall – David Kampf – Ilya Mikheyev line saw a lot of time, and Alex Kerfoot was a staple on the Auston Matthews line with Mitch Marner.
Closing the game with the lead, those were generally the 10 players the Leafs wanted on the ice. For all the criticism he takes — and he did make one bad play — the Lightning scored on the one penalty where Holl was in the box, and he did a good job of helping to kill the other two. Holl helped them close the lead and the game at the end, too.
We are almost at the point where looking at the Leafs lines and debating them is irrelevant. Pierre Engvall was supposed to be on the fourth line – he played 15:09, more than Michael Bunting, Ondrej Kase, and Kerfoot. That great third line we’ve talked about so much was largely reunited in this one. Of any Leafs line in this game, that trio played the third most together.
In terms of matchups in this one, Tampa Bay has committed hard to Brayden Point and Anthony Cirelli line, as well as Victor Hedman and Erik Cernak pairing, matching up against the Matthews line.
The John Tavares – William Nylander reunion created essentially nothing, which has been all too common for them. Neither player has done much for two games in a row, and no other line is making Tampa Bay think twice offensively speaking.
At 5v5, the Leafs aren’t creating a ton outside of the top line (which is why the power play is so important). The third line has been great, but they have been opportunistic offensively more than anything. Tampa Bay controlled play at 5v5 in this one in terms of possession, scoring chances, and expected goals — and it wasn’t just because they were losing, although score effects played a role at the end, of course.
Jack Campbell was excellent, and the Leafs have had a number of players step up with big goals. You need to win games like that in the playoffs, but you have to be honest about what’s happening, too, when planning for the next game.
The de-facto third line has been great, and Matthews and Marner are doing about as well as you can ask against a really difficult matchup. The second line is giving the Leafs very little, and the fourth line without the enforcers at least stopped the antics from Tampa’s Bay fourth line.
The Leafs are up 2-1 in the series. Getting the second line going somehow (do you move Bunting down and keep Kerfoot on the top line? Do you move Nylander up to the top line and have Bunting/Kerfoot/Kase flank Tavares? Is there another option?) would catapult this team to another level.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Mountain West Conference Commissioner Gloria Nevarez said Thursday the forfeitures that volleyball teams are willing to take to avoid playing San Jose State is “not what we celebrate in college athletics” and that she is heartbroken over what has transpired this season surrounding the Spartans and their opponents.
Four teams have canceled games against San Jose State: Boise State, Southern Utah, Utah State and Wyoming, with none of the schools explicitly saying why they were forfeiting.
A group of Nevada players issued a statement saying they will not take the floor when the Wolf Pack are scheduled to host the Spartans on Oct. 26. They cited their “right to safety and fair competition,” though their school reaffirmed Thursday that the match is still planned and that state law bars forfeiture “for reasons related to gender identity or expression.”
All those schools, except Southern Utah, are in the Mountain West. New Mexico, also in the MWC, went ahead with its home match on Thursday night, which was won by the Spartans, 3-1, the team’s first victory since Sept. 24.
“It breaks my heart because they’re human beings, young people, student-athletes on both sides of this issue that are getting a lot of national negative attention,” Nevarez said in an interview with The Associated Press at Mountain West basketball media days. “It just doesn’t feel right to me.”
Republican governors of Idaho, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming have made public statements in support of the cancellations, citing a need for fairness in women’s sports. Former President Donald Trump, the GOP nominee in this year’s presidential race, this week referenced an unidentified volleyball match when he was asked during a Fox News town hall about transgender athletes in women’s sports.
“I saw the slam, it was a slam. I never saw a ball hit so hard, hit the girl in the head,” Trump replied before he was asked what can be done. “You just ban it. The president bans it. You just don’t let it happen.”
After Trump’s comment, San Diego State issued a statement that said “it has been incorrectly reported that an San Diego State University student-athlete was hit in the face with a volleyball during match play with San Jose State University. The ball bounced off the shoulder of the student-athlete, and the athlete was uninjured and did not miss a play.”
San Jose State has not made any direct comments about the politicians’ “fairness” references, and Nevarez did not go into details.
“I’m learning a lot about the issue,” Nevarez said. “I don’t know a lot of the language yet or the science or the understanding nationally of how this issue plays out. The external influences are so far on either side. We have an election year. It’s political, so, yeah, it feels like a no-win based on all the external pressure.”
The cancellations could mean some teams will not qualify for the conference tournament Nov. 27-30 in Las Vegas, where the top six schools are slated to compete for the league championship.
“The student-athlete (in question) meets the eligibility standard, so if a team does not play them, it’s a forfeit, meaning they take a loss,” Nevarez said.
Ahead of the Oct. 26 match in Reno. Nevada released a statement acknowledging that “a majority of the Wolf Pack women’s volleyball team” had decided to forfeit against San Jose State. The school said only the university can take that step but any player who decides not to play would face no punishment.
OTTAWA – Travis Green might not have liked the end result, but he’s counting on his team learning from the effort.
Green’s Ottawa Senators were handed a 3-1 loss by the New Jersey Devils Thursday night in a game that highlighted the importance of sticking with things.
“I thought both teams played pretty well,” said Green. “I thought we had a lot of the game that I liked, but I thought there’s a few moments where it got away. We got away from our game, and they stuck with their game a little longer.
“There’s always momentum back and forth for one team to create some chances. It’s a fine line between winning and losing in the league, especially when you’re playing, two good teams are playing.”
Jacob Markstrom’s 30 saves also played a part, with the Devils goaltender only getting beat with 65 seconds left in regulation as the Senators were on the power play with an empty net.
Brady Tkachuk tipped a Claude Giroux shot to spoil Markstrom’s shutout bid.
“Outstanding,” said Devils coach Sheldon Keefe of his goaltender. “Just terrible that he doesn’t get the shutout that he deserves in this one here.
“You feel for him when they make that (penalty) call. You can just kind of feel like it’s going to give them a little extra life. But he was outstanding for us, no question.”
The two teams were scoreless after the first period, where each had to fight for every opportunity. Noah Gregor rang a shot off the crossbar for the Senators, but otherwise, neither team was able to generate much offensively.
The Devils capitalized in the second as a power play expired with Erik Haula redirecting a Johnathan Kovacevic shot past Anton Forsberg, who made 32 saves.
Less than four minutes later, Nathan Bastian took advantage of a Giroux giveaway and beat Forsberg low blocker for his first of the season with the Devils short-handed.
“I liked our second period a lot,” Keefe said. “We took hold of the game and didn’t give up much, and when we did, I thought it was really from the perimeter, only a couple there.”
The Devils tightened up defensively in the third and were able to make it 3-0 when Paul Cotter was left alone in the slot.
“I think for stretches of the game we played the right way and kind of get in on the forecheck and play that way,” said Senators centre Nick Cousins. “It seems like when we get down a couple goals, we kind of change our game, which isn’t a recipe for success in this league.
“I think we’ve just got to keep doing the right things over and over again, even when it’s 2-0.”
With the Senators just four games in and still learning and adjusting to a new system, Green understands there will be growing pains along the way.
“We’re also trying to define our game,” he said. “I think we’re getting there. Both teams play fast. It was a fast skating game. There wasn’t a lot of room to move out there for either team.”
In his short tenure behind the Senators bench, Green has seen his team play very different styles of games and knows there will be nights like this along the way, but learning from them will be key.
“There’s going to be a lot of nights where you kind of got to earn everything you get,” admitted Green. “It’s not going to be freewheeling. Good teams don’t play freewheeling hockey.
“You learn when you win, you learn when you lose games that you don’t play well. You learn when you lose games that you had a pretty good game but you still lose and you’ve got to find a way. Good teams find a way to win those games.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
MONTREAL – The Montreal Canadiens fell 4-1 to the Los Angeles Kings on Thursday. They also lost their top minute-muncher in the process.
Matheson logged 7:35 in ice time during the first period but did not return for the second because of an upper-body injury. When or how Matheson sustained the injury was not clear. The Canadiens said he would be re-evaluated on Friday.
The game was tied at 1 before he exited, forcing the Canadiens to play with five defencemen for 40 minutes.
“Mike is one of the biggest parts of our D core, and I think losing him — he’s playing against top line, playing power play and we want him on the ice — definitely losing him was a big loss,” teammate David Savard said. “We got to figure out a way to get the two points, even if a player goes out.”
The 30-year-old Matheson of Pointe-Claire, Que., led all Canadiens defencemen with 62 points and a 25:33 average ice time last season.
With his absence, rookie sensation Lane Hutson played a whopping 30:05 in only his seventh NHL game. The next closest player? Kaiden Guhle at 23:09.
Head coach Martin St. Louis was impressed with how the 20-year-old Hutson handled the challenge.
“Lane doesn’t take a shift off,” head coach Martin St. Louis said. “I love the consistency of his compete level, and he drives possession. For a guy who played 30 minutes, I think he gave everything he could to try and help the team.
“I’m not surprised. I know it’s challenging at this level, losing Mike definitely made him play many minutes, chasing the game made him play many minutes, but I just love his compete level.”
Canadiens fans have been clamouring for Hutson — a five-foot-nine, 162-pound defenceman with world-class skill — to take Matheson’s spot on the No. 1 power play.
The Canadiens, however, went 0-for-3 with Hutson running the show after Matheson went down. In the first instance, Kirby Dach took a hooking penalty early in the man-advantage to end it. On the second, the Canadiens failed to generate any zone time.
The third came in the final minutes, but the Kings buried an empty-netter.
“It wasn’t a lack of opportunity, lots of ice time, lots of shifts,” Hutson said. “It was good, it was fun, but obviously you want to be on the other side of it, winning.
“Means a lot (to get that opportunity), but obviously, you want to get more out of that opportunity. It’s a lot of ice, and you want to keep taking steps in the right direction.”
‘IMMATURE EFFORT’
The Canadiens fell to a Kings team that had lost three straight games and was coming off a 6-2 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Wednesday night.
Under those circumstances, the Canadiens were brutally honest with themselves after the game.
“Definitely disappointed,” captain Nick Suzuki said. “It was an immature effort from us, especially with them playing yesterday and getting in late, so I think we gave them too much life, and let them feel comfortable in the game. It’s on us to be a lot better than that.”
Before the game, St. Louis stressed the need for a good first period against a fatigued Los Angeles side. That’s not what he saw Thursday night.
“I think we had 14 turnovers in the first period. It’s unacceptable. It gives them life,” he said. “Then you’re chasing the game for the second half of it — we didn’t play to our standard.
“I’m really disappointed. Really disappointed.”
BIG SAVE DAVE
Kings goalie David Rittich played his second game in two nights — an unusual occurrence in this day and age of the NHL. He made 25 saves after allowing four goals on 14 shots in Toronto.
“We always believe in him anyway, but he performed today pretty well and bounced back,” defenceman Vladislav Gavrikov said. “It’s probably like most important for himself, that’s huge, and for the team. He played outstanding today.”
LONG ROAD
The Kings are opening the season on a seven-game road trip because of renovations at Crypto.com Arena. They’ve collected six of a possible 10 points so far.
“Pretty much worse (than expected),” forward Phillip Danault said. “We’ve been on the road for three weeks … It’s good team-bonding, whether we should do it again I’m not sure, but it has turned out well let’s say with six points out of 10.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
