Brophy on Leafs: A tough win to read
Posted January 20, 2012 8:31 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
So, what exactly does that win prove for the Toronto Maple Leafs?
A. The Leafs are back. B. Jonas Gustavsson has won the No. 1 goalie’s job. C. The line changes Ron Wilson made were pure genius. D. The Minnesota Wild suck. E. All of the above.
The most accurate answer is probably the last one, all of the above, although it is way too soon to anoint Wilson a genius for busting up the high-scoring duo of Joffrey Lupul and Phil Kessel. Their lack of success in recent games — one point and minus-5 each in the previous four outings — really left the coach no choice.
No, the Leafs are not back. This was a game they simply could not lose; not to a team that can’t win on the road. Sure Gustavsson is the leading contender to be the team’s No. 1 goalie in the second half, but when you have two relatively inexperienced stoppers, that can change in a heartbeat.
And yes, sadly, for now the Wild suck. So don’t be too quick to take too much positive away from a win over a weak opponent. Beating Minnesota is a temporary fix for a team that has been struggling. It most certainly is not an indicator that all its woes have vanished.
That said, it beats the alternative. A fourth straight loss at this stage of the season would have been catastrophic for Toronto. The news gets even better for the Maple Leafs who will now host the Montreal Canadiens Saturday and then the New York Islanders Monday; two more teams languishing below them in the Eastern Conference standings. The Leafs will face the Islanders the following night in New York and could conceivably be riding a four-game winning streak when they travel to Pittsburgh to play the Penguins on Jan. 31.
Beating teams below them has not been an issue for the Leafs this season. Winning against clubs above them has, and that is what GM Brian Burke must be most concerned with as the Feb. 27 trade deadline approaches. Burke has indicated time and time again it is not his mission to simply get his team into the post-season; he wants to advance in the playoffs.
The Wild, clearly, was a team there for the picking. At different times this season Minnesota has been the best team in the NHL and the worst. After starting the season 20-7-3 and for a brief period climbing to the top of the NHL standings, the Wild is on a disastrous 2-11-4 run that has them sitting outside the top eight in the Western Conference.
The biggest problem for the Wild has been its inability to score goals. The Wild entered the game as sitting 29th in goals for, trailing only the Los Angeles Kings. Minnesota had scored two or fewer goals in 13 of its past 16 games and had just two power play goals in the previous 15 starts. Making that particular stat even less palatable s the fact the Wild gave up two shorthanded goals in the same span.
The Wild hoped acquiring Dany Heatley in the off-season would be the key to having a better offence, but things have not exactly worked out. With 13 goals in 46 games, Heatley is not close to being the player that was once a perennial Rocket Richard Trophy candidate and recorded back-to-back 50-goal seasons for the Ottawa Senators.
Mikko Koivu is the Wild’s leading scorer, but he has just nine goals and missed the game with an upper body injury. The guy has one goal in his last nine games. It’s not as though Minnesota was missing a bona fide sniper. The Wild often pass this guy off as a budding superstar when the reality is, he’s truthfully just a very good player.
Splitting up Kessel and Lupul is more of a wakeup call than anything else for the otherwise productive duo. At some point soon they will be back together again, but for one night it worked. Lupul set up Nazem Kadri on the first shift of the game and then chipped in two more assists to take over the team lead in points. Kessel, whose ice time was limited to just 4:54 in the first period, scored his 25th of the season on the power play with a helping hand from, you guessed it, Lupul.
The truth of the matter is the new Leafs lines didn’t perform any better than their predecessors. There was no ‘Wow!’ factor. They simply took advantage of a weaker opponent. The four lines you saw play against Minnesota — Tim Connolly between Lupul and Kadri; David Steckel between Joey Crabb and Mike Brown; Mikhail Grabovski between Nikolai Kulemin and Clarke MacArthur and Tyler Bozak between Kessel and Matthew Lombardi — are not the answer.
Wilson didn’t mince words when it came to talking about the decision to break up the top line of Kessel, Lupul and Bozak.
“We had one line that has been on for a horrendous number of goals against and we had to break them up in order to get some balance defensively,” he said.
Nevertheless, Kadri returned to the lineup after being a healthy scratch against Ottawa Tuesday and cashed in early, scoring 50 seconds in. Kadri was kept out of the lineup against Ottawa because the Leafs hoped Jay Rosehill, his replacement, could provide some anticipated muscle. Rosehill played 5:24 in a 3-2 loss to the Senators; didn’t fight, and at the end of the night the Leafs could have used Kadri’s skill.
Kadri was happy to do his part.
“It was nice that on the first shift I went out there and potted one and I think the guys were a lot more relaxed after that,” Kadri said.
So the Leafs snap a win streak and now face two more teams below them in the standings. Sure is hard to get a read on this club.
