Maple Leafs ‘Offense has the biggest match ever in Win Over Kings
LOS ANGELES – Crime is the defining feature of the Toronto Maple Leafs. It has been repeated by head coach Sheldon Keefe several times during the season.
On Wednesday night, identities came to life with a second-best four-goal stage of the season to beat the Los Angeles Kings 6-2 at the Staples Center.
Crime was spread everywhere. Auston Matthews scored his first 5v5 goal in 11 games. John Tavares also scored. Alex Kerfoot, Pierre Engvall, Michael Bunting and Jason Spezza carry out the rest of the goal as the team shares in the wealth.
So what’s different this time?
“I think we did some good things about how we wanted to attack the network, increasing our volume a little bit,” Keefe said. “I don’t know if we did anything much different from what we’ve done in other games. But it’s certainly fun to see it play out (in).”
Before the game, the Leafs were near the bottom of the league in goals per game (2.25). It was especially worrying as the team came close to the top in every foul analysis category, including Corsi (third) and goals expect (first).
So perhaps Wednesday night’s contest was just an inversion of mean, a concept that often states that the law of averages wins at longer sample sizes.
“We just patiently stayed the whole night and when the opportunity came, the boys played and [we were] Matthews said.
The goal of Spezza’s power play is the highlight of the goal. Known for how prolific he is with his club and shot, he picked a corner past Kings goalkeeper Jonathan Quick to score Toronto’s second.
The team made their offense in training on Tuesday, and although there were returns, there were a few things in their possession game that led to some sort of explanation for why. why the team didn’t score.
Without disclosing details, Spezza said the team has been working to bring more volume to the network.
“Just different concepts of how to open the club and go downhill when hitting the ball,” says Spezza.
Regardless of the details in that description, some of them seem to have been successful. And the attack came at a time when their best defensive forward was injured in the early stages and had to leave the game.
David Kampf was hit in the head by Rasmus Kupari of the Kings at 1:35 of the first round. The team said Kampf will be reevaluated on Thursday and taken out of the game for reasons of precaution.
“For me, it was like direct contact with his head, obviously. So I hate to see that,” Keefe said of the shot. “I don’t know how much intent there is. It looks pretty casual to me.”
If Kampf misses at any point, it could fundamentally change the way Keefe deploys his team.
The coach appreciated Kampf’s defense as a way to spread the minutes around and give his top two centers a break against tougher opponents. The result is an average of less minutes from the Matthews and Tavares routes.
Matthews said of Kampf: “He’s been unbelievable to us all year. “Being able to play against some top players, make some big plays leading to some big goals.
“Fingers says it’s nothing serious and he’s fine but he’s been a big part of our success here.”
But the whole team recovered quickly after Kampf’s injury. The club have now won 12 of their last 14 matches. A quick change from the gloom and gloom surrounding the team after a four-game losing streak at the start of the season.
“When you’re winning, you really want to try to keep going because it’s hard when you lose a few games to get back into the winning column and we know that, we’ve been there this year,” Spezza said. So we just want to stay positive and stay focused.
https://thehockeynews.com/news/maple-leafs-offense-has-biggest-game-yet-in-win-over-kings Maple Leafs ‘Offense has the biggest match ever in Win Over Kings
