Former Leaf blasts Justin Holl's terrible play live on the air
Once again, Justin Holl was at the forefront of a Leafs loss. Holl was on for 3 of the 4 Tampa goals and has been on for a whopping 73% of Tampa's goals through the first 5 games of the series. Not only that, but with him on the ice, the Leafs are being outscored 14-2. He has become the new Dion Phaneuf or Jake Gardiner for Leaf fans, who have even booed him when he was announced in the starting lineup last week.
On Sportscenter last night, former Leaf blueliner and current analyst Frankie Corrado called out Holl very publicly for his poor play. "It really comes down to execution. Execution with the puck, execution without the puck and both those things are coming back to bite Justin Holl. Justin Holl is putting himself in some bad spots on the ice where he doesn't need to be and it's costing himself and it's costing the team."
Holl isn't a bad player, but some of the decisions he makes become very big mistakes very quickly. Take Tampa's second goal for instance last night, where he pivoted towards the inside of the ice giving Mikey Eyssimont an extra step on the outside that let him create a better angle to shoot. If Holl pivots to the outside and forces Eyssimont to the boards, he has no choice but to take the puck behind the net. Yes, Ilya Samsonov should've had it and got caught expecting a wraparound, but he was put in that position by the poor decision of Holl.
While Sheldon Keefe defended Holl saying that he isn't on the ice alone when he is scored on, more often than not, it is because of his mistake that the puck ends up in the back of the net. Another example is Alex Killorn's powerplay goal in Game 4. Why did Holl leave him alone at the side of the net for a tap-in and skate out to cover Steven Stamkos when Nikita Kucherov had the puck on the opposite side of the ice? The Leafs had two forwards available to take away the cross-ice pass to Stamkos and all Holl had to do was maintain his position on Killorn and he doesn't have an easy tap-in. It will be interesting to see what lineup changes, if any, Keefe makes to the back end to protect Holl a little bit more for Game 6 Saturday.
