Good, Bad, and Ugly: Leafs Vs Coyotes
This feature has a simple premise. Watch the game and pinpoint one good thing, one bad thing and one ugly thing about the game. On Wednesday, it was the Leafs and Coyotes. Let's take a look.
The Good: Domination on the ice.
The Leafs came out on the second half of a back-to-back and absolutely ran the show against the Coyotes. More than doubling the Yotes' shot total and maintaining a massive advantage in possession time.
The Bad: The scoreboard.
For all the shots, chances, high danger chances and scrambles in the crease, the Leafs only managed one goal on Karel Vejmelka. Granted, the guy stood on his head in there, but you have to put the puck in the net. Tonight, aside from Auston Matthews, the Leafs failed to do so.
The Bonus Bad: Petr Mrazek.
As a goalie, I hate to blame goalies, but the Leafs need more from Petr Mrazek. Allowing 2 goals on 18 shots is not exactly earning Mrazek any confidence among the coaching staff.
He failed to move his body on the first goal, instead swiping at the puck with an outstretched glove, and instead of simply tracking the puck across the net and keeping his body upright on the second goal, he over-committed, dove at the puck and missed his poke check, leaving Ryan Dzingel with an easy goal.
A 60-foot pass doesn't require a full split save. If he'd played that pass the way he should have, it would have been an easy tip into his bread basket. I'm not saying they were easy saves to make, but the kid at the other end made them and more. As a goalie making $3.8Mx3, you're expected to be better than that.
The Ugly: The referees
For a team to dominate as clearly as the Leafs did the entire game and the penalties to end up even is ridiculous. The NHL absolutely needs to put a stop to game management. The Leafs had the puck for what seemed like 90% of the game, there is no possible way the Coyotes went 40 minutes of hockey without committing an infraction.
