Leaf fans irate with John Tavares and William Nylander over lack of back-checking in overtime
The Toronto Maple Leafs battled back from a 2-0 deficit and Auston Matthews tied the game at 3-3 with around 5 seconds left last night against the Boston Bruins. Unfortunately, it didn't matter, as Brad Marchand scored the overtime winner following a terrible neutral zone turnover by Leafs forward William Nylander.
In the extra frame, with less than a minute to play, Nylander was attempting to circle back at center ice to allow the Leafs to change, but he lost an edge and fell, taking out Marchand in the process. The puck slid back towards the Leafs' zone where David Pastrnak picked it up on a breakaway. He was stopped by Joseph Woll, who had another fantastic game for the Leafs, but the save took Woll too far out of his net and allowed Pastrnak to center the puck to Marchand. Marchand caught the aerial pass and tapped it into the open net, sending the Bruins home with the extra point.
It did not take long for Leaf fans to jump on social media and call out Nylander's unfortunate luck as well as the horrendous back-checking, or a lack thereof, from Nylander and Leafs captain John Tavares. Sportsnet's Kevin Bieksa also called them out on the broadcast following the game.
The obvious excuse for them is that they were exhausted, but they should have at least made it look like they were attempting to get back into the play. There was no reason why Marchand was able to beat Nylander to the net and have so much time and space when he was tangled up with Nylander at center. I get that Tavares was already out of the play at the Bruins' blueline, but he stood at the line for several seconds before he even attempted to skate back. In either case, the level of effort on the back-check was unacceptable and costly.
| POLL | ||
DECEMBRE 3 | 962 ANSWERS Leaf fans irate with John Tavares and William Nylander over lack of back-checking in overtime Who do you blame more for Saturday's OT loss to Boston? | ||
| Nylander, for the giveaway | 232 | 24.1 % |
| Tavares for not back-checking harder | 112 | 11.6 % |
| Both Nylander and Tavares | 486 | 50.5 % |
| Neither JT nor Willy were at fault | 132 | 13.7 % |
| List of polls | ||
