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The Blues will be coming off their week long break tonight when they travel to Toronto to face the Maple Leafs as part of a two game Canada tour before heading home for a 4 game home stand.
The Blues and their fans are hoping the break helped Jake Allen get his mojo back. As a goalie who may have a little insight in playing with shaken confidence, it certainly appeared that Allen’s confidence may be shaken.
When my confidence isn’t the best, a few things often creep into my game. I’ve noticed some of these in Allen’s game lately. When your confidence gets hit as a goalie, the response is often to try and do too much and to start second guessing yourself, often getting you stuck in the middle of how to play a situation. I’ll use a couple of examples from the Florida game to illustrate this.
On Aleksander Barkov’s goal at the end of the 2nd period, Allen overplays the original chance by Evgenii Dadonov. Jay Bouwmeester has cut off Dadonov’s angle but Allen still aggressively push slides much too far, both outside of the net to the point of almost going behind the end red line. This forces him to push slide back into the net into a position where his right knee is down on his knee stack and his left leg also down. With neither leg up in a strong position and especially with his right leg pinned underneath him, he has no ability to push across as the pass comes through the crease. His over-aggression on the initial low percentage attack prohibited him from being in a position to make a potential save on the eventual goal. Watch it here and pay attention to the positon of both of his legs when the pass comes into the crease and notice how neither leg is in a position to get a push to move him across the crease.
On Radim Vrbata’s goal midway through the 2nd period, Allen second guesses his recovery, putting him in a more difficult position to try and make a save. He hesitates in recovering up and then goes back down. The lace of effective recovery leaves him deep in net and gives Vrbata a ton of net to hit. Allen was in a brutal position here because of the poor defense but the indecision just seemed like a potential example. Even if he would have been able to push out to Vrbata, it’s still a high probability chance for Vrbata.
Jonathan Huberdeau’s 2nd period goal is a more noticeable example. Notice how Allen’s first move off the face off is back toward the goal line and his second move is to drop his right knee to the ice early. In doing this sequence of moves, he loses both his angle and his depth on Huberdeau, making the save attempt a lot more difficult. For me, I often over move, over react, guess on plays when my confidence is struggling. I feel like I have to do more in order to fix things when usually doing less, or at least forcing less, is the right answer. I’m better off letting the play happen, reading it and reacting. Watch it here:
Hopefully the week off will have a positive effect on Allen and the team.
The Maple Leafs are at the end of their 6 game home stand where they have gone 2-2-1 with both victories coming by shootout. The Leafs are 13-7-1 at home this season and sit in 3rd place in the Atlantic division.
The Leafs are scoring the 7th most goals per game but are only 18th in goals against per game. Their power play is 9th while their penalty kill is 6th best. Their goal prevention likely suffers because they give up the 4th most shots per game. Their scoring is even more impressive when you consider they only generate the 19th most shots per game.
The Leafs generate offense by committee. They have 5 players with at least 10 goals and their top 4 players in points are separated by only 2 points. Auston Matthwes and James Van Riemsdyk lead the team in goals with 19. Morgan Reilly leads their defensemen in points with 31.
Mitchell Marner has 3 points in 3 games against the Blues while Auston Matthews is still looking for his 1st point against the Blues. Nazem Kadri has 4 goals and 6 points in 9 games.
Frederik Andersen is clearly the Leafs number one goalie, starting 37 of 45 games and posting a 2.69 goals against average and a 92.1% save percentage. Andersen has a 91.1 save percentage and 2.92 goals against average against the Blues.
The Blues won their earlier meeting this season, 6-4 at home and have won three straight games against them. They also have points in 12 of their last 14 games against the Maple Leafs overall with points in 12 of their last 13 games in Toronto, going 10-1-1 in that stretch.
Tonight Alexander Steen will be looking to keep up his torrid pace against his former team. He has 6 goals and 16 assists in 12 games. Vladimir Tarasenko has also had a lot of success against the Maple Leafs with 6 goals and 8 points in 8 games. Alex Pietrangelo has also done well with 9 points in 12 games.
Carter Hutton was first off the ice today so he is expected to be the start tonight. Hutton has a 90.9% save percentage and a 2.51 goals against average against the Leafs. In case this is a bait and switch type move from coach Mike Yeo trickery or a Hutton injury issue, Allen’s career numbers against the Leafs are a little better than his overall career averages with a 91.4% save percentage and 2.64 goals against average against the Maple Leafs.
As to the lines today, I expect them to start like this:
Forwards
Ivan Barbashev - Paul Stastny – Vladimir Tarasenko
Dmitrij Jaskin - Brayden Schenn – Alexander Steen
Vladimir Sobotka - Patrik Berglund – Tage Thompson
Magnus Paajarvi – Kyle Brodziak – Chris Thorburn
Defense
Jay Bouwmeester - Alex Pietrangelo
Vince Dunn - Colton Parayko
Joel Edmundson - Robert Bortuzzo
Goalie
Carter Hutton
In other news, Jaden Schwartz skated yesterday.
It’s a great day for hockey.
Fellow Hockeybuzz bloggers
Nashville Predator's Paul McCann,
Winnipeg Jet's Peter Tessier and
Minnesota Wild's Dan Wallace have generously agreed to a friendly charity wager. We were hoping to do the whole division but don't have it fully represented yet. The blogger whose team finishes the highest the standings at the end of the year gets to pick a charity to whom the others will donate in their name.
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