Uhh…Joseph Woll looked good and a whole lot of Leafs minuses: Game 4 +/-

When starting to write this series I think there was either optimism or naivety involved. I didn’t account for how difficult it would be to come up with positive takeaways as the Leafs neared elimination, especially when there wasn’t a sense of urgency in the performance to get there. (Sheldon Keefe is happy with the effort, so I’ll blame the lack of urgency.)

Here are the positive and negative numbers from a Saturday to forget:

+plus

• Joseph Woll stopped the five shots he faced. That certainly doesn’t sound like much but three of those were high-danger shots on the Bruins’ power play, so that’s something. The saying is that goaltenders need to be your best penalty killer so maybe starting Woll in Game 5 fixes the penalty kill. I’m not sure Samsonov’s night was as bad as his .824 save percentage shows, but a big save was sorely needed and didn’t occur on a night with a low workload
• The game was low-event and to some extent, I am going to credit the Leafs with playing better team defence with that. The Leafs allowed only 16 even-strength shots and 34 shot attempts against and a lot of that was on the backs of players like Pontus Holmberg, Matthew Knies, and Calle Jarnkrok stepping up. The Bruins got a lot of credit for keeping the Leafs out of the middle of the ice, at the very least we can acknowledge the Leafs for doing the same.
• The hit differential. The Leafs outhit the Bruins 65 to 37. That does mean the Leafs had the puck a lot less if there was an imbalance like that, but they were hitting and the pluses here are all about grasping for straws. One of the biggest miscalculations by the Leafs heading into the playoffs was that teams like the Bruins, Panthers, and generally, anyone who goes far in the playoffs has a lineup full of players comfortable taking a hit to make the play. The Leafs might hit now but they still have too many players timid about being hit.
• Numbers lie and I’m not sure the 1 Goal, 80.85 xgF%, and 65.52 CF% that Mitch Marner put up fit with the performance put forth on the ice. If we are going to keep this as a +, Marner scoring a highlight reel goal at the peak of the criticism against him was certainly something.

-minus

• It’s not that fourth line is a huge factor and the series isn’t going to be won or lost by what happens with roster depth changes, but keeping Ryan Reaves in over Connor Dewar at least looks a little silly. Reaves had a near-impossible 1.89 xGF%, a team-low 27 CF%, and was on for a goal against despite playing under seven minutes.
• Morgan Rielly was the only defenceman who played over 20 minutes (25:48). The fact that the Leafs don’t have a second defenceman (McCabe was close to 20 minutes) that they feel comfortable giving extra icetime to is a big problem. And for all the issues that Liljegren has had, Toronto missed his puck-moving abilities and it shows in the lack of shot attempts.
• Pastrnak was allowed the space to do Pastrnak things: