The Maple Leafs very likely go on to beat the Florida Panthers with Frederik Andersen between the pipes for the final two periods Monday night.
“If we play that type of game 100 times, we probably win 99 of them,” Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said after the 5-3 loss. “But you don’t get the points, and that hurts.”
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Two points in a win and the Leafs go up four points on the Panthers and keep hold of a playoff spot. No points in a loss and they’re now out of the postseason picture, even in points with Florida but with two fewer games to go.
The loss was costly. It could even be the difference in qualifying for the playoffs or not.
Nothing was more apparent coming out of it than the lingering concern the Leafs still have in the backup spot. Regardless of whether Andersen misses no time at all with what the team described as an upper-body injury, continued instability from Michael Hutchinson might force Kyle Dubas to finally spring for an upgrade.
Monday night only exposed what’s been apparent all season: that Hutchinson doesn’t offer enough security behind the Leafs’ No. 1. His most recent stumbles came over only two periods — one, really.
What if the Leafs need him to perform for weeks?
Keefe didn’t divulge what exactly forced Andersen from the game after the first period, though it seemed apparent it was the result of a bump from Mark Pysyk. Andersen went through concussion protocol with positive results, Keefe said, and wasn’t ruled out for practice on Tuesday afternoon. The Leafs were going to wait and see how Andersen was feeling in the morning, though, before determining whether he’d join them on the ice and for their one-game trip to New York after that.
“I guess he’s feeling better,” Keefe said, “but from what I’m told, they’re just gonna have to give him the night, see how he is in the morning.”
#FlaPanthers Mark Pysyk bumps into & makes contact with #LeafsForever Frederik Andersen's head here in the 1st.
It didn't look like much, but you never know with head contact. pic.twitter.com/xQdDpVVjuF
— Here's Your Replay ⬇️ (@HeresYourReplay) February 4, 2020
Andersen has had scares like that before.
Late in the 2017-18 season, Alexander Radulov fell onto him during a home game against the Stars. Andersen left the game that night and sat out the next two games with a head injury.
He also had concussion troubles in Anaheim.
Any kind of absence, but especially a lengthy one, would punish the Leafs. Not only is the 30-year-old substantially better than his 29-year-old backup, but he also appeared to be coming out from a midseason funk in stopping 65 of 70 shots in wins over Nashville and Dallas. Barring an upgrade, an absence of any length could cost the Leafs a playoff spot.
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It’ll be tight even with Andersen healthy.
The Leafs were destroying the Panthers after he left the game Monday night. Just three shots found their way to Hutchinson in a near-perfect second period: one from 121 feet, another from 79 feet and a third from 46 feet.
There wasn’t a single scoring chance, and overall, the Leafs matched a season best in yielding just 11 scoring chances all night.
The heat map tells the story:
“The result sucks, but I don’t think the result is in any way indicative of the way the game went,” Keefe said. “You talk about the maturity of our team — a lot of it is just how we can’t defend. It’s the best defensive game we’ve played the entire season. I don’t know if we gave up more than four scoring chances at even strength throughout the whole hockey game, including the third period.”
The goals that tied the score and gave the Panthers the lead were shots the Leafs needed Hutchinson to stop.
Both went through him.
“It’s just one of a series of unfortunate events that ends up in the back of your net,” Hutchinson said of the fourth and final tally, which gave the Panthers the lead.
Hutchinson said he learned he was taking over for Andersen a few minutes into the first intermission. Then came that ghost town of a second period, followed by the unraveling in the third.
“You try to do your best, get your body ready and prepared, but it’s probably the hardest thing in pro sports, as far as going in cold,” he said. “Baseball players have bullpen(s), football quarterbacks going in cold get to throw a few balls on the sideline. And as a goalie, you’re sitting around to jumping right into the game and being thrown right into it.”
“Obviously, it didn’t go very well,” Keefe said of Hutchinson’s night, in which he yielded three goals on only 13 shots. “But that’s a challenging scenario. He comes in cold, he’s not expected to play, and he goes in the second period, and other than a couple dump-ins, I don’t know that he had any shots.
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“It’s a tough ask of any goalie, but he is part of the team and he wants the opportunity and he’s in the net, and you’d like to see positive results. But he’s in tough here today. I take a lot more from games he’s played for us previous than I would tonight.”
After Monday’s showing, Hutchinson is down to an .886 save percentage in 14 games. He ranks 59th out of the 60 goalies to log at least 600 minutes with an .897 five-on-five save percentage.
On the whole this season, he hasn’t looked the part of an NHL goaltender.
Recent results have been more positive for him, including a solid performance in a win against Ottawa over the weekend, but ultimately, he can’t give the Leafs what they should have in the backup spot: a goalie who’s capable enough to step in for Andersen for more than a game at a time. Can Hutchinson stand in for a week or carry the Leafs through a playoff series if Andersen were to get hurt, as other backups have for their teams in recent years?
Losing a No. 1 to injury would cause nightmares to the GMs of most teams, but losing Andersen feels more perilous to the Leafs given how poorly Hutchinson has performed for the most part this year and how long it’s been since he’s been even adequate. Hutchinson’s last real season of moderate success was 2014-15, when he posted a .914 save percentage in 38 games for the Jets.
Since then, he’s fluttered around .900 in the NHL and posted a .910 mark in 23 games with the Marlies last year. It was Kasimir Kaskisuo who got the starting nod in the playoffs.
“I’m not gonna answer hypotheticals tonight,” Keefe said when asked about his confidence in Hutchinson if Andersen were to miss games.
Even if Andersen misses no time at all, it’s a position the Leafs front office has to look hard at upgrading. It’s been a position of weakness all season, with an untested Kaskisuo lurking in the three-hole.
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How much is worth paying, though? What’s too much to give up for a goaltender who might only be required for a handful of games the rest of the way? Can the Leafs afford not to do it?
It’s something the Leafs GM will have to think long and hard about, regardless of whether it is indeed just a scare with Andersen.
— Stats and research courtesy of Natural Stat Trick, Hockey-Reference and HockeyDB.
(Photo of Hutchinson: Kevin Sousa / NHLI via Getty Images)
