DALLAS – Joseph Woll had another strong game, William Nylander kept the points coming and Jake McCabe got injured. But the sneakiest important development of the Leafs’ win over a previously unbeaten-in-regulation Dallas team on Thursday was how well Tyler Bertuzzi played.
It was the most Bertuzzi has looked like Bertuzzi as a Leaf. He played a season-high 18 minutes. He attempted five shots. He scored a power-play goal. The Leafs won a team-best 59 percent of the expected goals when he was out there. And most of all, he did Bertuzzi things.
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The guy they all call “Bert” hounded the puck and won it back. He kept pucks alive in the offensive zone. He was a scoring threat. He was wreaking havoc around the net.
“I thought it was his best game today,” Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said.
Bertuzzi was the Leafs’ priciest offseason addition – a cap hit of $5.5 million on a one-year deal. His first six games (and even the preseason) were on the quieter side, which obviously isn’t optimal for the usually noisy Bertuzzi.
A spin with Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner on the No. 1 line lasted only five largely noise-free games. Bertuzzi scored once and registered only a single assist before his breakout in Big D and wasn’t all that noticeable beyond a rash of penalties – or at least that’s how it seemed.
“I’ve been looking at his game really closely, and there are some things that he’s been doing that haven’t got a lot of attention — or haven’t really stood out is more what I’m saying,” Keefe said.
The Leafs coach said he reviewed Bertuzzi’s start in great detail. Keefe looked at “every single time he’s touched the puck” and found Bertuzzi had “done some very subtle things of keeping plays alive and moving the puck to his linemates that hasn’t necessarily been rewarded with points.”
What popped most for Keefe in Bertuzzi’s latest performance was how he skated. And indeed it was noticeable how Bertuzzi, with what seemed like an extra step, was able to chase down pucks and win them back for his new-ish linemates, John Tavares and Nylander.
Prior to that, and especially when he played with Matthews and Marner, Bertuzzi looked a little sluggish, a half-step behind their frenetic pace.
He was playing through an injury that the Leafs never did disclose. At practice in Dallas on Wednesday afternoon, Bertuzzi was constantly in the pigeon pose during breaks in the action, stretching something out.
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Bertuzzi says he’s always stretching, but concedes that he’s “feeling way better”.
He looks to be finding his groove a month or so into his stint with the Leafs, his third NHL team but first (and only) since Detroit to start a season.
Bertuzzi says his trade to Boston midway through last season helped him feel more comfortable with his new team in Toronto at the outset. He had never been dealt before he was shipped to the Bruins in March.
“If I just came from Detroit, obviously I would have no idea what to expect,” he said.
It still took (and is taking) some getting used to, on the ice and off it.
“Obviously any new organization, there’s gonna be changes,” Bertuzzi said, “whether it’s simple things like the meals to practices and stuff like that. It’s just getting adjusted to that.”
The Leafs, for instance, had a bunch of drills at Keefe-led practices that were initially unfamiliar to him. “I’ve got them down now,” he said. “I’m feeling good now.”
There were other little subtleties, like learning every member of the Leafs’ extensive staff. In Detroit, where Bertuzzi played his first seven NHL seasons, he grew to know everyone and everything.
“Toronto has so many resources and people around. It was hard to figure out everyone,” he said. “I’ve got it dialed in now, though.”
Bertuzzi said he hasn’t found the transition to the much larger Toronto all that overwhelming. He lived in the Detroit suburbs, he said, and has found a place in the Toronto suburbs as well. “A little bit away from the city” for the kid from Sudbury.
Bertuzzi conceded some adjustment to the increase in attention that comes with playing in Toronto. He was noticeably uncomfortable standing in front of a huge pack of reporters in the early days of camp.
“Detroit, there was a little bit of attention,” Bertuzzi said. “Then Boston, way more. And then Toronto is a step up from Boston.”
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It’s essential to the Leafs that his game continues to ascend and that he finds a home somewhere in the top-six, what with the Max Domi top-six experiment looking like a no-go already and Calle Järnkrok standing in as an OK, if imperfect, fit with Matthews and Marner. (His hustle did earn the line a goal in Dallas.)
The Leafs also are paying Bertuzzi like a top-six winger, allocating more cap dollars than Michael Bunting got ($4.5 million, albeit on a three-year deal) from Carolina.
Bertuzzi is the likeliest threat for 20 goals beyond the big four forwards and could even make a run at 30 if he stays healthy.
He looks more at home on the sometimes ground-bound Tavares line, where the action tends more toward rolling around down low in the offensive zone.
“Obviously, Willy’s very skilled, fast, and John’s very smart, and very defensive-oriented,” Bertuzzi said. “I think we gel.”
Bertuzzi also brings a legit front-of-the-net presence to the Leafs’ No. 2 power-play unit, a unit that’s outplayed the top group as of late. Bertuzzi’s two power-play goals this season trail only Matthews among Leafs. The power play was quietly a huge part of Bertuzzi’s postseason run with the Bruins, as he scored three goals in seven games.
The latest one for the Leafs was vintage Bertuzzi:
POWERPLAY BERT!!
(How about that Knies keep!!) pic.twitter.com/sEnXQ0uJUL
— Toronto Maple Leafs (@MapleLeafs) October 27, 2023
A just reward for standing in front of the net.
Keefe didn’t think the uptick in Bertuzzi’s game had much to do with his newer linemates. “I think he’s kinda fed up with how it’s going and he’s just working and grinding,” the Leafs coach said. “Just more comfortable in general regardless of who he’s playing with.”
A good sign for the Leafs.
Stats and research courtesy of Natural Stat Trick, Hockey Reference, and Cap Friendly
(Top photo: Jerome Miron / USA Today)
