Is Tyler Bertuzzi hurt, or is he becoming Nick Ritchie? Will Jake McCabe be getting the Justin Holl treatment from Leafs nation?
When an assistant coach leaves to become a head coach somewhere else, the secrets leave with him.
Such is the case with Spencer Carbery, who took over behind the bench of the Washington Capitals after a couple of seasons running the Maple Leafs power play.
Some ideas that have gone with him:
Hiring more skills coaches.
Using time and extra ice sheets before practice for players to work on skills.
Bringing in extra goalies to do to the grunt work while the top netminders work on their own.
And a big thing he learned from Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe was bench management.
“He’s a good in-game manager of picking spots when you can put Auston (Matthews), Mitch (Marner) and William (Nylander) together, or using John Tavares in different situations. Putting multiple centres out on the ice at the same time,” Carbery said of Keefe.
And being creative in training camp.
“I feel like this is something that he does every year,” said Carbery. “This year, there was Nylander playing the middle. Mitch Marner was playing on defence last year in training camp. Little things. Maybe you use it, maybe you don’t, but he’s always trying to push the envelope to find ways to create an advantage for his hockey team. For head coaches, that’s what you’re trying to do. He’s as good as anybody that I’ve met at doing that.”
Keefe was just as complimentary to Carbery.
“I really enjoyed working with him,” said Keefe. “Learned a lot from him. He brought a lot to our team and to our staff, and I’m thrilled for him to get this opportunity.”
Of course, the joke around Washington with the Capitals struggling out of the gate: If Carbery could take all that with him from Toronto, why couldn’t he take the power play?
The Capitals have yet to score a power-play goal.
1. Wouldn’t Corey Perry look good on the Leafs’ fourth line?
2. Come-from-behind wins are exciting and all, but is this how the Leafs should be playing? They have one win in regulation time. Remember, regulation wins are the first tiebreaker. The Atlantic Division could be very tight this year, so it might matter.
3. Morgan Rielly said he was proud of ex-teammate Travis Dermott for defying the league’s mandate not to use rainbow tape in support of the LGBTQ community. “I think it was a good move,” said Rielly. “Whenever you’re asked not to do something and you do it anyway, it takes a little bit of courage.”
4. Is Tyler Bertuzzi hurt, or is he on his way to becoming Nick Ritchie? He lost his spot on the top line in each of the last two games and will start Tuesday on the second line with Tavares and Nylander. “With the calibre of players that we have through our lineup, I think anybody can play with anybody,” said Keefe.
5. Is Jake McCabe on his way to getting the Justin Holl treatment from Leafs nation?
6. Holl, by the way has three assists in five games and is plus-nine in Detroit. He’s fifth on the Red Wings in expected goals (56.47 per cent).
7. Approached Capitals goalie Darcy Kuemper (from Saskatoon) with a theory that North American-trained goalies were pretty good at baseball as kids: “When I played ball, though, I threw left, so I caught right. I catch left in hockey, so that might throw off your theory.”
8. The Leafs’ trip to Amalie Arena brought back the wrong kind of memories for Leafs rookie Matthew Knies. He lost the NCAA national championship there (right before turning pro). “It’s hard for me to come here and relive those memories. It’s nice to keep changing it with better memories.”
9. That said, not only was Knies part of the Leafs’ first playoff series victory since 2004 in Tampa in the spring, he scored his first two regular-season goals there on Saturday. He has seven points in eight games (including playoffs) against the Lightning.
10. Rielly was asked what he remembers most about facing Florida in the playoffs last year: “The outcome is the thing that jumps out.” Enough said.
11. Florida head coach Paul Maurice was asked what he remembered most about the Leafs-Panthers series: “That series was the start of us suffering some injuries that were starting to mount on us. The thing I remember the most was walking into the dressing room after Game 3 and watching Sam Bennett trying to take his shoulder pads off, and he really couldn’t. The story at that point was, Toronto had figured out a way to shut the Bennett line down. We were just happy he was in the lineup.”
12. Maurice also spoke about that Radko Gudas/Joseph Woll moment, with Gudas lording it over the Leafs goalie after Florida eliminated Toronto. “We thought it was kind of funny,” said Maurice. “He’s such an emotional guy. It was his barbaric yelp. People in Toronto probably didn’t appreciate it the way that we did here.”
13. The Anaheim Ducks intend to keep No. 2 draft pick Leo Carlsson in the NHL this season, but don’t intend to play him every game to help him acclimate to the pros.