When the X-Press Pearl container ship burned and sank in the Indian Ocean near Sri Lanka, it released a cargo more destructive than all the fuel and caustic chemicals on board: 87 containers of lentil-sized “nurdles,” according to a United Nations report.Ī “nurdle” is a pre-production plastic pellet - beads of specific polymers used as the building blocks of our plasticky world. Welcome to Equilibrium, a newsletter that tracks the growing global battle over the future of sustainability. But that franchise-altering 2.13 goals-against average - that has been the game-changer, and while it is certainly attributable to the brilliant play of goaltender Jack Campbell, it is also a product of the style of which Sheldon Keefe’s team has employed in this image-altering regular season.Today is Tuesday. The Leafs, who can score more, rank 17th in the NHL in goal-scoring right now. You can’t win championships struggling to defend.
Of the past 10 Stanley Cup champions, two led the league in goals against, two teams were second, all but two teams were top eight: You can win struggling to score. They were seventh-best last year, playing only Canadian teams. The Leafs are second in the NHL in goals against, which is incredibly unusual for this franchise. They are playing the best three-zone hockey this team has played save for a three-game beating of the Edmonton Oilers last season - which came and went all too quickly. They have won nine of their past 10 games. This may be just the beginning of December, but these are important steps the Maple Leafs are taking.
Matthews scored seven deflection goals, just none of them like the goal in Anaheim on Sunday.Ībout seven of his scores came from in tight, just neither of them like the goal he scored on Gibson and the Ducks or the crease-side rebound he tapped in a few days earlier in California. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Most were bullet shots, goal-scorer goals, from the kind of release Carey Price once described as impossible to get a read on. The majority of those were not scored from in close. Of the 41 goals he scored last season, 31 came off his remarkable quick release. And he’s doing what the best of all players seem to do on a regular basis - he is picking out parts of his game and growing with them.
He is skating with a confidence and speed he has rarely shown before. He is using his size more to his advantage. Matthews is scoring less - and the Leafs aren’t really concerned about that - and playing better. There is no disappointment when his game is expanding, when the type of goals he is scoring is branching out, when his once-wondered-about leadership is clearly growing, and when the possibilities of the next 59 games and more are exponentially growing. Try refreshing your browser, or tap here to see other videos from our team.Įven in a season such as this one, with the Leafs playing their best hockey in years, with Matthews’ numbers not yet equalling past performance, there is no disappointment in the number of goals he has contributed.
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