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Thomas Chabot exploits Leafs' offseason question marks on game-winner

With Erik Karlsson now out of the picture, it’s officially Thomas Chabot time in Ottawa. (Getty)
With Erik Karlsson now out of the picture, it’s officially Thomas Chabot time in Ottawa. (Getty)

The Maple Leafs had a pretty good offseason, to say the least, but in their second game of the season a couple of the team’s question marks entering the 2018-19 campaign were exploited — especially on Thomas Chabot’s game winner.

With his new-found role as the team’s No. 1 defender following the departure of Erik Karlsson, Thomas Chabot is taking full advantage of the opportunity, breaking out with a two-goal performance in Ottawa’s 5-3 win over Toronto on Saturday.

The 21-year-old was especially electric on his third-period winner:

After Bobby Ryan made a quick chip pass to the middle of the ice, Chabot picked it up with speed and dashed through the neutral zone before catching Leafs rookie Igor Ozhiganov fishing. Chabot danced around the blue-liner, ending the rush with a shot that found it’s way past the right arm of Freddie Andersen.

The Maple Leafs have arguably one of the strongest left blue lines in the Eastern Conference with Morgan Rielly, Jake Gardiner and Travis Dermott filling the quota, but the team’s right side was and still is a big question mark for a team that hopes to be contending come spring time. With off-handed veteran Ron Hainsey filling the top RD spot and wild card Nikita Zaitsev holding the second pair job heading into the campaign, it was Ozhiganov who rightfully earned the third-pairing job out of camp and built on that performance with a strong first game on Saturday against the Canadiens.

He was exploited heavily on this play, however, which didn’t necessarily uncover the fact that Toronto will need to add (at least) some depth to the right side before it can really be taken as a serious threat in the East, but more so just reiterated what most felt was Toronto’s most glaring weakness heading into the summer.

Another question that has arisen this time of year over the last few seasons is the play of Andersen — who has really struggled in October the last two campaigns:

October 2017: .876 Save % / 3.67 GAA / 2-2-3 record

October 2018: .896 Save % / 3.46 GAA / 6-5-0 record

The Leafs netminder appeared to revert back to Classic October Andersen during Saturday’s contest against the Senators, allowing four goals on just 23 shots with at least two of them — not including Chabot’s second — of the oh-man-he-really-should’ve-had-that-on variety.

On the game-winner from Chabot, the Maple Leafs goaltender got caught flat-footed and tried to compensate by backing in too aggressively. He ended up off-balance, mis-timed the shot and didn’t track the puck well enough to make what should’ve been a fairly easy blocking-arm stop.

These little missteps in timing and execution from the team’s No. 6 blueliner and starting goalie are easily fixable and no reason to panic, but it’s safe to say the questions surrounding the team’s right side of the defence and Andersen’s ability to be a true lockdown star netminder over a full season won’t be going away anytime soon.

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