Everything worked last night. Let's savour it.

This is outstanding:

And Troy Stecher got his revenge on the team who waived him:

And Jack Roslovic:

William Nylander's 299th was great:

His 300th was an ENG. But it counts!

Final score was 6-3 Leafs. Anthony Stolarz was outstanding and Tristan Jarry wasn't, but this wasn't a goalie-ing. This was the whole team playing well.

Oh, and the Oilers busted the PK streak, so all talk of that can now mercifully end.

P.S. Easton Cowan was excellent and played 11 of his 14 minutes at five-on-five against McDavid.

This is a good and accurate enough look at this issue without climbing into hard concepts or a lot of numbers.

Why NHL save percentages continue to decline despite goalies getting better
NHL save percentages have fallen to historic lows despite goaltenders becoming bigger, faster and more technically advanced. Justin Bourne dives into the numbers to look at what is leading to the decline.
Sportsnet.caJustin Bourne

In a more nuanced world where we step away from SOG and into shots weighted for their quality, there are some more issues at play that are likely data collection changes. This mostly comes to the consumer of information in xG models. One of the lessons – about SOG totals, their inverse SV% or more sophisticated shot measures – is you need to stop comparing year to year.

Having a good understanding in the back of your mind where average is, where good is, where elite is on any given continuum is really handy, but the changes the NHL has made have made that less useful.

Sure is easy to complain about goalies though! See, there's always a brightside.

Get ready for some late games. Monday's is at 8:30, Wednesday's at 10.

From The Branches