Toronto Maple Leafs: Garret Sparks gets bailed out in first start

Making his first start of the season, Garret Sparks backstopped the Toronto Maple Leafs to victory with a lot of offensive support.

Sunday’s Toronto Maple Leafs game felt like a 1980s hockey game with a 7-6 win over the Chicago Blackhawks which saw a lot of scoring chances exchanged between both teams and some questionable goaltending.

The Leafs were coming off a brutal loss against the Ottawa Senators where the team couldn’t overcome costly defensive mistakes and Frederik Andersen struggled to make crucial saves.

With the night off, it was Garret Sparks turn to show why the Leafs kept him over Curtis McElhinney and Calvin Pickard and safe to say, it wasn’t the type of performance that was deserving of praise. At the same time, he didn’t cost the team a loss even though he was close at times.

It is easy to pick on Sparks after a performance like that considering the long debate between him and McElhinney but this was not an easy game by any stretch. The Blackhawks have been firing at all cylinders since the start of the season and they continued that tonight.

More from Toronto Maple Leafs

• Maple Leafs Rumours: Half of NHL teams interested in Ilya Mikheyev
• Toronto Maple Leafs: How to address the goaltender position
• Leafs reward Timothy Liljegren with extension after breakout season
• Maple Leafs: Jack Campbell situation becoming increasingly uncertain
• Jason Spezza retires, joins Toronto Maple Leafs front office

In past years, Chicago would have eaten Toronto for breakfast especially with Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane but Austin Matthews and John Tavares weren’t going to let that happen. It should be comforting for Leafs fans to have players that can rise to the occasion as Matthews and Tavares did which pleased Mike Babcock. 

Eventually, teams will start to figure things out defensively but in the meantime, the Leafs will take the goals but the goaltending will have to be better.

Babcock is always tough on goaltenders especially his backups, he was critical of Sparks performance in the pre-season and gave a subtle jab for his performance tonight.

"“It was probably fun for the fans, a lot of entertainment out there. Obviously, it was going in on both nets. We had a lot of good plays. They were flying, we were standing there watching them at the start” Babcock told reporters after the game.“I don’t know if that’s too much respect or what that was at the start, but once we got playing I thought we did a real good job. Yet, the puck kept going in on our net. I thought we were home free a few times, but that never happened.”"

This was supposed to be a statement game for Sparks considering all the doubters and while he got the win the backup won’t get many chances to allow six goals a game. In that final minute where the Leafs took the lead, that was the moment for Sparks to prove that he could handle the pressure of holding the lead and it didn’t happen.

Now it also doesn’t help that the Leafs couldn’t box players out in the front of the net and were caught puck watching at times but they picked up their game and overcame a 2-0 deficit but had to keep the offensive support going until the end.

Maybe as time goes on he’ll be able to settle in but Sparks isn’t going to get as many chances as he did in the AHL so he shouldn’t get too comfortable.

What did you think of Sparks first start? Is there any reason to be concerned? Let us know in the comments below.