The St. Louis Blues are a time zone away and toil in the other conference, but in less than 10 days gave the Maple Leafs more fits than Boston, Florida or Tampa Bay.
Toronto will be glad to see the back end of the Bluenote after Saturday’s 4-2 empty-net goal loss at the Enterprise Center. Coupled with last week’s home thrashing, the injury-plagued Blues won the series by a combined 9-3 score. And for the second time, the Leafs couldn’t win one for either their coach, former Blues headmaster Craig Berube, or their Missouri-born goalie, Joseph Woll.
At least the first period was ideal for the Leafs, an early strike when Conor Timmins’ point shot on net pinballed on to Mitch Marner’s stick to end his eight-game goal slump. Several other quality looks presented themselves as Marner, Auston Matthews, Matthew Knies, Morgan Rielly and John Tavares, the drivers of the offence of late, buzzed the Blues.
As expected, Berube received an extended standing ovation in an early timeout during a video tribute for his four years that included the 2019 Stanley Cup championship. But Jordan Binnington made 11 saves in the first period and has stopped 76 of 79 the past two games.
Woll, with family and friends driving 40 minutes in from Dardenne Prairie for his first local start, was the victim of a tired quintet at 3:29 of the second period, a wacky deflection five minutes later and then a partial screen as St. Louis jumped ahead.
As the Leafs tried to make a line change during extended pressure Colton Parayko got his 6-foot-6, 228- pound frame behind a heavy shot. Jordan Kyrou, foiled earlier in close on Woll, had his next shot strike Jake McCabe and change direction in the net before Chris Tanev briefly blocked his goalie’s view on another Parayko drive in the high 90 miles-per-hour range.
The Blues, already missing Torey Krug and Robert Thomas, lost Philip Broberg with a leg injury just before their goal rush.
There was another spate of penalties for Berube to grumble about his team taking, two by the usually clean Marner, including one that nullified a power play and one by Matthews in defence of Marner getting flattened. Speaking of which, in its first full chance at the end of the middle period, second unit winger Max Domi couldn’t get a puck over Binnington’s blocker.
The Leafs’ three power-play goals through 39 tries includes none on the road, as Berube even went back to the familiar Toronto first unit, Matthews, Marner, Tavares, William Nylander and Rielly on the last try.
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After that final fling at ending the extra-man slump, Steven Lorentz ended some fourth line pressure with a goal to make it tight, but Pavel Buchnevich added one with Woll on the bench.
There were a couple of fights, Jake McCabe taking exception to a hit and scrapping with Brayden Schenn and a very unlikely battle, Pontus Holmberg against the much taller Buchnevich after a series of heavy hits by both clubs.
Anthony Stolarz is the expected starter Sunday in Minnesota as the Leafs record dropped to 6-5-1.
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