Some home cooking during the holidays hasn’t gone over well with the Maple Leafs.
On Saturday night, the Leafs lost for the third consecutive game at Scotiabank Arena, falling 5-2 against the Washington Capitals.
Toronto, which didn’t score on two power plays, dropped to 4-4-1 in the second game of back-to-back sets after it won in Detroit on Friday.
Tom Wilson scored on the Capitals’ only power play, at 12:36 of the third period. Alex Ovechkin, in his first game after missing 16 games with a broken leg, scored into an empty Toronto net late in the third.
Matt Murray made 27 saves for the Leafs.
Logan Thompson was sharp in the Caps net, making 35 saves, and was a large factor in Washington’s 24th victory of 2024-25.
His best stop came in the first period when took what appeared to be an obvious goal away from William Nylander, snaring the puck as Nylander looked at an open net.
The Leafs took a 1-0 lead at 3:14 of the first period when a shot by Simon Benoit hit John Tavares and went in.
Toronto couldn’t build off its early success.
The Caps scored twice before the nine-minute mark to go up 2-1.
It was a bad look for Murray when a shot by Andrew Mangiapane got through him and fell over the goal line at 4:46. When Jakob Chychrun one-timed a pass from Trevor van Riemsdyk, Murray couldn’t move across the crease to get in the way and Washington had its second goal at 8:54.
The Leafs tied the game at 8:10 of the second when Bobby McMann got his own rebound on a 2-on-1 with Max Domi. Mitch Marner also assisted on the goal, running his point streak to eight games.
Again, though, the Leafs couldn’t make it work in their favour. Not long after Matthew Knies was unable to clear the zone, ex-Leaf Rasmus Sandin set up Nic Dowd for an open-net goal.
Leafs captain Auston Matthews was on the ice on Saturday morning as he took part in Toronto’s optional morning skate.
Matthews missed his fourth game in a row with a recurring upper-body injury that caused him to miss nine games in November, but there is some optimism.
“He has been on the ice the last couple of days, so he’s making really good progress which is great, and he’s feeling a lot better,” Leafs coach Craig Berube said.
There’s no target date yet for Matthews’ first game back.
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