With only a few hours to work with, Craig Berube shuffled his card deck, conjured some new tricks and ended up pulling two points out of a hat.
Video almost ruined the effect of Berube’s sleight of hand against the Washington Capitals, two Toronto goals overturned in the third period, before Mitch Marner scored on a 6-on-4 power play in regulation before John Tavares won it 4-3 in overtime for the Maple Leafs.
There were changes for the Leafs in goal all the way up to the top lines, the Leafs giving a far better effort than the dismal 3-0 loss at home to Ottawa. They outshot the home team to overcome coverage mistakes, Logan Thompson’s netminding and the travel factor with Tavares scoring on a breakaway.
Berube’s juggling included Tavares joining Marner and Bobby McMann with slumping Max Domi kept with Matthew Knies on his left, but getting another fleet right-winger in William Nylander, who combined with Knies on the second goal.
Toronto Marlies call-up Alex Steeves bumped Nick Robertson from the left wing on the third line with David Kampf moving up from the fourth unit to centre, replaced by Steven Lorentz. On defence, Jani Hakanpaa looked effective in his initial Leafs game and first real appearance since injuring his knee last March with Dallas, partnered with Morgan Rielly.
Any jet lag on the Leafs’ part was tested when the first 6:42 of the game zipped by without a whistle. Lorentz, Connor Dewar and the diggers thought they’d made it a one-goal game halfway through the third period, but after two video calls their way, it was ruled Lorentz made a kicking motion with his leg.
Knies had another taken away by a high stick, but a blade that seemed to be below the bar.
Domi finally had a puck go in, but at the wrong end, a fluke goal by Washington’s Taylor Raddysh. As Domi tried to get back and cover a Caps rush to the net, Raddysh’s centring pass hit his skate and beat Joseph Woll. Domi earned himself a second-period breakaway, but couldn’t elevate his shot enough on Thompson’s glove side, leaving him in a career-worst 12-game pointless streak. That’s despite a prime-time role in the injured Auston Matthews’ absence.
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Washington, the NHL leader in 5-on-5 goals as the Leafs have had few in the wake of power-play success and stress on defence, added another after Tavares fed McMann to make it 1-1. They won puck pursuit in a late first-period press, capped by Aliaksei Protas finding Dylan Strome, both continuing strong play as Alex Ovechkin’s setup men. The 39-year-old Ovechkin has been prolific lately, but didn’t get any closer to Wayne Gretzky’s NHL goal record, still at Gretzky’s 894 to Ovie’s 863.
The Caps thought they were up two in the middle period when John Carlson blasted one through a screen, but Berube won his first challenge of the year when his video crew detected Nic Dowd had infringed on Woll in the blue paint. Later, a high-sticking double minor to Knies came off the board when the officials checked and found it was incidental arm contact.
Washington coach Spencer Carbery was naturally quite peeved, but his side went up by two anyway when Jake McCabe fanned on a puck deep in the Caps’ zone, leading to an odd-man rush. McCabe and the scrambling Leafs concentrated on Ovechkin who slid the puck to an unguarded Protas.
Toronto must now must prep for Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday.
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