Last night, the Toronto Maple Leafs lost to the Florida Panthers in overtime with a score of 3-2.
The Panthers were out-shot by the Toronto Maple Leafs last night, but they made up for it by finding the net three times to beat Toronto.
Barkov & Huberdeau Lighting Up The Lamp
Aleksander Barkov opened up the scoring for the Panthers last night on the power-play. Barkov looked like a copycat of James van Riemsdyk on the power-play. He planted himself in front of Curtis McElhinney and grabbed a pass from Jonathan Huberdeau. Immediately after collecting the pass, Barkov put the puck past McElhinney.
In the second period, Huberdeau grabbed his own goal against McElhinney. I’m not going to lie, it was a beautiful goal.
Vincent Trocheck gave Huberdeau the puck and Huberdeau was able to out-skate Tomas Plekanec. Then he lured McElhinney out of the net. Huberdeau then skated around McElhinney with the puck and was able to put the puck in the back of the net with a backhand shot.
Toronto Maple Leafs Rally, But McCann Ends Their Night
The Toronto Maple Leafs found pay-dirt in the second period at the 17 minute mark. Dominic Moore grabbed the puck off of a rebound shot from Kasperi Kapanen and put the puck past Roberto Luongo.
The Toronto Maple Leafs weren’t done. Later on in the second period, William Nylander was in the offensive zone and lost the puck. That didn’t deter Nylander he kept fighting for the puck. He stole the puck from Evgenii Dadonov at centre ice. Nylander then skated up towards Luongo and set up Zach Hyman for the Maple Leafs’ second goal.
Unfortunately for Mike Babcock and the Toronto Maple Leafs, they failed to close the game out with a win. The third period was quiet for both the Panthers and the Maple Leafs, which brought the game to overtime.
Early on in overtime, McElhinney had an amazing stop on Huberdeau, but the Panthers managed to get the puck behind McElhinney shortly after.
Jared McCann, former Vancouver Canucks prospect who was acquired in the Erik Gudbranson deal, found the puck at the blue-line. He managed to skate past Nikita Zaitsev and Nazem Kadri. Once he got past Kadri and Zaitsev, he slapped the puck past McElhinney to allow the Panthers to win.
Unfortunately for the Toronto Maple Leafs, Zaitsev wasn’t himself. He skated towards McCann, but didn’t really put a solid poke-check on him. Instead he just drifted off to the side. Zaitsev needed to be more aggressive, but perhaps he’s a little timid about checking and potentially getting hurt. He simply needs to be more aggressive. If he doesn’t feel like he’s up to the task, Babcock might need to rethink about using Zaitsev in overtime.
On The Bright Side
Even though the Toronto Maple Leafs took another beating in the state of Florida, they still managed to grab two points in matchups against strong divisional foes. The Toronto Maple Leafs squad put up many scoring chances last night, but had some trouble closing.
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If you are worried about the Boston Bruins, don’t be. Boston has 21 games left this season and they will be facing some tough matchups down the stretch. In the next month and a half, the Bruins face the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Philadelphia Flyers twice, the Chicago Blackhawks back-to-back, the Florida Panthers four times, the Columbus Blue Jackets, the Tampa Bay Lightning twice, the Minnesota Wild on the road, the Dallas Stars on the road and the Winnipeg Jets on the road. Boston will have a tough time in the next few weeks.
At the moment, the Toronto Maple Leafs are second in the eastern conference. Currently, they are without the offensive super-star, Auston Matthews as he suffers from a shoulder ailment. So, picking up two points in the state of Florida without your all-star centre isn’t the end of the world.
Next: Mike Babcock and Accountability
Perhaps, a trip up to Annapolis, Maryland will get the Maple Leafs out of their funk. On Saturday, the Toronto Maple Leafs will take on the Washington Capitals at the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium.
Like a lot of others, I’ll be making the trek down through a nor’easter and look forward to seeing a lot of my fellow Toronto Maple Leafs fans.