Game in 10: Maple Leafs' injury scares, ugly first period make for suboptimal final home game of the regular season vs. Detroit – Maple Leafs Hot Stove
Auston Matthews scored #69, but Maple the Leafs fell 5-4 in overtime to the Red Wings in a game that saw plenty of goals and a few injury scares.
The Leafs opened the scoring but then allowed four unanswered goals to close the first period, exhibiting a lack of defensive effort and (on one goal) woeful goaltending. However, they came out on fire in the second period and scored three to tie the game, including Matthews’ history-making goal. No one scored in the third before Detroit cashed in on an overtime power play to keep their playoff chase alive.
Your game in 10:
1. Both teams got a couple of looks early on in this game. The top line created a look for Tyler Bertuzzi that created a big rebound, but Detroit’s Ben Chiarot got the clear. Detroit’s fourth line created a look for Austin Czarnik that may have hit the side of the post. On Toronto’s top line’s next shift, Auston Matthews intercepted a loose puck in the offensive zone, came in tight on James Reimer, and flipped the puck off the crossbar.
Then came the first of several injury scares, on a rough hit from behind from Joe Veleno on Timothy Liljegren. The defenseman went hard into the boards as he was already hunched over to play the puck, drawing a boarding call that — much to Sheldon Keefe’s chagrin — was only a two-minute minor.
The Leafs didn’t get the call, but they did get the goal. Morgan Rielly passed it over to William Nylander, who slid down the right wing boards and uncorked a dagger pass diagonally across the seam. Mitch Marner received it on the backside and was staring at an open net after Reimer lost his footing in the crease. Marner fired it into the exposed net, putting his team ahead 1-0.
2. The Detroit response came pretty quickly, just over 90 seconds after Toronto got the scoring started. With the puck deep in the offensive zone, Morgan Rielly rolled the dice on an aggressive, low-percentage pinch. Up 1-0 and on the ice against a Red Wings unit containing dangerous scoring talent capable of striking quickly in transition, it wasn’t the time or place, and the decision backfired.
Dylan Larkin chipped the puck ahead to Lucas Raymond, who skated down ice on a 2v1 with Alex DeBrincat. TJ Brodie, once a master of the sliding dive to disrupt the pass and angle off the shot on odd-man rushes against, wasn’t able to cut this one out. Raymond snapped it across to DeBrincat, who tied it at 1-1.
3. Speaking of young Detroit Swedes taking advantage of defensive miscues from Toronto, the Red Wings took a 2-1 lead not long after from a great play by young defenseman Simon Edvinsson. The puck was in the Toronto end and a shot came in from Jeff Petry on the right side, wide of the net and rimming to the other wall. Edvinsson made a stellar read and pinched down to keep the puck in against William Nylander, ladling it down low to David Perron below the goal line. Perron took the puck and fed it right back to Edvinsson, who made a beeline to the net for his first-ever NHL goal that he shot directly into the net (Edvinsson scored two last season that were later credited to him off deflections by the opposing team).
Toronto’s defensive issues on this goal were copious. Nylander got beaten by the pinch and then seemed to have his controller disconnect from the video game console, drifting aimlessly while Edvinsson made a cut to a dangerous area. Pontus Holmberg and Nick Robertson were also standing around in the slot puck-watching while Ilya Lyubushkin couldn’t get a stick on the pass and Morgan Rielly was drifting high in the zone.
This goal looked like one hungry team in a playoff chase playing another team with few stakes or reasons to compete. After a lapse in focus and intensity defensively, the Leafs were down 2-1.
4. The Red Wings weren’t done scoring in the first period. They went on a power play only a few minutes later when Matthew Knies got carried away pursuing Joe Veleno from behind, eventually getting his stick up on the hands and hauling Veleno down. This was a textbook bad penalty where Knies didn’t check with his feet and reached with his stick, leading to a hooking infraction in the offensive zone.
The Maple Leaf penalty kill started well; Jake McCabe used his stick well to disrupt one play and then block a shot, whittling the time remaining on the man advantage down. When Detroit’s second unit jumped on, David Kampf couldn’t seem to get a puck to settle down for him on the wall on what should’ve been a fairly straightforward clearance.
From there, the sticks and bodies of Simon Benoit and Ilya Lyubushkin couldn’t disrupt the down-low passing play to the bumper player, JT Compher. It created a rebound off the pad of Ilya Samsonov, who kicked the puck out and right to Alex DeBrincat for the 3-1 tally.
Just over two minutes later, with under 30 seconds remaining in the first period, it was Samsonov’s turn to wear the cone of shame on this one. Your author had just gotten done texting the sentence “even though three goals have gone in, I don’t blame Samsonov for any” when David Perron took a bad angle shot that somehow snuck through Samsonov. A goal reminiscent of several infamous goals allowed by Frederik Andersen in playoffs gone by, Samsonov seemed to be off balance and wasn’t tight to his post when Perron took the shot, after the puck was dug out by Patrick Kane.
Suddenly, it was 4-1 Detroit at the end of the first period due to four goals in under 10 minutes. At home this season, the Leafs allowed more goals per game than all but three other teams (worse than the Ducks at 3.4/game and easily the worst among playoff teams). That’s despite scoring first 24 times at home (top five in the league). Keefe’s comment after the game, “It seemed like one of those nights where our guys thought it was going to be easy,” is especially strange if true given the opponent had everything to play for tonight.
5. While some wondered if Keefe would pull Samsonov, he left the Russian in the net. In the second period, Samsonov didn’t have too much to do, making a confident save on another look for Edvinsson to get things going. He then helped kill off a second Detroit power play when Tyler Bertuzzi was whistled for high sticking in the offensive zone. The Red Wings didn’t get much on the net, and Simon Benoit showed out with one solid shot block as the visitors came up empty.
The Leafs were pretty lethargic through the first seven or so minutes of the second period. The Red Wings were defending well, and Toronto wasn’t able to get much on net and hadn’t made much of a charge. Then came the moment that opened the floodgates: a goal from Nick Robertson.
Robertson and Holmberg skated through the neutral zone on a 2v2 rush before Robertson perhaps used defenseman Olli Maatta as a bit of a screen, but this goal was mostly shooting talent. Robertson placed a great shot top corner past James Reimer’s glove.
Robertson still has things to learn in the NHL, but there are a finite number of NHLers who can rip shots like that off the rush, and he is one of them. That’s not nothing in regard to playoff lineup considerations; it can change a game at any moment, and it did tonight.
6. Robertson’s goal made it 4-2 and cracked the door open for Toronto, helping them find some life. They also gained life from a dreadful penalty by Patrick Kane, who high sticked Benoit while in the Detroit offensive zone. The contact on Benoit drew blood, giving the Leafs a four-minute power play and a chance to use the 5v4 to erase the entire deficit.
James Reimer started the penalty kill for Detroit okay with a glove stop on Nylander, but then some pretty passing from Rielly, Marner, and Matthews created a goal that Reimer had little chance of stopping. The Leafs were snapping it back and forth, getting Reimer sliding around before Matthews’ wrist shot found the twine only 1:05 into the power play.
Matthews’ goal is his 69th of the season, continuing a historic campaign that has no parallel in the 21st century. It kicked off a palpable buzz in the building whenever Matthews touched the puck in anticipation of #70.
The second unit started the second half of the man advantage before the top unit came back out, and Matthews uncorked a barrage of shots. In total, the Leafs took nine shots on goal in the ~three minutes of 5v4 time. They couldn’t score the equalizer, but these were encouraging signs from the power play as it looks to regain momentum ahead of the playoffs.
7. Unfortunately, here we should talk about the injury storylines. Two concerning developments unfolded in the span of a few minutes from the Leafs’ perspective. While the PP was still going, Matthews got a look in tight for #70 but was stopped by James Reimer. Afterward, Matthews was skated into by friendly fire, losing his balance and tumbling hard into the end boards. He got up slowly and continued to play, but much of Leafs Nation was holding their breath at that moment.
When the play returned to five aside, the Red Wings had the puck in the offensive zone, finding Dylan Larkin in the slot. Jake McCabe, as he so often does, played completely fearlessly, tossing himself in front of the shot and taking it off the face, bleeding profusely as a result.
On top of all it, there was an injury I didn’t mention early on to Bobby McMann, who got tangled up in the corner and then went off the ice. This one might prove to be the most concerning. Post game, it was determined to be a lower-body injury that needs further evaluation. McMann has emerged as a key cog on the top-nine LW not just offensively but arguably as their best option defensively at the position as well — a big piece of giving their balanced look up front more credibility ahead of the playoffs.
8. The Leafs tied up the contest before the second period was even up. They embarked on a dominant cycle shift that had the Red Wings on their heels — the second line of Knies, Marner, and John Tavares were buzzing in the offensive zone. They took several shots on Reimer and retrieved each one until, eventually, Marner fed Tavares in the slot, who ripped a shot over a sprawling Mortiz Seider and past Reimer.
From the moment the Robertson goal went in, the Leafs were all over the Red Wings to close the second period. Each shift was tilted in Toronto’s direction, and you could feel that tying goal coming. Marner’s playmaking and Tavares’ finishing converted on it, and the two teams headed to the dressing room tied at 4-4.
We mentioned the concerning statistics on home ice this season, especially compared to past seasons. A stat that remains encouraging with this Leafs team is its dominance in the second period with the long change. After tonight, the Leafs lead the entire NHL with 114 goals in the middle frame.
9. During the second intermission, it was revealed that due to other results across the NHL, the Red Wings needed at least one point out of this game to avoid mathematical elimination from the playoff picture. A game that already had immense stakes for Detroit saw those stakes and intensity turned up to 100, and you could tell in the third period how focused the Red Wings were on defending, desperate to, at the very least, preserve the point.
The third period wasn’t the most high event period — certainly not in comparison to the first two. Matthews got a few solid looks, including putting a tip wide, and Knies dangled through Detroit bodies before shooting into Reimer’s glove. Nylander got a good look that Reimer also stopped with the glove as the one-time Leaf played a strong third period in the Detroit net. Contrary to the first period (and most of his season), Reimer was poised, composed, and quiet with his movements, affording few rebounds.
In the other net, Ilya Samsonov wasn’t asked to do a ton, but he did make one game-saving stop. The tandem of Dylan Larkin and Lucas Raymond, Detroit’s two best offensive players, hooked up to create a point-blank look in front off a pass from behind the cage. Samsonov stood his ground and made a big reflex save, one that kept the game tied. This was an important bounce-back moment after the four-goal first period, which came in the wake of six goals on 20 shots vs. New Jersey.
With under four minutes to go in the game, Patrick Kane took another terrible high-sticking penalty, this time in the neutral zone, that gave the Leafs a late power play to put it away (to no avail). I didn’t think this was a poor process on the power play in any way — Toronto was able to keep the zone and create several excellent looks, including a tip by Tavares off a Marner pass and a Nylander one-timer from the wing.
10. The Toronto power play came up empty due to Reimer, and it expired with under a minute left in regulation. As the Red Wings came skating through the center ice area Max Domi got the stick in on Alex DeBrincat, who went down and drew the tripping call. The Leafs were shorthanded with 10.4 seconds left in regulation, and the Wings managed to create a mad scramble in the goalmouth, but Samsonov secured the puck and guaranteed Toronto at least a point.
Of course, there was a significant carryover on the power play into overtime, where 4v3 power plays are as dangerous as they come. TJ Brodie touched the puck while shorthanded but sent it into the corner over attempting to clear down the ice. Shayne Gostisbehere handed it off to Kane, who skated down the wall and passed it through Benoit to Dylan Larkin, who established positioning on Brodie in front for the game-winner.
The Leafs got about what they deserved in this one—one loser point—for showing up a period late urgency-wise against a desperate Detroit team before taking the game more seriously in the second and third periods. Dropped points at home to division opponents below them in the standings have been a frustrating feature of the Leafs’ season, but third place was all but set in stone before this game. Most concerning and relevant are the injury developments, particularly with McMann and McCabe (the latter’s situation sounds more encouraging than the former’s).
Liljegren, Rielly, and Matthews may have picked up a few bumps and bruises in the game, which only brings load-management considerations more sharply into focus heading into the season-closing back-to-back in Florida. The Leafs do have to abide by the rules of the cap and need to ice a full roster for two more games — there is only so much resting they can do — so let’s hope this is the last of the ill-timed, late-season injury scares.
NEW YORK (AP) — Jessica Pegula could do no right at the outset of her first Grand Slam semifinal. Her opponent at the U.S. Open on Thursday night, Karolina Muchova, could do no wrong.
“I came out flat, but she was playing unbelievable. She made me look like a beginner,” Pegula said. “I was about to burst into tears, because it was embarrassing. She was destroying me.”
Pegula managed to shrug off that sluggish start and come back from a set and a break down to defeat Muchova 1-6, 6-4, 6-2 for a berth in the final at Flushing Meadows. The No. 6-seeded Pegula, a 30-year-old from New York, has won 15 of her past 16 matches and will meet No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka for the title on Saturday.
Sabalenka, last year’s runner-up to Coco Gauff at the U.S. Open, returned to the championship match by holding off a late push to beat No. 13 Emma Navarro of the United States 6-3, 7-6 (2).
It will be a rematch of last month’s final at the hard-court Cincinnati Open, which Sabalenka won — the only blemish on Pegula’s post-Olympics record.
“Hopefully I can get some revenge out here,” said Pegula, whose parents own the NFL’s Buffalo Bills and NHL’s Buffalo Sabres. “Playing Aryna is going to be really tough. I mean, she showed how tough she is and why she’s probably the favorite to win this tournament.”
Things did not look promising for Pegula early Thursday. Not at all.
Muchova, the 2023 French Open runner-up but unseeded after missing about 10 months because of wrist surgery, employed every ounce of her versatility and creativity, the traits that make her so hard to deal with on any surface. The slices. The touch at the net. The serve-and-volleying. Ten of the match’s first 12 winners came off her racket. The first set lasted 28 minutes, and Muchova won 30 of its 44 points.
After grabbing eight of the first nine games, Muchova was a single point from leading 3-0 in the second set. But she couldn’t convert a break chance there, flubbing a forehand volley off a slice from Pegula, and everything changed.
“I was thinking, ‘All right. That was kind of lucky. You’re still in this,'” Pegula said. “It comes down to really small moments that flip momentum.”
Quickly, the 52nd-ranked Muchova went from not being able to miss a shot to not being able to make one. And Pegula turned it on, heeding her two coaches’ advice to mix up her serves and her spins, to go after Muchova’s backhand more. Most of all, Pegula demonstrated the confident brand of tennis she used to eliminate No. 1 Iga Swiatek, a five-time major champion, in straight sets on Wednesday. Pegula had been 0-6 in major quarterfinals before that breakthrough.
Took Pegula a while to play that well Thursday, but once she got going, whoa, did she ever. All told, she collected nine of 11 games, a span that allowed her to not merely flip the second set but race to a 3-0 edge in the third.
“I was able to find a way, find some adrenaline, find my legs. And then at the end of the second set, into the third set, I started to play like how I wanted to play. It took a while,” Pegula said. “I don’t know how I turned that around.”
Muchova, a 28-year-old from the Czech Republic, hadn’t ceded a set in the tournament until then. But she began to fade. After going 7 for 7 on points at the net in the first set, she went 15 for 29 the rest of the way. After only seven unforced errors in the first set, she had 33 across the second and third.
And all the while, the Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd that was flat at the beginning — save for the occasional cry of “Come on, Jess!” — was roaring.
When things suddenly got quite tight in the second set of the first semifinal, and spectators suddenly got quite loud while pulling for Navarro, Sabalenka found herself flashing back to 2023, when a rowdy Ashe crowd backed Gauff vociferously.
“Last year, it was a very tough experience. Very tough lesson. Today in the match, I was, like, ‘No, no, no, Aryna. It’s not going to happen again. You have to control your emotions. You have to focus on yourself,’” said Sabalenka, a 26-year-old from Belarus who was the champion at the last two Australian Opens.
Using her usual brand of high-risk, high-reward tennis, Sabalenka produced 34 winners and 34 unforced errors — punctuating most of her groundstrokes with a yell — and, in a fitting bit of symmetry, Navarro had 13 winners and 13 unforced errors.
Navarro did not fold in the second set, despite trailing for much of it, and as the noise around her grew, she broke when Sabalenka attempted to serve for the victory at 5-4.
“I wasn’t ready for the match to be over,” Navarro said.
But in the tiebreaker that followed, Sabalenka took over after Navarro led 2-0, grabbing every point that remained.
“I kind of got my teeth into it there at the end of the second set,” said Navarro, who got past Gauff in the fourth round, “and I felt I could definitely push it to a third. Wasn’t able to do so.”
When it ended, thousands of ticket-holders saluted Sabalenka for her latest show of mastery on a hard court; she’s now into her fourth straight final at a major held on that surface.
“Well, guys, now you are cheering for me,” Sabalenka with a laugh. “Well, it’s a bit too late.”
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Patrick Mahomes threw for 291 yards and a touchdown, and the Kansas City defense kept Lamar Jackson and the Ravens out of the end zone on three heart-stopping plays in the final seconds, allowing the Chiefs to begin the pursuit of a record third straight Super Bowl title with a 27-20 victory over Baltimore on Thursday night.
The game ended with a video review after Jackson appeared to connect with Isaiah Likely in the back of the end zone with no time remaining for a touchdown. The video clearly showed Likely’s toe landing on the endline, though, and the call was overturned, sending the Chiefs — and superfan Taylor Swift, high up in a suite — into a wild celebration.
Xavier Worthy had touchdowns rushing and receiving, and Isiah Pacheco also had a TD run for the Chiefs, who not only won the rematch of last season’s AFC title game but beat the Ravens for the fifth time in their last six meetings.
That lopsided ledger has been especially frustrating for Jackson, who has called Kansas City the Ravens’ “kryptonite.” He was sublime on Thursday night, throwing for 273 yards and a touchdown while adding 122 yards on the ground, but a video review of the final play of the game left him to rue another missed chance to finally upstage Mahomes and Co.
Jackson gave Baltimore a chance, too, after getting the ball back at his own 13-yard line with 1:50 left and no timeouts.
He completed a couple throws to Likely, who finished with 111 yards receiving and a score, and scrambled on third-and-2 for a first down. Two plays later, Jackson zipped a pass 38 yards to Rashod Bateman down the sideline that moved the Ravens to the Kansas City 10 with just 19 seconds to go — plenty of time for a few shots at the end zone.
Jackson’s first pass was a throwaway, but his second missed wide-open Zay Flowers in the back of the end zone. Then came the last throw, after Jackson had scrambled for what seemed like an eternity. Ravens coach John Harbaugh signaled that his team would try for a winning 2-point conversion, but it didn’t get that chance after the video review.
The wild ending came after the start was delayed about 20 minutes by a storm that brought heavy rain and lightning.
The Ravens opened with an 11-play, 70-yard drive that ended when Derrick Henry, who tormented the Chiefs in six previous meetings while he was with Tennessee, plunged into the end zone from 5 yards out for the early lead.
But the high-octane Chiefs, trying to avoid losing their opener in back-to-back years, needed just two minutes to produce an answer. Mahomes twice connected with Rashee Rice, who has so far avoided any NFL suspension for his role in a street-racing crash in Dallas, before Worthy showed why the Chiefs made him their first-round pick with a 21-yard touchdown run.
After those two drives, the first half was mostly marked by Week 1 blunders.
Jackson was strip-sacked by Chris Jones deep in his own territory, leading to a field goal for Kansas City. Flowers was stopped short of the first-down marker on fourth-and-3 near midfield on the Ravens’ next series, leading to another field goal. And even Justin Tucker, one of the league’s most accurate kickers, pulled a 53-yard field-goal attempt wide left.
The Chiefs were not immune to mistakes. Mahomes was picked off by Roquan Smith on a poor throw late in the first half, leading to a chip-shot field goal that got Baltimore — which trailed twice at halftime all of last season — within 13-10 at the break.
Yet the Ravens’ inability to get into the end zone, and swing the momentum their way, ultimately proved costly.
The Chiefs opened the second half with an 81-yard touchdown march to extend their lead. Then, after Jackson had connected with Likely on a broken play for a 49-yard touchdown throw, Mahomes drove them 70 yards against the No. 1 scoring defense in the NFL last season for a touchdown that made it 27-17 with 10 minutes to go.
Tucker made it a one-score game with his field goal with 4:54 to go, and Baltimore quickly forced a punt. But despite Jackson’s impassioned play, he was left to trudge off the field after another disappointing loss to the Chiefs.
Star-studded crowd
Swift, the 14-time Grammy winner, wasn’t the only star attending the NFL’s opening night. Quincy Hall, the Olympic 400-meter champion, was in the crowd along with AC Milan midfielder Christian Pulisic, who will join his U.S. teammates Saturday night for an exhibition against Canada at nearby Children’s Mercy Park.
Injuries
Baltimore: LB Kyle Van Noy left six plays into the second half with an eye injury and did not return.
Up next
The Ravens host Las Vegas on Sunday, Sept. 15. The Chiefs get a visit from Cincinnati the same day.
