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With Ryan O’Reilly moving to LTIR, opportunity knocks for other Maple Leafs

Published

2 years ago

March 6, 2023

NEWARK – Sheldon Keefe exhaled in between the answers he gave at his media availability on Monday with good reason. The loss of Ryan O’Reilly to LTIR with a broken finger was far from the only news the Maple Leafs coach had to cover.

What comes next for a team whose lineup remains in a state of flux?

Let’s start with O’Reilly, who took a shot off his left hand late in the second period on Saturday against the Canucks. Keefe confirmed O’Reilly broke his finger but didn’t put an exact timeline on his return as O’Reilly returned to Toronto to see a specialist for an accurate diagnosis. Keefe did stress multiple times that O’Reilly would be fit to return for the playoffs.

“We’ve acquired him to be healthy and ready to go for the playoffs,” Keefe said. “To that end, it’s not bad.”

Any player going on LTIR must remain out of the lineup for 10 games and 24 days.

“In essence, you go back to the way we were,” Keefe said of how he sees the forward group shaking out.

The most notable benefactor of the injury, at least immediately, is fellow new Leafs forward Sam Lafferty. Monday’s practice saw the speedy new acquisition deployed between William Nylander and Calle Jarnkrok after Lafferty spent his first three games on the wing.

“It gets (Lafferty) back into a position of comfort,” Keefe said.

The Leafs have been interested in plugging Lafferty into the middle of the ice, having been impressed while scouting him playing centre with the Blackhawks. That Lafferty kept his head above water playing in difficult head-to-head matchups with the Blackhawks stuck out to Keefe.

Lafferty could stick at centre when O’Reilly returns should the Leafs biggest acquisition this season end up playing on the second line with John Tavares. That would keep David Kampf in a fourth-line role. Whether Lafferty can use his wheels and form some chemistry with the Jarnkrok, more of a skilled and cerebral forward, might go a long way to determining his role down the stretch.

“Just try to use my speed, get pucks back and get it to those guys,” Lafferty said of his approach alongside Jarnkrok and Nylander. If he can also bring more of the physical element that’s been lacking from that line, all the better.

The loss of O’Reilly was further complicated by Tavares struggling with an illness on Monday. The Leafs captain practiced in a grey sweater and won’t play on Tuesday. Keefe said that decision was “out of an abundance of caution” and that a return for Saturday’s game against the Oilers is likely. Still, getting a clear picture of how the Leafs forward groups will look throughout this upcoming stretch without O’Reilly will therefore be difficult, at least against the Devils.

Keefe was hesitant to correlate Tavares’ missing Tuesday’s game with the hit he took from Canucks defenceman Tyler Myers.

Tyler Myers catches Tavares pic.twitter.com/u9JE81u6Pf

— Omar (@TicTacTOmar) March 5, 2023

“You’re a little bit more mindful of it. But there’s a lot more. There’s a bug going around, we’re travelling a lot, we just want to be sure. He got through the entire practice today and felt good,” Keefe said.

With O’Reilly on LTIR, the Leafs had the ability to call up both Pontus Holmberg and Alex Steeves from the Marlies. Holmberg and Steeves have spent the previous seven games together on a line with the Marlies, with a combined eight points in the process.

Steeves struggled with his early season AHL form but has improved as of late with responsible two-way play. And Holmberg has shown off more offensive touches in his game in the AHL while looking like an NHL-ready defensively-minded centre during his 36 games with the Leafs this season.

“Their skill sets match,” Keefe said of the pair, who are projected to play with Michael Bunting.

With 19 games remaining in the regular season, this call-up feels like one of the last opportunities both players will get to earn a spot in Keefe’s playoff lineup, if there is any space for them at all. Holmberg in particular has shown, despite a few errors here and there, that he can earn Keefe’s trust with his ability to read plays in the offensive and defensive zones.

Sticking with the forward group, Bunting continues to see his role diminish. Once seen as a de facto left winger with Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner, Bunting’s offensive effectiveness has waned. As Jonas Siegel recently noted, Bunting averaged 15.5 minutes ATOI in February, down from 17 minutes a game in January.

“I don’t know,” a perturbed-sounding Bunting said when asked where he thinks his game is at right now. “It is what it is. I’m hopefully going to get it back here.”

Coupled with some unnecessary penalties as of late, it feels like both Bunting and Keefe are looking for the player to hit the reset button.

“I just want him to worry about his game,” Keefe said. “That’s a big part of why we changed the lines. When you’re playing up on that top group, not only is the expectation high in terms of production, but the matchups are difficult.”

The expectations have shifted. Now, Keefe wants Bunting to use his speed, tenacity and playmaking to drive a line with two relatively inexperienced players alongside him. Doing so could help solidify his case that he should be back beside Matthews and Marner sooner rather than later.

“There’s a bit of a mental block there for him right now,” Keefe said. “And we’re trying to help him through that. He’s an important guy. I have full confidence he’ll end up back with Matthews before long.”

And as if that wasn’t enough on the news front, new Leafs defenceman Luke Schenn was absent from practice. The former Canuck stayed in Vancouver after Saturday’s loss as his family is expecting the birth of their third child.

The defence pairs saw some movement as well as a result, with Timothy Liljegren joining Morgan Rielly on a pair. Liljegren had spent the last two games in the press box as a healthy scratch as Keefe experimented with a lineup featuring 11 forwards and seven defencemen. Keefe will, rightfully, return to 12 forwards and six defencemen against the Devils on Tuesday.

Liljegren should slot in on the team’s second power-play unit as well.

“As I’ve talked to him about, our team is deeper on defence than it was prior to the deadline. So with him, and the rest of our defence, the standard is higher in terms of staying in and competing with that,” Keefe said.

For his own part, Liljegren believes his game has taken a step forward this season because of how often he’s played against top forward lines compared to sometimes being sheltered in previous NHL stints.

All in all, the Leafs adjustment to the steady stream of new faces in the days leading up to the trade deadline and then after the deadline itself continues to be a work in progress. It was noteworthy to hear Lafferty say on Monday that there’s more offensive structure in the Leafs system than he’s been used to. Assuming he’s not alone, the ripple effects of the new acquisitions may continue to be felt throughout this upcoming stretch.

On one hand, synergy among linemates and pairs can be hard to come by with the amount of changes there’s been to the Leafs lineup. The flipside of that argument is that the serious depth and options that the influx of players provides Keefe is a boon to someone who prefers to experiment and move pieces around in his lineup to find a formula he likes.

That perhaps is why Keefe stressed on Monday that blaming the latter for the team’s two losses in their last three games since they acquired Lafferty and Jake McCabe from the Blackhawks is “letting us off the hook too easily, frankly.”

“The more time that passes,” Keefe said, “we will get better as a group.”

(Top photo of Sam Lafferty: Andy Devlin / NHLI via Getty Images)

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NHL roundup: Hurricanes beat Flyers 6-4 for seventh straight win

Published

1 hour ago

November 6, 2024

Anne Joseph

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Martin Necas scored a go-ahead goal with 29 seconds left and the Carolina Hurricanes beat the Philadelphia Flyers 6-4 on Tuesday night.

It was the seventh straight win for the Hurricanes, who also got goals from Jack Roslovic, Jordan Martinook, Eric Robinson and Jackson Blake. Seth Jarvis added an empty-net goal in the final seconds.

Necas typically saves his game-winners for overtime, with nine in his career, but he was able to take care of business in regulation with his team-best seventh goal of the season.

Travis Konecny scored two goals and had two assists for the Flyers. Morgan Frost and Owen Tippett also scored for Philadelphia.

Aleksei Kolosov made 28 saves for the Flyers, who trailed 2-1, 3-1 and 4-3 but kept coming back. Carolina’s Pyotr Kochetkov struggled in net allowing four goals on just 16 shots.

Elsewhere in the NHL on Tuesday:

—

SABRES 5 SENATORS 1

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Bowen Byram and Tage Thompson scored 16 seconds apart to open the third period, and Buffalo snapped a three-game skid with a win over Ottawa.

Byram scored twice, JJ Peterka had two goals and an assist and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 37 saves.

Ridly Greig converted his own rebound in cutting Buffalo’s lead to 2-1 with 7:31 left in the second period. Linus Ullmark made 29 saves in dropping to 1-4 in his past five starts.

Buffalo went up 3-1 on Byram’s second goal 21 seconds into the third period. The defenceman’s shot from inside the blue line sneaked through Ullmark, with the puck rolling down the goalie’s pad, dropping into the crease and trickling across the line. Thompson scored when he crashed the net, was knocked over by defender Jake Sanderson and was lying in the crease when Alex Tuch’s shot went in off his shoulder.

—

MAPLE LEAFS 4 BRUINS 0

TORONTO (AP) — Anthony Stolarz made 29 saves for his first shutout of the season in Toronto’s 4-0 victory over Boston.

Morgan Rielly had a goal and two assists as Toronto connected three times on the power play. William Nylander and Matthew Knies added a goal and an assist each. Mitch Marner had two assists of his own. Steven Lorentz rounded out the scoring into the empty net.

The Leafs played without captain Auston Matthews, who is listed as day-to-day with an upper-body injury.

Jeremy Swayman made 23 stops for Boston, which was coming off consecutive weekend shutouts of the Philadelphia Flyers and Seattle Kraken.

Toronto’s porous 31st-ranked power play scored for the second time in as many games at 8:44 of the second period when Rielly fired through a screen. Nylander banked in his team-leading 10th goal of the season on another man advantage 1:14 later for a 2-0 lead.

The Bruins entered the game 8-0-0 in the regular season against their Atlantic Division rival dating back to Jan. 14, 2023.

—

FLAMES 3 CANADIENS 2 (OT)

MONTREAL (AP) — Matt Coronato scored twice as Calgary came back to defeat Montreal in overtime.

Coronato tied the game with 2:46 remaining in regulation when he cruised into the slot and went off the post and in. He then buried the winning goal seven seconds into the extra period.

Connor Zary also scored for Calgary, which won its second game in seven outings. Dustin Wolf stopped 21 shots.

Joel Armia — with a short-handed goal — and Brendan Gallagher scored for Montreal (4-7-2). Armia also provided an assist, while Sam Montembeault made 32 saves as the Canadiens’ losing streak extended to four games.

Zary opened the scoring with his third 4:20 into the second period when he pounced on a loose puck in the slot and fired a shot past Montembeault.

Gallagher then slipped the puck between Wolf’s pads at 16:23 to level the score with his fifth of the season.

—

BLUES 3 LIGHTNING 2

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Jordan Kyrou, Alexey Toropchenko and Oskar Sundqvist scored to help St. Louis beat Tampa Bay 3-2.

Blues goaltender Jordan Binnington made 21 saves for his 149th career win moving him past Jake Allen for second place in franchise history, just two wins behind Mike Liut’s 151.

Nick Perbix and Victor Hedman scored, and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 20 saves for the Lightning who have lost three straight games.

Kyrou scored his fourth goal of the season 8:51 into the third period to give St. Louis a 3-1 lead.

Toropchenko scored his first goal of the season with 1:35 remaining in the second period to put St. Louis ahead 2-1 after Sundqvist tied the game with his first of the season 7:47 into the period.

—

ISLANDERS 4 PENGUINS 3 (SO)

NEW YORK (AP) — Bo Horvat scored the only goal in a shootout and New York rallied past Pittsburgh 4-3.

New York goalie Ilya Sorokin denied Rickard Rakell, Sidney Crosby and Kris Letang in the shootout and finished with 32 saves. Kyle Palmieri had a goal and an assist for the Islanders, who trailed 3-1 midway through the third period.

Simon Holmstrom and Jean-Gabriel Pageau scored in the third for New York. Horvat had two assists.

Evgeni Malkin had a goal and an assist to lead Pittsburgh. Crosby got his 598th career goal, and Michael Bunting also scored. Rakell added two assists.

Alex Nedeljkovich stopped 23 shots for the Penguins, who have lost seven of nine. They won their previous two following a six-game skid.

—

KINGS 5 WILD 1

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Trevor Lewis scored twice, Kevin Fiala added another on the power play and Los Angeles beat Minnesota 5-1.

Warren Foegele and Quinton Byfield also scored for Los Angeles, which was playing the second night of a back-to-back after a 3-0 win in Nashville a night earlier. David Rittich made 23 saves for the Kings.

Fiala, who was traded to Los Angeles in 2022 by Minnesota for a first-round pick draft pick and defenceman Brock Faber, scored his seventh goal of the season. He now has three goals and six assists in his last seven games against the Wild.

Minnesota, which had won three in a row, opened the scoring in the second period on Zach Bogosian’s first goal of the season. Goaltender Filip Gustavsson stopped 23 shots for the Wild.

—

JETS 3 UTAH 0

WINNIPEG, Man. (AP) — Nino Niederreiter scored twice in his 900th NHL career game and Connor Hellebuyck made 21 saves to help Winnipeg defeat Utah 3-0.

It was Hellebuyck’s second shutout of the season and 39th of this career.

Gabriel Vilardi also scored for the Jets. Adam Lowry assisted on both goals by Niederreiter.

Utah ended a run of picking up points in three consecutive games (1-0-2).

Karel Vejmelka stopped 25 shots for Utah in its second stop on a four-game road trip.

Jets winger Kyle Connor had his franchise-record, season-opening points streak end at 12 games.

—

AVALANCHE 6 KRAKEN 3

DENVER (AP) — Arturri Lehkonen scored the go-ahead goal on a power play in his season debut and Nathan MacKinnon had five assists as Colorado beat Seattle 6-3.

Mikko Rantanen added two goals for the Avalanche, who snapped a three-game losing streak. Ivan Ivan, Nikolai Kovalenko and Chris Wagner also scored for Colorado.

Cale Makar had two assists but the star defenceman barely played in the second half of the game and appeared to be slowed by an apparent injury during a brief shift.

MacKinnon and Makar extended their season-opening point streaks to 13 games.

Lehkonen played for the first time since off-season shoulder surgery.

Jared McCann, Jaden Schwartz and Brandon Montour scored for the Kraken.

—

CANUCKS 5 DUCKS 1

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Brock Boeser, Danton Heinen and Kiefer Sherwood had a goal and an assist apiece, and Quinn Hughes recorded his 300th career assist in Vancouver’s victory over Anaheim.

Jake DeBrusk and Elias Pettersson also scored and Hughes had three assists for the Canucks, who have won six of eight. Kevin Lankinen made 21 saves in Vancouver’s sixth consecutive win over the Ducks.

Olen Zellweger scored a power-play goal early in the first period for Anaheim, which has lost seven of nine. Lukas Dostal stopped 31 shots.

Canucks goalie Thatcher Demko took shots from teammates again after the morning skate, and he could return to practice this week. The Southern California native and 2023-24 Vezina Trophy finalist hasn’t played this season due to a knee injury incurred late last season.

—

SHARKS 2 BLUE JACKETS 1 (OT)

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Alex Wennberg scored 3:11 into overtime and San Jose celebrated the return of No. 1 overall draft pick Macklin Celebrini with a win over Columbus.

Defenceman Jack Thompson scored his first career goal for the Sharks (4-8-2), who entered the night with the worst record in the NHL. San Jose has won four of five.

Celebrini, the top pick in the 2024 NHL draft, missed 12 games with a hip injury he sustained in the season opener Oct. 10 — an injury first incurred during the pre-season. Celebrini didn’t score and missed a shot early in overtime.

San Jose goalie Vitek Vanacek was fantastic in net, making 49 saves.

Blue Jackets right wing Kirill Marchenko scored for the second consecutive game. Columbus (5-6-1) has lost three straight.

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Canada’s Dabrowski and New Zealand’s Routliffe pick up second win at WTA Finals

Published

1 day ago

November 5, 2024

Anne Joseph

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski and New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe remain undefeated in women’s doubles at the WTA Finals.

The 2023 U.S. Open champions, seeded second at the event, secured a 1-6, 7-6 (1), (11-9) super-tiebreak win over fourth-seeded Italians Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini in round-robin play on Tuesday.

The season-ending tournament features the WTA Tour’s top eight women’s doubles teams.

Dabrowski and Routliffe lost the first set in 22 minutes but levelled the match by breaking Errani’s serve three times in the second, including at 6-5. They clinched victory with Routliffe saving a match point on her serve and Dabrowski ending Errani’s final serve-and-volley attempt.

Dabrowski and Routliffe will next face fifth-seeded Americans Caroline Dolehide and Desirae Krawczyk on Thursday, where a win would secure a spot in the semifinals.

The final is scheduled for Saturday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on Nov. 5, 2024.

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Allen nets shutout as Devils burn Oilers 3-0

Published

1 day ago

November 4, 2024

Anne Joseph

EDMONTON – Jake Allen made 31 saves for his second shutout of the season and 26th of his career as the New Jersey Devils closed out their Western Canadian road trip with a 3-0 victory over the Edmonton Oilers on Monday.

Jesper Bratt had a goal and an assist and Stefan Noesen and Timo Meier also scored for the Devils (8-5-2) who have won three of their last four on the heels on a four-game losing skid.

The Oilers (6-6-1) had their modest two-game winning streak snapped.

Calvin Pickard made 13 stops between the pipes for Edmonton.

TAKEAWAYS

Devils: In addition to his goal, Bratt picked up his 12th assist of the young season to give him nine points in his last eight games and now 15 points overall. Nico Hischier remains in the team lead, picking up an assist of his own to give him 16 points for the campaign. He has a point in all but four games this season.

Oilers: Forward Leon Draisaitl was held pointless after recording six points in his previous two games and nine points in his previous four. Draisaitl usually has strong showings against the Devils, coming into the contest with an eight-game point streak against New Jersey and 11 goals in 17 games.

KEY MOMENT

New Jersey took a 2-0 lead on the power play with 3:26 remaining in the second period as Hischier made a nice feed into the slot to Bratt, who wired his third of the season past Pickard.

KEY RETURN?

Oilers star forward and captain Connor McDavid took part in the optional morning skate for the Oilers, leading to hopes that he may be back sooner rather than later. McDavid has been expected to be out for two to three weeks with an ankle injury suffered during the first shift of last Monday’s loss in Columbus.

OILERS DEAL FOR D-MAN

The Oilers have acquired defenceman Ronnie Attard from the Philadelphia Flyers in exchange for defenceman Ben Gleason.

The 6-foot-3 Attard has spent the past three season in the Flyers organization seeing action in 29 career games. The 25-year-old right-shot defender and Western Michigan University grad was originally selected by Philadelphia in the third round of the 2019 NHL Entry Draft. Attard will report to the Oilers’ AHL affiliate in Bakersfield.

UP NEXT

Devils: Host the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday.

Oilers: Host the Vegas Golden Knights on Wednesday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 4, 2024.

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